大象传媒

The nearest any German bombs dropped to where I lived was half a mile away. They woke us all up about 7.20 am; it was still dark. The house shook and windows rattled.

In the 1940鈥檚 there were lots of electricity power cuts so we had to use candles, paraffin lamps and battery torches.

I used to watch the Home Guard and other civil defence units having exercises on Sunday mornings.

There were lots of military vehicles about in the 1940鈥檚, often long convoys passing through the village on the A17 road. Lorries passed by towing big guns, tanks and other tracked vehicles. I and lots of other people had never seen a black man before the Second World War but there were now several in the American vehicles going by. We would wave to them and they would throw us out sweets and gum.

As a lot of men had to go in the forces, there was a shortage of workers on the farms, so children from aged 11 years could have extra time off school to help. I have done a variety of jobs on the farm, but one I remember was being in a team of workers taking up potatoes. I was one of six picking by hand with my back bent. We used to harvest six tons in a seven and a half hour day, so I thought I picked one ton a day!

In the war years I have seen over one hundred aircraft flying over at the same time. These planes were America daytime bombers going east to Germany. They would come over in waves. At night it would be the turn of the RAF Lancasters. There were a lot of Lancaster airfields in Lincolnshire. In the light of summer evenings about 9.30 onwards for about two hours the sky would be alive with these four engined bombers. It looked as if a hornets nest had been disturbed. They were all at different heights, heavily laden, with engines revving, struggling to get up in the sky and into formation. In the early hours of the morning one could hear them coming home again, although I know many of them did not make it home again. It is reported that one airfield lost 1,976 men in about 30 months and another last 850 men in 22 months and that鈥檚 just from two airfields. At that time I was able to see aircraft on airfields that had been shot up and damaged after raids over Germany.

The RAF used to have special lorries for loading on recovered crashed aircraft. They use to come through our village every week with both British and German planes on. We had a few crashed planes in Swineshead.

In 1944 I saw the four engined Stirling aircraft towing two gliders and a Douglas Dakota twin engined aircraft also towing two gliders.

There used to be a pill box built of sand bags and old railway sleepers at a road junction, near to where I lived. Us kids used it as a den but had to vacate it on Sunday mornings when the Home Guard were on exercises.

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