Father's moving tribute to fallen Gateshead hero

Jan 1 2012 by Coreena Ford, Sunday Sun

After losing a son in battle many parents might want to cut all ties with the Forces, yet for Mal Watson, immersing himself in his son's achievements is helping him through his grief. He told Coreena Ford how keeping his son's memory alive keeps him going too.

CANDLES were lit, stories swapped and lanterns sent off into the night sky when the clock struck midnight at Whickham War Memorial last night.

But this wasn’t a New Year’s Eve celebration to welcome in 2012.

Exactly two years ago at 7pm yesterday, Mal and Anne Watson were told their son, 23-year-old Sapper David ‘Davey’ Watson, who was serving with the 33 Engineer Regiment (Explosive Ordnance Disposal) had been killed while carrying out a controlled explosion.

The couple once again found themselves at Whickham War Memorial, where his name can be seen on the plaque, to join his friends and former regiment friends to remember their true hero.

“I just feel drawn there,” said Mal, 56.

“Last New Year’s Eve I was sat there with his friend Richard ‘Baby’ Gardiner at 3am, talking about life in general.”

As soon as the knock on the door came on New Year’s Eve 2009 both Mal, recently retired from Northumbria Police, and Anne, an auxiliary nurse, knew their son was gone.

Mal was finishing his tea, getting ready to take his wife into work, and no special plans had been made to see in 2010.

Then came the thudding, decisive rap on the front door of their Whickham bungalow. “Anne and I looked at each other and we both knew. That’s when our world just fell apart,” Mal recalled.

Parents could be excused for wanting to cut all ties with the Armed Forces after losing their son, yet now, they find they have become part of a family that is helping them through their grief. Indeed, Mal has almost become a second father to the lads in Davey’s regiment.

Since retiring, Mal has immersed himself in Davey’s achievements – reading his son’s mention in The Bombhunters book, watching homemade DVDs of him out in Afghanistan, staying in close contact with his regiment and even attending funerals of other young men killed in action.

And he admits it’s what’s keeping him going.

He said: “I feel like I need the contact, especially with his friends down the barracks.

“There were four of them in Davey’s bomb disposal group and I call them the four horsemen. Joe ‘Crossy’ Cross, Richard ‘Baby’ Gardiner, Lee ‘Troopy’ Thornhill and then there was Davey, known as ‘The Leg’ because he had such long legs and was so fast.

“The whole lot of them were like brothers and they have all been to see me here.”

Both Anne and Mal say their son was always destined for the Army, where he truly found his niche.

After signing up when he was 19 he went in as an electrician, but his constant craving to challenge himself soon saw him go through building and plastering courses, through the Commandos course and P Company’s Paratrooper course, which saw him get a record 99/100 score – a score that has yet to be beaten.

“Then he said he was going into bomb disposal,” said Mal.

“With hindsight maybe I should have said ‘should you really do this? It’s dangerous’ but how do you tell a headstrong young man that? I fully supported him.”

But then he was killed, 92 days into his eight-month tour of Afghanistan.

A few months after his funeral, which saw the streets of Gateshead lined with thousands of people, Davey’s army mates sent Mal a DVD they had put together in memory of their friend, collecting together images and video clips of their times in Afghanistan.

The film shows much of the lighter side of life in their camp – meting out comic punishments with a plastic bat, their attempts to grow moustaches and swimming in the freezing Sangin River on Christmas Day.

Yet it also contains lots of footage of successful bomb disposals – huge explosions shaking the ground, sending clouds of dust high into the sky – which Mal says made tough viewing to begin with.