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WHEN & WHO
The National Ex Services Association in its original guise was formed in 1987 by a group of disgruntled ex servicemen from the World War Two and Korean War era.
In particular it was three men, Arthur Lane, Ken Coote, and Frank Ians who set the ball rolling. As they were based in Manchester and Stockport, membership gathered momentum from the individual regional associations at first, such as the Manchester eighth army veterans. Within a short time NESA had gained notice nationwide and had accrued over 2,000 members.
Most of them had experienced a lot of things which seem irrelevant or distant to many people today, outside of Hollywood films. Obviously the things they had experienced left a mark on them all. It also left many with concerns. These concerns were varied and real. They were as real as any man would like to have knowledge of. Arthur Lane for example, had joined the Manchester regiment as a fifteen year old boy soldier, a drummer. Before he was a man, in today’s terms, he had taken part in action in Egypt and then Palestine, before being posted to Singapore.
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When the Japanese joined the war by simultaneously bombing Pearl Harbour and attacking Indo Asia, he was still no more than a boy really, he had already witnessed his mother burn to death at home and he was about to witness many, actually most, of his friends die equally violent deaths.
After taking part in a number of engagements and battles with the enemy as a member of an independent section on the Malayan mainland he returned to Singapore where he and the other troops fought bravely against overwhelming odds and with hardly any equipment. Eventually overwhelmed Arthur spent the rest of the war as a prisoner of the Japanese.
It was during this time that he and the others experienced what can only be described as hell on earth. Starvation, beatings, executions and forced labour killed hundreds of Arthur’s immediate comrades and thousands of allied troops in general.
WHY
As you can imagine these men came home having been dipped in and tarnished with what can only be described as the ‘waters of insanity’. They had a lot of questions and they had a lot of feelings pent up inside. Questions ranging across the spectrum; the need for war, to the way wars are carried out, to the way troops are equipped, to pursuing justice for those they had witnessed murdered or unfairly sent to death; friends and country folk.
Bear in mind that those that had been POWs of the Japs had come home very angry.
Before the establishment of NESA, these men had watched over the years as many of the men they regarded as criminals were let of one by one, being brought into the western world as forgiven and welcome. They and the other vets from the other theatres of war had to stand aside and depend on the probably overwhelmed Royal British Legion for help.
In 1987 they had had enough, sadly many old heroes went into pauper’s graves having nothing but hidden hellish memories. The living were concerned that there was a misconception that these men had died being cared for. Their generation was not assisted by the preponderance of charities which exist today. Combat stress was cured by coal mining. PTSD was forgotten in the factories -probably because half the men in Britain had it. The Legion was not reaching many of them. Many felt that the legion working on its own needed so much funding and administrative staffing just to fund itself that it was never going to be effective as a charity on the scale it needed to be. Although some individual founding members of NESA held negaitve opinions about the Legion, contrary to the perception of many from certain quarters, the initial and fundemental grievance of the National Ex Services Association was with the government and not the Legion. The overall view of the founders of NESA was that successive governments had turned their backs on those who had served for their country. There was a deep veined concern that the government had sent them to war and then dumped responsibility for military ‘aftercare’ onto the Legion and charity only to turn up twice a year on special days to receive the public limelight.
These men and women decided to form an association with the intention of looking after each other. An association which would benefit its members and use any profits charitably toward needy servicemen’s causes.
Was that one of their gripes, the Royal British Legion?
These men (the first founders) were so wound up about it all that they became quite political. They had been given missions all their lives and now they had one of their own.. Of course not all veterans are or were anti-Legion, the Legion did do a lot of good as it still does, it has to really, the legion is top of public thought when it comes to veterans.
Though I dare say they could have done with some help back then.
Read a passage from a NESA document entitled ‘History’ to give you an idea of how the disgruntled felt:
Our main aim was to create an association, supported by members and relatives of those men whose lives were taken in the cause of service to their country. To form a type of umbrella, free from any form of dictates or cronyism. It would be self supporting, non profit making, and not registered as a charity even though charity was and still is foremost in our pursuits. We were and still are against former service men and women, trawling the streets each year selling plastic flowers, which are presumed to indicate some connection with Flanders fields.
Our Patriotism should be seen by our actions and ideals. In our opinion, the plastic Poppy was produced to create a form of blackmail. Its effect if not its intention was to cause embarrassment to those who did not wear one, and a form of receipt to those who did.
We asked the question then, and will continue asking- Why is it necessary for former service men and women to be required to beg from the people of this country, for money to help heal those who were caused to be sick and injured whilst fighting to defend this country.
The money was there when needed to create a war, to be able to send men out to their deaths, fully equipped and uniformed. The money was there for the creators of the uniforms and ammunitions to be able to make a big fat profit, and for all the hangers on who never ventured out of the country, for them not to have to walk the streets with a begging can.
We wanted, and still wish, to provide the publicity necessary for the people of this country to be aware of the hundreds of anomalies which exist between our governments over the years and the service men and women who are sent out around the world to do their bidding.
This was quite a statement to make.
Very political and very controversial.
But simply put, it was how these men felt.
It didn’t earn them many favours however
They felt that they needed to form a group to challenge the Legion? .
No, absolutely not. They just saw the Legion as being ineffective in its methods.
The essential reason for forming the association was to try and create, maintain and nurture an organisation wherein the members could and would help each other in any way they could and one which would be big enough to challenge the government and not be scared of challenging the government.
In respect to their concerns.
So what happened to the original NESA?
The original NESA succeeded in many ways but it also failed.
To quote Arthur Lane, the early NESA was:
‘A comradeship, without which many of us would not have survived’.
That in itself was a success.
NESA also first lobbied and headed the campaign for a veteran’s representative in each constituency which resulted in the appointment of a new government position
– the Minister for veteran’s affairs, in 1992.
NESA was the first to push for a Veteran’s week in 1987 but wanted it to be nationwide.
With the JLCA (Japanese Labour Camp Association), Arthur pushed for compensation from the Japanese government which resulted in each survivor being awarded with £10K.
There were also campaigns to recognise the Porton Down and Christmas Island veterans who suffered illness and and death due to the testing of new weapons and there were campaigns for justice for the unfortunate soldiers in Northern Ireland who were being accused of murder at the time.
The old soldiers, sailors and airmen ruffled a few feathers along the way and still do.
But surely if anyone has the right to do so on such matters, then they did?
In the end, NESA itself survived but did not grow. The smaller associations began to dwindle as the years went on and the original NESA was put to sleep, a lack of resources and a changing world.
NESA (The National Ex Services Association) exists as a directory and campaign tool for ex service men and women, their family, friends and supporters and as a publicity tool for help organisations which exist for their benefit.
As well as being a complaining and supporting voice the NESA web site aims to act as a directory for the various military associations, clubs, charities and help organisations, helping to publicise their campaigns, goals, appeals and events.
Many veterans and their families find it difficult to navigate their way to or through the amount of information available on the inter-net.
NESA is developing into a central directing point for those seeking help or simply interested in causes which mean a lot to them.
NESA relies entirely on donations and from sales via the NESA store to fund this service.
All work for NESA is done voluntarily.
Before contacting us please read this to establish whether NESA can help you.
We can not offer help in the following areas:
Case work for non members with financial and/or social issues
Please use our HELP FOR EX SERVICES directory on the NESA home page or refer to the HELP directories.
Researching historical information or records about relatives or military units
Please refer to our SERVICE RECORDS FOR FAMILY MEMBERS directory, LINKS directory or the appropriate Unit association from our ASSOCIATIONS directory - all available from the NESA home page.
Make financial donations to organisations or individuals
We are currently in a phase of development whereby we are financially restricted to improving the NESA organisation for its members in accordance with our AIMS (see above). We are developing our proposal for a National Charity Program and initially, donations from NESA will be distributed via that program. Part of our AIMS are to provide direction, re-direction and directory service to appropriate organisations, charities and bodies.
Please refer to our HELP FOR EX SERVICES directory on the NESA home page.
Provide advertising space for Literary work or Commercial advertising.
We offer a very generous scheme for advertising literary work. All we ask is that you make a donation.
Please refer to the BOOKS section from the NESA home page. We no longer offer any other form of advertising
Reply to correspondence
We hope that you find what you need by visiting the NESA web site. We do apologise but due to work load we can no longer respond to emails or enquiries for further information about relatives or organisations.
If it is not to be found on the NESA site then we probably do not know. Please surf our site for your answer.
In 2010 the NESA website is changing.
Your organisation (whether it be a forces related charity, association of members, ex serviceman’s club, campaign group or other help group) will be given the opportunity to utilise the NESA home page directly.
This means that your organisation will benefit from being able to advertise your events, appeals, issues and fundraising initiatives by logging on and posting your details on our site from your base of operations.
All organisations listed in the NESA web directories (currently under construction) will receive invitation to use this service free of charge. You can add your organisation to this directory by using the DIRECTORIES tabs on the left.
ALL OF THESE SERVICES ARE FREE
JAN 10 to JUN 10 (TOP TEN)
Rank Country Page Views Visits Hits Bandwidth
1
United States 18,718 22,600 62,392 2,933,011
2 N/A 9,317 5,259 9,339 1,602,153
3 United Kingdom 4,353 2,548 145,570 2,021,410
4 Netherlands 1,277 63 2,123 52,489
5 France 593 630 1,650 78,947
6 Sweden 346 462 894 24,279
7 Canada 296 126 2,750 47,862
8 Australia 229 144 5,345 107,813
9 Germany 211 91 1,342 28,076
10 China 155 268 765 26,249
TOTALS
1-85 All Countries 36,317 33,046 336,193 7,210,442
11 Russian Federation 80 13 163 4,142
12 India 72 51 3,419 41,861
13 Malaysia 46 45 1,429 33,591
14 New Zealand 45 29 1,079 18,064
15 Singapore 40 316 1,013 34,647
16 Spain 40 22 794 9,389
17 Ireland 37 25 1,074 13,330 18 Ukraine 37 18 71 2,484 19 Hong Kong 34 19 1,329 11,250 20 Italy 29 15 480 8,642 21 Austria 22 6 396 3,331 22 Greece 20 9 46 1,557 23 Belgium 17 8 315 4,172 24 Norway 16 14 291 4,664 25 Korea, Republic of 15 15 140 2,680 26 Philippines 14 12 347 5,653 27 Japan 14 15 74 3,851 28 Europe 14 8 382 4,517 29 United Arab Emirates 13 17 375 4,536 30 Poland 13 13 437 6,522 31 Switzerland 13 13 170 4,155 32 Israel 13 11 34 1,017 33 Pakistan 12 3 394 3,268 34 Sri Lanka 11 7 322 2,810 35 Cote D'Ivoire 10 7 283 3,589 36 Thailand 8 5 123 1,639 37 Portugal 7 5 278 2,403 38 South Africa 7 17 184 2,806 39 Latvia 6 2 6 91 40 Cyprus 6 2 231 1,833 41 Zambia 6 3 241 3,131 42 Taiwan 6 7 127 2,011 43 Turkey 6 6 165 4,617 44 Czech Republic 5 5 105 1,389 45 Peru 5 1 5 321 46 Indonesia 4 8 98 1,522 47 Argentina 4 3 56 755 48 Malta 4 4 66 980 49 Brazil 4 17 114 4,218 50 Iceland 4 3 45 491 51 Denmark 4 4 17 597 52 Vietnam 3 3 16 415 53 Slovenia 3 2 89 1,009 54 Nepal 3 2 18 266 55 Senegal 3 2 35 703 56 Seychelles 3 1 67 427 57 Finland 3 3 20 555 58 Mexico 3 3 277 2,945 59 Moldova, Republic of 3 3 3 84 60 Burkina Faso 3 2 59 820 61 Saudi Arabia 2 2 101 1,262 62 Nigeria 2 2 33 424 63 Kuwait 2 1 3 179 64 Jamaica 2 1 19 418 65 Bulgaria 2 1 50 306 66 Guam 2 2 4 317 67 Yemen 2 1 43 618 68 Gibraltar 2 1 9 339 69 Iran, Islamic Republic of 2 2 127 929 70 Virgin Islands, British 1 1 1 118 71 Asia/Pacific Region 1 1 84 800 72 Hungary 1 2 24 3,551 73 Angola 1 1 6 85 74 Romania 1 1 18 1,361 75 Morocco 1 2 1 124 76 Serbia 1 1 20 218 77 Belarus 1 1 20 645 78 Egypt 1 1 1 12 79 Bermuda 1 1 4 145 80 Brunei Darussalam 1 1 15 174 81 Oman 1 1 84 1,729 82 Guatemala 1 1 45 591 83 Trinidad and Tobago 1 1 7 257 84 Costa Rica 0 1 1 1 85 Satellite Provider 0 1 1 3,803 Total(s) 36,317 33,046 336,193 7,210,442 Average(s) 427 388 3,955 84,829
