大象传媒

I was just four years old in 1944, but remember well the day I helped shaped the destiny of Europe. My Catholic grandmother, Mrs Baxter - a descendant, surprisingly, of a Scottish Presbyterian planter who had arrived in 1705 - lived at a house called 鈥楪ortmore鈥� on the Derry road, near Omagh in Ulster. It was a thatched dwelling, typical of the style lived in by second sons and unusually long. Unfortunately, this rare style of dwelling was demolished to make way for a bungalow in 1987. Half of the house was requisitioned by the military who, in the Spring of 1944, were swarming over the area for exercises. Omagh had long been a garrison town, but now we had strangers in town, such as the South Wales Borderers whose officers were billetted in my granny鈥檚 house. They did not get on with the local garrison, the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers and one night in late May 1944 there was a big fight in the tented camp, with live ammunition, bayonets and lots of blood until the MPs of both regiments put a stop to it.

I was allowed to mix with the soldiers in granny鈥檚 house. A dispatch rider, Fred, used to bring me chocolate, sometimes so much that it made me ill. He came off his bike on a hill nearby and was killed, I discovered later.

One day I demanded to be let into a room at the end of the house where there was much coming and going. I was asked if I could read. 鈥淣o鈥�, I said 鈥� so they let me in. It must have been used as some kind of operations room, with maps and papers lying about on display. The kindly officer in charge said to me 鈥� See those red and blue counters by the map. Take one of the red ones and place it somewhere on the map鈥� I did so, and he then said 鈥� So be it, that is where we shall go鈥� Not long afterwards, the tented camp disappeared and all the soldiers left. Much later I realised the map was being used to prepare for the D-Day landings and my contribution to the landing plans of the South Wales Borderers had probably sealed the fate of his unit, for good or for ill.

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