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As a school girl aged 13 at home with my parents, brother and sister we lived very near to Oldbury Hall that once was the residence of the Phillips (Mark Phillips’ grandparents). This mansion had been empty for a few years, when suddenly it was invaded with the South Staffordshire regiment, young soldiers of 18,19 and 20. We would see them walking down Oldbury Lane in groups and they hadn’t got much money so they couldn’t go to the cinema or pub drinking. My parents felt very sorry for them and invited quite a few of them into our home. They played dominos and cards with my father, or just sat and talked about what they were going to do after the war. They were lovely young men from Birmingham and Staffordshire. These visits went on for a long long time, my parents would make coffee, tea and sandwiches for these young boys, and we all got very fond of them. Then one evening they came and said they were posted and they wouldn’t be coming again, but they promised to write to my parents and also to visit when they had leave, and we all said our goodbyes to these young boys. The very next morning at 4:30am, we were all woken up by the singing of 'pack up your troubles' and 'Tiperary', we looked out of the windows of our house and saw this long column of these young soldiers marching to the railway station, they had lanterns to light the way. Weeks, months and years went by and my parents never heard from any of them and they often talked of the lovely times we had with these soldiers and couldn’t understand why we hadn’t heard from them. In 1975 my husband and I went to France, Belgium and Holland looking at war graves and we got off the coach somewhere in France at a war memorial, a huge white memorial with gold letters with 100’s of names, and at the top of this memorial were the South Staffordshire regiment, I stood and looked down all these names and came across all the boys names that had visited my home, and I was very sad, such young men to have died...been killed. I was very pleased that my parents were not around to have been told about this happening, I believe I am right in saying that this whole regiment had been wiped out by the Germans.

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