大象传媒

My mothers family are from Hull, a large seaport in East-yorkshire. During the secondww the city was heavily bombed night after night. My mother and Grandmother related many harrowing stories of those days,emerging from shelters to find area's devestated by the heavy bombing,piles of rubble every where, and the shock and heartache of learning family, friends, and neighbours were badly injured or had been killed. As a family gran and 4 children were bombed out of their home 3times during the war years. My granddad served in the Royal Engineers, and during the early war years was in Iraq,sadly in 1942 he died in Basra, where he is buried to this day. So gran left with the children the youngest was 14yrs had to carry on. She did allsorts of menial work to survive and keep the family together, communities of the time pulled together helping each other out, a great comfort to know someone was always there during those difficult times. During 1943 my mother aged 19 joined the land army and was sent to Berkshire, around the Newbury area to work the farms, tiring work but all vital for the war effort. While there she met fell in love and married my father, a soldier with the oxfordshire&Buckinghamshire light infantry 2nd airborne. He was part of a highly trained glider division the first in to any conflict. D-Day saw him in Holland, the bridge at Nijemegan. After a fierce battle it was eventually securred. The film A Bridge To Far told the story. My parents married in October 1944 and my mother became pregnent with me. I think it was the 23rd of March 1945 the final push into Germany to cross the Rhine, my fathers division came down in their gliders through a heavy smoke screen,intended to shield the ground troops giving them cover. Unfortunatley it proved fatal for my fathers glider crashing into a farmhouse,the only building for miles around apparently. Everyone on board was killed. My father had been a soldier since the age of 17 and joined the army in 1930, he served his country through all the major battles of the war. He died 6wks before the end, I was born 4months later. I have always been proud of him, and the photos I have I cherish. As a young girl of 15yrs, I went to Germany, with my Mother, stepfather, and brother to see his grave. He is buried in the Reichwald on the Holland German border, a beautiful and well kept cemetery. I have promised myself one day I will visit again.

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