大象传媒

On one occasion we all marched off, from school at Bewdley, to the American Army camp which was at Burlish, because they opened up the camp for the schoolchildren, mainly at Stourport where they all went and they had a party and sweets and goodness knows what. Then a rumour got round the Bewdley schools that they were doing the same thing for the children at Bewdley. So even the teachers heard about this, so off we marched, and there must have been about three hundred of us from Wyre Hill, from Lax Lane, from Wribbenhall School, marched all the way up from Bewdley to Burlish Camp, over the railway tracks to where the guardhouse was. There was this road full of kids, somebody had put the word round that this was on, but it wasn鈥檛. So we were done out of some sweeties, but they wouldn鈥檛 bend at all, which you can hardly blame them. There were all these kids; it was farcical, farcical.

It must have been about 1944, something like that we were marched out from school and over to Bewdley to see General de Gaulle take the salute where the Free French march past and go to Ribbesford. That was an awe-inspiring sight that was. But as boys you didn鈥檛 really take it all in.

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by Joe Taylor for the CSV Action Desk at 大象传媒 Hereford and Worcester on behalf of Ben Jenkins and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.

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