大象传媒

Egg Collecting

Apart from the eggs that we collected from the Pigeon and the Moorhen, we also collected other wild bird鈥檚 eggs, (This is now illegal) we were always very careful how we took the eggs, never more than one. As children growing up in the country, we were always very aware to conserve nature. We would spend hours watching birds to establish where they were building their nests. A bird is a very wary creature and if they know that you have knowledge of their nest, they will desert it and this could be disastrous if there were baby chicks. So the secret was to observe, but don鈥檛 be noticed by the birds.

Italian Prisoners of War
As well as the American soldiers stationed at Codford, we also had Italian prisoners of war. They worked locally on the farm and were very friendly. They were dressed in a maroon coloured uniform with yellow circles stitched on the back of their jacket and on the knee of their trousers. In their spare time they collected withies from the withy beds in season and made baskets. They also made rings from the old imperial multi flat sided three penny pieces and mugs from small empty bake bean tins. One of the prisoners showed me how to make a whistle from a willow stick and it is something that I have never forgotten. I am still able to make a whistle from any green twig when the sap is rising in the spring.

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