大象传媒

Stanley Robinson was the youngest son of Alfred and Nellie Robinson. His family were Market Gardeners who had traded from Haughton since the 1840's. Market gardener's were classed as a reserved occupation during the war 1939 - 45. However at some point during the war the youngest were called up. This must have been a stressful time for my father, being a market gardener with a love for the land and nature it ws not in his blood to fight. I recall him saying he was terrified to death of the sergeant major in his first weeks when he enlisted at Bonhill with the Territorial Army on the 12th March 1942. He was attached to a Glasgow Territorial Unit and became wary of some of his fellow soldiers who over indulged when off duty. Apparently he passed his Driver/Mechanic test in June 1943. During his time off from training he met my mother Connie Robinson at a dance in the Durham area. I believe she was a nursery auxilary who was at the time working at Dryburn Hospital looking after wounded soldiers. "The last walz" became their theme tune for that was the first time they danced together. They struck up a relationship that later ended in marriage after the war.

I can remember my father saying he trained at "Otterburn" somewhere in Northumberland but his main memories were of the invasion of France. Apparently he went across on the 9th Day after the invasion of France. He was driving a lorry pulling a 45 pounder gun and I suppose he main roll was the continuation of supplies to the front line. Entering France was daunting he said for you had to pass the remains of the original fight, in the pill boxes guarding the roads etc were the blackening faces of dead Germans who had been garotted with a piece of wire. He spoke of being terrified when the Germans tried to strafe the columns of lorries from the air. He would stop their vehicle, take the door off its hinges and jump in to the nearest ditch and put the door over his head and hope he would not be hit. He later witmessed the Arnham drop. This he said was really spectacular for the sky was filled with parachutes all over. I can recall he drove through Holland receiving the jubilation of the people who covered them with flowers and we still have a photograph of the friend he made in Holland where he stayed at Goirle, Kloosterstraat.

On the back of the photgraph og G.H. Witters the wrting says 'Many greetings to our liberators especially Stan of Holland'. Stanley also witnessed the devastation of the 'Falise Gap' he recalled that the numbers of dead horses were tremendous for the Germans had used them when they could find no other. My father said little about his life during the was for most men wanted to forget what they saw.
However one day an old soldier friend visited my father when he was working in the greenhouses. We all stopped work to chat and he seemed to regard my father as a hero which my brother and I found amusing at the time. The old soldier told us what really happened during the war. Apparently the Americans pulled back at a crucial time and left the British troops to fight alone leaving them exposed and without supplies. According to this man it was my father and others who used to risk moving forward on a night to retrieve any food or ammunition available to keep the British troops fed until supplies could be brought up to the front. I thought about this and realised why my father had never spoke about this? Being a decent man he would not have wished to brag about robbing the dead. But those supplies of blackened German bread kept soldiers fighting for another day. Stan drove on up through Belgium and on through Germany. He could of witnessed the horrid concentration camps but he refused I suspect it would have been too much for him. On he drove through the nights with only the red tail light of a lorry in front of him to guide him. He must have been tired for one night they got lost but he eventually found the regiment again. He stayed in Germany for a while until he joined the 130th Field Regiment Royal Artillery stationed in India in 1945. There he trained with others building themselves up for the eventual battle for Japan. However the Atom bomb was dropped and that decided his fate. He was demobbed onthe 25th Pril 1946. He later married Constance Mary Raine and they had two children, John Stanley Robinson and Jean Robinson (Kirkland)

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