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This story was submitted to the People's War site by Roasalind (Rose) Parrish ( volunteer) of the CSV Action Desk at ´óÏó´«Ã½ Hereford and Worcester on behalf of D.P. Sansome (author) and has been added to the site with his/her permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

I was born in 1925 and therefore was aged 12 when the war began, I attended at an elementary school until I was 14 years old.

1.
The ‘Yanks’ Arrived.

The GI’s arrived in Britain in 1942; at some stage a company of American soldiers set up camp in the grounds of Westwood Park, between Ombersley and Droitwich. The other local lads and I quickly discovered that they had more money to spend than we did, in fact we had very little in those days. Much to our annoyance, those Yanks soon took all our girlfriends. The saying in those days was …

There’s only three things wrong with the Yanks,
v They’re over paid
v Over sexed
v And over here!

One evening we were at the Lenchford Hotel and the Yanks had bought a big tray of very expensive sandwiches. The tray was on a table near to where I was sitting, so when the music started and they left their seats to dance with the girls I took the tray outside and handed it to the local lads who had jumped over the veranda onto the car park. I joined them there and we ate all the sandwiches with relish!

Give and Take.

The Yanks let it be known that needed bicycles so that they could get to Ombersley and Holt Fleet easily. There were plenty of pretty girls of the right age around so they were keen to visit the pubs to meet them. My friends and I gathered up all the old push bikes we could lay our hands on, we were all set to make a bit of cash. We had no trouble selling them to the Yanks, and they were happy too. We told them they would have no problem with selling the bikes on when they were ready to leave.

Not everyone was happy however, I had my eye on a lovely girl named Pauline, she was the apple of my eye and I lost her to a well off Yank. Several lovely village girls fell in love with American soldiers and eventually became G.I. brides.
There where

plenty of moans and groans amongst the lads, especially those who felt they had lost girls they would otherwise have had a chance with.

We had the last laugh! When the Yanks knew they were about to move on, they tried hard to sell the bikes, and couldn’t find any customers. They were so annoyed, they destroyed them all, crushing them beneath the wheels of their heavy army lorries.

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