大象传媒

鈥淒ad was in the Home Guard. He was a farmer. One night when on duty he found a man in the sewage bed, and thought it was a German parachutist. Him and another Home Guard pulled him out 鈥� he was a drunk! They don鈥檛 know how he got in there and he would have died if they hadn鈥檛 got him out. It took weeks to get the smell out of the uniform.

鈥楢nother night he shot some ducks and we had them roasted the next day. The main meat was rabbit. We were ok living on a farm because we had our own milk, eggs and chickens. But everything was tallied. We used to get men from the Ministry coming down to check on things but they knew nothing. One young man told dad to plough up a field for food 鈥� 鈥楧o you know what鈥檚 growing there?鈥� dad said 鈥榃heat!鈥� 鈥�

'The day the war ended everyone in the village offered the milkman a drink, as he went from house to house delivering milk from his handcart. There was a lot of home-made wine in the village. He was tee-total though but was not allowed to refuse. Eventually he had to abandon his handcart at the end of the street and I saw him crawling home on his hands and knees along the gutter!

'If there was a wedding in the village everyone would give a little bit to help, my mum would give 2 eggs for the cake, clothing coupons for the dress.鈥�

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