LAST week marked the anniversary of D-Day.

It’s a date that always carries weight here in Barnsley, a proud town with a long tradition of service - including on June 6, 1944.

I always remember a conversation I had years ago with a D-Day veteran from Barnsley.

He spent 40 hours in a cramped landing craft on hostile waters. By the time he reached the beaches, he was exhausted - barely in a fit state to fight.

Yet, like so many of his generation, he recounted this without fuss. They did what was required because there was no alternative.

Speak to any soldier and they will recall their own ‘D-Days’. The phrase remains part of military language, shorthand for the moment when planning gives way to action - and I had my fair share of these in Kosovo, Iraq, and Afghanistan.

Yet the D-Day of 1944 stands apart from them all.

By that summer, the war had already stretched on for years. Much of Europe had been taken by the Nazis and Britain had endured enormous strain.

The Normandy landings were a decisive attempt to turn the tide. Where earlier victories offered hope, this was the moment that hope became something tangible.

The scale was immense - thousands of vessels, aircraft, and tens of thousands of troops crossing the Channel. Yet numbers alone cannot convey what it meant for those involved.

There is always a moment before action: the stillness, the anticipation, the glance between comrades. Then comes the instant when the ramp lowers, and everything changes.

Yorkshire’s contribution that day is something we rightly remember with pride. Regiments drawn from our towns and villages were among the first ashore, advancing in the face of heavy resistance to secure critical objectives.

Their acts of courage were countless and often unrecorded.

With the benefit of hindsight, we now know that the landings marked the beginning of the end.

At the time, though, nothing was certain. The stakes could not have been higher, and the cost of failure was unthinkable.

Even after success on the beaches, the fighting continued for weeks across Normandy, at great human cost. The cemeteries that line that coastline remain a silent reminder of what was given.

D-Day matters because of what it represents. This was a fight against Nazism - an ideology rooted in hatred, division, and the denial of human dignity.

The countless brave soldiers who died fighting the Nazis did not die in vain. They shaped the world we live in today.

I’ve been privileged to meet many veterans of the Second World War over the years, including Royston’s Tom Hicks.

Like so many of his generation, he carried extraordinary experience with remarkable humility. Spending time with men like Tom brought home not only the scale of what they endured, but the debt we owe to them.

Remembrance, then, is not simply about looking back. It is about recognising the values that were defended - decency, unity, and a willingness to stand against evil.

Because history does not only belong to the past. D-Day was a fight against fascism and its legacy carries responsibilities as well as memories.

It lives in the standards we expect, the example we set, and the choices we make about what we accept - and what we refuse to overlook - today.