One of Britain’s loudest voices will ring out in North Yorkshire today to mark the 80th anniversary of D-Day.
And as well as being a moment of national and local significance, it will be a very personal milestone for David Hinde.
The occasion will mark his return to the role of Helmsley’s town crier after recovering from a stroke.
David became town crier in the town after previously carrying out the role in Bridlington.
“I wanted to offer to be a town crier for Helmsley because it’s a wonderful place,” he told YorkMix.
“You’ve got the castle there, you’ve got the North York Moors and a great variety of shops and the businesses wanted to have some assistance to promoting Helmsley.
“And they were thrilled with the fact I’ve been in the Dad’s Army movie in 2016 when I led the big parade as the Wilmington on Sea town crier.”
Four years before becoming Helmsley’s bellman in 2017, David’s voice was recorded at an event at Sewerby Park with the loudest shout “at a record level of 114.8 decibels which has never been bettered.
“It’s not an official Guinness Book of Records record because they had actually frozen the record some six years previously.”
He fell ill last October. Feeling poorly he went to sleep. “When I got up, I was dizzy. I went upstairs, tried to log into my computer and got the password wrong.
“I was cursing at the computer screen. And I could hear that my voice was breaking up. I thought obviously this is a big problem, and that’s when I called the ambulance.”
He said he had to wait three and a half hours to be taken from his Driffield home to the Hull Infirmary.
Doctors diagnosed a stroke gave him some medication to treat the condition. Initially, David was left with speech problems and worried that he might have to give up singing with the choir, one of his great loves.
He worked hard to get better, losing a lot of weight.
David said it could have been worse. “I was very lucky. I’m back to full strength and walking all over the place now.”
David said it would be an emotional moment ringing the bell again for the D-Day commemoration.
“When you think of all the amazing in successfully carrying out Operation Overlord – we all should be particularly grateful for everything they achieved.
“It’s mind boggling when you see what was involved. I’ve been to the Normandy beaches before. I visited the sites and saw everything happened. So I can relate very clearly to that.”