RELIVING BOYHOOD ROLE IN MYSTERIOUS WARTIME UNIT

Discovering reality of the brave underground resistance

- BY ANDREW CHATTERTON

SITTING in his kitchen, 16-year-old Ken Welch watched his father pull on his boots, preparing to head out into the freezing darkness of a December night.

Redvers Kitchener MacDonald Welch was a granite polisher in Mabe, Cornwall, at the nearby quarry. A physically imposing man known as Don, Redvers had been called into the military in the early part of the war, but had returned home after just a few days of training.

Quite why he had come home so abruptly and why his dad kept disappearing at night and weekends meant Ken had several burning questions.

But, aware his father was unwilling to answer anything. Ken had up until this night left the subject well alone.

All Don had ever told his wife and son was that he was part of the UK's Home Guard, but Ken had never seen him with other members of the local unit, and certainly never in uniform.

Coupled with his disappearing act, Ken was determined to find out the truth. So that December evening, he followed his father out of the house through the country lanes for a mile until they arrived at the quarry where Don worked. Now more curious than ever, Ken broke his cover and shouted out to his dad.

He knew immediately his father was less than happy to see him.

Ken's sudden appearance meant that Don now had a life-changing decision to make about his son. And as Ken later realised with shock, it could have gone very differently indeed.

Instead, Don grabbed his son, opened a hidden hatch in the ground and pulled the 16-year-old down a ladder and into a corrugated iron-lined underground structure below the surface.

Only once inside this bunker - an "operational base" as they were officially called - did Don explain that he was not in fact a member of the Home Guard at all. He was a member of a top-secret civilian group that, if the Germans successfully invaded Britain, would launch a suicidal bid to disrupt the enemy.

PATROL