大象传媒

My father's first involvement as a service-man was at the beginning of the war, when he enrolled in the home guard,based in Lambeth.I remember he allways used to tell the story of when he was on guard duty one night,when a barrage ballon assended slowly up into the air. It did not last long because he took aim with his rifle, I assume a .303, pulled the trigger and watched it fall to earth. His mates in the guard house managed to cover up for him! Just like Dads Army.
Another time during an air raid, a hospital had got bombed and was on fire and along with others he was wheeling patients out in their beds to safety, away from the burning building. The particular ward he was dealing with was several floors up and was serviced by lifts.The building was also joined to others by suspended corridors. As he,others and the patient reached the lift, some nurses came the opposite way pushing a patient and they got in the lift first. A bomb went straight down the lift shaft and my father came too, sitting on the edge of a bomb crater.His mates laid him on a door and carried him to safety.
When he was old enougth, he joined the Royal Marines and went to Lympstone for training.After,he was in signals,posted to St Margarets Bay in Kent, with the Siege Regiment,firing the large guns,Winnie and Poo.My mother used to come down to the town occasionally for socials and was billeted in one of the nearby houses. She lived in Lambeth opposite the Imperial War Museum and one day a airial parachute mine exploded nearby. She wrote to my dad about this and he was so worried, he went to visit her and went AWOL.All went well until he tried to return to Dover and got picked up by the Militry police, subsequently missing D Day!As soon as he was put in the clink, the inmates made him turn his pockets out, in order to get the last remaining tobacco.Being inside really made him smart, his shoes polished, buckles gleaming etc,something that he carried with him for the rest of his life.Upon his release back to the regiment, when he got to the station a policeman took one look at him and said "I know where you have come from son", due to the way his uniform was, all crisp and shoes shining.The policeman rang to the guard house who sent a lorry up to the station to collect him and all his mates treated him as a hero.His commanding officer said "well Pickard I hope you have learned your lesson", to which my father replied "no Sir and I would do it again."
Dad told me that one day the German Battleship Sharnholst? or Bismark? made a dash through the channel and by the time the order from London was given to fire, the guns could not be bought to bear.
He said one day he was kitted up with grenades and ammo and with others raided somewhere in Norway. He was greatly relieved to have a unapposed landing, where they found the german officer in command had shot himself and the rest had fled. Dad brought back a souvenir, an accordian which he swapped on the train back home for some cigarettes.
He was present at Lunerberg Heath when the armastice was signed and guarded some german sailors, when they sailed their warships back to England.
Shortly before he became ill and passed away in 2002 aged 80,I took him back to St Margarets Bay; the pub he used and his billet were all too familiar to him, we looked for the remains of the guns, not much to be seen now. Then we went to France for a week, to the various battlefields and cemeteries. Quite a few of the Marine headstones had Chatham service numbers on them,but he did not recognise any of them. I had his dress uniform buttons made into cuff links for myself and his two grandsons, It makes me very proud to wear them.
I am glad I could take him.

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