大象传媒

My Dad鈥檚 name was Oswald Irwin Collier and he married Zoe Richardson, November 4th, 1939 at St. Paul鈥檚 Church, Burton and it was the last wedding there until after the war.

My Dad was called into the Army on January 18th 1940 (Royal Engineers.) He was sent for his training to Western on Trent. Training included eight to ten mile walks, under canvas, laying sidings for a Railway Company and clearing snow. He remarked that once the soldiers were given bread and what was called rare meat and they threw it away.

Once at eight in the morning a German plane came over head and hit one of the Public Houses killing English soldiers.

Before he was moved to France he went to Scotland, training with a dock company in Stranraer, ready for the invasion. My mother and myself, I was only a baby, went to Cairn Ryan to stay on a small holding with some friends my father had made. That was just for a while as they said the air-raid sirens would make me scream. I would love to visit now I am older and find the place we stayed at.

Then Dad headed for France and the boat that took him over there was a Canadian one. He said there were so many soldiers on the boat and it was so high in the sea he did not know how they survived, they were heading for Mulbera Harbour (Mulberry.) They dug in, in an apple orchard and found they had come alive with fleas. There was shrapnel falling all around them.

As he remarked when they went into the war in Weston on Trent, they were given 1914 equipment, tin plate, and basin to drink from. Within a month it was rusty. Army pay was seven shillings a week for your wife and seven shillings for you.

They knew plenty of things about snow moving as they had done this all before in England. He told me about the army camp of the USA in Scotland and the Flying boats he used to see coming in. That was in Cairn Ryan. He also knew who would come to entertain the troops such as Janet Brown and her husband Peter Butterworth, who he thought funny.

It was a twelve hour journey from Scotland to Burton on Trent by train.

Part Two of this story can be found at bbc.co.uk/dna/ww2/a4667466

This story was submitted to the site by Alison Tebbutt, Derby CSV Action Desk, on behalf of Pat Smith. The author has given her permission and fully understands the site's terms and conditions

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