大象传媒

I wasn't born until 1940 so my recollections of the war are very few. My Dad was a POW, taken prisoner in June 1940 at St Valery en Caux with the 51st Highland Division. That must have been rather like Dunkirk but without the boats. Dad wrote his story and my sister has put it on 大象传媒i as "Henry Lund's War", so do go and read that, I won't repeat his story here.
I was born just after Dad was taken prisoner so he didn't know I was born and Mum didn't know if he was alive or dead for several months. We lived with Mum's parents in Sussex so saw very little of the war and I was spoiled silly by doting Grandparents, Aunt and 2 Uncles as well as Mum. One of my few recollections was rushing out into the garden, I must have been about 4, as I heard a doodlebug go over and wanted to see it. Mum had hysterics, rushed out to catch me and bring me in! We used to shelter under the stairs when there was an air-raid warning.
On another occasion my Aunt grabbed Grandad's shotgun when a German 'plane went over. It went off in the hall, narrowly missing one of my Uncles who was on the landing.
I can remember seeing the silver foil that was dropped to confuse enemy radar, it fell on the trees like Christmmas decorations and I used to collect it from the ground.
We did our bit digging for victory. Grandad had a big garden and chickens so we didn't go short of vegetables, fruit and eggs. He kept bees, so we always had honey, and he had a special sugar ration for them. Mum must have had special rations for me too as there was an oval jamjar with "John's sugar" written on it in blue paint that I kept for years afterwards.
My war efforts as a 4 year old did little for our cause. I had seen Grandad working the beehives, so thought I'd have a go next day. I opened one and it was empty, so was the second, but the 3rd one wasn't so Mum had to pull stings out of every bit of me that wasn't cobvered up! On another occasion I saw Grandad thinning carrots. Later on I saw he had left some so I did my bit to help by "thinning" those he had left!
Grandad also had a share in a cow on the farm nearby so one of us would go down with a white enamel milk can to fetch the milk every morning. I remember often walking down with Grandad and have a photo of him holding me in one hand and the can in the other. I was fascinated by the farm, the cows, the milking machines and the big drinking trough in the yard that had some goldfish in it. How they didn't get swallowed I don't know. These visits must have influenced me as I am now a veterinary surgeon!
There was a plane down not far from home, Canadian fighter I think. I saw it a few days later half buried in the ditch. I don't know what happened to the pilot, I hope he managed to bale out.
At the end of the war I had been told Dad would be coming home soon and I had been promised a baby brother or sister. I embarrased Mum one day, who was very well known in the local town where she had always lived and was a pillar of the church and Girl Guides. We were looking in a shop window and I saw a baby girls dress and piped up, in my very shrill voice "I'm going to buy that for my baby sister when she comes"!
My final memory of the war was when Dad came home. He mentions it in his story too. One day there was a knock on the kitchen door. I opened it and there, in his soldier's uniform, was the Dad that I only knew from the photographs that Mum kept. I was so surprised that I just rushed upstairs. Grandma was in bed and the doctor was listening to her heart through his stethoscope. I rushed in and yelled "My Daddy's in the kitchen". I don't know what the Dr thought when he heard Grandma's heartbeat go suddenly into overdrive!

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