FLAT feet prevented Fred Garrard from joining the Navy and saved him from being sent to join the Paratroopers.

As a result, he was among those who took part in the D-Day landings serving with the Royal Corps of Signals.

Fred, who will be 80 later this year, was only 19 when D-Day arrived. Brought up in London, he joined the Army in Dagenham in 1943, serving first with the Royal West Kent and Queen's Own, and being sent to Maidstone for his eight-week training.

"They found out I had been in the Home Guard so I didn't have to do some of the basic training," he recalls.

"They came round to the gym one day, felt my muscles and looked at my build, and told me I was to join the Paratroopers. But when I went for the medical, they found I had flat feet.

"I had wanted to go into the Royal Navy, but I couldn't because of my feet, so I joined the Royal Corps of Signals, serving with the newly-formed Air Formation Signals. We laid the telephone cables for fighter command."

After his training he was sent to Catterick, training on the Yorkshire Moors.

One day he was watching a film in a big marquee when his group's code number appeared on the screen with the message that they were to report back to base.

"We went back, picked up our gear and joined the land ship tank at Felixstowe.

"We went out to the mouth of the Thames but the weather was rough.

"The next thing we knew we were out in the Channel, just off the coast of France.

"Our skipper had been involved in the Anzio landing, so he knew about beach landings.

"Three times he tried to get in close to the beach. On the third attempt he told us to go in, so we did. We had a dry landing at Gold Beach.

"Prior to that we had been given some drinks and I think there was something in them to calm the nerves!

"They told us not to trust any civilians because they could be Germans. They said we should shoot them if we were suspicious. The first chap we met was a French postman, and he was OK."

Fred and his colleagues went on to Bayeau and Caen, splitting up into detachments. He was the driver of his detachment, with a sergeant, corporal, lance corporal and five or six linesmen.

"We laid cables across the land for miles and miles. Sometimes we erected poles for the cables, other times we just laid them across the fields and over hedges.

"We would pitch our tent, then lay the cables for several miles, making sure there were no mines on the way. Then we would go back to the tent. Sometimes we were able to rest of a while, other times we had to go straight on.

"We put the cables down first so that the planes could come in."

They went on through France, Belgium, Holland and eventually Germany.

It was near Hamburg that he met his wife-to-be. Elizabeth Hadlow, as she was then, was serving in the Intelligence Corps with the Women's Auxiliary Air Force.

"If she wanted to go into town, she had to have an escort. So I drove her in, and brought her back again."

Demobbed in 1947, Fred and Elizabeth were married at Eythorne in 1948. They now have a son, daughter and three grandchildren.

First they lived at St Margaret's for six years, with Fred working as a civilian driver for the RAF, then they went to London for a while before moving to Queensland, Australia, for just over nine years. Among Fred's jobs there were serving in the fire service.

They returned to Dover and Fred worked in several places before joining Dover Harbour Board. He retired as a traffic supervisor.

Now living at River, Fred and Elizabeth are leaving today (Thursday) for the visit to Normandy with the veterans branch from Folkestone.

He still has some mementoes from those days 60 years ago, including a prayer, in Latin, given to him by a girl in Venlo, Belgium, when she knew he was going into Germany.

"I have carried it with me ever since," he said.