大象传媒

It was around my third birthday, at the height of the Battle of Britain. We lived ten miles north of Brighton, near the Haywards Heath golf course and had become accustomed to the excitement of the day time duelling in the sky as the RAF tried to intercept the formations of German bombers making their way north. On this occasion, though, there was no warning at all, no sirens, no anti-aircraft fire from the Canadian battery concealed under the oak trees in our lane and no weaving con-trails high up in the distance.

At that age, my mother insisted I always took a nap for an hour after lunch, more, I suspect, to give herself a break from a constant little chatterbox than for my own good. I was lying fitfully in bed waiting for the time to pass so I could go back out into the summer sunshine., when I became aware of the rumbling drone of a high powered engine drawing closer and closer. I sat up in bed to look out of the open window when it was almost instantly filled with the burning nose of a single engined fighter. I can still recall clearly the bright yellow propeller boss, with black smoke streaming out from all round the engine cowling.

How it missed the roof of our house I shall never understand, the wing tips must have just cleared the chimney stacks at either end, but it passed over with an enormous roar. I leapt out of bed and began to run down the stairs, meeting my terrified mother rushing on her way up. At that moment there was a loud crunching sound from the direction of the golf links.

I am not sure whether this is connected to the same incident or not, because my memory is so clear I was later able to be sure the burning aircraft had been a Messerschmitt, but I recall that for some time there was the burnt out skeleton of a Hurricane lying on the fairway. I remember the indignation of my parents and neighbours when they learned that the RAF pilot had made a forced landing with only a slow burning oil fire. He had had to watch his aeroplane burn slowly away, however, as he had landed on the boundary between two local fire service areas and neither would turn out to put the fire out, both arguing that it was the other one鈥檚 responsibility. That was at the very moment when the whole outcome of Hitler鈥檚 proposed invasion of Britain was in the balance!

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