大象传媒

In the boys home near carlisle there were 48 boys aging from 3 to 18 years of age. each of us had a number, and we all had a gas mask whichwe had to carry everywhere we went. The younger children had mickey mouse masks, looking back they were not much good .We used to walk 2 miles to school at cotehill through a very large wooded are and were always told not to pick anything up as the enemy dropped articles like pens and watches that would explode. It was good fun looking for them but we never found any. We were also told to flatten all tins to stop escaped prisoners using them for drinking.We had snap exercises and when the sirens went we had to get our gas masks on and take one younger child with us to a pre determined hideout. Mine was under a culvert in the road, always half full of water. But The house near us always gave us a drink and a piece of cake.On our way toschool we used to see Italian prisoners picking potatoes and shout at them, the were always under supervision, we thought it was great fun at the time and though we knew there was a war on we were out in the country and did not come across much action, We used to go to Silloth and stay in theschool for holidays and there were lots of planes there

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.