- Contributed byÌý
- cambsaction
- People in story:Ìý
- Magnus Kelday Smith
- Location of story:Ìý
- North Hertfordshire
- Background to story:Ìý
- Army
- Article ID:Ìý
- A7920551
- Contributed on:Ìý
- 20 December 2005
Bridget Hunter's grandfather Magnus Kelday Smith, who was in the British Secret Army.
When the war first started, my grandfather was recruited into the Service Aucvillary — a secret army or resistance. People were recruited and trained to gather and pass information in secret. One woul be a hit man, sniper. My grandfather was a sniper. It was his job to pick out the enemy and shoot them.
If there was invasion his first job would be to shoot the chief of police, because he knew their identities.
My grandfather was a farmer, with a rifle — hence, he would be the hit man.
They had headquarets underground, it was deep in the woods in brambles. As a child I remember that as I was going to bed, he was getting dressed into his warm clothes. He would wrap his rifle in sacking, and tie it to the crossbow of his bike, and go out.
When I asked where he was going, he said rabbiting.
In the 60’s, we went out for a drive, ad he led us to some woods. We entered the woods, with him guiding the way by looking at the trees. We came near a bramble patch, and he told my husband to move the bushes and undergrowth, which exposed a stome slab. It was lifted, there was a tunnel with rungs/steps down into it. My husband went down and found a room. All my grandfather would say is “oh, it’s still here. That’s where I spent the war.â€
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