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Mervyn Kersh recently celebrated his 99th birthday. Nearly a century of life on earth and what a life he has had. The hair may have turned silver, but he still has the same twinkle in his eye that he had as a young man.

I went to visit Mervyn at his immaculate home in Cockfosters, which he shares with his two cats, and over a cup of tea and ginger biscuits he told me his remarkable story.

In this episode you can listen to his experiences of the D Day landings, entering a booby-trapped chateaux, battling his way across France and into Germany and the horror of stumbling across newly-liberated concentration camp Bergen Belsen.

From there Mervyn was told to prepare to go to the Far East. 'The Japanese heard I was coming so they surrendered,' he joked. Instead, he was sent to Egypt where he contracted dysentery. By the time he was demobbed and returned home he was so brown and skinny his own mother didn't recognise him. 'Can I help you?' she asked as he walked up the garden path.

Mervyn attempted to settle back into life as a civilian, but it was hard. 'Every job I applied for I was told I was too old. I was 22. How could I have come earlier?'

Eventually he found his calling in journalism, settled to civilian life, married a lovely lady and had three children.

In 2015 he was awarded the Legion d’Honneur, France’s highest military honour. He is also president of the Association of Jewish Ex-Servicemen and Women. Every year he returns to Normandy to take part in commemoration services, but the visits he enjoys most are to secondary schools. He tells children his extraordinary story and sings them a song that goes like this.

'Me and my wise old horsey. The times I've heard him say, the trouble with the world is the people who live in it. They've all learned to get, but they've never learn to give in it. You'll never build a world, a decent sort of world. You'll never build a world that way.'


Thank you to our media partner: Family History Zone – a website covering archives, history and genealogy. Please check then out at www.familyhistory.zone and consider signing up for their free weekly newsletter.

Thank you to our media partner: Family History Zone – a website covering archives, history and genealogy. Please check then out at www.familyhistory.zone and consider signing up for their free weekly newsletter.