大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by a volunteer from CSV/大象传媒 London on behalf of Alma Harvey and has been added to the site with his permission. Mr Hook fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.

When we were teenagers during the latter part of the war we had left London and went to live in Kent. My father had his own shed in the garden where we lived where he kept his rifle for shooting rabbits. We used to watch the dog fights over our heads. My mother was a typical mother, plump, jolly and warm, and she had eight children. When the dog fights started the clips used to fall from the sky from the guns on the planes, and we used to try to catch them before they hit the ground. Behind us was a very large cornfield, we saw the German plane crash and the pilot parachute to the ground into the field. My mother told us children to go back into the house and that she would deal with the situation. She went into the shed and got my father鈥檚 rifle and marched across the field towards the pilot. Having reached him she kept on assuring him that he should not be afraid of her, in English of course, and while still holding the gun; she kept on talking to him in a motherly way, trying to reassure him, he put his arms up, but she said no to him so he put them down again. By this time the rest of the family were surrounding him. We were walking back towards the Bungalow when a bunch of the village men arrived. They were shouting and trying to manhandle him, but my mother told them off and said they should leave him alone, after all he was some mother鈥檚 son. These men got really nasty, the village bobby arrived bicycling very slowly, by this time my mother had got the German into the house, made him a drink, and told the village men to leave him alone until the authorities arrived.

While waiting for the authorities the German pilot started to show my mother photographs of his family and gave her the red silk scarf from around his neck. My mother was cross with herself later for not having got this chap鈥檚 name and address so she could have written to his mother to tell her that her son was safe.

After he had been taken away my brother told my mother that the rifle would have done her no good because it was unloaded!

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