One of Britain's last D-Day veterans, who lived until his 100th birthday, has been remembered at his funeral service in Suffolk.
Joe Cattini was 21 when he landed on Gold Beach on D-Day as a bombardier in the 86th Field Regiment of the Hertfordshire Yeomanry.
Mr Cattini spent his final months at a care home in Stowmarket with a service held at St Edmundbury’s Catholic Church in Bury St Edmunds on Friday.
His daughter Fran Bradshaw, who lives in Lavenham, said her father did not speak much about what he experienced on D-Day until after the 70th anniversary.
“I think it was the fact of meeting other veterans that prompted him, and all the daughters and sons of the veterans all said it was their mechanism to get through it basically,” she said.
“They just parcelled it up, put it away, and once they started talking it was incredible, the tears came and we heard such amazing stories.
“It was a real privilege to be part of that.”
In attendance were several generations of his family, members of the Royal Regiment Artillery and representatives from veterans groups.
His coffin, draped in a Royal Artillery Regiment standard, was carried past standard bearers to the top of the steps at the front of the church, followed by his children.
Mrs Bradshaw described her father as a “complete and utter charmer”.
“He was perhaps one of the most positive men you’ve ever met,” said Mrs Bradshaw.
“My sister and I would often say to him ‘how come you can wake up every morning like that?’ and his answer to that was having survived the war he wanted to make every day count.
“The fact he was here for 100 years was fantastic but I think it was down to his positivity.”
Mr Cattini's two great loves were “the church and his family”.
For the last decade he was a member of veterans group where he "just transformed" his daughter said.
“He was respected and he was honoured in a way that he hadn’t been before,” she said.
The family said the 100-year-old loved Bury St Edmunds and its restaurants.
“His joy, being Italian, his absolute joy was having lunches out with a glass of red wine,” said Mrs Bradshaw.
“That was the promise he made me make to him when we brought him up to Suffolk, that I would take him out for his lunches.”
Mr Cattini grew up in Hampstead, north-west London.
“Dad always said they weren’t the heroes, they were the lucky ones that survived,” she said.
“The heroes were the ones whose names appeared on the Normandy memorial, the ones that lost their lives.
“I think while he was thrilled with the attention he got in the last 10 years he was also humbled by the fact he felt he was so privileged to still be here.”
At Mr Cattini's service the arrival music was I’ll Walk With God by the tenor Mario Lanza, and prayers were read by Mr Cattini’s great-grandchildren.
Tributes were read by his daughter Marian Stevens-Farrow, and by representatives of the veterans groups D-Day Revisited, 18 September Foundation, Spirit of Normandy Trust and The British Normandy Memorial, with the latter represented by BBC reporter Nicholas Witchell, a founding trustee of The British Normandy Memorial.
The departure music, after the Last Post was played, was Highland Cathedral by piper Tosh MacDonald, as the coffin was carried out to the hearse.
The order of service requested that any donations be made to the Normandy Memorial Trust.
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