St Patrick's Birmingham parade will be saddened by soldier's death

Mar 11 2009 by Edward Chadwick, Birmingham Post

The shooting of Birmingham soldier Mark Quinsey in Northern Ireland will tinge this year’s St Patrick’s Day parade with sadness, says the man who plays the patron saint in the city’s celebration.

The 23-year-old Royal Engineer from Highters Heath was gunned down along with a colleague outside his barracks on Saturday.

Len Cale has dressed up as St Patrick for the last ten years to lead a procession of musicians and dancers and has witnessed Birmingham’s revived parade swell in popularity.

The 64-year-old retired council worker said he hoped the terrorist killings wouldn’t destroy bridges built since 1974’s IRA pub bombings, which killed 21 Birmingham people.

“It will be tinged with sadness this year and I hope this is an isolated blemish on the peace process,” said Mr Cale.

“I remember a group of young Irish people coming to me in the mid-1990s when I worked for the council and saying that they wanted to build bridges and I hope none of that work has been affected.

“It goes without saying that 99.99 per cent of Irish people absolutely deplore what happened.”

Unarmed Sappers Quinsey and 21-year-old Patrick Azimkar, from north London, were killed when masked gunmen unleashed a hail of 60 rounds outside Massereene Barracks in Antrim.

The pair were collecting a pizza from delivery drivers, who were also injured, just days before they were due to begin a tour of duty in Afghanistan.

Speaking at the launch of this year’s annual St Patrick’s Day celebration in Birmingham, Mr Cale, from Hall Green, said: “This year’s event is going to be bigger and better than ever and I hope people of all backgrounds will come and celebrate it with us.”

Up to 80,000 people are expected to attend five days of events in the city including the highlight – a huge parade through Digbeth starting from noon on Sunday.