A Memorial

Congal · A Memorial

From to-days Sunday Life. The good in human nature.

sunday life
Para who saved kids deserves tribute too

By Alan McBride

17 September 2006
It's been 35 years since the death of Sergeant Michael Willets.

I doubt that the name means much to many Sunday Life readers and it would have meant little to me, but for a chance encounter on New Year's Eve 2000.

It was the year of the really heavy snowfall and, by New Year's Eve, everywhere was covered in a sheet of ice.

I was making my way home from the festivities in town with a couple of friends when a man came running towards us, bent forwards as if he was going to hit us with a rugby tackle.

My mind flashed back to my early days at university, when one of my mates was playing international rugby for England. We used to meet once a week over breakfast and study a Bible passage together.

One morning we read the verse that says: "Your enemy the devil roams around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour."

Kevin looked up from his breakfast and said: "Take him low, lad."

I'm not sure whether you can take the devil low, but the guy running towards us certainly looked like he was going to take us that way, although he was more staggering than running by this stage.

A moment later the angle he was leaning forward at became unsustainable on the ice and he fell flat on his face.

He didn't put his hands out to save himself and, as we picked him up, blood pouring from his nose, it became obvious that he'd overdone it on the liquor.

We decided it would be wise to see that he got home safely, but after we had pretty much carried him to his house, he announced that he'd lost his keys.

Since we only had the word of a drunken man that it actually was his house, I ran round to the nearby barracks rather than try to help him break in.

To our surprise and their credit (this was 2am on New Year's morning), the police were round in under 10 minutes and soon the man was safely inside, though not before falling onto the broken glass in the hallway.

I called back a few times in the forthcoming days to see if he was OK; eventually, I found him in and, as a gesture of appreciation for what we had done for him, he pressed a copy of a paperback into my hand.

It turned out that he was the author and I dutifully read the fictional love story; not my type, but I was glad I did as I found it had an ending inspired by a real life incident of true heroism that I was unaware of.

Rather than quote from the fictional book, I quote (by kind permission of the authors) from the widely-read chronology of the Troubles, Lost Lives:

Sergeant [Michael] Willets was killed at Springfield Road RUC station by an IRA blast-bomb thrown into the reception area.

A car stopped outside the station and a man - described as dark-haired and in his mid-20s - emerged with a suitcase, which he hurled through the front door.

Several civilians were sitting inside when the device was thrown. Among them were Patrick Gray, a 27-year-old electrician, his daughter, Colette, and their neighbour, Mrs Elizabeth Cummings and her four-year-old son, Carl.

Lieutenant Colonel George Styles, in his book Bombs Have No Pity wrote: "Immediately he saw the suitcase hit the floor, Sergeant Willets realised what was about to happen. He thrust the two children down into a corner and stood above them, shielding them as the 30lb explosive in the suitcase went off. He was killed instantly, but the children he'd protected escaped with their lives."

The sergeant, who had been due to leave Northern Ireland with his regiment's 3rd battalion in a few days, was the first member of the Parachute Regiment killed in the Troubles and was posthumously awarded the George Cross.

Thirty-five years on, we would all do well to remember the story of Michael Willets. I hope that anyone in this country whose habit is to take offence at someone just because they are wearing a uniform, or a particular football shirt, or whatever, will take note of the story of this soldier and learn to look beyond the insignia, and see the potential for goodness and courage that is within all of us.

Republicans seem to have a talent for erecting memorials to their own fallen heroes at the drop of a hat.

So let's see them back their "equality" rhetoric with some actions and erect a memorial on the Springfield Road to celebrate the courage of the British soldier who laid down his life for two Irish children.