大象传媒

Moved to Yorkshire from Newcastle in 1943,lived with my grandfather. There was a German prisoner of war camp across the road where a few hundred men were held in Nissen Huts. My mother worked in the kitchens there and I started school at three and a half years old.I remember a group of men coming across to the house to spend the evening talking, singing etc. They used to bring gifts such as slippers for me made out of raffia and cigarette holders made out of toothbrush handles. Grandad kept chickens, geese, cows, goats and pigs, he also had a small allotment and orchard. Grandad used to supply the kitchens at the camp with eggs, fruit, milk etc, and they used to let him have slops for the pigs.
On my birthday they did a concert for me Bobby played the violin and cookcook baked a cake for me, and all the prisoners were singing to me. Afterwards a few of the men who I knew took me to their Nissen hut which was full of men where they proceeded to toss me in a blanket and I can see their faces to this day, they were crying and it is only later that I realised why they were crying. They were thinking of their own families. At the end of the war the men were returned home but they didnt all go together they went a few at a time. I remember Ferdi came to the camp in 1946 to act as a batman to the officer winding down the camp.
Ferdi was befriended by my family and was a regular visitor to the house along with a few of the others. He wanted to send a parcel to his wife and son, so he walked to the local post office and was reported for doing so, and they wouldnt let him send his parcel. When Grandad and Aunt heard this, she posted the parcel for him. This was the start of the friendship with him and his family in Germany which remains to this day. I did meet him about 4 years ago in Germany and it was a very nostalgic meeting. He showed me a large chest full of corrispondence, photographs and books which my aunt had sent him over the years, most of the photographs I had never seen before.The friendship flourishes to this day, Ferdi is 86 on new years day and I will be singing happy birthday to him then.

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