Nigel was born at Elham Kent in 1919, the son of Archibald Graham Weir and his wife Mary Evelyn Oldfeld who married in Buenos Aires on Saturday 8 October 1910. He was in the 1st Battalion Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry. She was the only daughter of the Revd Charles Oldfeld Bartlett. They had two other sons and two daughters.
Nigel was educated at Winchester where he was Captain of Fencing. He Matriculated in 1937 and was Captain of the Oxford University Fencing Club. He was a member of the University Air Squadron.
He was granted a commission as a Pilot Officer on 21 June 1939.
He joined No 145 Squadron on 12 May 1940. He was credited with two aircraft during the Dunkirk evacuation and scored two more kills during the Battle before 8 August, when he shot down 2 Bf109s and a Ju87.
Nigel was awarded the D.F.C. on 30 August 1940.
“This officer took part in the intensive fighting over Dunkirk last May, and has since played a highly successful part in numerous engagements over the Channel. Pilot Officer Weir has shown an intense desire to engage the enemy and has destroyed at least five enemy aircraft, three of these in the course of a single day.”
Nigel was reported Missing in Action on 7 November 1940 after combat with a BF109 off the Isle of Wight in his Hurricane I (P2770). His plane was damaged and crash-landed in the sea just southeast of Waddy Point, Ventnor at approximately 15.00 hours.
He is commemorated on Panel 6 of the Runnymede Memorial.
His father, also an Oxford graduate [Worcester College] was attached to the Royal Air Force with the rank of Wing Commander, at the outbreak of war and was based at Uxbridge.
He was on board the Nerissa which was en route from Halifax, Nova Scotia, to Liverpool in position 55-57N, I0-08W to the N.W. of Ireland, when she was torpedoed by German submarine U-552 on 30 April 1941. His body was found washed ashore at Corraun Point, NW of Blacksod Look-out Post on 4 July 1941.
He was buried in Belmullet Protestant Churchyard the following day. The inscription on his headstone says:
Wing Commander A.G. Weir, Royal Air Force, 30th April 1941, Age 55.
"Perfect Love Casteth Out Fear He Lives United With Us To Do God's Service.”
Nigel’s younger brother, Adrian John Anthony, born in 1921, a Scholar of Brasenose College, was serving as a Major in the 1st Battalion The Scots Guards when he was killed on 2 February 1944. He is buried in the Beach Head War Cemetery, Anzio Plot V H 3. He was awarded the Military Cross.
A Memorial Service for them all was held at the Church of the Holy Trinity, Shaftesbury at 12.15pm on Monday 1 May 1944.
There is a memorial inscription to them at the Church of St. John the Evangelist, Enmore Green, Shaftesbury.
Mrs Weir died in 1972.
The following poem by Nigel was published in “Verse of a Fighter Pilot”
When the bloom is off the garden, and I'm fighting in the sky, when the lawns and flower beds harden, and when weak birds starve and die, and death-roll will grow longer, eyes will be moist and red, and the more I kill, the longer shall I miss friends who are dead.