Blind 101-year-old WW2 veteran joins Remembrance Sunday march

A blind 101-year-old World War Two veteran honoured the fallen at the Cenotaph for the first time on Remembrance Sunday.

Gwynneth Pedler, from Dulwich, south-east London, joined more than 40 other blind veterans at the parade.

Pedler joined the Women’s Royal Naval Service (WRNS) in 1944 and was posted to Crail, near St Andrews, where she worked as an air mechanic. She cleaned and maintained the guns used by airmen who were learning to drop torpedoes.

“I couldn’t believe it when they told me what I was going to do,” she said.

“I knew nothing about air mechanics and I’d never even done any DIY. It was important work, and it brought us close to the realities of training.

“Sometimes the young airmen hadn’t quite got the hang of swooping away and ended up in the sea, which was very sad.”