Brave Peter couldn’t swim but jumped in to save me
Remarkable reunion of the young boy swept to sea and the ‘quiet hero’ who rescued him
HANDS clasped together, the pair stared intently into each others’ eyes.
It wasn’t the first time Peter had clung firmly on to Eddie’s arm. But six decades had passed since then.
Now, Peter was here to relay a simple message to Eddie: “Thank you for saving my life.”
Incredibly, this heart-warming reunion was the first time the pair had seen each other for 66 years.
Brave Eddie Manzie was just 14 when he jumped into the icy waters of the Firth of Tay in Tayport, Fife, to rescue not just Peter Beckett, who was then seven, but two other children, too.
And that was despite the fact Eddie was unable to swim.
His valiant exploits made national headlines at the time and the schoolboy was given a certificate for his bravery from the British Humane Society.
The Sunday Post covered the epic rescue in the February 12, 1950 edition.
But Eddie, now 80, never saw the boys again – with Peter, emigrating to Canada within months of the near-disaster.
Peter has only returned briefly to Scotland once since then.
But last month he flew back to his homeland with his family who had secretly engineered a meeting with saviour Eddie at his Tayport home.
Peter, who has since returned to his home in Trenton, Ontario, and who is now 74, said: “I have a lot to thank Eddie for – it was a very emotional reunion.
“I was completely speechless when I walked into the room. I had no idea my family had been secretly arranging it.
“Eddie and I were both welling up. If it hadn’t been for him we would have almost certainly have died.
“The gravitas of what he did sunk in as I realised I – and my children and grandchildren – wouldn’t be here without him.”
Our original story told how Peter – who went on to have three children and
Eddie and I were both welling up – it it hadn’t been for him, I’d almost certainly have died
two grandchildren and worked as a civil engineer in Canada – turned to divine intervention after becoming trapped on the sandbanks while out collecting shells with two pals, Alec Farrow, who was five, and Ernest Simpson, seven.
At the time we wrote how the trio had got trapped out at sea when they “didn’t notice a deep channel behind them”.
Our reporter wrote: “When they tried to get back, they found the water too deep.
“They screamed and shouted for help. Then Peter said, ‘Let’s close our eyes and pray’ before hero Eddie appeared.”
Our dispatch added that Eddie heard the “cries” and took off his “shoes and stockings and waded waist-deep” and “led them to safety”.
Speaking last night, Eddie, a former JCB digger driver who still lives in Tayport and is recovering from a stroke he suffered last May, joked: “It was more shoulder-height and I couldn’t swim!”
But when it was originally reported, Eddie and his family made no mention of what made the rescue all the more remarkable.
Tayport’s shore had previously claimed his elder brother, deeply scarring a young Eddie.
James Manzie, 14, was killed in February, 1942 when he strayed into a “no-go” area on Tayport’s beach and was blown up after stepping on a landmine, put there to protect the Fife town from invading Germans.
Eddie was just seven at the time of the family heartbreak.
Despite this horror permanently etched at the back of his mind, Eddie didn’t flinch from jumping into the freezing Firth of Tay to rescue the schoolboys eight years later.
Eddie said it was a different era that allowed young children out as darkness approached on a cold winters’ night.
Eddie said: “I was out walking my dog when I heard the cries. It was getting quite dark and around tea-time.
“I knew the water quite well and knew where it was deep.
“They had been trying to swim back on their own but couldn’t reach shore so returned to the safety of the sandbanks but the tide was coming in.
“If I hadn’t heard them they would have drowned. I jumped in and made my way to them but had to carry each of the boys back to safety individually.
“One of the boys was so exhausted I had to carry him all the way home!”
Last year, some of Peter’s family got in touch with Eddie to see if he would mind meeting up again after all these years.
Modest Eddie added: “It was good to see him after all these years and know I made a difference. I never really talked about it afterwards. Anyone would have done the same.”
Catherine Jaraszkiewicz, Peter’s distant cousin who helped arrange the meeting, said: “Peter was deeply grateful for his time with Tayport’s quiet hero.”