大象传媒

I was 18, a student at Leeds University. My home was in the country in the Vale of York. We were all gathered in the farmhouse kitchen and listened in silence, in silence that didn鈥檛 break when the PM said those ominous words 鈥淭his country and Germany are now at war.鈥� I looked at my father who had fought through 1914-1918, he was looking very serious and my stepmother who rarely showed emotion of any sort was in tears.

Life in the country was little changed; we had blackout but there was no street-lighting anyhow. We ourselves produced much of our food. My brother Tom, a sergeant in the RA came home on leave from BEF. He did have an overcoat but it was too small 鈥� wouldn鈥檛 button. 鈥淣ot to worry鈥� he said, 鈥渕ost of the lads didn鈥檛 have a coat at all.鈥� We were so ashamed that we packed our Christmas cake and sent it off to France. AND IT ARRIVED. There were twelve of them, resting someplace a bit unsavoury and they shared it out and thought of home.

Time passed. Things got meaner; you couldn鈥檛 buy a coat and a pair of shoes at the same time; multicoloured jerseys became the thing as we unpicked old clothes and remade them. Then we all wrapped scarves turbanwise around our heads. The young men went, and some of them did not come back, including Tom who was killed in Malta. You took on extra jobs; dig up the college garden to grow potatoes, do night duty on the roof of the building armed with lots of optimism and a stirrup pump, take on telephone switch-board duty in the cellar of Leeds Town Hall.

In 1940 twenty of us went to Lincolnshire to lift the potato crop; 鈥渢he crop of a life-time鈥� they said, 鈥漚nd nobody to lift it.鈥� We lived in a deserted rectory. For a loo we had a trench in the grounds, for a washroom buckets of hot (incredible luxury) water on benches outside the back door. One boy with one horse opened up the rows, we picked up the spuds into baskets, and men bagged them and put them in the cars. The first day we bent our backs, thereafter we were on hands and knees. It was a glorious summer, high blue skies and brilliant sunshine. The idyll was broken one afternoon by a high-pitched whine that said 鈥淪tuka鈥� (we knew all their signature tunes). There they were, two of them, pretty little things a long way up. As they dived they screamed. They came so fast it wasn鈥檛 possible. The horses bolted, the men swore, down on our faces we scrabbled at the earth. We waited for the bombs that didn鈥檛 come. Just two jolly lads having a laugh on their way home to Germany.

No television but radio, Dunkirk described by Richard Dimbleby was too heart-breaking, the next morning going down to University we stepped carefully over rows of exhausted and shabby soldiers, asleep on the pavement. The news was always bad, we expected it to be bad. It never remotely occurred to us that there was no point in learning Anglo-Saxon and reading Chaucer because it never remotely occurred to us that we could lose. And ever so often there was Winnie on the wireless. On the old tram we sat facing each other in long rows and the morning after he had told us how wonderful we were, all the faces looked different.

Time passed and for months our major headlines said 鈥淪talingrad holds鈥� and we learned the appropriate jokes about Uncle Joe and were appropriately indignant over Pearl Harbour, and thanked God we didn鈥檛 live in the East End. The evacuees arrived 鈥� two small girls on our dairy farm, who had never seen a cow, close up. Within a week they were riding on Big Bill鈥檚 back (Big Bill was a Hereford who weighed just over a ton) as he plodded sedately between the pasture and the cowshed. The Americans arrived but they never got as far as our village. Russian prisoners arrived to lift the sugar-beet. They wept when taken into the farmhouse kitchen to eat a hot dinner, and wept again when Moscow was achieved on the radio and embarrassed my step-mother by kissing her hands. In a Yorkshire farmhouse custom established by law over centuries is quite different. As the men appear at the kitchen door the meal goes on the table. They eat in silence; if offered more they grunt and eat again. When finished they say 鈥淭a Missus鈥� put on their caps and go back to work.

Then came Alamein. Once we had got over the shock we piled into the streets and cheered. Some of us, who knew our men were there, worried. I was at home when a letter arrived. It didn鈥檛 say much 鈥� he was all right but busy 鈥� but the date was post-battle. The sun shone and the birds sang and I was sure the others could hear my heart pounding. 鈥淚鈥檓 a bit throng,鈥� said Father, 鈥淒o you think you could take the new tractor and plough that little four-acre? Well, don鈥檛 let a wheel get on the head-land or you鈥檒l throw it over and it鈥檒l kill you.鈥� I had never driven a tractor, but what the heck! We sallied forth victorious, we had half the four-acre ploughed when we put one wheel on the headland, so we swung the wheel straight and stepped on the gas and went clean through the hedge. Stop, swing round and go back through the same gap and pick up the furrow and off we go. My father, working in the pasture said to my little brother 鈥淲hat鈥檚 our Mag doing?鈥� Said my little brother 鈥淪he鈥檚 ploughing holes in the hedge.鈥� I did too! It went down in family history as 鈥淢ag鈥檚 Alamein gap鈥�.

Of course, the end came at last. We thought it never would. In June 46 I went to meet my returning hero. Platform 22, Waterloo station, 2:20pm. It was a long way from N. Yorkshire but I was there. The train pulled in and crowds of people, many of them soldiers in uniform piled out. I looked and looked for my beautiful young hero aged 18. But he wasn鈥檛 there. I gave up and sat down to await the next train. I always carried a little Shakespeare鈥檚 Sonnets in my pocket. And a voice said 鈥淚t is you, isn鈥檛 it?鈥�

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