Thursday 15 September 2022 09:44 AM 'V-Day' hero dies aged 92: 'National treasure' who gave CNN interview after ... trends now
The 92-year-old grandfather who became a 'national treasure' after his charming stiff-upper-lip interview with CNN when he went for a Covid jab and became an internet sensation, has died peacefully at home.
Old Etonian Martin Kenyon made the world chuckle in the darkest days of the pandemic after being nabbed by a US reporter outside Guy’s Hospital where he’d been one of the first people in the world to receive a Pfizer jab on ‘V-Day’, December 8, 2020.
He told the interviewer he’d turned up at the hospital but ‘I couldn’t damn well find anywhere to park my car, so I was late.’
After a ‘rather nasty lunch’, he had his vaccination, which ‘didn’t hurt a bit.’
Martin Kenyon, pictured in his London home, died peacefully at his home in Shropshire
Martin Kenyon, 91, pictured during the interview, in which he spoke about being one of the first person to receive Pfizer's jab at Guy's Hospital in London, with CNN's Cyril Vanier
The former officer in the Royal Welch Fusiliers was swiftly hailed a ‘national treasure’ with his clipped vowels which harked back to a bygone era, and caused general hilarity the next day when he enquired of Piers Morgan on Good Morning Britain: ‘Who are you?’
This week, Mr Kenyon’s daughters Eliza and Nina shared the sad news that the former director of the Overseas Students Trust and anti-Apartheid campaigner passed away the day before the Queen, whom he met more than once during his richly varied life.
Speaking to the MailOnline, Eliza and Nina also said they told his neighbours in Stockwell, South London, saying: ‘Our beloved, unique, impossible, wonderful Pa died on Wednesday morning last.
‘Thank you for being part of his London life. Having lived here since 1975, the root system is deep, and the connections are strong.
‘And of course, he now travels in the good company of Queen Elizabeth II, which he would be very glad about.’
Broadcaster and former London Assembly chair Sir Trevor Phillips, an old friend of Mr Kenyon’s, wrote of him in The Times in 2020: ‘His observation that “there’s no point in dying now, having lived this long” was delivered in an accent that, for many, will have evoked a pre-war England populated by the plucky, debonair men and women who stood alone against fascism.’
‘Having upstaged an American TV anchorman on Wednesday, the following day on Good Morning Britain the pensioner ate Piers Morgan for breakfast — “Who are you?”.
‘His no-nonsense exhortation to take the vaccine will save many lives by persuading what are now called “hesitants” to protect themselves and others.’
As a teenage scholar at Eton,
