George Edwin Feirn

Veronica Feirn recalled;

My father, George Edwin Feirn, was in the Grasby Patrol. He was born on 10 April 1914 and he died on 18 August 2009. He came from a farming family and remained a farmer all his life. In May 1940 when he heard Anthony Eden's broadcast asking for men to volunteer for the Local Defence Volunteers, he rushed, together with his brother-in-law, Bernard Willey, to join up. As a farmer, he had access to extra supplies of fuel. As a local and a keen bell-ringer who travelled around Lincolnshire every Saturday to ring different church bells, he had an excellent knowledge of the local terrain. He was also very fit and quite capable of repairing machines.  All of these skills were attractive to the military men forming the Auxiliary Units. 

It wasn't until my father was in his eighties that he told me he had been in the Auxiliary Unit at Grasby and even then he was reluctant to talk too much. This unit consisted of six men and my father's brother-in-law, Bernard, was put in charge. [This is not accurate] At the time my father and his sister and brother-in-law lived in Grasby Vicarage. My Aunt, Mary Willey, obviously knew what was happening as she told me (also in her eighties!) that she remembered being terrified as she had to breastfeed her baby surrounded by ammunition which was hidden in the Vicarage. My father told me he had been trained at Coleshill House. When I was growing up, I was always impressed, but horrified, at how quietly and efficiently my father could kill an animal when it was necessary. Now I realise it was probably because of the training he had received!  

He was a bell ringer from 1932. After the war he was Ringing Master of the West Lindsey branch of the Diocesian Guild and also served as a member of the Guild Committee. He rang a total of 447 tower peels in his life, despite the ringing of church bells being banned for much of the war, with a further 284 on handbells.