大象传媒

apart from being away from my family i have very fond memorys of my time at purton it is best descrided like the t.v serial"the darling buds of may".
time off school,potato and apple picking,cider and haymaking,working onthe farms,getting payed"not a lot"but it helped.going out with horse cart helping with milk round around the villages the old horse knew where to go even to stop at the pub at lunch time that is where ihad my first pint of cider and got a bit under the weather,told my mum and aunt topsy i thought i was going down with chicken pox,i was only 10,milkmans excuse was it was to keep the cold out.
best times roaming along the river severn watching all the geese coming in from canada,it was near there the first bird reserve was built by peter scott at slimbridge,watching all the barges and ships going up and down the canal while iwas fishing from the bottom of the garden.
you must remember through the war we had "double british summer time"which gave us two hours a day more daylight so it gave us wartime children more to remember about our war. the only war i saw there was the german planes following the river severn down to bomb bristol and avon-mouth and our fighter planes flying under the archs of the old severn railway bridge at sharpness.
it was not till i was older did i know how lucky iwas to have a foster mother like aunty topsy in her way she taught me the country values,i went to church twice on sunday even though i donot go so often now those values are still with me i love everything to do with the country.
also it made me aware of the heart-acks my poor mother went through,my father away in the army went missing for 3 weeks after dunkirk,my sister and i sent away.lost our home because army pay was not enough to pay the rent,one good thing because my father worked on railway docks before going into army my mother recieved free rail travel so she could see us often.
my sister and i stayed in purton till late 1942 where we went to scotland.that story is for my war part 3.
Bill smith.

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