大象传媒

During the war my father, a farmer too old for military service, had a wartime job to take charge of any farm that might be affected by enemy action.
In the evening of 4th August 1944 I (aged 14) was standing in our drive with my parents when we heard the beat of a doodle bug and when it stopped we dropped to the ground as we had done many times before. The subsquent explosion sounded quite near.
Not long after, my father received a telephone call asking him to go to Martins' Farm at the Sands, a village some two miles away, with vehicles and staff as the farm had been hit. My father called on many of the farm staff, both men and landgirls, and within perhaps an hour a procession of lorries and tractors with trailers drove from our Runfold Farm to Martins' Farm, though our progress was impaired by cars of interested onlookers who had to be moved on by the police.
The farm workers struggled through the night and eventually loaded up the heifers, calves pigs chicken, ducks and rabbits that had survived and took them back to our own farm where they stayed. Of course, my father would have paid for them !!
Two of the Martin family died that day.
I remember vividly two incidents. I was standing with my father on a heap of rubble and I asked him where were the cows that had been standing for milking in the cowshed. He told me that we were standing on them as they were beneath the rubble of the cowshed.
I remember also how wild were the young calves that were so difficult for our agile Landgirls to catch in the corn field where they were running about. When I saw the calf sheds I knew why; the doors were intact and closed but the roofs had been taken off in the blast. The calves had left through the roof.

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