Newspaper article reporting on the 103 birthday of Jack Jackson, a D-Day veteran and resident of Penylan House, Cardiff, 2006

Disgrifiad

The article gives details about the birthday celebrations of Jack Jackson, a D-Day veteran, who helped troops storm Normandy beaches in World War II by supplying British and American troops with ammunition as they pushed the Nazis back. Jackson was born in 1903 and was celebrating his 103 birthday at the time that this article was written, dating it to around 2006. Jackson was a resident of Penylan House in Cardiff, who threw him a birthday party in celebration. The article explains that Jackson had been made a life member of Ajex (the Association of Jewish Ex-servicemen and Women). Jackson had been born and grew up in London but on visiting Cardiff after the war, he "fell in love with the city" and moved there.

The photograph features Jack Jackson, with flag bearer, Lesley Sutton.

Ajex (the Association of Jewish Ex-servicemen and Women), is a group dedicated to the remembrance of Jewish men and women who had lost their lives serving with the "armed forces of the crown". Annually (since 1930), Ajex holds a parade and ceremony at the Cenotaph in Whitehall, London and maintain the Jewish National War Memorial at the National Arboretum in Staffordshire.

Pencare (formerly known as 'The Trustees of Penylan House') is a charity, which offers care for elderly people of the Jewish faith and is currently based in Cardiff, although the catchment area for the home covers South Wales and the West of England. Pencare has been working with Linc Cymru to redevelop their care home, Penylan House, to ensure high quality care to Cardiff's elderly Jewish community and extending the care to elderly people not of the Jewish faith.

Mr Henry Silver and other members of the community had originally founded a Home for the Aged in 1946 in Canton, which then moved to Penarth, its official opening being 5 December 1948, to provide a larger space for its large number of applications. Despite the beautiful surroundings, the Home in Penarth was quite isolated so the difficult decision was later taken to move the Home to Penylan Road in Cardiff, meaning many residents were now closer to their friends and relatives. Residents moved to Penylan House in 1959.

Sources:
https://www.jewishlegacy.org.uk/charities/ajex/;
http://opencharities.org/charities/243968 http://www.housingcare.org/downloads/facilities/generated-brochures/134508-penylan-house-nursing-home-cardiff-wales.pdf;
Cajex, Magazine of the Association of Jewish Ex-service Men and Women (Cardiff), Vol. IX, No. 1, Ninth Year - March, 1959, pp. 60- 65.

Depository: Glamorgan Archives.