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I remember my father telling me about some of his experiences. He never went to war because he worked on a farm and as such was deemed a vital part of the war effort, so he just helped as much as he could by joining the Home Guard and becoming a dispatch rider. He was living in Hunton near Maidstone at the time.

He told me that every Sunday he would be told to carry out a practice run on his motorbike with a fake message, just to check that he was still up to scratch and everything would run smoothly in the event of an actual important message being relayed. One day someone else in the Home Guard had to rush to tell him to stop before he delivered an actual message, because someone, they weren’t sure who, had placed a trip wire right on his route. They dismantled it so that he could carry the message on, and he was lucky it had been spotted. If it had been there and he’d come along on his motorbike it would have taken his head clean off, and I wouldn’t be here today!

He also recounted to me another incident where he actually saw a German pilot who had bailed out and parachuted down into Hunton being arrested and taken away at gunpoint. He remembers that there was a bit of a commotion because not only did the guards have the pilot to keep under control, but also a rather energised local man! I expect the pilot didn’t know who to fear more, the armed guards who had come to take him away or the angry civilian trying to get at him!

This story has been submitted to the website by James Barton on behalf of Frederick Guess. Their daughter Linda Gorman has given permission for their story to appear on the website and they fully understand the terms and conditions of the website

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