THE ashes of a Normandy veteran have been scattered in York, some nine years after he died.

Fellow veterans, friends and neighbours of ‘Big Jack’ Harland gathered for the short ceremony yesterday in the Memorial Gardens off Leeman Road.

Jack, who was a sergeant in the Royal Engineers, landed on Gold Beach on D-Day in June 1944.

He survived the landings unscathed but was badly wounded later in the war, but made a good recovery.

He married a German woman and after a career in the army lived in New Walk Terrace, off Fishergate, where York councillor Dave Taylor later became his neighbour.

Cllr Taylor, who served as Lord Mayor until recently, said Jack had died in 2008, aged 83, since when he had looked after his ashes.

He said he had now decided it was time for them to finally be scattered, while fellow surviving veterans were around to attend the ceremony.

He had felt it would not be appropriate to hold the ceremony while he was Lord Mayor, as it was a personal matter, and so had waited until after his term of office had ended earlier this summer.

He said he had known Jack since moving to New Walk Terrace in 1995, and had become good friends.

In latter years, he had helped out, for example by helping with his shopping.

“He never talked about the war, in which he saw horrors, but he liked to talk about his time in the army,” he said.

The ashes were scattered between a memorial stone to the Normandy veterans and another one to veterans of the Korean conflict.

Fellow Normandy veteran Ken Smith said Jack had been instrumental in getting the Korean memorial installed in the gardens and had been an honorary member of the Korean Veterans Association, as well as social secretary of the former York branch of the Normandy Veterans Association.

Another fellow veteran Bert Barritt said Jack had been known by everyone as ‘Big Jack,’ adding: “He was very friendly. He was the life and soul of the party.”

A group of other former neighbours of Jack’s from New Walk Terrace, some of whom helped ensure he got a hero’s welcome home when he returned from a commemorative anniversary trip to Normandy in the 2000s, also gathered yesterday for the ceremony.

One former neighbour, Sarah Wilson, who had known him well, said: “He was loved and respected by everyone in the neighbourhood.”