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This story was told to me by my mother as I was a baby at the time. However, I was one of the principal characters.

During the war, we lived in Axwell Park in Blaydon. Nearby Axwell Hall housed German prisoners of war. Roughly equidistant between our house and Axwell Hall was a small wooden shop - the sort known as a general dealers which sold all sorts of goods. Each week the POWs were escorted here by two wardens to buy their cigarettes and tobacco. They must have looked forward to the brief outing, but the local people were very wary of them and all sorts of rumours abounded.

One fine afternoon, my mother was taking my three year old sister and me for a walk. I was being carried and my sister trotted alongside. On the other side of the road from where the shop used to be is an open grassy area with bushes, small trees and a large pond. As we ambled along my mother became aware that the weekly crocodile of POWs was coming towards us. Feeling uneasy, she moved further onto the grass so that they could go past. One prisoner seemed to be watching us and her unease grew, but she told herself not to be silly. After all, there were wardens with them. The man disappeared form sight briefly as they marched past a clump of bushes but when he emerged, he stopped dead staring directly at us.

My mother froze.

Seeing what was happening, one of the wardens spoke to the man and as the other took the prisoners across the road to the shop, he approached us. He reassured my mother telling her there was nothing to worry about. The prisoner had his own blonde, curly haired baby at home in Germany. We were roughly the same age and he had been struck by the similarity and was unable to keep his eyes off me. My mother immediately felt sorry for him and accompanied the warden over the road so that the prisoner could get a closer look at me. He was allowed to hold me and he muttered endearments in German while tears ran down his face.

Not an enemy monster after all — simply a father missing his baby daughter.

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