大象传媒

At The beginning of the war I was 10 years old. I remember digging for victory in the school yard at Scudamore. We were lucky in Hereford as we didn鈥檛 really get many bombs although the sirens went off regularly. One night when we were out by the shelter we heard a German plane flying over to look for Rotherwas. He dropped one bomb and it came down with a wining sound and then a thump. There was no explosion and no damage. It was a dud.
As I grew up it was wonderful to be in Hereford since there were many camps around the city filled with handsome young airmen. There were regular dances in hangars and NAAFI rooms with big band sound and some famous names like Eric Delaney the drummer from Joe Loss鈥檚 band when Anne Shelton was singing.
I remember one night when I was out walking with my mother that there were a lot of our planes circling round overhead. When they had all mustered they flew off together and later we realised that we had witnessed the start of D Day.
I eventually got a job as telephonist with the GPO and worked around all the village exchanges. Sometimes we had a bit of fun and rang the army camp and then put them through to the Air base and each thought the other had rung! We only did this when it was quiet!
When the Polish soldiers came we learnt to say Press button B and Press button A in Polish but that was all we could manage.
On VE day I was in Hereford with loads of friends to join in the celebration. My Dad was in the victory parade with the Home Guard. He had been awarded the DCM in the First War and I helped to polish his medals, which he wore with pride.

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