AN OLD soldier who retreated from the beaches of Dunkirk has described how he went on to complete unfinished business after returning to France during the Normandy landings.

Norman Grieveson, 92, who fought with the Royal Artillery during key battles up to the crossing of the Rhine, spoke as he prepared to mark Remembrance Sunday at the Seaham Park Memorial tomorrow.

The former barber, who recalls cutting the hair of many Black Cat football stars of the late Thirties, enlisted months before the war and went to France in April 1940 with the 65th Medium Regiment. A gunner on a 6in howitzer, he soon went into action.

Mr Grieveson, of Seaham, said: "The first inkling we had that something was happening was when our commanding officer, Captain Dickie, started getting into his riding breeches. Not long after we were ordered to throw wagons of shells into ditches. Some people were left behind to blow up the guns."

With the roads strafed by German planes, it was every man for himself in the retreat to Dunkirk.

Mr Grieveson said: "When we there we tried to get in a big house on the beach, but it was full of waiting soldiers who had beaten us to it."

As luck would have it a truck pulled up and offered him a lift to the harbour, where he and two friends missed the queues and got straight onto a destroyer and fell asleep - little knowing the scale of the event he had been involved in.

For the next four years, Mr Grieveson helped protect the North-East coastline, spending one summer billeted in a beach hut in Alnmouth, manning a First World War naval gun "that wouldn't have stopped a rowing boat".

Promoted from gunner to lance bombadier - at 6p more a day - Mr Grieveson and his regiment were assigned as back-up to the attack on Pegasus Bridge, on D-Day.

He said: "Because it was so successful we were not needed and spent a day off the beach being shelled and shot at before we eventually landed on day two." For a month, he remained "dug in" off Gold Beach and, after the advance, was involved in all the major engagements, including the Battle of the Bulge.

Mr Grieveson never got to see the enemy, but from time to time the Germans pinpointed their positions and shelled them.

The climax was crossing the Rhine when he saw thousands of paratroopers landing on German positions. He said: "It was the best show of all."

?? Mr Grieveson will be joining former Desert Rat Frank Wyman, 90, for a vigil at the Seaham Park Memorial tomorrow.

The main parade musters in Station Road at 10.15am and marches to Cenotaph for service.