Tragic soldier's wish to be granted

The family of a tragic Kidderminster soldier will tomorrow carry out his final wish - by waiting on the runway when his body is flown home from Afghanistan.

His fiancee today revealed that Lance Corporal Richard Brandon, of the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers, had made the poignant request.

It came when the couple had discussed their worst fears - that he may be killed in action.

Emma-Jayne Webster, aged 27, said it was his wish for her to be on the runway at RAF Lyneham near Wootton Bassett, with her sons from a previous marriage Martyn, 12, and Liam, nine, to receive the coffin.

The couple have a daughter Kaitlin, three, but Miss Webster said she was too young to accompany them.

She said: "It was Richard's dying wish that if something should happen to him he wanted me and the boys, who he brought up as his own, to be on the runway when his coffin came back.

"It will be a very emotional moment but there is no way I would not be there. I will be doing it for Richard."

The couple had planned to marry next August. The sweethearts, who both attended Offmore Primary School, got engaged in February 2008 when L/Cpl Brandon got down on one knee and proposed at his girlfriend's house in Broom Crescent, Kidderminster.

L/Cpl Brandon, 24, died last Wednesday in Helmand Province, Afghanistan, while driving a Samson repair and recovery vehicle which was hit by a roadside bomb.

The couple had bought a house together in Winterfold Close and were planning to move in at Christmas.