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This story was submitted to the ´óÏó´«Ã½ People’s War site by Wymondham Learning Centre on behalf of the author who fully understand the site's terms and conditions.

When the British forces were preparing for D-Day, many lorries in convoy drove past our school playground. The soldiers threw many coins on to the road. My mates and I jumped over the railings to collect the coins but when we returned to the playground the headmaster, Mr. Douglas, met us and confiscated all the coins, which were then shared between all the children at the school except for the few of us who had collected the coins by jumping over the railings.

One Christmas the American Airmen invited the children from Bunwell School to their Old Buckenham Base. They sent a lorry to the school and we all clambered on it. When we arrived at the base there were children from all the surrounding areas.
The thing I remembered most was queueing at the end of the party for a bag of sweets. They were like gold dust to me.

Lunch was brought to school in containers and we would eat sitting at a long table. If we were lucky we could have ‘seconds’. I loved ‘seconds’. I remember one occasion having some extra leeks and we always had to finish our lunch before we went out to play. At lunch the dinner lady had given me so much it was a real struggle to eat them and I missed a lot of my playtime.
Small children at school used to be given spoonfuls of malt to help them become ‘stronger’. I was a strong lad and felt really cheated that I was never allowed any.

At school we were always aware of the hum of the American planes. There were so many air bases close to our school (Tibbenham, Old Buckenham, Snetterton, Hethel). The planes would take off at 9.00 am and we would watch them in the sky from our school window. They would circle around in the sky getting into formation for the daytime raids on Germany.

Around 3 pm the planes would return home and we went to see them landing at Tibbenham Airfield. Planes would light a red flare on their return to show they had wounded aboard. This indicated they needed preference to land. The air tower would shoot red flares if there was a problem on the ground to warn the planes about to land to continue circling.

On one occasion at around 9.30 planes were circling the airfield as usual. Someone on one of the planes released the bombs by mistake and they fell on Carlton Rode Fen. Fortunately the ground was soft and boggy and the ground took the impact and there were no casualties. Today there are fish ponds where the bombs landed.

After school the boys in the village used to go to Old Buckenham Airfield. When I think back I am amazed we were allowed to walk around the base. There was often great activity around the planes — planes being refuelled, repairs being carried out. We always asked the men if they had any candy. On a few occasions we were lucky enough to be given boxes, rather like match boxes, but larger, and opened. In these boxes would be the rations for an airman to use if he was shot down. In the boxes there were many sweets. We were, on occasions, given brand new boxes.

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