De Gaulle at Cove

Free French leader General Charles De Gaulle, later to become President of France, visited Free French naval wounded at the World War Two Knockderry Hospital in Cove — in the requisitioned Knockderry Castle — on Christmas Eve 1942. Having arrived with his aides by taxi from Kilcreggan Pier, driven by local man Tom McNeilage, he spent an hour with the patients and distributed gifts. The Secretary of State for Scotland would have attended to welcome him, but did not have enough notice of the visit. Photo by James Hall of Greenock, which is in the Norman Burniston Collection, published by kind permission of Norman Burniston.