大象传媒

This story has been submitted to the People's War web site by Jan Moore for Kent Libraries and Archives and Canterbury City Council Museums on behalf of Douglas E Packman and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

It was a nice fine day in the summer of 1940; I was paying a visit to my grandparents at Bysing Wood, near Faversham.
My grandmother and I had been into the orchard to pick blackberries and Bramley apples, in order for her to make a pudding. I was fifteen years of age & she knew that I always enjoyed her cooking!
During the rest of the morning, I had been helping my grandfather in the orchard; attending to the pigs and chickens, collecting firewood, occasionally breaking off from our chores to watch the air battles going on, high above our heads. The planes were just dots in the sky, their vapour trails showing up well in the bright sky.
Grandmother called me in for the mid-day meal (dinner). We had finished the first course and she was just serving up her delicious pudding with hot creamy custard, when there was an almighty crash just outside the back door. I, of course, wanted to immediately investigate, but a very stern look from grandmother warned me to stay seated and finish my meal. This of course I did, but I seem to remember eating in great haste!
As I opened the back door, there in front of me stood the canopy and windscreen from the cockpit of a German ME109 fighter. I was very excited, but to my amazement my grandparents were not at all interested and told me to put it out in the orchard. I did as I was told and dumped it in the loft, above the old stable. For all I know, it could still be there. When I returned to the house, both of them were having a nap!
A few years later, at the age of nineteen, I was seeing other ME109's, several miles above the skies of Europe, but that's another story!

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.