大象传媒

(This story was submitted to the People's War site by a volunteer from Three Counties Action at Bedford VE/VJ's commemorations on behalf of Dorothy Smith and has been added to the site with her permission. Mrs Smith fully understands the site's terms and conditions).

I was a small child of around 3 or 4 years old, and near to where I was staying with my mother in a small village in North Yorkshire was a large house called the 鈥淲hite House鈥�, but really it was a large farm. Nearby was an English army unit who were doing target practice, one of the soldiers was not such a good shot as one of his bullets landed in a haystack near the large house, setting the stack alight. The soldiers came to help put the fire out but not before we had put potatoes in the embers to cook and later enjoy.

Where we live in Yorkshire I can remember the people we stayed with had rolls of foil or some kind of metal with sharp edges that was used as Christmas decorations. The bits of metal were dropped from the planes I think to play havoc with the Germans listening in, but to tell you the truth I don鈥檛 really know what it was.

I also remember on a return trip to London (where we lived for a time both before and after the war) being given my first piece of chocolate from a returning solider, but first I had to get my mothers say so as we were taught not to take sweets from strangers.

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