大象传媒

During the war, an appeal was made to invite a serviceman home for Christmas because most of them couldn't get home leave. The responce was so great that in the end there wasn't enough soldiers to go round! Naturally, we were very dissapointed and my sister, my cousin and I told our parents that we would find one. So on Christmas morning we walked from Lozells to New Street and asked passing uniformed men if they had somewhere to go - not the kind of thing you would encourage girls to do these days, but times were different.

Anyway, we eventually found three Americans who were very pleased to share a family Christmas with us. As we walked back to Lozells, it started to snow so it felt like Christmas had really begun. My mother took the news of three extra for dinner very well and just did more vegetables! Tiny (who was huge), Jim and Earl stayed overnight and came back at New Year, and after that they spent every leave with us while they were in England. We enjoyed their company and they never came empty-handed. They brought us tins of fruit and meat for Mum, cigarettes for Dad, and we girls had our very first nylon stockings!

Although we only had a small house, for Tiny, Jim and Earl it was their English home.

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