大象传媒

My name is Henry Edwin Pugh (known as Eddie). Here is my story as told to my youngest daughter Liz.

On June 6th 1944 I was in a place called Pately Bridge, West Riding, Yorkshire. I was at that time 13 years of age and an orphan in the Sailor鈥檚 Orphan鈥檚 Home, which was in Hull. My brother Lorenzo was in the Royal Medical Corp on a hospital ship, and my brother Arthur (Sonny) was in the Airborne Division and was wounded during the war.

We had been evacuated in 1940 after the orphan's home had been showered with incendiary bombs.

At Pately Bridge we used to visit Grantley Hall, where Canadian casualties where on convalescence. A lot of lads, who had left the home, had gone on to join the Navy and other Armed Forces. Some of them had been on the beaches; others had been on Naval Bombardment duties. We used to march through the village and the surrounding area in our Sailor鈥檚 uniforms, led by our own brass band, with the Superintendent leading in his officer鈥檚 uniform. Tragically, the bandleader died during our period there.

We lived in Castlestead House, which was built on the site of an old Roman villa with a relief of Caesar Augustus on one wall.

I can still remember the old double wing aircraft that used to go over the valleys. If the enemy bombers had broken the dam on the Gouthwaite Reservoir, it would have come through our valley via the river Nidd and flooded the countryside as far as Harrogate and beyond.

I left the orphanage just after the Japanese surrender. When the surrender came, the bells on top of Castlestead House rang out loud and clear.

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