大象传媒

My name is Sarah. When I was young, about 5, the war started and this must have changed my childhood a lot though I didn't realise it at the time.

My sister Anne was a year older than I and she and I one day were sitting on the fence of one of the fields in Button Bridge which is where we were living, and one of these endless convoys was approaching up the road.

Now these convoys were a laughing stock really and a cause of great frustration because of course you could hardly drive your car anywhere in the war. On the Bewdley Bridge, there was a policeman to stop you because you couldn't go anywhere but to work in your car - it wasn't allowed and he'd stand there and stop every motorist.

Now the convoys had jeeps and armoured cars and everything and they were going where they liked and they used to fill the road up and there used to be jokes in Punch about it - a cartoon of someone sitting at the wheel of their car with a cobweb growing under their elbow because they'd sat there so long waiting for these convoys to go by.

And there was a convoy coming up the hill along the main road and Anne and I were approached by the senior man who was a little bit muddled, looking round trying to find signposts you see. But once you were in the country you were lost because there were no signposts, they'd taken them all down or they'd covered them up or defaced them.

They didn't actually see one big milestone sitting in front of our gate which was hidden in the hedge, a great big one, really old one and that hadn't I don't think been defaced but it was covered with greenery.

Anyway he said, 'Are we on the right road for Highly?' Anne and I looked at each other and we didn't know where Highly was really, anymore than anywhere else, so we pointed down the lane to the right past our bungalow and off went the whole convoy just on our word down this lane.

It was great everything going by and we stood there and watched them going by and then we ran in the house and said,

"Oh Mother Look what's happened! We've been able to help these soldiers to try and find Highly."
"Oh" said Mother, "Where did they go?"
"Straight down the lane", we said "that's where we sent them".
"Oh dear" she said, "that's the wrong way they should have gone straight on for Highly".

I think it was probably quite a while before they got to the bottom of the dead end lane and found the River Severn barring their way. They had to turn round and come all the way back up again and Anne and I didn't go out when they were coming back up again. We kept very quiet in the house. But mother said it wasn't our fault and maybe if they were enemy soldiers it would have been a very good thing. So that was our little brush with the soldiers!

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