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Dad’s War

My father served his war in a tank regiment but never got further from home than the coast of Norfolk.
He would arrive home on leave with an ammunition box full of mussels collected from the rocks and sometimes the added great luxury of a pheasant. Blackberries and mushrooms, when they were in season, supplemented these ingredients for a gourmet meal.
He later confessed that he and his chums would take their tank out for ‘testing’. In fact they used it as a hide from which they shot — not with the tank’s gun — pheasants.
He also made a model tank that I still have. He told the family that it was made from bits and pieces of metal lying around the workshop. I seem to remember him saying that the wheels that operated the tracks were made from metal tunic-buttons, but the memories of a young child are questionable.

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