大象传媒

Father never went to war in the conventional sense. Osteoporosis or something kept him out of the military. I know he should have had his leg off as a young man but he wouldn't let them and still had it when he died.

He used to tell me stories about the war and how much was truth and how much was "gilding the lily" is impossible to say but he wasn't one for tall tales in my opinion.

I know for a fact that he had a terrible hatred of all things German for many years. From books I have read, the men who actually fought them didn't seem to have the same hatred as those who never. I assume this is something to do with not being able to hit back. I am reliably informed that during one air raid he was running around the roof tops screaming and shaking his fists at the German bombers overhead. A rather silly thing to do in my opinion but I wasn't there and didn't know his frustration. He might have been drunk. The house he was born in was flattened along with many others in the same row, so maybe he was justified in being angry?

I understand he received some kind of certificate for digging a casualty out of a bombed house by tunneling under the debris but I never saw it. He told me of a time that a fighter plane took off from Speke but developed engine problems and had to make a forced landing in Birkenhead docks. According to him a dockside crane just lifted it out of the water but that seems too easy to me?

He did some work at a restaurant once and the owner gave him a cod in part payment. He said that as food was rationed, you were not supposed to have such a thing without getting it through the proper authorities but that seems a bit silly to me. You could in theory catch one and if you did would be stupid to hand it in or whatever? Anyway, according to him, he bumped into a policeman who he knew very well as a friend. "what have you got there?" he said. "It's a cod" was the reply. "and where did you get that" said the policeman. "Well I was standing on the end of New Brighton pier keeping a lookout for U boats and this jumped out of the water into my arms" replied father. "bugger off" said the policeman.

Father reluctantly came to visit me in Germany when I was in the forces. He met a German who was in the paratroops during the war and they got on famously. No point in all that hatred.

Mother had a frightening war. She told me of looking over the Mersey to Liverpool and seeing it ablaze from end to end. She was at one time in the maternity hospital having my elder sister when a landmine dropped. They were made to get under the beds and she told me you could hear it scraping down the roof of the hospital as its parachute became entangled. It didn't explode and was made safe otherwise I wouldn't be typing this today.

They also serve. Heartfelt thanks to all who did.

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