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I was not very old when the war started, and I used to live in Eastbourne. A few years into the war I went to London with one of my mates to see if we could spot any of the Buzz Bombs, we stayed up all night and never saw any at all. Well, my mate could not stop another night so he went back home. I stayed with my uncle the next night and the Buzz Bombs did come over. One dropped into the houses in the next road, we all ran over to see if we could help and found this man half buried by a lump of concrete:; anyway a group of us tried to lift this off him, he was still alive, when we did manage to get it off him he died, I will never forget that, I was only 12 at the time.

I went back to Eastbourne, the next thing that I remember was that a cargo ship floundered on the coast; it was full of typewriters, telephones and the biggest chesses that I had ever seen. It took three of us, to lift just one of these chesses, so as I was the only one with a carrier on my bike we put it on my bike. About halfway home I got a puncture so we ended up rolling this cheese all the way home. By the time I got it home, it was full of stones. Even after we had cut the outside off with the stones embedded, this cheese lasted 2 — 3 months, I was sick of cheese by the time that it had gone.

Denis Branfield, Bedford. 28/05/04: Dictated to Ian Nutley

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