大象传媒

This story has been submitted to the People's War website by a volunteer from the Lincon CSV Action Desk on behalf of Margaret Prior and has been added with her permission. Mrs Prior fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

My father moved us from Reigate, in 1940, to be away from the bombing that they feared was coming. He was a Special Constable and one day, at the beginning of the war, he was supposed to be on duty directing traffic. But he had changed his duty with someone else. That man was on point duty in (I think) Redhill when a German plane flew down the main street and fired at the Special and killed him. My father felt we would be safer in the country and he moved us to Buckinghamshire.

We did have doodle bugs fly over us towards the end of the war. One landed and blew up in a nearby field. Nowhere was safe.

My Father had been a Captain in WW1 and he was wounded at the battle of Messines Ridge (and awarded the Military Cross for helping wounded and lost confused soldiers). He volunteered for war service on the condition that he was not expected to march. He felt his WW1 experience would be valuable. It probably would have been, but the army in their wisdom put him on the barrack square to train new recruits to march and he was invalided out. He and Mother were very bitter about it and he sat out the war contributing little.

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