大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by a volunteer from Age Concern, Dorchester on behalf of Sir Jeremy Grayson, and has been added to the site with his permission. Sir Jeremy fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.

鈥淚 was born in 1933. When I was six years old my cousins fled to America leaving us to occupy a huge house at Angmering in Sussex with a 2-acre garden and two tennis courts. We did well out of it. I was at a school at Great Wallsford and Lyndfield, Haywards Heath, watching doodlebugs going over. We saw them shot down by a Tempest Fighter 鈥� a wonderful sight, these three things flying along, realising one was a doodlebug, seeing it spinning up in the air. Marvellous. We used to collect shrapnel. We were on the 鈥渕ilk run鈥� 鈥� all the bombers came over from Germany to bomb London. There was a bomber flying over, 50 ft above the sea, obviously damaged. All the Home Guards were firing at it. It ditched in the sea.

Because my father had to go off to Africa and then Italy in the Army, where we helped to run the Opera House, San Carlo in Naples, my mother became involved with a captain of a minesweeper and so my parents got divorced. This divorce was my main claim to fame at school. I was taken on board a ship hidden in a kit bag by my future stepfather, Richard, to see his minesweeper, the Saltarella at Falmouth. We used to follow him around wherever he was stationed.

At Weymouth we had a house, 42 Greenhill. Our garden led straight onto the beach. I used to get through the concrete blocks and scaffolding to swim. We often found tins of instant coffee and biscuits. I used to sort out what we could use and take it home. I found a great wodge of papers about the submarine placement and plans for D-Day and Richard burnt them. I went with Richard鈥檚 son to near the old brewery where the Americans were giving away money, brown boxes of D- rations, chewing gum, glucose tablets. The roads were full of troops and LCPs. The troops were always kind to us 鈥� June 1944.鈥�

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.