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This story was submitted to the People’s War site by Graham Lewis for Three Counties Action on behalf of Mrs Jean Compton and has been added to the site with her permission. Mrs Compton fully understands the site’s terms and conditions.

I have lived all my life in Toddington, Bedfordshire. Our family had a business on the High Street there. During the war I managed a building business and as we did work for the Ministry of Defence I was exempt from call-up for national service.

An officer in an anti-tank unit, Captain Browning, lodged with us. My mother cooked beautiful food — home-cured meat, for example. We had plenty of hams that she had prepared stored in vats in the cellar of the house. We kept in touch with Captain Browning for a long time after he left. Then a Sergeant Fraser and his wife came to stay. When I got married in 1947 I received a piece of jewellery as a present from his parents.

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