大象传媒

Story by Mrs DB Suttcliffe
The year would be 1940/41. I was returning to school having had my 'dinner' at home. Cooked by my mother, no school meals in those days.
I had just rounded the corner of Reform Row Elsecar when I heard a plane overhead. Extremely low, so low in fact that I clearly saw the pilot. Leather helmet and just swooping over my head. No sirens had gone so I didn't worry when, all at once, I noticed the Iron Cross on the underside of his wings and knew instinctively that this was a German plane. I was not afraid and just took a pace backwards under the shelter of a high wall which surrounds the Post box.
I was fascinated. All at once one of our Spitfires came rushing up from nowhere and opened fire on this German plane. I remember that it was not at all dramatic as the firing sounded more like firecrackers going off than air combat.
It was all over in a matter of minutes and the two planes raced off over the top of the colliery and out of sight. I remember telling my mother about this when I got home from school in the afternoon and she didn't believe a word I said. Being a fairly imaginative child I did not blame her although I felt crushed that my true story had been ignored.
Imagine my surprise when one of the local papers had the story in. The German plane had been brought down somewhere beyond Wentworth. I well remeber how I felt. Had the German pilot been killed? Was I the last person to see him alive? I know at the time I just felt pity and distaste for war which has lived with me ever since.

Mrs DB Sutcliffe

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