A new recording and a new film for the anniversary of its subject, Flight Sergeant Pilot Lancelot Percival Williamson, 1920-1945, late of this parish who died on July 13 1945 after five years service in the RAF on two major fronts of the Second World War, aged 25. He joined the RAF in 1939, aged 19. He was agonisingly close to surviving the entire war when, by a cruel irony, he died in a plane crash on a solo training flight in Derbyshire just after his last home leave in Norfolk.
'Percy' hailed from Eaton Farm Sedgeford, went to school in Fring, sang in Heacham church choir and (a week before his death) played cricket for Sedgeford and is buried next to his older brother at Fring All Saints, North West Norfolk.. We performed this homage as part of the Remembrance service at Fring All Saints in November 2023 since when the gravestone has happily been cleaned and made much more legible, hence the new film. Our thanks to the person who carried that out as well as to Tim Snelling Sedgeford village historian whose excellent research gave us many of the images and press cuttings you see here and in the new abridged companion spoken word version (link to follow)
The tune is a traditional folk song about a good young man cut down in his prime. The aircraft you hear at the end of this film was flying over as we finished recording so we left the mikes open. (A similar happy accident occurs in the new spoken word version).
I landed a crocked plane, when still just a fitter,
5 years derring-done, never shot down in flames,
In a cloud of unknowing, I flew for the sunrise
And came down to Earth but lived up to my names.
Six knights of Logres to carry my coffin,
Six Logres ladies to walk by my side,
Through hellfire and slaughter to a wheatfield of poppies
And a home hedge on Friday the 13th of July.
Beat the drum slowly and play the pipes only,
Play up the dead march as we go along
And bring me to Fring All Saints and lay me down easy,
I lived in the free air that breathes through this song.
Instrumental break
Repeat first verse.
