RAF Veteran Among Hundreds To Receive COVID-19 Vaccine At Salisbury Cathedral

An RAF veteran is one of the hundreds of people aged over 80 to receive the COVID-19 vaccine at Salisbury Cathedral.

Former Flight Sergeant Louis Godwin gave a thumbs-up after being vaccinated at the cathedral, which dates back more than 800 years.

The 95 year-old described receiving the Pfizer/BioNTech jab as “absolutely marvellous” and “no trouble at all”.

Salisbury Cathedral opened its doors to patients from five local GP surgeries on Saturday, with the aim of vaccinating 1,000 people aged over 80.

The cathedral will serve as a venue for the Sarum South Primary Care Network COVID-19 vaccination service, with other over-80s due to receive their jabs on Wednesday and Saturday next week.

NHS staff, patients and those accompanying them were treated to music from Salisbury Cathedral’s famous Father Willis organ throughout the day.

“I’ve had many jabs in my time, especially in the RAF. After the war, I was sent to Egypt and I had a couple of jabs which knocked me over for a week,” said Mr Godwin.

“This one, the doctor said to me ‘Well that’s done’ and I thought he hadn’t started. So, it’s no trouble at all and no pain.”

Mr Godwin, a great-grandfather of 12, said the coronavirus pandemic had meant he could not see his family but he had been using FaceTime and Zoom to keep in touch with them.

He joined the RAF at5 the age of 18 in 1943 and was accepted as a trainee pilot but then found out the training would last at least a year.

“I thought ‘well the war is likely to be over by then’ so I opted for wireless operator/air gunner and ended up as an air gunner,” he said.

“I was trained and I was sent to Kinloss in Scotland where I joined a very experienced crew who had lost their air gunner, unfortunately. I was able to complete my time flying with that Lancaster until the end of the war.”

Mr Godwin said the Second World War was “totally different” from the coronavirus pandemic, as people could meet, hug and kiss then.

“It was dangerous, especially whilst we were flying, but I lived right through the bombing near Southend-on-Sea in Essex, watched the Battle of Britain overhead, which convinced me I wanted to be up there with them as an 18-year-old,” he said.

“This is a terrible virus and I would suggest that the vaccine is nothing, you don’t feel a thing, you don’t even feel the pinprick, so anybody that needs one and can get one, I would say go ahead and do it quickly.

“It’s the only way we’re going to beat the virus.”

Dr Dan Henderson, co-clinical director for the Sarum South Primary Care Network, said that about 1,000 patients and staff would receive their vaccines on Saturday.

“We chose it initially because of the vast amount of space here that allows good patient flow through and room for social distancing,” Dr Henderson said.

“It is a bonus to be in such an iconic, wonderful place. It’s great to be getting the vaccine out there and getting them in people’s arms and knowing that this is, hopefully, the start of some sort of normality again.”

Cover image: Former RAF Flight Sergeant Louis Godwin receives an injection of the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine at Salisbury Cathedral, Wiltshire (Picture: PA).