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This story was submitted to the People's War site by Stephen Slevin of Renfrewshire Libraries on behalf of John J. Crawford and has been added to the site with his permission. John J. Crawford fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

My father volunteered for the army in 1940 having served as a Minister in Finchley in North London, (he was originally from Greenock). He did his basic training with the Royal Artillery before being moved into the Chaplains Department at the main Chaplains Centre in Bagshot, Surrey.
He then moved with our family to Durrington in Wiltshire, which is within sight of Stonehenge. I was 6 years old at this time and have vivid memories of occurrences such as parachutists jumping from Whitely aeroplanes at Netheravon. The method of leaving these planes was through a circular hole in the bottom of the fuselage rather than through the more familiar opening in the side of an aircraft, this was described as ‘ringing the bell’, owing to the frequency with which parachutists banged their helmets on the way out.
I also remember watching the aerial acrobatics performed by pilots nearby, such as cutting power to the engines of their Gloucester Gladiator bi-planes and dropping like leaves, before re-engaging their engine and pulling out of the dives.
After living in Durrington for 2 years, my family moved to Warwickshire, my father at Marlborough Farm camp, with the rest of the family at Fenny Compton, this was around about 1942-43 when I was about 7 or 8. My father used to cycle the five miles to come and see us from the camp. I also remember my fathers’ batman letting me drive his car, an Austin Convertible. At this time my father used to conduct the funeral services for the American B17 Bomber crews at Gaydon.
I remember how we used to watch the American soldiers and their lorries passing by, all fully kitted out and how they used to throw biscuits and sweets for us children.
At one point me, my brother and a pal ran away from home using a small buggy and when the police found us at Banbury we were put back onto a train for Fenny Compton by the stationmaster.
After going to a wee school in Fenny Compton we were sent to a boarding school called Emscote Lawn, in Warwick, where my father and brother came with me to attend the interview to get into the school and how after the interview the Headmaster dropped dead, a very ‘pukka’ place as day pupils and I remember two particular incidents on these journeys, in the first one we met an American soldier fully dressed in an immaculate gabardine uniform who showed us a big battle knife and regaled us with stories of his pals being killed in the war, in the second, we were on the train (I was about 9 or 10 years old) coming into Leamington Spa when we heard about a ‘bevan boy’ (people who used to make a choice to work in the mines or enlist) who had killed himself by throwing himself under the train rather than face such work. I told my little brother not to look.
Armoured forces completed manoeuvres near where we stayed just before d-day and were billeted in Fenny Compton, they were there for quite a while, long enough for a few of them to cement relations with some of the locals.
I also remember an incident in Fenny Compton itself when some British soldiers on manoeuvres had been crushed to death by a tank whilst sheltering for the night under a nearby railway bridge
One time at an officer do that I was allowed to attend with my father some rowdy camouflaged Canadians burst into the room and scared everyone with unloaded Bren guns. Another time a dispatch rider skidded on a cowpat and died crashing into the wall of a barn, like all curious children we went to see where it had happened.
At the time of the Arnhem operation we used to listen to Stanley Maxted doing his radio commentary every night and I remember to this day him saying that ‘if you meet a man in a red beret, buy him a drink’.
We were still in Fenny Compton for VE and VJ day but we didn’t have any fireworks to celebrate with, although there was a huge bonfire for VE day and one for VJ day, the bonfires were about 20 feet high.

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