大象传媒

Mr H S Poole is willing to have his story entered onto the People's War website and agrees to abide by the House Rules of the B.B.C.

My father kept a small pub here in Beaminster in Dorset. Sometime after Dunkirk on a Saturday night there was an invasion scare and all the church bells were rung, I'm afraid I don't know the date.

However, all the troops were ordered to carry loaded rifles all the time while it lasted.

At closing time that evening soldiers were gathered in the passage which led to the bar, talking. One of them banged his rifle on the floor and it went off. The bullet went through the ceiling and landing and two steps into my sister's bedroom missing her by two feet! She was about eight at the time and I don't know if she remembers it.

I was a member of the Home Guard and did watches from the top of a local hill. One Saturday morning I left the post at six a.m. to go home and have breakfast and go to work. A motor cycle pulled up outside and the rider said "You've got all the ammunition", and so I had, a clip of five rounds for four P14 rifles!

Beaminster Museum is doing a four week project on wartime Beaminster and I have given the above to them. If you wish to contact them the address is Beaminster Museum, Whitcombe Road, Beaminster, Dorset DT8 3NB - telephone 01308 863 623 - contact Jenny Cuthbert.

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