80th Anniversary of Victory in Europe and Victory over Japan

Lord Bassam of Brighton Excerpts

Friday 9th May 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bassam of Brighton (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a privilege and an honour to take part in today’s debate with the opportunity that it provides to discuss the impact that war has on families—my family in particular—and the human cost of conflict. Many of my comments will already have been echoed around the Chamber.

Most of us have a family wartime archive. Mine comprises bundles of personal and official wartime letters, ration books, clothing coupons, a cap badge and, puzzlingly, an engagement ring. The deeply patriotic Bassams believed in the war and its aims. My grandfather was a Primitive Methodist lay preacher based in Whitby. At the war’s outset, he and his wife Lizzie were part of a Methodist befriending group set up to support servicemen training away from home. Lizzie and John Bassam had three children: Ella, Enid—my mother—and Firmin. Ella died from measles aged two, but Enid was the first to join a national service, the Land Army, and later the National Fire Service. She trained as an auxiliary to male firefighters. She told me that her female colleagues could tackle fires as well as any man—better, in fact, because they were younger and fitter.

Enid’s brother Firmin Bassam joined the Seaforth Highlanders in 1941. With the 51st (Highland) Division, he saw action in the Middle East, north Africa, Sicily, Italy and finally north-west Europe. An obituary for Firmin Bassam in the Methodist magazine The Dawn, which circulated in Whitby, said:

“For the past three years Private Bassam has been in the thick of the fighting. First at El Alamein until the Axis Forces surrendered, he was wounded, but making a quick recovery in a military hospital in Egypt he took part in the invasion of Sicily where he was again wounded. He rejoined his unit in Italy, and when wounded again contracted malaria, which resulted in his return to England. After recovering he received orders to rejoin his unit and was with the British Forces which first landed in Normandy on D-Day on 6th June”.


Firmin’s CO, Captain Ferguson, wrote describing his tragic death. He was struck by a hand grenade when digging a slit trench on 26 July. His bravery and commitment left his comrades distraught. He had fought in the toughest theatres of war, was wounded many times and survived fighting his way off the Normandy beaches. Firmin Bassam saw service not as heroic but as necessary to see off the evils of Nazism. His letters home are telling. In one to his sister, he described the training for D-Day:

“The other day we had a scheme and were told we were the best troops, actually we were no good, we had to sleep out for three days in trenches full of water without food or tea and during that time marched a distance of over 70 miles”.


His platoon was reserved for special tasks but he worried that “their nerves are gone”. He confided that he was planning his next leave with Roselle, his new girlfriend, whom he wanted to marry. His Christmas 1943 letter tells the family that he is being kept in hospital to fully recover, and that the French invasion may start before his leave. His last letter, written two days before he was killed, says he cannot disclose where he is except that he is always in the front line. He ends:

“Hope you are keeping OK. I am not too bad. Please give my best wishes to all who may be asking for me. For now, I say cheerio and may the Lord God Almighty be with you at all times”.


Firmin’s death devastated his family but they were immensely proud. I have a family photo of Enid standing next to him, both proudly wearing their uniforms, his arm around her shoulder as they gaze into the camera with discreet and modest smiles. Enid passed away in 1994 aged 80; her brother was just 21 when he died. She said he was funny, talented, loyal and caring, and all her life she wondered about what could have been. Firmin signed off one letter with the following:

“So remember the brave lads who fell by the way when final victory is won. Remember the price they had to pay in defeating the tyrant’s plan”—


not a bad epitaph from a fallen soldier who simply believed in doing what was right.

Wars focus on generals and leaders, but today, rightly, we remember troopers such as Private Firmin Bassam and Firewoman Enid Bassam, who gave so much. My hope for this week’s commemorations is that we do not only dwell on the victories but think more about the sense of peace, unity and harmony that ending war can bring, and try to use the occasion to heal divisions that some in our country simply cannot wait to perpetually reopen.