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One afternoon we were playing at the rear of the house when we saw German and English fighters involved in a dog fight over the marshes. The planes swooped all over the sky and we heard the continual crackle of the gunfire. As far as we could see at least three German planes were shot down but two English Hurricanes or Spitfires. That evening we listened to the news on the wireless ( not radio) and heard that there had been an air battle over the east coast during which several German aircraft had been destroyed but that the announcer was pleased to report that NO English planes had been lost. It was not only the Germans who used propaganda.

One afternoon I saw a strange aircraft diving across marshes. It was not like anything that I had previously seen. It had twin fuselages. I rushed indoors and told Dad that I had seen two aeroplanes that had had an accident and were stuck together. It would appear that what I had seen was a prototype of the twin fuselage Lockheed Lightening. Nobody had told me.

As there was very limited petrol, buses were rare. Therefore we had to walk three miles into the village to go to school each day. There equipment was very limited. We had to write on all the lines in our text books and although we had to have a margin, we wrote up the margin. Later when I was sent to Melton school some six miles away. I had to catch a lorry each morning at 07.15 and return on it at 16.30. I was not particularly happy at school, as it was an Elementary School with pupils up to the age of fourteen. These older pupils ruled the school and had all the decent monitoring jobs, such as making up the ink in the morning and pouring it into the inkwells. Pen nibs were very scarce and when I was given a fountain pen ( a Mentmore) I was considered to be very up-market. When we heard the air raid siren we had to crawl under our desks until the All Clear sounded. This meant that lessons were very often disjointed and since we had a rather weak teacher, also meant that little work was ever achieved. Because of all the upheaval of the war I attended six primary schools and learnt three different styles of writing, was ‘ cured’ of my ‘left-handedness’ by a very old and outdated headmaster who should have retired and developed a horrendous stutter.

‘This story was submitted to the Peoples war site by Rod Aldwinckle of the CSV Action Desk on behalf of Jim Ellis civilian and has been added to the site with his permission.. The author fully understands the sites terms and conditions’.

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