大象传媒

I was 7 years old when the war came to England, 1940.I shall never forget those days, when the skies were blue and the summer was hot. As the summer drew towards autumn the vapour trails grew thicker overhead and there were the occasional wrecked aircraft to be found as we walked home from school, the planes guarded by soldiers with impossibly long
bayonets and tin helmets. We did not realise how serious the war was at that age, it was exciting and we would win of course; there were machine gun bullet casings to be picked up and swopped with marbles or birds eggs, depending on where your interests lay. But we did find out when we went up to the Hogs Back one day, that is the A31 between Guildford and Farnham; we went up there for a nature walk with the class led by Mrs Hook, our teacher. We saw a Hawker Hurricane coming down with a dead engine and whisps of white smoke coming from the engine cowlings, it swept down and slid along the top of a field that ran right beside the road no more than 100 yards away. We saw the pilot climb out and walk towards the road, we ran towards him and I got near enough to see and hear him as he commandeered a car and instructed the driver to take him to RAF ODIHAM........
I caught sight of his face and there was something in his expression that stopped me in my tracks. I suppose I was too young to understand but there was something there in that young mans' face that made me realise that this was not a game, this was something else and very serious. As he was driven away i saw his face,pale and so tired looking; it reminded me of the look that had been on my uncle Franks' face when he came back from Dunkirk. He was in the Artillery and a professional soldier, he turned up on our doorstep smelling of smoke one day his uniform ragged and torn and his boots scuffed and dirty. My cousin Margaret cried and so did Aunt Jean, they were staying with us at that time. Dad put him to bed where he stayed for 36 hours. We listened to the news and i saw the expression on my Dad's face as the Battle of Britain wore on. He was a soldier from the Great War and had joined up at 17 years, he rarely talked about it, but was widely respected by his Home Guard troop.
Dad was in the garden one day, it was later in the war, probably '41; by then the Home Guard had weapons and he kept a Bren Gun in a canvas slip under the bed. Anyway a german bomber came low over the common with a trail of smoke behind it and Dad ran indoors and snatched the bren gun and a magazine and ran outside again. He struggled with the straps as the Heinkel bumbled overhead with his face red with rage and the bomber drew out of range, he never did fire that gun that day. It did not matter because right up in the sky we could see and hear a Spitfire,(we knew all the planes by sight and sound, the Spitfire had a most distinctive whistling sound). That little silver dart slid down the sky and we heard the hard rattling "Bbrrrrrp" sound of it's guns, the Heinkel sort of wobbled a bit and then flumped down about two miles away behind the trees. Dad would not let us go to see it and rode off on his bike while mum phoned the police, i have to smile now as Dad rode off with the Bren over his shoulder still in its canvas slip and swearing very loudly which was most unusual as he never swore in front of us children. I dont know what happened to the German crew or indeed if there were any survivors.
To us children of that age it was an exciting time, now in later life I can understand the look on that sergeant pilots face, and the desperately tired expression on my Uncle Franks face too. Now I know how much we owe those heroic people who, from the lowliest to the very top gave us the freedom we enjoy now so carelessly. They did indeed give up their tomorrows for our todays.

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