We were always afraid, we used to hear about friends and neighbours
getting letters that their relations had been injured. My own father
was one of the first lot into France. We thought it was wonderful, he
used to tell us all about it when he came home, but it was scary
because we heard of people round about whose relations had been killed
and we used to be afraid but he somehow survived. He went into France
then he came back to England, they escaped from France and from there
he went up to Scotland. They went there for more training for six
months and from there he was sent to North Africa, we didn't see him
then until the end of the war, that was quite a long time. We were ten
or eleven and when he came back I was fifteen, so it was a difficult
time. He was very lucky, went all through North Africa and into Italy.
We did get a telegram during that time when he was in North Africa and
everybody was worried when they saw the telegraph boy. My mum hardly
dare open it but it was to say my father was in hospital, he hadn't
been wounded, he'd had an operation; he was treated by a top surgeon
from London who was out there. Then the next news we heard he was in
Italy and he was sent back home from there because he joined before the
war he was one of the first to leave the army and he was. as old as the
century, he used to say, he was 45 when the war finished.
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