大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War website by Marie on behalf of Audrey and has been added to the site with her permission. Audrey fully understand the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.

Later on in the war - summer 1944 - I had been released from nursing duties as my mother was seriously ill and needed me at home to look after her. We were living on a farm in Essex at the time. Most of the land had been taken over by a neighbouring farmer as the owner of our farm was now in the RAF. But we kept goats, chickens and ducks - and had a large garden and orchard so we grew fruit and vegetables with the help of our old gardener Mitsom - and we sold produce and eggs from the back door.

As I remember, at that time, nearly everyone in my family was ill - my brother David, home on leave from the Navy, had been wounded and had shrapnel in his leg and had to make daily trips to the local hospital to have it dressed. I was sorry to give up nursing - although I did return to it later - but there was plenty to do at home. I looked after my mother and everyone, milked the goats, collected the eggs etc and managed to work part time on the farm. I helped milk the cows and do various jobs which I enjoyed. There was a group of German prisoners working in the fields. I never had anything to do with them and only saw them from a distance.

Then one day a storm broke and it pelted with heavy rain - thunder and lightening as well - and I rushed into a big barn for shelter. A few minutes later I was joined by the POWs. There were 5 of them, four young lads and a sergeant - all the youngsters came up to me and started showing me snapshots of their families. I was surprised to see how very young they were, and how handsome. There was Fritz from Hanover - he was 17 and very blonde with a photo of himself with 2 beautiful sisters and his parents standing in the garden of their lovely home. Then there was Franz from Hamburg, also blonde and blue eyed, Hans from Bavaria - only just turned 16 with a round face and as brown as a nut and always smiling. He had a really cheeky grin and was their clown! And then Nils who was 21. He had wanted to study at Berlin university and could speak pretty good English. He was dark haired and very handsome, if a bit aloof - he just stood back and looked on with his dark eyes inscrutable. Standing, looking out at the weather from the barn door, was Bruno, the sergeant in charge of these boys. He didn鈥檛 want to work on the land and would have been about 40 years old. He was rather surly and glowered at everyone but he kept an eye on these boys and took them a drink of water from time to time. I didn鈥檛 blame him for his attitude - after all he was a Sergeant in Hitler鈥檚 army and had probably been trained to hate the British. But I felt the youngsters were glad to be out of the Army and seemed happy enough to be working in the English countryside.

When the rain had stopped the farmer - Mr McGregor - came into the barn and said brusquely 鈥渢hat鈥檚 enough of all this fraternising! Time to get on with the work!鈥� But it had been an experience for me - a real eye opener. I did see them all later when we were planting potatoes. Some village girls came along to help and the Germans were good hard workers who seemed to enjoy the work. I heard that Fritz had hurt his hand and had to go to hospital - I hope he was all right, he was such a lovely looking boy. I hope that they were all well treated and that their lives went well for them in the future and I thought to myself, were these then the faces of the enemy?

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