大象传媒

I was the youngest of a family of six people and we moved to Woking in Surrey in 1938. Our house was about a quarter of a mile from the main London to Portsmouth rail line, and just outside of Woking on the Guildford side was an extremely large rail freight shunting yard, which was always a hive of activity especially in wartime.
This yard could be seen from a path which ran between two roads and was a frequently used access to all the allotments that people cultivated on the adjacent land.
Early in 1944, the freight yard was emptied and filled with passenger carriages - mainly Third Class - to be filled with soldiers who used them to live in. Of course we were told not to talk to or visit these troops - but being children we did and found that they were all Canadians. This was quite a coincidence as our Mother had relatives in Canada. We got to know them quite well and used to take them food, particularly homemade Apple pies , as their food rations were a bit limited.In return, they gave us chewing gum which was almost unobtainable. One soldier in particular I got to know was named "Howard". He was a Dispatch Rider and had the knickname of :
" Crash Right Through Howard ". We had got used to visiting these troops almost every day, as it was on the way to school, until that day at the beginning of June when on going to see our troops, we found that the whole yard was EMPTY. There was not a carriage to be seen. They must have all gone away overnight. We were very disappointed as no one had said goodbye and went home to tell our Mother what we had found. She made no comment but when she told our Father on his return home in the evening, he looked as though he knew what the reason was.
Of course, it was the start of the troop movement down to the South Coast prior to the D Day invasion.
We never found out what happened to our friend " Crash Right Through Howard ". We can only hope that he survived.

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