大象传媒

During the Second World war, at the age of 13years, I recall attending my local Methodist Church - It had to be 'Blacked Out' like all other buildings. I was nearly always the first to arrive on Sunday evenings. Entering in thro' the Ministers Vestry - (In those days the church was never locked) I had to walk the full length of the building to get to the 'bank' of electric light switches - in the winter, with the black-out blinds in place, this meant walking in the dark. Opening the Vestry door, I looked out into the sea of 'inky' blackness, at the other end of the church was a very large balconey, and to my horror there appeared two moving green lights along the edge of the balconey.

Imagine my thoughts - then, what it was spoke - it was a CAT which had somehow got itself locked in the church after the morning service - what a shock for a youngster!

I also recall how Italian Prisoners of war came by lorry every day to work on the land, they had huge patches on their clothing so that they stood out from everyone else.

As a lad I spent many hours on the farm during the long summer holidays, and I was brought up to show respect even to prisoners of war, and they had respect for me as a boy.

They appeared to be ordinary people, just the same as us, and yet we were fighting each other. War does strange things.

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