大象传媒

During the war in Lydney, my grandad came back from a meeting with Ministry of Defence officials and announced, 'Well, that's it. They're taking the Lime Walk, the flat marsh and all the land near the canal'.
He explained to the family that work was to start immediately on part of our farm to build a huge camp and quartermaster depot for the American army. It sounded good to me, aged eight.
The camp in the Lime Walk came to within a few feet of my great-grandmother's kitchen.
Without exception, every GI in the camp was unfailingly polite to the 90-year-old lady who watched their comings and goings with interest.
Her son had fought in France in the First World War so she knew all about the GIs' mothers' anxiety and concern. The GIs, many looking more like schoolboys than soldiers, talked to her about the homes and families they had left behind, sometimes crying with homesickness as they did so.
A walkway was laid through the farm to the Quartermaster Depot where the men worked. Later there was a POW camp added to the American camp, and then German prisoners marched to the depot to work every day.
In off-duty time the GIs quickly made themselves at home, especially the farm boys among them who were happy to help out on the farm in return for home-cooked food.
Their own camp canteen was excellent. Our pigs were fed on waste so I was in a position to know what had been cooked, what was popular, what was wasted.
To a child in wartime Britain, the GI diet seemed exotic and unbelievably plentiful.
The cookhouse always made me a pie at weekends. They would even ring up to ask would I like coconut or pineapple? Such a change from Grandma's plain old Bramley apple.
The PX seemed like a treasure house - all those Hershey chocolate bars, packets of Lifesavers and Chiclets gum, while we were rationed to 4ozs a week with our sweet coupons. I loved the printed sheets with the words of the top songs in the US hit parade.
We learnt them quickly and sang them next day in the school playground. We enjoyed Yank magazine with its Sad Sack cartoons, which all the local kids followed as they read Snoopy now.
The GIs had much to be generous with, but even so their generosity was boundless, not only with goodies, but with their time, concern and work for local children.
The Quartermaster Depot contained vast quantities of absolutely everything (including arms and ammunition). The men included craftsmen and tradesmen from a variety of occupations.
Anything the depot did not contain could be made. It was my first experience of the American 'We'll fix it' attitude, so different from the cautious, doubtful approach of the English countryman. It was, 'Sure, honey, I can fix it. I'll bring it round tonight'. And he did.
The command structure at the base worked to ensure good discipline in the camp and friendly relations with the community outside.
But we heard stories from GIs of feuds and fights within the camp; who gambled with whom and who won; who was a stoolie; who could be relied on for a weekend pass and who would confine you to base for trivialities.
One short, thickset Pennsylvanian Dutchman told Grandad in horror-struck tones that a particular sergeant had bawled to him, 'Me and God run this army, and don't you forget it!'.
'And he didn't even put God first,' said Wagner.
We learned the hard way who was nervous and trigger-happy in the towers guarding the POWs at night.
My uncle was out setting rabbit snares when he was fired on without challenge or warning. Luckily he was able to jump behind a tree whilst he shouted his identity (plus one or two comments) to the guard.
In those day the English were more ethnocentric than they are now. It amazed me to hear GIs refer to 'that big Swede', 'the God-damned Mick', 'Polacks', 'Krauts' and 'Dagos'.
I had the melting pot philosophy explained to me and saw that it worked. Never mind the epithets, they were all buddies and all on the same side when it came to the crunch.
It did come to the crunch. Although not a front line unit, soon after D-Day word went round, 'The Yanks are pulling out'.
Convoy after convoy of supply trucks rolled off to France. All day and all night they roared through the lanes. We waved and cried knowing we would never see them again.
We never did. But a stream of parcels arrived from France, then Belgium, Holland and Germany.
Small wooden crates, expertly made and filled with sweets, pretty trinkets, pictures and little knick-knacks of great appeal to English children in such austere times.
I have many memories of wartime - of gas masks, evacuees, air-raids and shortages of everything, but nothing stays in my mind so vividly as the friendliness and generosity of the Yanks.

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