大象传媒

Towards the end of the war when the tide had turned things started to ease of a bit regarding gas masks and shelters. It was then that I remember as if it was today the large numbers of bomber planes flying south and later on large planes towing gliders. The skies appeared to be full of them all heading in the same directions. Of course history tells us this was the run up to and was D day.

Also as with fighting and deaths there are prisoners taken and returned. Leicestershire had its fair share of those. There was a lot of Italian POWs working in Blaby towards the end of the war and they laid two concrete roads Wester Drive and the Crescent. They also cleaned out the ditches that ran along the front of the council houses in Welford Road. For doing this work they would be paid a small amount of money. On our way to school we would have a chat with some of them who could speak English. Sometimes they would ask us to buy bread from the shops for them. They would give us some money and then on the way home at dinner time we would call in the shop and take them the bread. The strange thing about flour and bread. That was rationed until after the war had finished. July 1946 I believe.

The prisoners were good workers and Wester Drive and the Crescent have stood the test of time. I remember a story my dad told me about a POW he met when he was doing a job on a farm near Bruntingthorpe. The man was cleaning out the pigs and my father asked why he had taken his boots off when he was working in the pig sty. The chap replied that he could always wash his feet when he was finished but he would not be able to replace his boots when they rotted with pig manure.

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by Liz Towner of the CSV Action Desk on behalf of Ronald S Cass and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.