大象传媒

Phillip Pratley
[personal details removed]

大象传媒 Television
South Today
Southampton

Dear Sirs,

Stories of World War II... I was born in June 1937, so when it all started, I was just over two years of age. However, you may find the following of interest.

Sussex got used to servicemen. They were here at the start forming up to go with the BEF to France. They came back this way after Dunkirk. About a million Canadians were based here for most of the war and of course there was the pre-Normandy build up. My memories of soldiers were that they always seem to travel in trucks and always sang as they went. (They still did in the fifties when it was my turn!)

In June of 1940 during the Dunkirk evacuation, some of those who were rescued from the beaches and the Port of Dunkirk came ashore on our bit of the channel coast. They passed our house just South of Midhurst, in their trucks, but not singing this time.

鈥淢um.鈥� I demanded. 鈥淲hy are they not singing?鈥�

She surveyed the tired, dirty and despondent men. 鈥淲hat they need is a cup of mother鈥檚 tea!鈥�

With that she bustled indoors and filled every kettle and pot with water, lit the gas, stoked up the kitchen boiler and got to work. Within in minutes she was outside with a huge enamel jug, white with a blue rim and blue handle. The convoy stopped while mum went from truck to truck with her two gallon tea pot. She was up and down the front garden path for about half and hour until everyone in the trucks had had a cuppa!

When they eventually left, the singing started.

All adults look large when you are about two and a half feet tall but when the Canadians arrived, I had never seen such big people. Their uniforms were similar style to the British services but better made with better material but even from a distance I could tell the difference- their height was the give away. Any group of British Soldiers had the occasional big man but it was clear to me that all Canadians were six foot plus.

What I did not appreciate at the time was that British males of service age had grown up through the difficult interwar years, were badly nourished, worked hard when work was available, and not being able to afford medical care, usually had terrible teeth and had often carried injuries and illnesses unattended for years.

One day while sitting on the grass bank outside my house some Canadians came marching up the lane. Their Sergeant stopped them near me and they fell out, lit a cigarette and started to chat to me.

The burning curiosity made me ask the question. 鈥淲here do you get all your very big soldiers from?鈥�

鈥淎 lot of people ask that鈥� He replied in his dark brown Canadian voice. 鈥淲hat we do is go out into the forests, shake the trees, and they sorta fall out!鈥�

This put all sorts of strange ideas into my four year old mind.

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