大象传媒

My father joined the Sherwood Foresters as a Boy soldier on 16.10.29 at the age of 14. On telling his father he had joined, he said to him, well lad "you've made you bed so now lie in it". On joining he had to continue with his education and passing a few exams before he entered his father old regiment the 2nd Battalion Sherwood Foresters. He served in India and the Sudan and was later stationed at Castle Cornet, Guernsey where he met his future wife my mother. Whilst there in 1938 his company was recalled to England because hostilities were building up with Germany.

On the 24.0.39 Dad was in the British Expeditionary Force that went into France. He told us that when they were retreating because things were going wrong he would always remember being told right lads "everyman for themselves" and that they would have to get back to Dunkirk as best they could. As his unit were pulling back and because Dad was now suffering terribly with a stomach ulcer whilst passing a deserted farmhouse, some of his mates found some hens eggs and cooked them on a small fire for Dad to eat. These eggs were a real life saver for Dad and enabled him to carry on. He always told us that in civy street he never had the comradeship and true friendship that he had with his fellows in the army.

Whilst going along a road towards Dunkirk they were attacked by German planes, the pilots had seen them and started spraying them with bullets. Dad jumped into a ditch which had a drainage pip and promptly stuck his head into the pipe leaving his rear-end exposed, he often made us laugh about this, as to what might of happened if a bullet had hit him, luckily on didn't. He also told us about a sergeant they had who would go out at night of whatever shelter they had found and watch the bombing going off all around him. He said to Dad one night come and have a look Jack, Dad was a bit dubious, but the sergeant said "stick with me Jack and you'll be ok,they'll not get me I've been too bad a bugger in my life to die".

On arriving at Dunkirk Dad became a stretcher-bearer as he had been trained in first aid, and I believe he saw some horrifing things, but he would never tell us of them. He was finally picked up by a Guernsey fishing boat (ironic really having married a Guernsey girl) which took him back to England. Unfortunately Dad lost his best friend at Dunkirk, he was a very athletic person, good at all sports but he couldn't swim. During the evacuation they were split Dad had to go to one boat his friend to another, unfortunately his friend was in a boat that a bomb went down the funnel, it sunk and Dad's friend drowned. Dad was discharged after Dunkirk and became a Special Policeman until the end of the war.

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