大象传媒

A small girl meets a German P.o.W.
My uncle was in a reserved occupation as an agricultural contractor. I remember him complaining about 'WARAG' which directed operations and instructed which areas were to be ploughed up, some for the first time ever. He had a workshop for repairing machinery at Northampton turn in Bromham, where Budgens is now. My aunt had a car and petrol and used to fetch my mother and me and drive us over from Kempston to Bromham. I half expected my father, who was in the RAF, to turn up at the workshop since my cousin's father was often to be found there.

My uncle was allocated a German p.o.w., from the camp at Turvey, to help on the farms. One winter Sunday we were at my uncle and aunts and she asked if we wanted to meet "Vanna". As a small child I was not sure this would be a good idea, Germans were the fierce enemy after all. Apparently Vanna lived in the garage and I was very apprehensive when, after putting our coats on against the freezing cold, we went outside and my uncle opened the garage door. I expected Vanna to bound out and probably, or at least try, to escape. Instead, here was a small man, sitting huddled in an army coat, over a paraffin stove. He looked up and half smiled, almost apologetically. I think he and my uncle exhanged a few words, and we left him there in the cold. My view of him changed and I asked why he wasn't in the house, given the weather. "Oh no, we couldn't do that", said my aunt, shocked, and some of my fear returned. Perhaps he'd kill them as they slept?

Vanna made my a full-size wooden rocking horse, painted dapple grey, handles like an extended bit protruding from its mouth and I rocked and rocked on this horse. The best toy I had and still loved it even when I'd gone flying over its head and hit the wall.

In later years Vanna (Werner Heister from Duren, near Cologne) would stay with my uncle and aunt (no longer in the garage)and they would go and stay with Werner in Germany turn and turn about.

Today, I learnt from my cousin that "Vanna" was only 17 when he came to England. I didn't know at the time there were rules against fraternisation.

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