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This story was submitted to the people’s War site by Holly Fuller of Leicestershire Library Services on behalf of Barry Roberts and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site’s terms and conditions.I was born in 1938 and lived in Leicester, we were fortunate to have an Anderson Air Raid Shelter at the bottom of our garden, so when the sirens sounded we could quickly get in the shelter. I can remember American troops driving through Leicester in massive trucks throwing chewing gum to the crowd that gathered. This was the first time I can ever remember seeing a black man. My father, who is 93 now, was in the Royal Engineers 8th Army, known as Montgomeries men or ‘Desert rats’. He went to Italy, Egypt and Syria. I remember him bringing home his desert sunglasses, they had guards on the side to stop the sand driving into your eyes. He wasn’t injured during the war but he did have his eardrums perforated by a field gun.

When my father came home from the war I couldn’t really remember him, he’s been away six or seven years and I was only a baby when he left. On the day he came home, I had been to the cinema with my Mum and my aunt. As we walked home I saw this man in soldiers uniform standing at the top of our road, I instinctively knew it was my Dad. It was hard to get to know him; he was like a stranger. He’s 93 now and when people say they are going on holiday to Italy or somewhere else the war took him to he will often say what a terrible place it is.

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