大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by a London CSV volunteer on behalf of Horace Hartley and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

I was an airman, serving with the 239 Squadron in 1941-1942. Lots were drawn for Christmas leave but I was not lucky, in fact I was named for Duty Crew duties. This meant manning the airfield in case any planes required servicing, re-fueling etc. A dear old lady, who lived nearby, knew that we wouldn鈥檛 be home for Christmas so sent a note to our commanding officer inviting 20-25 airmen to her home for tea and a film show on Christmas Eve. She had a large converted barn in her grounds and we had a nice tea, and even mince pies! One of the films was of the King reviewing the fleet, watching aircraft taking off from an aircraft carrier, and finally, presenting medals to sailors who had earned them.

Seated in the barn we watched the first film, but halfway through the second, the projector failed to wind the used film into the bottom spool, so it piled up on the floor.

鈥淒on鈥檛 worry,鈥� said the lady, 鈥淚鈥檒l feed it through in reverse鈥�. It was hilarious. Lines of sailors stood on deck, the front row all with their medals on, then each in turn turned smartly about, walked backwards to the king, saluted him, shook hands and stood to attention, whereupon the King took the medals of their chests and handed them to an officer who put them back on a table. Another salute then the unfortunate sailors returned to the ranks minus medals.
Then, dots in the sky gradually increased in size until they could be identified as aircraft, heading backwards towards the carrier, eventually making perfect tail-first landings on the aircraft carrier. Having pinched all of the medals, the King steamed slowly backwards through the lines of warships on his battleship.

We may have missed our Christmas at home, but seeing that film made up for it. Even the King couldn鈥檛 have enjoyed it more than us.

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