大象传媒

I have set the location of this episode in my previous account (how my Dad breached the Geneva Convention).
After the immediate danger of a German invasion had passed, numerous groups of commonwealth soldiers arrived in England in order to build up a large force to return to Europe to counter Attack and wipe out the humiliating retreat from Dunkirk.My Dad's Boss Cpt Gregson was contacted by the war office to provide accomodation for the Officers and men of a company of New Zealand soldiers and their
Bren Gun Carriers.
I awoke one morning to the sound of engines and lots of clattering and clanking, I looked out of my bedroom window which was at the front of our house overlooking the quadrangle at Ends Place,to see anumber of Bren gun carriers, a sort of small open topped tank like vehicle with caterpillar tracks and Bren guns mounted on them. I watched as the troops formed ranks in the quadrangle and were then billeted in the buildings on the three sides of the yard others were marched down to the Granary by the footpath that led eventually to slaughter bridge. The officers
stayed at the Main house and the non-comissioned officerswere billeted in our houses. Eventually I went downstairs to meet
our house guests(not that my parents had any choice)I was very excited to meet these men who spoke with a very strange accent. I had blond very curly hair and when my mum introduced me the men immediatly called me 'Snowy' from then on I spent all my time with them and my wire haired terrier 'Trixie' I also had a small tin pedal car and I had a variety of wooden guns
made for me by Mr Foran and Mr Padwick, so my dad fixed them onto my pedal car which became my Bren Carrier. as time went by I became the troops mascot and one night my mum and Dad were playing cards in the front room while I listened to the Wireless I heard the regular bulletins of the war, and in my room I had a world map on which I stuck flag pins showing the german occupied teratories and the allies positions.
All the men were very kind to me and spoiled me with gifts of chocolates and sweets (no rationing for me).
Now back to the card game as the adults played cards they sat around the table on big boxes which the soldiers had brought into the house, these boxes were in every room upstairs and down, I found out later that they contained live ammunition, bullets for the brenguns, 303 bullets for the rifles and a large number of grenades.
and under the kitchen table dad had his collection of home made Phosphorous boms
consisting of water and phosphorous in empty wine bottles. That night there was an air raid a frequent occurence, at first we used to run out to the back field to our air raid shelter which had been dug out by my dad and the neighbours, it was a deep hole roofed with Railway sleepers covered by the soil from the digging and covered with the turf, inside there were bunks made of timber and wire netting covered with straw and sacking. it was very damp and very smelly.we gave up going down there, and the only precaution was I was put in the cupboard under the stairs with a mans tin helmet given to me by one of the troops.Back again to the cards the game carried on until the distinctive rumble of the german planes got nearer and nearer then we heard the whistle of bombs falling several at the rear of the houses and then I was shoved under the stairs with my mum. and the next string fell, crump crump and everyone held their breath for the next one
feeling it would land on us or very near to us however the next crump came at the front of the house and others gradually landed further and further away.
the next morning I was taken in the bren gun carrier to look at the craters they were
enormous waterlogged holes in the fields surrounded by mountains of earth thrown up by the blast. I know I was only a small boy
but the images are still in my minds eye some 65 years later. As I grew older I often thought what a precarious position we were in, if any bomb had dropped any closer
the explosives my parents and the soldiers were sat on could have been activated and I think we would have been blown into Orbit.

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