大象传媒

It was the summer of 1940, I was six years old and was 鈥渉opping鈥� with my mother and younger sister at a hop field somewhere in Kent. I didn鈥檛 really like it as I didn鈥檛 like picking hops and neither did I like running about and playing in the hopfield for everywhere looked the same and I always seemed to get lost if I strayed too far. In addition the taste and smell of the hops seemed to be everywhere which had the effect of making the food taste revolting to me. However it was the closest we were ever likely to get to a holiday at that time and what鈥檚 more there was money to be earned although that was a secondary consideration and wouldn鈥檛 have amounted to much in our case.
It was also the time of the Battle of Britain and so there was always a great deal of action in the skies high above but on this particular occasion it seemed as though were just two aircraft on the stage, a German bomber and a Spitfire. I can鈥檛 remember much about the fight other than the end of it for from our view on the ground it appeared that the bomber went into one side of a large cloud and the Spitfire went into the other. In all probability they were both well above the cloud for in very short time we saw the Spitfire emerge from the opposite side to where it had entered and then the bomber coming down out of the cloud with it鈥檚 fuselage in flames. How we cheered as the Spitfire came past doing a victory roll but then we noticed parachutes coming down from the stricken bomber. I鈥檓 sure that the cheers stuck in my throat with the realisation that there were real live Germans coming down towards us. Much to my relief the parachutes passed high over us and into a wooded area behind the huts but I was very frightened that night that the Germans might come for us whilst we slept.
It wasn鈥檛 until the next day when I was told that the bomber crew had been captured that I was able to stop worrying about them.

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