Nairn and Belgian families maintain friendship link to World War II
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TWO families brought together by World War II are continuing to exchange greetings and letters nearly 80 years on.
Retired Nairn teacher Trish Hossack remains in touch with the Belgian family with whom her late father was billeted before embarking on a final push into Germany.
Willie Downie, who latterly ran a newsagent in Cawdor Road, befriended the family in the town of Borsbeke, in the south-west of the country, as a member of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders.
“Dad, like many veterans, never spoke much about what he witnessed and I am sure the atrocities we are seeing in Ukraine today sadly mirror what they encountered as they fought their way through Europe, eventually to bring Hitler down,” Mrs Hossack said.
“But the letters and Christmas cards I found which dad sent and received from the family in Borsbeke are a constant reminder of the incredible kindness shown to him by them.
“They wouldn’t have had much, having endured years of Nazi occupation, but it’s clear they did what they could to look after young men like my dad.”
Mrs Hossack’s mother and father were married in Nairn on VE Day and Mr Downie was demobbed the following year with an exemplary record and the rank of corporal.
Mrs Hossack still corresponds with Raf Van De Keere, a grandson of the Belgian family.
“Dad, then my mother, had exchanged Christmas cards and letters with the family since 1945,” she said.
Raf brought his wife Mieke, daughters Nele, Lize, Lonne and son Kwinten to visit Nairn twice in the 1990s, where one of those visits provided particularly touching memories.
“Dad was blind and dementia had set in,” she said. “But Raf’s daughters played the violin and delighted dad with some Scottish fiddle tunes.”
Mr Downie died in 2004 and his wife in 2011 and it was after this that Mrs Hossack found photographs her dad had taken while staying with the family in Belgium.
“I decided to go over to Belgium and hand them over for the great kindness they had shown my father,” she said.
“We received the same wonderful hospitality my dad had received during the war and had lunch with Raf and his daughter Lise in the same house in Borsbeke where my father stayed.”
And she added: “This Christmas I received my annual letter from Raf giving news of Nele, married in Australia, Lisa, married in America, Kwinten, married in Ghent, and Lonne.
“And so the correspondence continues unbroken since 1946.”
