大象传媒

This story has been written onto the 大象传媒 People's War site by CSV Storygatherer Lyn Hedges on behalf of Anne Young. They fully understand the terms and conditions of the site.

During the war we had a weekend cottage on a farm, a very rural retreat. It was just outside the walls of Bretton Hall near Wakefield in West Yorkshire, at that time an active and hush, hush army headquarters. Across the road from the cottage was our earth closet with its scrubbed wood seat and squares of newspaper, threaded on string for toilet paper. Behind this the field sloped steeply up from the estate wall.

One sunny day my brother and I, playing around the cottage, noticed something and somebody alien to this rural setting. A small dumpy man in city clothes was pegging a large white sheet onto the grass, well up the hillside.

Our Mother thought this could be sinister rather than strange. The white square would be visible from the air. Had the stranger pegged out other white squares around Bretton Hall estate to mark it out as an army headquarters?

We kids were left behind feeling very strange while Mother got on her bike and pedalled round to the Hall. Supposing the 'spy' came to the cottage? We might actually be face to face with the enemy! The war was on our doorstep. Could we cope?

Needless to say, the man just walked away but our eyes were drawn to the white sheet on the hillside.

Mother had great difficulty getting past the sentries at the Hall but eventually told her story to the officer in charge.

The soldiers came and took the sheet away, but we were told nothing. I can still recall that sinking feeling mixed with excitement. Maybe we changed the course of the war - who knows!

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