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This story was submitted to the People's War website by Jacky Hayward of Hastings Community Learning Centre for ´óÏó´«Ã½ SCR on behalf of Mr David Harrison and has been added to the site with his permission. Mr Harrison fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

I was born in 1934 so was only young but I had three brothers who were in the services, Harold my eldest brother was in the Hampshire Regiment, Jack was in the Royal Engineers and Tom was in the Service Corp, they were all posted to various theatres of war.
In 1944 by chance they all met up on 12 August which was Tom’s birthday just south of Paris, it was a marshalling point for the next push into Paris, Jack was directing the traffic, Tom was doing dispatch riding and Harold was a captain in charge of a tank regiment At the same time Harold and Tom passed Jack who directed them to pull over, he was relieved and off they went for a pint. It must have been a chance in a million that they should all be in the same place at the same time.

At this time I was about nine years old living in Brockham Green, Surrey when a doodle bug came over at night and crashed into Box Hill igniting all the fir trees on the hill. Another time a reconnaissance plane came over when myself and three friends were playing in a nearby field when the pilot drew back the plane canopy and started firing on us with a hand pistol, luckily he missed.

My two sisters Chris and Betty worked in a munitions factory (SPRA) in a near by village. They were making flares and grenades and used to sing this song:

When this bloody war is over
Oh how happy we shall be,
No more working day or night
At the SPRA factory,
No more working every Sunday
No more asking for a pass,
We can tell the bosses
To stick there passes
Up their a………

At nine we thought this was very funny and rude.

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