大象传媒

A few war time memories of my dad Norman Hickling- who I am and always be proud.
I tell everyone my dad won the second world war, my dad and Monty, but very rarely would he speak about the real horrors of it all, only on rare occasions would he tell his story - his horror at Belsen as the Americans had just finished clearing up the Nazi atrocities, a rumour becoming a reality, we could read the from history books - dad told us more light hearted tales - how in France they had stayed on a vineyard over night, the next day not a grape in sight - how he and his comrades had survived for six weeks on one tin of 鈥渂ully鈥� and an oxo cube, the weakest soup ever. How he had brought my sister an orange back from Africa, needless to say you couldn鈥檛 tell it was an orange by the time he got home, he鈥檇 had been better off eating it himself, but that was my dad all over - my hero.
The tales he kept to himself - the ones he had to - except now its so long ago, will it matter if they are told. The one about the map he had left at home and the coded letters he wrote home, very carefully telling his dad, my grandad, that he could have the sandpaper in the shed, a clever grid on the map back home told his dad where he was. No one ever found out but the folks back home felt reassured in knowing his whereabouts.
Many years after the war had ended our local newspaper asked for memories - my dad kept hold, the horror of it all gone but never forgotten - it was my mum that wrote the following account of war, which was printed in the local newspaper entitled:
鈥淪peaking for my husband鈥�
My husband was one of the lucky ones who lived to tell the tale. He will not, so I am going to try for him.
I was sent back from Africa with 鈥渂attle experience鈥� stamped on my papers, so I knew what I was in for. Tension was mounting, Dunkirk must be avenged. This was it.
We sailed in an American liberty boat form the Thames estuary at 1600 hours and reached Arromanches coast at 2300 hours. There must have been a 100 ships there waiting to unload, and out of that lot jerry got us. We men were down below. Hatch covers flying around with the blast and we who wee able to had to smash light bulbs to put out the lights, and tend to the wounded in the dark. The plane crashed on the deck, and we fished the German pilot out of the sea, we had got our first prisoner.
I was recommended for the military medal but I never got it. My fellow sergeant did, he was wounded.
Never mind, I will settle for that return trip in peacetime.
Mrs N.Hickling, South Yorkshire.

My dad was a 鈥渄esert rat鈥� in the eighth army in El Alamein with Monty, that鈥檚 when he won the war.
I was born in 1957 and always listened to my dads stories, only now do I realise how much I had taken in. Every 11TH November dads medals were brought out and polished until they shone.

In 1991 dad returned to El Alamein, because of the Gulf war at the time, the grave log had been removed from the war cemeteries, so a true soldier dad walked silently along the rows and rows of war graves, patiently reading all the white head stones with their crosses marching inti the desert, in his own mind remembering all his fallen commrades, he found so many of the soldiers he had known back in 1942, when my dad was 24 years old.
I asked my dad why he had returned in1991 and not waited until the following year to attend the 50th anniversary of El Alamein - he had told me he would be too old the next year to make the journey鈥�
The following year dad was ill, I think he knew he d made his journey the previous year for a reason.
October 1st 1992, 25 days before the 50th anniversary of dad winning the second world war, dad passes away, aged 74 years a true soldier to the end鈥︹�� my hero鈥�.

2005.鈥︹��.60 years on, 23rd July I鈥檝e just helped organise a street party gala to celebrate, like back in 1945, our float was spectacular, everyone in red, white and blue, in forties outfits and army kit, we enjoyed the whole day鈥︹�ven the youngsters.
We and the generations to come will never forget.
My dad survived the horror of war, his memories will survive the generations, we will, none of us forget our heroes
2005.鈥︹��..the 60th anniversary of freedom.
Thanks dad
Pam Hickling 2005

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