Sometimes the smallest decisions can change the course of an entire life.
For Second World War veteran Ken Pusey, it came down to the toss of a coin — and a pint of Guinness.
In December 1944, 18-year-old Ken was serving with the Royal Engineers in Belgium. Given a day pass in Antwerp, he and some fellow servicemen faced a rather ordinary decision: should they go to the cinema, or visit a newly opened NAAFI club called The 21 Club?
There was one particularly tempting reason to choose the latter. The club was serving draught Guinness by the pint — something Ken recalled as being almost unheard of at the time.
Unable to decide, the young soldiers tossed a coin.
It came down tails.
They went for the Guinness.
A decision that changed everything
Around an hour later, while Ken and his friends were inside The 21 Club, they heard an enormous explosion.
They would later discover that a German V2 rocket had struck the Cinema Rex — the very place they had considered visiting.
More than 1,000 people were inside the cinema. 567 people were killed, including 296 Allied service personnel, in what became the deadliest V-weapon attack of the war.
Ken and his friends had escaped the tragedy through the most extraordinary combination of chance and circumstance: a coin had landed tails, and the prospect of a pint of draught Guinness had won.
Eight decades later
Ken returned home after the war and went on to build the life that could so easily have been taken from him that December afternoon.
He married his wife Pam, had a son and daughter, and together the couple also fostered many children.
Now, more than eight decades after that extraordinary escape, Ken has celebrated another remarkable milestone — his 100th birthday.
Ken marked the occasion on 7 August with family and friends at Royal Star & Garter in High Wycombe, where he has lived since 2022.
There was a birthday card from The King and Queen, while lifelong Wycombe Wanderers supporter Ken was presented with a personalised shirt bearing his name and the number 100, signed by the squad.
And there was another particularly appropriate birthday surprise.
Guinness sent him a special box of gifts.
Appreciating every day
Looking back at the extraordinary events that shaped his life, Ken says the experience has never left him.
The lucky escape gave him the opportunity to return home, have a family and enjoy a lifetime of experiences that might otherwise never have happened.
His message at 100 is wonderfully simple: appreciate every day.
It is difficult to imagine a better illustration of just how unexpectedly life can turn.
On an ordinary day off in Antwerp in 1944, a group of young soldiers had two choices.
A film or a pint.
They tossed a coin.
Eighty-one years later, there is still good reason to raise a glass to the way it landed.
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