大象传媒

My uncle Algernon James Green was in Burma with the Chindits. He was posted missing when they pulled out, because he had fallen down a cliff and fractured his skull. He didn't realise that they had gone, and he lived in a foxhole for six months, eating off the land - they had been trained to survive in the jungle. It took him six months to heal, and hid all the time as he had been trained to do.

One day, towards the end of 1945, or 1946, this man, carrying a canary as a present, knocked on the door, and I went to answer it. He said, 'I'm Uncle Jim, who are you?' I said, 'I'm Sheila'. 'Not Joan's daughter?'. I said, 'You'ld better stay there', and I went round the back to see my Nan. I told her about the man. She came in at the back door, by which time the man had walked in. She took one look at him, screamed and fainted. She thought she had seen a ghost.

When she came round I had to go and find Grandad. I was spluttering 'Uncle Jim's home, Nan says you've got to come home', and I've never seen him in such a state. He was a big man.very brusque, but he was rivetted!

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