大象传媒

The year 1940, I was a boy of 12 years of age living at Consett near Newcastle. It was an exciting time for us boys. The Second World War was at a critical stage with Dunkirk evacuation of our army from France. Soldiers were moved through the country to recuperate at towns and villages. They used to visit us in the church and chapel halls giving us chocolate and showing us their equipment.

What I remember vividly was watching a mock battle between a Spitfire swopping down on sandbag positions with a soldiers supposedly shooting at the Spitfire. It was very exciting and myself and two other boys were sitting on a five barred gate close to one of the sand bag positions. Then to our surprise one of the soldiers jumped onto the parapet of the gun position to get a better shot at the Spitfire as it started to attack our position.

We found out later that the Spitfire, in between attacking the gun positions, was amusing the population of Consett by glying under bridges and between telephone wires stretched between high poles. Suddenly, we saw the Spitfire coming towards us. The soldier was standing on top of the sandbags banked towards us and in doing so his wing hit the soldier then the Spitfire hit the gound and somersaulted down the field and crashed amongst the garden allotments exploding into flames.

We all fell off the gate and ran to see what was happening but were stopped from getting close to the plane. People said that they could see the pilot but chould not get close to it. We were told later tha the wing had cut off the soldiers head.

I have never forgotton this episode in my young life. I have a set of aircraft wall plates and one of them shows a Spitfire with wheels down flying over a five varred gate with two boys sitting on the gate. It always reminds me of this particular event.

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