Richard Binns, author and publisher of travel guides

RSC

You will know nothing about my little 32-page A5-sized booklet (plus 8 pages of photographs) with the title RSC.
This, more than all the other 17 travel guides I've written and published, is the book of which I am most proud.

RSC? Raymond Stanley Cumming: the story of an "unknown" father brought to life. Raymond was an RAF Halifax pilot who lost his life on February 14, 1945; his daughter Carol was then twelve months old. For all sorts of understandable reasons Carol's mother, Marjorie, after losing her beloved young husband, shut the emotional and memory doors on that tragic and traumatic part of her life.
Carol spent the next 53 years knowing absolutely nothing about her father; she did not even know his place and date of birth.

The title of Ernest K Gann's book Fate is the Hunter is probably the most effective way of describing how I came to be involved in this eventful story. On May 23, 1998, I discovered, by sheer chance, that my great friend Carol's much-missed father was an "unknown" dad. On May 26 I started my research.
RSC is a revealing story: of joy and sadness; surprising controversy; compelling coincidences; an invisible "hunter's" hand; making new friends; compulsive detective work; unstinting help and advice; a happy reunion; chilling statistics; cruel deception; and a daughter discovering herself.
I promise you'll shed a tear or two; and that you'll feel elated by the satisfying conclusion. I started RSC for Carol. But as the urge to continue became compulsive I realised, one fateful day, that I had to complete my work for Raymond and his six-man crew, lost without trace over the Baltic.
All of you, be you mums or dads or children, will understand immediately my most telling point: Raymond would have been heartbroken to have gone to his death with the unbearable thought that his only child would never know the story of his short but eventful life. Nothing I have done in my publishing and writing life has given me so much satisfaction and contentment as RSC.
I've printed a small number of copies in the hope that "my readers" may like to read RSC. If you would like a copy please send a separate cheque for œ2.50. I'd like to keep the proceeds from RSC separate; and, in due course, donate them to the planned 78 Squadron Remembrance Corner in All Saints Church at Bubwith, North Yorkshire. I'll post the booklet to you in a separate envelope.

Finally, I shall also attach a poignant colour photograph to the back cover of RSC (taken on November 14, 1999). The photograph is vivid visual proof that 55 years after his death Raymond (if he had seen the same churchyard scene - and surely he has) can now rest, content and in peace.

The letter above was posted to selected readers at the end of 1999. Two years later the following invitation was sent to all those who had contributed to the RSC fund and also to myriad RAF aircrew and their families.

Some of you will not know of the many twists and turns in the RSC story since I printed the first 50 copies in the autumn of 1998. One year later, in 1999, I printed a further 500 copies and I offered these to the readers who had given me such loyal support, over two decades, in buying my many French and British travel guides. Happily, 526 of my readers donated œ2.50, or more in some cases, for each copy. All 500 copies were sold and the total sum raised for the 78 Squadron Remembrance Corner in All Saints Church, Bubwith, East Riding of Yorkshire, exceeded œ1,600: œ850 for the altar table and Roll of Honour (with the names of the 979 aircrew who lost their lives in World War II); œ500 for All Saints' funds, to help maintain the church; and œ250 for the small museum in the airfield clubhouse at Breighton 'aerodrome'.
I can now confirm that the altar table will be consecrated by The Right Reverend The Bishop of Selby, Humphrey Taylor, during a special service in All Saints, Bubwith, on 21 April 2002, at 2.30 p.m. The altar table, together with the Roll of Honour, will be placed in a small chapel at the southwest corner of the church, beneath a splendid window. Villagers, friends, some of my readers, 78 Squadron aircrew, other RAF colleagues, and the families who lost loved ones, including Carol and her family, are looking forward impatiently to this memorable day. It is requested that medals be worn.
Before the service refreshments and sandwiches will be available, at modest cost, at Bubwith's 'leisure centre', alongside the A163 (Highfield Road). The centre also has toilets. After the service tea will be served in the church. A considerable number of visitors will attend the service; please confirm that you will be able to attend and let me know who will be coming with you.
I look forward to meeting you at Bubwith.

Over 350 people attended the wonderfully inspiring and moving consecration service: many were in their 80s; and surely the youngest must have been one of Carol's grand-daughters, Mollie, just four months old.
The Bishop of Selby preached a short but so-pertinent sermon, followed by the consecration of the altar table (constructed by a craftsman friend of mine in Warwick);

a 12-inch high altar cross, made by ex-RAF aircrew at the nearby Elvington Yorkshire Air Museum, from the wreckage of a Halifax bomber; and the leather-bound, proud Roll of Honour.

The service included The Aviators' Hymn (sung to the tune Eternal Father, strong to save);
Guide me O thou great Jehovah; The Lord's my shepherd, I'll not want; Thine be the glory, risen, conquering Son; and the National Anthem.

I was honoured to read the Runnymede poem written by Paul H. Scott, for which I prepared these following very pertinent words:

Some of you will have visited The Air Forces Memorial at Runnymede, high above the south bank of the Thames. In a meadow below the memorial, beside the river, King John signed Magna Carta in 1215. A column at the site has these words inscribed in the stone: 'To commemorate Magna Carta, a symbol of freedom under law.'

Runnymede is an inspiring, poignant memorial which, silently, reminds us that 20,401 aircrew with no known graves did not die in vain (including RSC and his crew): 183 of them were from 78 squadron, almost 1% of the total and nearly 20% of the squadron's 979 losses. They, and all the others who lost their lives - 55,500 in total, some 60% of Bomber Command aircrew - died so that we could live the last 57 years in both freedom and peace.

Safeguarding our nation's freedom under law, won and re-won at such heavy cost in the 20th century, is as vital today, at the start of the new millennium, as it was at anytime during the past 800 years.

The following poem, engraved in a gallery window at Runnymede, was written by a student, Paul H. Scott, son after the memorial was completed in 1953. As far as I know the poem has no title - but these five words seem entirely appropriate:

The first rays of the dawning sun
Shall touch its pillars,
And as the day advances
And the light grows stronger,
You shall read the names
Engraved on the stone of those who sailed on the angry sky
And saw harbour no more.
No gravestone in yew-dark churchyard
Shall mark their resting place;
Their bones lie in the forgotten corners of earth and sea.
But, that we may not lose their memory
With fading years, their monuments stand here,
Here, where the trees troop down to Runnymede.
Meadow of Magna Carta, field of freedom,
Never saw you so fitting a memorial,
Proof that the principals established here
Are still dear to the hearts of men.
Here now they stand, contrasted and alike,
The field of freedom's birth, and the memorial
To freedom's winning.

And, as evening comes,
And mists, like quiet ghosts, rise from the river bed,
And climb the hill to wander through the cloisters,
We shall not forget them. Above the mist
We shall see the memorial still, and over it
The crown and single star. And we shall pray
As the mists rise up and the air grows dark
That we may wear
As brave a heart as they.