Page 36 • The HERALD • 27th August 2026 v SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL SPECIALISTS v ELECTRICIAN/HANDYMAN FULLY QUALIFIED ELECTRICIAN (30YRS EXPERIENCE) • Mains Upgrades • Testing • Extra/Replacement Points/Lights • Outside Lighting • Sockets • Ponds • BT/TV Points • Ethernet Points • CCTV • Fire/Intruder Alarms • Basic Plumbing Repairs • Outside Taps • Showers • Heating Problems • Blinds/Poles Fixed • Flatpacks • Loft Work Boarding, Tidying etc ALL OTHER DOMESTIC WORK CONSIDERED Call Mick on 07738 166453 or email: michaelshelley80@googlemail.com ALL ASPECTS OF ELECTRICAL WORK UNDERTAKEN • Full Rewires • New Circuits • Consumer Unit Replacements • Electric Vehicle Charging Points • Landlord Certification • Smart Homes • Central Heating Controls 023 8089 0932 or 07534 343631 www.alnelectrical.co.uk info@alnelectrical.co.uk All aspects of Plastering undertaken Fully Qualified, Reliable, Quality Service Free Quotations Call Joe: 07713 724610 @jbplastering92 Remembering Martyn Aurel King, the Youngest of the Few by Marc Heighway Marc is available as a guest speaker to deliver local history talks. Find out more at: marcheighway.co.uk In July I was invited to the unveiling of a new memorial in Guildhall Square, Southampton. It was placed in memory of three men, two of whom were Battle of Britain pilots who fought the Lu wa e in the skies above what was then a town. One of those men wasn’t really a man at all. He was eighteen years old. His name was Martyn Aurel King, and he was shot down over Southampton on 16th August 1940. He is believed to be the youngest RAF ghter pilot killed in the Battle of Britain, and he’s buried in the churchyard at Fawley. On the day of the unveiling, Martyn’s family asked me to speak about him. With Battle of Britain Day falling on 15th September, it feels like the right moment to share that speech in this edition of e Herald. Below are the words I said that day: We Remember Him as Martyn A few years ago, I was told a story about Martyn Aurel King’s Hurricane. It was told to me by the son of a man who, in August 1940, had been a young boy living in Ower, just outside Southampton. That boy was only about 13 or 14 years old. And on 16th August 1940, during the Battle of Britain, he watched events unfold from his garden. He saw the dogfight in the sky. Then he saw an aircraft coming down. Later, he heard that a Hurricane had crashed at Toothill, near Romsey. That Hurricane had been flown by Pilot Officer Martyn Aurel King of 249 Squadron. Martyn was only 18 years old. That fact alone is difficult to take in. Eighteen. Still a teenager. Young enough, in another life, to have been at school, at college, starting work, worrying about ordinary things. But in the summer of 1940, young men like Martyn King were being sent into the sky to defend this country. When the boy from Ower heard where the aircraft had come down, he and a friend did what young boys do. They got on their bicycles and rode out to find it. This was long before the M27 existed. It would have been a very different landscape then: country roads, lanes, fields, and the aftermath of war suddenly dropped into the Hampshire countryside. When they arrived, they found the wreckage of Martyn King’s Hurricane. It was being guarded. So, the boys waited. And they waited. Eventually, the aircraft was left unguarded. Perhaps the guard went for tea. Perhaps attention simply moved elsewhere. Whatever happened, the two boys saw their chance. They went over to the aircraft, looked into the cockpit, and removed the compass. To them, at that age, it must have felt like treasure. A memento from a dramatic day. Something from an actual fighter aircraft. Something they had seen fall from the sky. The compass went home with that boy. It ended up what had happened to the pilot? Did he know that Martyn King was not some distant, anonymous airman, but another young person, just a few years older than himself? While the boys were looking at the wreckage near Romsey, Martyn King had come down by parachute over Shirley. His parachute snagged on the chimney of a house in Clifton Road. He fell onto the lawn below. The homeowner tried to help him, but Martyn was too badly injured. He was taken to hospital and died shortly afterwards. So, on that day, just a few miles apart, there were two young lives touching the same event, but in completely different ways. One boy aged 13 watched the war from his garden, cycled to the crash site, and came away with a boyhood treasure. The other boy aged 18 was in the cockpit, fighting for his country, and never came home. I have a son who is 13. And I know that in the blink of an eye, he will be 18, just as Martyn was. And to me, 18 still feels like a child. That is what makes this story so powerful. The compass helps us reach back across more than 80 years and touch one moment from that day. But today is not really about the compass. It is about the young man who sat behind it. It is about Martyn Aurel King. It is about remembering that the Battle of Britain was not only fought high above the Channel, or over airfields, or in famous moments from history books. It came down into ordinary streets, ordinary gardens, ordinary villages, and ordinary lives. And it is about remembering that behind every name on a memorial there was a real person. Martyn was 18 years old. He had a family. He had a future. He had all the possibilities of life still ahead of him - just as that young boy from Ower did when he cycled to the crash site, and just as my own son does today, more than 80 years later. So today, as this memorial is unveiled, we remember him not simply as the youngest, not simply as a Battle of Britain pilot, and not as a name from the past. Martyn King The compass from Martyn’s Hurricane in his shed. And there it stayed, quietly, for more than 80 years, until it was eventually passed to me. Its current home is at Buckler’s Hard, where it is exhibited with a photograph of Martyn and a short account of his story. But what I find so poignant is this. When that young boy took the compass from the cockpit, did he know Continued on page 37
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTIyNzI=