| There was some gossip about the fact that George Kent was born nine months and a minute (as my mother Merlyn Brind formerly Williams put it) after his parents got married. George Kent won the Military Medal in the First World War. According to oral tradition he got this medal for attacking a machine gun post and rescuing an officer. Everyone said he should have got the VC. Apparently he attempt to enlist when he was too young and his father dragged him back home. According to his enlistment papers he was in the army for five years. In the Second World War he was a railwayman working at a signalbox (possibly West Norwood or Tulse Hill) when a huge bomb dropped close to him. He refused to run away until he had manually switched all the signals to close down the line. For this he got a civilian medal, possibly the George Cross, so he was decorated for gallantry in both wars, an incredibly rare feat. |