大象传媒

My father joined the army in 1938. Early in 1940 he was sent to France. I have a photo of him and two or three others cooking meat in petrol drums, it is marked France, May 1940. The group he was with fought through France up to Holland.

He was wounded in the leg in Holland. With the help of his comrades he made it back to France, there they were directed to Dunkirk.

Luckily for him he was one of the first stretcher cases moved out. On board ship he was next to a Captain Black. The ship was crowded and by the time he reached England he and the captain had been robbed of all their belongings!

After initial treatment he was sent to a hospital in Middlesbrough, I have several photos of him with other patients and nurses. On discharge he was told, due to the leg wound, he was not fit for active service, so he became an ambulance driver in the RASC.

He was moved to many different places in the world including India and North Africa. While in North Africa he drove across the desert, alone, under fire to rescue a wounded soldier.

It turned out they were both from the same Yorkshire town. He traced the man during the Eighties, unfortunately he had died a few months previously.

Although my father told us many stories of his life during the war, he never said anything about the death of comrades, or enemies, as this upset him too much.

He always said the most important life changing thing that happened to him during the war was meeting my mother in the NAAFI at Southcliffe on Sea, in 1943. They were married in 1949, they had to wait until they could afford to find somewhere to live.

My mother died in 1991, my father in 1999.

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