Heroism on the Home Front by the VC hero of Al Amarha

How Johnson Beharry VC rescued three adults and four children in house engulfed by flames

Essex Freemason, Johnson Beharry VC, the Master Elect of Richard Clowes Lodge No. 2936 and a Sergeant Major (WO2) in the Princess of Wales’s Royal Regiment (PWRR), revealed in a recent Press interview in June 2024 how he rescued a family from a burning house in 2021. Thanks to his rapid reactions and quick thinking, all were saved without serious injury. Johnson recounted in his own words:

We walked to post a letter and were going to do the school pick-up when I saw smoke in the air about 150 yards from our house. I said to my wife, ‘It’s a bit early for someone to be having a BBQ’ then I heard an explosion and saw this column of fire. I had to help. I jumped in the car and drove to my neighbour’s house. It was immediately clear it was on fire. There was fire everywhere. It started in a car in the garage, worked its way into the kitchen and up into the house.

There was a parrot screaming. My main concern was the four children. The kids were between six to 11, I’d say. The fire was going up the stairs right next to them. They had understandably frozen. I got to them. I couldn’t take them all at once, but I got them away from the house, in the opposite direction to where the wind was blowing, on the side of the road. I asked an au­ntie [rescued from the fire] to stay with them and keep them calm. I gave them water and made sure they were OK.

Then I went back into the house. The last person I got was an older lady, a grand-mother, and she wouldn’t get out because she was looking for her dog. I said to her, ‘If you don’t get out, you won’t be here tomorrow’. I eventually got her out after finding out the dog was safe, and she sat in one of the cars all shaken up. I went back in and got the keys for the cars, there were about five, and moved them from the drive.

When the fire service arrived, I told them who I thought had problems after smoke inhalation. I stood back as they put out the fire. I’m pleased I was around because it would probably have been a different story today had I not been. 

I had come out from the burning house and no one knew who I was. They must’ve been thinking, ‘Who is this crazy guy running in and out of the house asking where the car keys are and moving the cars?’ I was talking to a neighbour and told them I am a soldier and had been in similar situations before. They said, ‘What do you mean?’ Most people have not been through what I have. After a little while the fire crew realised who I was and invited me to the station.

I’m not on the battlefield anymore but I feel like I am in the battlefield in general life. You never switch off, whether you are in Iraq or in a quiet housing estate in the UK. You are always a soldier. I just did my job as a soldier 20 years ago, as I did that day [of the house fire]. I am proud and honoured that I received the VC. I am proud to be a soldier. The evening after it happened the family came over to my house with boxes of chocolates and said, ‘Thank you so much, you saved our family, you saved our house’. I said, ‘We are neighbours and we have to look after each other’.”

Johnson Barry will be installed in the presence of Paul Tarrant, the Provincial Grand Master of Essex Freemasons, as the Worshipful Master of Richard Clowes Lodge at Saxon Hall, the Southend Masonic Centre, on Friday 6th September 2024.

You can read more about Johnson Beharry by clicking this link:

Richard Clowes Lodge welcomes saving lives with charity and heroism (essexfreemasons.org.uk)

Photo

Top: Collage of Johnson Beharry VC with his medal received from the late HM The Queen in April 2005 while still in recovery from severe brain injuries in which he had to learn to walk, talk and eat again following a grenade explosion inches from his head in Al Amarha, Iraq in 2004. And proudly showing his new rank slide following his promotion this year to WO2.