The conclusion - at the graveside - of a special morning service (on July 13, 2025) the 80th anniversary of the passing of Flight Sergeant Pilot Lancelot Percival Williamson, late of this parish. Harpist and Sedgeford friend and neighbour Vanessa Wood-Davies joins Peacock's Tale duo in a special performance of "Bring Me To Fring All Saints".

The family who named Lancelot Percival after the two greatest knights of Camelot, Sir Lancelot the Brave and Sir Percival the Grail Finder, raised him 100 years ago on Eaton Farm, Sedgeford, which borders the Fring Estate. Like his Arthurian namesakes, he was a quiet, reserved chap whose actions spoke “like lightning silvering thunderous clouds”. He began his education in what is now the old school house in Fring; sang in the church choir at Heacham; played cricket for the Sedgeford village team and was laid to rest underneath the north window. 

His Arthurian forenames and W- surname are the last of a painfully long list – overwhelmingly from the First World War - read out each Remembrance Sunday at the Sedgeford War Memorial, that concrete symbol of post-war hope for a better world, frozen in 1920.  And then frozen again, with a second plinth, and another post-war hope for peace and an end to all wars, in 1949.

Each of the 30 names read out has a story. It is Percy’s we honoured here and his is the stuff of folklore, a folk ballad waiting to be written and sung. He joined the RAF in the very first phase of the war in 1939, aged 19, and during his intense and extended war service above both European and Asian fronts of World War Two was twice mentioned in despatches. Before he even got his pilot’s wings, as an engineer barely out of his teens, he took control of a damaged plane in which his pilot had been shot dead and landed it safely in the desert, saving both crew and plane in a remarkable show of skill and nerve. 

These heroic qualities, along with his courage – and, surely, the luck or providence such mortal combat requires – got him through to the last full month of the war. And when he did, finally, and fatally, crash to earth on Friday 13 July 1945, it was not on foreign soil but out of a Derbyshire sky on an early morning advanced trainers’ exercise flight trialling the new Oxford 1 training plane. News reports commented on the tragic irony. So close to the peace he had fought for and, after six years of high valour abroad, his splendid career brought down by human error and a home hedge. But even the legendary Sir Lancelot was undone by human error. Aren’t we all? And Percy’s story does not end there.

He had just resumed active service after a last home leave from the Burmese campaign, no doubt exhausted, and no doubt sharing the general heady mood about the imminent end of the Japanese war. All Saints drew a packed church of extended family;  locals from Fring (and surrounding villages) and  military top brass. His achievements were honoured in the press. Sedgeford Church funded a memorial lamp at its church gate, with the seven World War 2 names on it, which you can still see. 

Richard our Honourable Curate ( who adds the formal Remembrance here) referred recently to faith being something you practice like music and we’ve certainly practised this one. It’s been for us a real labour of love in bringing our individual ‘trumpets’ into harmony with the greater Song.

Live Remembrance of Flight Sergeant Pilot Lancelot Percival Williamson  (at the graveside)

A marriage (and we are actually married, 45 years so far) of melody and rhythm. We do folk, indie, Americana, Norfolk noir, beat poems &  ghazals. Traditional tunes with contemporary beats. Music videos  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCb8wV0-DNiFs1R5G2VSytBQ
Maz lead & harmony vocals, acoustic guitar. Gaz vocals, voice, bass, drums & percussion, harmonium, recorders, lyre harp, field recordings.

Live Remembrance of Flight Sergeant Pilot Lancelot Percival Williamson (at the graveside)

Peacock's Tale Musical Storytelling