大象传媒

I lived with my parents in Didcot, Oxfordshire in ROAC Army barracks. My mother was German, I think she was a refugee from East Prussia. She met my father after the first war when he was still in the regular army and working in Germany. They came back to England together in 1929, with three boys, one was left in Germany and brought up by his German aunt. My mother was never able to go back and fetch him.
My brother Walter was forced to go into the German Army eventually and ended up at war with his brothers and sisters. He told us he was shot down in a field and injured. He lay on the ground and looked into the sky and wondered if it was one of his brothers that shot him down.
After the war it took a long time to find out if he was alive. The Red Cross found him about 1957 and arranged for him to come to England to meet his brothers and sisters for the first time - all ten of us.
I was working in Norwich at the time and went back to my parents home for the weekend to meet him. This time my father was not at the station to meet me and as I came out of the station I saw this gentleman coming towards me and instantly knew it was my brother. Neither of us could speak to the other, because of the language barrier, but he had a taxi arranged to take us home.
We had a big celebration, media, photographers - you name it, they were there. But we could not speak to each other.
Six of my brothers were in the army and survived the war. We met many times after that and gradually learned to communicate.

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