Published at 12:09, Thursday, 08 November 2012

SIR – While backpacking in Burma the main reason for being there was to follow in my father’s footsteps.

War cemetery outside Rangoon: Now called Yangon. It is a well-cared-for monument to 26,000 British and Commonwealth soldiers

He was a Lancashire Fusilier with Brigadier Orde Wingate DSO, better known as Wingate’s Chindits, fighting the Japanese. My father later received the Burma Star.

While there I visited this war cemetery just outside Rangoon, now called Yangon. It is the most well-cared-for monument to the 26,000 British and Commonwealth soldiers you could imagine.

I also visited the Burma railway and had a boat trip up the Irrawaddy River, marvellous but a little disappointed that I could not go further than the jungle around Mandalay because of trouble with the government troops and local tribesmen. Maybe next time.

G KEGG

Woodhouse Road, Whitehaven

Published by http://www.whitehavennews.co.uk