大象传媒

My story involves an iron milk stand at the end of a farm drive. In the days of WW2 milk from the farm used to be put into churns (about 3 feet high and 2 feet diameter). These churns were then put on iron stands at the end of farm drives and collected by a lorry, in much the same way as we now leave our wheelie bins on the pavement ready for collection.The stands were very heavy iron contraptions, oblong in shape with a bottom shelf about a couple of feet off the ground on which the churns were placed. One night in 1944 the doodlebugs came across the channel aimed at London and there we were, my father, mother, grandfather, and sister sheltering under the bottom shelf of this iron milk stand since the farm house was thought to be too dangerous. They were right. I can recall the familiar sound of the doodlebug whining overhead and then silence as its motor cut-out and it dived to earth, slicing off the chimney of the farm house about 100 yards away from us up the drive and ending up in a mass of mud about 30 yards from the house. It was a typical night in what came to be known as bombers alley (in fact the farm was known as Bombers Farm) and my parents thought nothing of it, apart from the inconvenience of having to rebuild the chimney.

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.