Michael Churm, Director, DM Hall’s Dumfries office, is rightly proud of his father, Jim.

Aged 100 and living at home, the retired physiotherapist is a remarkably healthy man who, in this age of regular pharmaceutical intervention, statins, and the like, prescribed unhesitatingly for even the newly middle-aged, Mr Churm Senior requires no more regular medicine than daily eyedrops to help him read his newspaper.

But there’s another, more poignant reason for Michael’s pride: Eighty years ago this year, aged just 19, Jim Churm, with thousands of others, mostly now long gone, landed on Sword Beach in Normandy on 6 June 1944, not just once but three times over D-Day and the following day.

As a Royal Navy medical orderly his role was to provide immediate life-preserving assistance to the wounded and dying in their heroic efforts to wrest control of occupied Europe from the Nazis.

Once the initial wave of invaders had established themselves, Jim left the shell-torn beaches by tank landing craft only to return twice with subsequent waves of attacking soldiers, ministering constantly to those suffering accidents and continuing enemy resistance.

Jim, originally from Nottingham, returned home from the Royal Navy in the 1940s and worked as a registered general nurse, before later qualifying as a physiotherapist. His long-held love of Scotland, honed through many annual holidays, led him and his wife, Sheila, eventually, and for the past 45 years, to settle in Dumfries and Galloway.

Now living in Crossmichael, Jim, 100 in August this year and, was one of just three D-Day veterans invited in June by the British Legion to an 80th anniversary of Operation Overlord at Edinburgh’s Usher Hall. He then got a call from the Musical Director of the Royal Marines who were determined to go to Crossmichael to play for his birthday.

Said Michael, “both my brother, Phil, and I are very proud of our father who is happy, healthy, still living in his own home and able to undertake his daily walk.

“It was a great occasion when the Royal Marines band came to play for him. The obvious respect and regard they had for him was very moving.

“His modesty and consistent good humour, after all he went through as a very young man, are an inspiration to us and to the many people who know him.

“Incredibly, for a centenarian, our father’s only medication is daily eyedrops, so even in that respect, as in so many others, Jim Churm is a remarkable man.”