Veterans of the Second World War reflected on past exploits when they gathered in Ryedale over the weekend.

DEEP IN THOUGHT: A POW camp watchtower at Eden Camp is reflected in the sunglasses of Bernard Collier, who was attending an escapees' reunion and service at the museum. Mr Collier, of Roundhay, Leeds, escaped from a prison camp in Italy in 1943

Picture: Mike Tipping

Eden Camp modern history theme museum at Old Malton staged its third annual Evaders & Escapees reunion on Saturday.

Historian Roger Stanton, of Harrogate, who has a special interest in the stories of prisoners-of-war, suggested the idea of getting people who had escaped during the war back behind barbed wire.

The reunion was the largest to date, with about 300 former members of the Allied forces attending.

Members of the Royal Air Force Escaping Society, Army POW Escape Club (Retired), Monte San Marino Trust, Special Forces Club and MGB Association travelled to Eden Camp from all over the United Kingdom.

Other veterans came from even further afield, including some from the Continent and the United States.

Members of the Colditz Association and the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry were also there for the first time. They witnessed the unveiling of memorial plaques in Eden Camp's chapel of remembrance.

A short service and wreath-laying ceremony took place at noon on Saturday at the museum's war memorial.

The veterans then viewed exhibitions dedicated to the Escape Lines, the Great Escape, the Wooden Horse Escape and Colditz.

Museum director Steve Jaques said it was unlikely they would ever again be able to organise such a large scale gathering of evaders and escapees as those involved in the events of more than half a century ago grew older.

The Monk Bar Hotel in York was the venue for a veterans' dinner on Saturday evening following the daytime gathering at Eden Camp.

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