大象传媒

My father was British and my mother Belgian, so during those years (1935-1940) they had been travelling back and forth between England and Belgium. For some unknown reason, the declaration of war seemed to come as a surprise, and being in Belgium at the time, they had to make a dash to leave Belgium before the German invasion. That 芦 dash 禄 is itself, quite a story. Anyhow, it ended in Boulogne, where we were able to board the HMS Victorious and later reach England safely. During the crossing, we were attacked by several Stuckas and I do remember seeing at least one of them go to the water. Of course, as soon as my presence was discovered on the deck, as a little boy I was wisked down out of sight immediately. But nevertheless, I had seen the planes attack, I had seen all the gunner鈥檚 response and all that. It was terrific ! Arriving in England and once again for some unknown reason, we lived in Watford although we did have a house near Hereford. However, it was during our stay in Watford that I saw London burning. During the night the sky was red and aflame. One could have read the newspaper in the garden, so strong was the light from the burning sky. We all came out from the bomb shelters to see the sky. I remember the lady next door say 禄That鈥檚 London burning ? Impossible, it is just a late sunset 禄 and she went back to her bed. It is also during one of these nights that I saw what I would call today 芦 an autogyre 禄. It was a small aircraft with a normal propeller in front but also a much larger propeller on some sort of tower on its back, like an helicopter. It had landed in one of the gardens because it had a mechanical problem. During a visit to London, I also remember being ushed to the Undergroung with many other people because of a German air-raid. We had received biscuits and hot sweet tea, but it only happened once. After all these adventures, we went to live in Hereford, and I never saw anything military any more, apart German and Italian PW who came to work on the farm. And then one day, one morning, the chimes of all the bells in the country were heard. It was the end of the war.

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