THE funeral of 96-year-old D-Day veteran Burt Godin was held in in St Mary’s Church in Walditch.

Mr Godin, who lived in Jessopp Avenue, Bridport, left his second wife Jacqueline, two children, six grandchildren and a great grandchild.

His sons David and Paul said their father was very coy about his wartime experiences.

Paul said he only found out a little bit on a spur-of-the moment visit to Juno beach in 1975 after the death of his first wife Grace in 1974.

David said he was a young man before he even discovered his father had been on the Normandy beaches.

He said: “He was very coy about his experiences and was just a very, very modest man. He said he was the only one who wasn’t seasick on D-Day and made light of it.”

Paul Godin said his father was in the infantry attached to the Canadian forces but wasn’t even sure what regiment.

He said: “He remembered getting a briefing saying that all the invasion force going in the first wave was duplicated behind them so that if the first lot all got slaughtered the second lot could come in.

“He was also told by one of his senior officers that if he got killed and ‘Fred over there gets killed it all comes down to you because you are a lance corporal’.”

Mr Godin left school at 13 and was a messenger boy but took evening classes, particularly in art and was quite a cartoonist.

He worked his way up in the publishing industry before and after the war and then worked with his younger brother’s advertising agency Newton and Godin before setting up a photographic company.

He took early retirement in the 1970s and went to live in North Hill Way, Bothenhampton, when his first wife Grace was severely ill.

His sons say he had a very inquiring mind and was always interested in learning about everything but he was a very quiet, private man.

He met his second wife Jacqueline on a botanical study holiday.

He died on May 27.