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Ray told me of two residents, both of who are now deceased but who had great stories to tell:

Wilf was out in the desert, possibly at Ben Ghazi, and guarding a border. There were so few of them that he used to run up and down waving a flag to make the Germans think there were a lot more of them!

George was an electrician and had been called out to fix a problem at the local army camp one night. He explained that he was in a huge hurry as his wife was in labour and he needed to get back to her. He completed the repairs to the electrics but was told that he could not leave under any circumstances and that something top secret was happening. He remembered seeing planes going overhead, Spitfires, Lancasters, and carrying anything they could take, small boats strapped to them. D-Day was happening. He finally left in the morning and was just in time to greet his new baby son.

Ray himself got caught up in a reminder of the war. It was in 1998 and he was living in a house in Chippenham. Due to move the following day, he managed to take some time off work to go home and pack up, only to find that all the streets were cordoned off — an unexploded bomb had been found. He managed to get himself into the house and moved the following day. A little later, he walked across to Castle Combe, some 4 miles away from the area. The bomb was detonated and he felt the ground move as it went off. There was a man in the pub who told them that back in the war he had seen the bomb come down and had run home to tell everyone. No one had believed him and now here it was all those years later. The war is still affecting us today.

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