大象传媒

As an 18 year old living in Twickenhan, West London, when the war started, I was working as an apprentice printer. This was a reserved occupation, but in 1941 I decided to join up.

After initial training at Canterbury, I was assigned to the 44th Royal Tank Regiment based at Ecclefechan, near Lockerbie in the Scottish Borders. I married the following year, hitch-hiking all the way home with my friend from my base who was to be my best man. During the reception after the wedding, two military police "Red Caps" appeared. I had been recalled back to camp as the regiment was off to North Africa. I never saw my bride again for almost three years. My honeymoon was spent on a boat bound for the Mediterranean, not with my wife, but with my best man!

I didn't much like Italy - wet and muddy most of the time I was there. Up to my thighs in red mud. We heard that a new regiment was being formed. Nine of us volunteered and eight were accepted. We found ourselves in the 6th Airborne Division, part of the 21st Paratroopers. After being accepted we went home, little knowing that we were to go straight back to Italy for training. Whilst the Americans who jumped by parachute had a reserve chute, we didn't. They also got paid more than us which led to some friction between us. Their discipline wasn't as good as ours either.

D-Day was originally set for 3rd June. I, along with 30 others, jumped on that day. We landed in Normandy, some of us on the roof of an hotel. The French underground told us that because of the poor weather, D-Day had been put back a few days. We had to sit in the cellar of a school eating apples or whatever the locals could give us. There was no sign of any Germans until the 6th June, when things started to get hairy.

Trained as a sniper, I was put back into the 44th Royal Tank Regiment as a spotter on HQ tanks. We were brought back home to prepare for Arnhem.

Holland was very flat and the land was a mire. You couldn't put a tank on the fields as they would sink. It was chaos and badly planned; only one tank got to Arnhem bridge.
Two thirds of allied troops were either killed or captured.

I stayed in the army for a couple of years after the war, then joined the circus. Working for Bertrum Mills and the Circus van Beaver in Holland, I travelled widely. I did a balancing act with chairs and ladders. Also I became a clown, known by the name of "Hobo".

This was rather a precarious existence, so when my children were born I went back to the printing trade, working for Twentieth Century Press. After retirement, I 've become a qualified aromotherapist.

I've returned to Arnhem a number of times to see the memorial and graves of fallen comrades. It's nice that schoolchildren in Holland tend the graves and remember the price paid by those who died.

Long after the war I was standing in a queue at the London Zoo. I looked at the man in front, I could only see his neck but I recognised him. He was the one in front of me when we jumped at Arnhem. I couldn't believe it!

(PK)

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