Grace O’Malley and Scots Guards give fitting send-off to D-Day veteran and former Burnley Football Club groundsman Ted Davidson

Mr Davidson, known as Ted, died on January 28th in Padiham after a lifetime of service which saw him land on ‘Sword Beach’ with the Scots Guards on D-Day, after initially volunteering in Edinburgh to serve his country aged 17.

Scots Guards veterans travelled from around the country to pay their respects to one of the last survivors of D-Day and Legion d’Honneur recipient who arrived at Burnley Crematorium with a guard of honour and a Union Flag-draped coffin.

In later years, Wirral-born Ted served in the West Midlands Police before moving to Padiham with his late wife Dorothy and becoming head groundsman at Burnley Football Club’s Turf Moor.

However, a chance meeting 19 years ago at Padiham’s Service of Remembrance, while still mourning the death of Dorothy, would change Ted and Grace’s lives forever.

Grace, now a professional soprano based in London, was a child prodigy when at just nine-years-old she captured the hearts of Padiham veterans, including Ted’s, with her precocious performance of ‘Abide With Me’, a hymn she would sing one final time for Ted this week at his packed funeral.

Grace’s mother, Maureen, fought back tears as she told mourners how the Burnley Express put Ted in touch with her family, a moment which would lead to him becoming a loving part of their family for the next two decades.

Grace and Ted became inseparable as he escorted her around Lancashire where she sang at Remembrance services. In later years he would also become a caring ‘great-grandfather’ to the children of Maureen’s two other daughters Laura and Megan.

Ted’s final journey began when the Rev. Shannon Ledbetter revealed Ted’s remarkable long life to the congregation, which included tours of duty guarding the future Queen at Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle in the post-war years.

Grace then sang her emotional and beautiful rendition of ‘Tell My Father’ before former Mayor of Padiham and former veteran Vince Pridden gave a euology telling him to “stand easy and return to barracks.”

Michael Nutter read a Scots Guards poem before a retiring collection for Pendleside Hospice.