大象传媒

On June 6th 1944 my uncle George jumped out of his boat and landed on a beach in Normandy. He was one of the lucky ones and survives to this day. His uniform was saturated with sea water, and covered in sand and mud. And then worn for several days before being rolled up and stuffed into his kitbag.
When he finally made it back to Lnydhurst Road in Portsmouth, my Nan greeted him rapturously, and then exclaimed in horror at the state of his uniform. She got it out, shook it, sponged it down and hung it on the line to dry. All to no avail. It remained stained and crumpled. So she took it to the dry cleaners at the end of the road, and I went with her.
Inside the shop she took out the uniform and put it on the counter. "I`d like to have this dry cleaned, please" she said. The dry cleaning lady looked with distaste at the muddy bundle. "I don`t think we can do anything with THAT, Madam," she said. "Whatever happened to it?" "It`s my son`s", explained Nan, "he was in the Normandy landings" "Oh" said the lady, "leave it here and we`ll see what we can do"
A week later my Nan and I went back. And there on a hanger, where everyone could see, was a newly cleaned, freshly pressed and totally immaculate uniform, buttons gleaming.
"Your son`s uniform, Madam" said the lady. "that`s amazing" said my Nan, getting out her purse, "How much do I owe you?"
"There is no charge, Madam", said the dry cleaning lady.

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