Battle of Britain Print

"One Ran up the Clock"

O: in the series "Echoes of the Home Front by John Howard Worsley

How Sir Harold Ridley pioneered the intraocular lens

Mouse Cleaver's Hurricane P3232 is shot up over Winchester

This painting depicts the Battle of Britain action when Flying Officer "Mouse" Cleaver of 601 Sqn. sustained injuries in which
shattered pieces of perspex entered both his eyes. F/O Cleaver immediately lost his left eye and was
temporarily blinded in the other. Although his Hurricane continued to fly well, he had to
bale out and came to earth near Twyford village in Hampshire.

It was Harold Ridley, a young surgeon at St. Thomas' Hospital London, who discovered that shards of
perspex remaining in this and other wounded pilots' eyes, were inert and were not rejected.
From this discovery came the seeds of an inspiration, involving I.C.I. makers of the perspex who
generously made their formula available and the pioneering British firm Rayners who made the first artificial lens which was
implanted in a patient's eye on the 29th November 1940. Since that time, more than 200 million patients world-wide have
had successful artificial lens-implants including Mouse Cleaver, whose remaining eye was to
benefit thirty years after the Battle of Britain.

The painting was presented at the Science Museum London 29th November 1999, the 50th anniversary of
the first artificial lens-implant operation.

Available as hand mounted prints 10" x 8" , 14" x 11" & 20" x 16".

Also available to order as Canvas Repro'