Why Is It Always The Good-looking Ones That Die?

This story was submitted to the People’s War site by Bernie Hawkins and has been added to the website on behalf of Mary Prince with her permission and she fully understands the site’s terms and conditions.

This story is about three boys I knew, none of whom survived the War.

Herbert Luckwell

Some years before the War, when I was 16, I worked at the Bedford Lodge Hotel at Shanklin on the Isle of Wight with Doris Honeybourne (who still lives in Ventnor). It was owned by a Mr and Mrs Harper. At one time Mr Harper gave a home and a job to Herbert, whose father had been killed in the mines in Wales, leaving his mother to look after a large family. Through the offices of a Mr Tight, who stayed at the hotel and was high-up in the Merchant Navy, Herbert got a job as a merchant seaman. He was a bright lad, always cheerful with lovely auburn hair. He once came to see me in London and had brought me back a silk dressing gown from his travels. During the War, he was serving on a merchant ship when it was sunk by the Germans with the loss of all hands. I don’t know how his mother coped with all those children after that! I used to lie awake thinking of him struggling in the water.

Vicky Perry, the airman

I had a friend, Lily Perry, who lived at 31 Dorking Street, Deptford. Her brother, Vicky, was in the RAF. I remember talking to him one day when he was home on leave — he was swinging on our gate. I said, “See you when you get back” but he replied, “No you won’t — the flak’s too heavy.” I didn’t realise what he meant at the time. I didn’t see him again. His body was found in a Polish field six years after the end of the war, identified only by the tags around his neck.

Harold Killick

Harold Killick was the younger brother of my childhood sweetheart, Willy Killick. (Their mother was a manageress at United Dairies.) He stepped out of a landing craft straight on to a landmine and was killed. I found out about it while waiting at a tram stop in London, when someone said, “Have you heard what happened to Harry?” Willy, my childhood sweetheart, eventually married a land army girl.

Why was it always the good-looking ones that died?

© Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.