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In 1942 I was seven years old and staying for a few days with my grandfather and grandmother in Reading. They had a transport café (Cosy Café) on the Bath Road near the Beenham turning.

One of the regular drivers often took me out for part of the day on his delivery rounds.
I thought this was a real adventure, climbing into a large lorry, sandwiches for our break and visiting other towns in the area. On this particular day we had just returned to the café car park when a German plane appeared and dropped a bomb a few fields away, I didn’t realise that he was turning to come back over the café. Much to my amazement the lorry driver threw me under the truck, the plane then machine gunned the road, and I can still remember seeing the road jumping as the bullets hit the tarmac even though my knees were sore and bleeding. In reality the bullets were quite a long way away from me. My grandmother gave the lorry driver a free meal and a ‘cuppa’ as thanks.

I also remember seeing streams of army ambulances going by loaded with wounded men but I cannot recall the actual date. Also around that time the Americans joined in WW2 there were large convoys passing by everyday, I used to get my grandmother to make me up sandwiches which I ate with the Yanks, as they often stopped for a break on the roadside, sitting on the grass verge. They were always kind and gave me chocolate etc. They were not allowed to go into the café, the stop might have only been 10 minutes or so but at the time I thought it was great.

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