David Lomon (1918-2012)
Our friends from the UK write:
We are sad to report the sudden death of David Lomon, the last known survivor in Britain of the more than 2,500 volunteers from the British Isles who joined the International Brigades. He died this morning (21 December 2012), aged 94, after being taken to hospital overnight.
David arrived in Spain in December 1937 and was captured by Italian troops in the following spring. He was repatriated in a prisoner-of-war exchange in October 1938.
In the past two years David attended several commemorative events in Britain and Spain. Last July he unveiled a new plaque beside the International Brigade memorial in London’s Jubilee Gardens and in November he was the guest of honour in Madrid for the 76th anniversary of the battles to defend the city.
David Lomon’s death leaves one British volunteer known to be alive: Stan Hilton, who is in a nursing home in Yarrawonga, Australia.
David Lomon was loved and admired by all who had the precious opportunity to meet him. He set a shining example of commitment, bravery and resolution to change the unjustices he saw around him. In one of the last interviews he gave in Madrid, he declared that coming to fight Fascism in Spain was ‘the best thing I have ever done in my life.’ He shall be dearly missed.
[…] camp. Starved, living with rats and brutal guards, Lomon was eventually returned to Britain in a prisoner of war exchange in October […]
He will be missed. Gracias y hasta siempre, David.
Hambe Kahle, qawe lamaqawe.
A gentleman. A pleasure to talk with. We have lost a gem.
At a young age he showed such bravery to cross the Pyrenees to fight facism. He endured the squalor of the prison camps.
One of a generation of heroes, willing to risk their lives for their beliefs and to help the Spanish people.
He sang the Internationale. He lived the Internationale.
Salud Comrade.
Significant moment as this last survivor of these Precious Few moves on. I’m proud that my father, Horace Windle was also one. David kept his association with the brilliantly evocative International Brigade Memorial on London’s South Bank where- on its inauguration day in 1985
-I wrote the poem ‘For My Father’ which can be read on my website
(www.ralphwindle.com ‘The Fight for Spain.1936/9 ).
It includes the words , evoked by Ian Walters’ magnificent sculpture,
” These are the arms of those who touched a sky
From which no time shall darken out their sun;
And quicken, with the blood of those who died,
These living hands for battles yet unwon …
We grasp these hands no tyrant can ignore,
Of quiet men of peace when roused to war “.
Short video with David Lomon laying a wreath at Newhaven in England in October last year shortly before he died. http://www.flickr.com/photos/ibmt/8415067296/
Photographs of David at the Newhaven event: David Lomon – Salud!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ibmt/sets/72157631967794855/