大象传媒

It was 1943 and I can remember rationing of our clothing. Between us two children we had 3 pairs of socks; one pair each to wear and 1 pair in the wash. My brother Alan Faraway wanted grey socks; now he hates grey socks!

We lived in South Road; there was a German prisoner of war camp at Backhouse. I remember them as lovely chaps, very young (they were eventually returned to Germany, then they came back to live). We saw them drop from parachutes.
There were English boys camped in Bell Tents out at the front of the house and the German prison camp at the back, we were sandwiched in between. The NAFFI came to feed the English boys, but the German boys looked hungry so I got a current bun from the NAFFI and took it round to the German camp and gave it to one of the lads. He gave me a watch box.

My father was in service in Italy and Algeria. He didn鈥檛 say much about the war. He had lovely ribbons, but threw them in the fire saying 鈥淭hat鈥檚 all they鈥檙e worth.鈥� He was left in the desert on his own and suffered terrible sunburn. An Italian family found him and cared for him until help came in the form of the Red Cross.

My uncle Jack drove for the Bulldog Corps. There were 2 ambulance Lorries; one full of casualties and one full of corpses. The ambulance with the corpses broke down and stopped, so my uncle who was driving the ambulance full of casualties overtook them. He drove onto a land mine and everyone was killed.

I have included a picture of the VE Day Celebrations taken in Garth Road, South Ockendon, and would like to know if any one can be named.

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