Extraordinary LIVES
MY DAD ALAN KING
DAD left school at 14 and had a quiet, hard-working life as a pattern maker and wood turner in a rural community in Suffolk until he received his call-up papers for World War II. After initial training, he joined the East Riding Yeomanry as a Sherman tank radio operator and received specialist instruction in underwater operations. On the eve of D-Day, he was informed life expectancy on the Normandy beaches was just one hour. Dad was part of the assault on Sword Beach just after 7am. He lost many comrades as he fought his way through France, Belgium and the Netherlands before crossing the Rhine. When the war ended, Dad had to stay in Germany for another two years helping to return home the displaced people of Eastern Europe — there were millions of them. Prisoners who had built the Eastern Wall defences for the Third Reich surrendered to the British for a better life only to be returned to Soviet Russia. Dad had nightmares for the rest of his life about the poor souls interned in the camps he had to guard. Many were killed on their return to their homelands. He had met Nora at primary school and they married when he returned home from his wartime service. Dad went back to his previous job and they brought up three children. Life was hard and money was short. With one cold tap and an outside privy, there were few creature comforts. Dad did his best with very little money,
no car, no TV and few chances in life. He grew most of our fruit and vegetables and collected honey from his beehives. He went to the library every Friday to choose a book and entertained us with his homemade lantern projector showing his cigarette card collection on the shed wall. Dad re-trained as a steam engineer, working on the boilers at the local hospital and then at a maltings. He was so proud of his seven grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren. After losing Mum 13 years ago, I encouraged Dad to join the Norwich and District Normandy Veterans Association. Every year, we visited Normandy and the Netherlands to pay tribute to his fallen comrades and he started to open up about his difficult wartime memories. ‘We weren’t heroes, we were just boys. We were terrified,’ he said when his wartime memories were highlighted by the Royal Mint in 2019 for the launch of a £2 coin to mark the 75th anniversary of D-Day. ‘But you had your crew and your regiment and that’s what you cared about. ‘After I got back, for the first 40 years I didn’t think about it. Didn’t want to. But it’s important that people know about it.’ Dad was known to everyone as Mr Never Surrender due to his grand old age and talent for impersonating Sir Winston Churchill. He always said: ‘Be proud of your country!’ Dad was awarded the Legion of Honour by France and the Dutch embassy sent their Tricolour to be displayed at his memorial service.
ALAN KING, born May 19, 1924; died December 30, 2021, aged 97.