Raymonde Morris, RAF (1920-1940)
/Raymonde Morris, RAF is commemorated by a memorial on the north wall of the Lady Chapel. Morris was serving as an air-gunner in a Blenheim bomber over France when he was shot down, within a month of his twentieth birthday.
Inscription reads:
Remember Raymonde Morris
Cathedral Chorister 1932 - 1935
Born 21.6.20
Killed in action over France 17.5.40
The badge of the Royal Air Force appears on the right of the plaque.
Raymonde Morris attended the Choir School, leaving in 1935, before the school became part of the King's School. He was, therefore, not an Old Roffensian and is not named on the OR memorial in the lady Chapel. His name does appear on the Roll of Honour in Cobham Church in the village where he lived as a boy.
His father states that Raymonde was serving as an air-gunner in a Blenheim bomber when he was shot down. He was within a month of his twentieth birthday.
On Saturday 5th December 1987, a memorial plaque to the memory of Raymonde Morris RAF, was dedicated by the Dean of Rochester after the service of Evensong.
In a simple but impressive ceremony in which the Last Post and Reveille were played by a member of the King's School, tribute was paid to an ex-chorister of Rochester Cathedral who was killed in action in 1940. Members of the Rochester Cathedral Old Choristers Association, The Old Roffensian Society and the Royal Air Force Assn. were present at the ceremony.
Photograph taken after the ceremony. Copy from the scrapbook of R. J. Trett, Rochester Cathedral Chapter Library.
From the notebooks ‘The Naval and Military Memorials of Rochester Cathedral’ (1979)
by Roy Trett, OBE, TD,
Rochester Cathedral Chapter Library
The medieval tombs of the Presbytery and Quire Transept have had a tortured history which many effigies apparently moved and several defaced along with the medieval memorials and brasses over the Early Modern period.
