大象传媒

Mr Pryor, a resident at Swale House, which provides accommodation for the partially sighted, gave this interview and has agreed that his story can be added to this website.

He showed us a fascinating collection of medals which belonged to his father from the First WW, including the Distinguished Conduct Medal which he said took some winning and the Italian medal..

鈥淭he Italian medal was won by my father, William Henry Prior, when he fought in Italy. I've got a big parchment and that was presented to him by the italian Government for what he did in Italy. The award that went with it entitled my father and his family to a month's free holiday in Italy for his lifetime. Unfortunately three years after he came out of the Army he died from mustard gas poisoning. The Italian Government would have paid for the holiday.

My father won that on the Somme, he was in the N. Staffordshires. I was only a child at the time. Unfortunately he did 22 years as a regular soldier, RSM. He retired in 1922 and died from mustard gas in 1925. I knew very little of him as I was still a lad when he died. My Mother, who was Irish, had died in the 'flu epidemic in 1920 so I was a war orphan. I had been born in Staffordshire and lived part time in Lancashire as well. My Gran was made my guardian.

I was brought up in the Army. I was Army mad. After many jobs and diappointments, I became a chef in Torquay. My wife was in an hotel as a Chambermaid/Waitress and I courted her. I used to do a lot of ballroom dancing when I was free and she was always at the dances and I never asked her for a dance and one night she came and said, "You're taking me home tonight". I said, "Am I?" She said, "Yes. You've never asked me for a dance and I've wanted you to for a long time. I've seen you in Torquay so you're taking me home tonight". So that was the start. We courted for six weeks and then war broke out and my future brother-in-law and I said we were going to join up. War started 3 September and on 29 September I had volunteered. I got a special licence for 29 September, I was married at 10.15 in Babbacombe church, and I caught the 11.20 train to Aldershot. I had bread and cheese for my supper and she had fish and chips, and cried. I got an overseas posting about February and got 48 hours leave then I went abroad.

That was the start. I joined the Royal Army Medical Corps and I went into hospitals catering because I had been a chef before. I was stationed in Preston for a couple of years, went to France got as far as St. Nazaire then we were surrounded by the Jerries and we were trapped three or four days in some woods and couldn't get out and that was the start of Dunkirk.

I got injured there in an explosion and unfortunately afterwards I was in and out of hospital and I was invalided out in 1943 or 44. I was given three years to live. I was paralysed from the waist down and unfortunately that was the end of my Army career.

My wife was living with her sister in Paignton. My brother-in-law joined up at the same time as me. He was taken prisoner three times and escaped.

When I was fit again, instead of going back to being a chef, I had a driving licence from before the war so they put me to Daimler, driving. I worked from Daimler at Uttoxeter and travelled all around the Midlands with parts for tanks, armoured cars, you name it. I was an Emergency Operator, so if anything was wanted for a firm I went to Coventry to get it. I did that till 1945 and got my release鈥�.

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