L/Cpl Johnson Beharry VC

In the decades following the Second World War, British boarding schools provided good retirement jobs for veteran servicemen. My rural Perthshire alma mater was singular among these; it was still a Ministry Of Defence establishment. As a result, I grew up in the company of war heroes; I was taught chemistry by a Lancaster crewman; learned metalwork from an artificer on HMS Hood, hospitalised with peritonitis before the ship’s tragic last sortie. The fly-fishing group was mentored by a tweedy old Free Polish Army Captain, much rumoured to have been in Colditz; the School Commandant was a retired Brigadier awarded an MC for holding the lines during the terrifying retreat from Osterbeek, during Operation Market Garden.

Last week the Metropolitan Police Military History Society was taking an evening trip to see the Victoria Cross decorated soldier Lance Corporal Johnson Beharry speaking. A London bookshop had arranged the event for about 80 people. I was looking forward to hearing his story, and perhaps shaking his hand afterwards. At the last moment the event was cancelled, due to lack of public interest. I was disappointed and angered by this.

What Johnson Beharry and my old schoolmasters had in common was a sense of duty, and of comradeship. It seemed their courage had come almost as a surprise to them, and they were humbled by it. I haven’t got round to reading Beharry’s book yet [hint!] but I have seen him say he “couldn’t have looked his mates in the face if he hadn’t done his best for them”, which I think expresses the same sentiment. It’s the counterpoint of Hannah Arendt’s ‘banality of evil’ argument – the most ordinary of men rise to the occasion when they and their comrades are under fire.

I feel if London can’t get eighty people to listen for an hour to this charming, funny, and courageous young man, it is a shameful condemnation of our TV celebrity society.

And to Lance Corporal Beharry we say this – Well played, Sir! We hope your future service is as exciting as your time so far. But with fewer bullet-holes, eh?

Andrew MishMash