IT IS 70 years, almost to the day, since Pierre Becouarn made the life-changing decision that would make him an outcast in his home country, with a death sentence hanging over his head.

Now living in Ilfracombe and aged 87, Pierre is the first to agree that as a member of the Free French Forces, he lived a charmed life during the Second World War.

Pierre, now lives close to his grandson Paul and family, who run the Gendarmerie restaurant in Fore Street.

It's a comfortable environment for the man who eventually settled in this country and worked first at the Savoy and then at the famous Albemarle Club in London.

But it's a far cry from his teen years, when at the age of 16 he joined a ship headed for British shores.

It was a decision that would put a price on his head.

"The Vichy Government issued me a card which said I was part of the Resistance and like all Free French fighters, they declared the death sentence on me in my absence. But they'd have to catch me first — they never did."

Pierre was a member of the crew aboard a coal ship, which first attempted to pick up refugees from Cherbourg.

"But German motorcyclists appeared on the dock so we couldn't stop," he said.

The ship headed for Barry in South Wales, where the crew were promptly arrested.

"The British didn't know who we were and we could have been German spies for all they knew. They interrogated me for several days and eventually believed me," said Pierre.

He was then faced with a stark choice — repatriation to a German-ruled France or to join the Free French Forces, fighting alongside the British.

Now 17, Pierre was the youngest member of the Free French, a fact which was publicised in a news article in which Winston Churchill urged all Frenchmen to join the fight. Pierre was singled out in the article for praise as the youngest fighter.

He joined the Royal Navy and trained as a gunner before being sent to West Africa to collect ships from Freetown. It was the first of many narrow escapes.

"German ships were waiting for our convoy of 70 ships as we came out of the harbour and picked the ships off one at a time. In the end the Commodore dispersed the convoy to give everyone a chance to get away. We got through," he said.

Pierre later joined the North Atlantic convoys, bringing crucial supplies of everything from planes to food across to the UK.

"Britain was starving. We had to get the supplies through," said Pierre.

In one hair-raising crossing, the crew were ordered not to smoke or cook. Pierre insists that to this day, they did not know what they were carrying — but he suspected it was explosives.

In another, his ship hit a mine as it entered Oban harbour in Scotland, putting him in hospital with a piece of shrapnel in his leg.

"I did those crossings a dozen times. After I came out of hospital I could choose whether to go back to Africa, but I said I didn't want to, I wanted to stay on the convoys," he said.

It was to be another charmed decision: "All my friends decided to go back to Africa, and they were all killed.

"People do not realise that 90,000 men worked on the Atlantic convoys and around 30,000 of them were killed."

It was in London that he also met his wife, Kathleen, who served in the ATS. They met when she trained him in wireless operation.

"One weekend, though we were not supposed to, we spent a weekend together and took a room," said Pierre.

"That night during the Blitz, the house next door took a hit. It was the house of a doctor's family. There were seven of them and it killed them all. But we came away without a scratch, from the next house."

Pierre still holds the medals awarded to him during the war, along with a hand written commendation from Charles de Gaulle.

But his exile from his homeland took its toll: "My father always said, 'if you get the chance to get away, go,' and so I did. My brother was not so lucky. He was in the French Navy, so had no choice but to fight for the other side, the Vichy Government. He was killed by the Americans in Africa."

Pierre went back to attend the funeral, but was not welcomed.

"I wore my uniform and there were people who did not like that. It made a rift in the family.

"And after the war, we were not welcomed back to France."

So he made his home in England, talking his way into a job in the kitchens of the Savoy and later, in charge of the buffet.

Then he moved to the Albemarle Club where he eventually became manager, rubbing shoulders with the likes of Dick Emery, Michael Bentine and Henry Cooper.

His last job was as a receptionist with the Davis Group.

"I got the job when I was 67 and worked with them for 15 years, but I decided to take early retirement at 82."