D-Day veteran receives card from King and Queen at surprise 100th birthday party
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A D-Day veteran has thanked the King and Queen for their card at his surprise 100th birthday party. Mervyn Kersh arrived in Normandy aged 19, three days after the start of the D-Day invasion in June 1944, acting as a technical clerk for the Royal Army Ordnance Corps organising vehicle support.
The ambassador for the British Normandy Memorial, from Cockfosters, north London, was surprised by family and friends at the Union Jack Club in south-east London on Friday. Mr Kersh read out his birthday card signed by the King and Queen, and told reporters: “Very nice of them, I’ll have to pop round to Buckingham Palace to give them thanks, pop in to say hello.”.
He said he has met Charles three times, including when he was Prince of Wales, adding: “I told him I’d put the kettle on if he ever pops in, because he said he would do that – he never has. “I haven’t met Queen Camilla, it’s a great honour.”.
Asked how it feels to be 100 years old, Mr Kersh said: “I haven’t had enough experience of it yet, it’s sort of terrifying. “I see it as one, nought, nought – nothing, nothing – like being newly born.”. He added: “Memories going back to 95 years, I remember the school board man coming home and telling my mother that it’s time I went to school.
“She argued with him, and I ran away crying, around the back of the house crying. We postponed it a few months until I was six, then I actually went to school crying all the time because I didn’t want to go. “When she collected me, I don’t know what time it was, three or four o’clock, when she collected me I was crying because I didn’t want to leave school – I was playing all the time, it was lovely. Later on I had to learn but that was nice.”.
