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emiliya My parents are 89 and 87 respectively. My mum was evacuated from Battersea just donw the road form the old power station after one of adolfs bombs blew her clean across the table. My oldest 3 aunts on her side were evacuated ot become land army girls. The oldest of those is now 99 and wit get to a hundred on Christmas day and still goes into Moreton in the Marsh every now and then shopping, and still nits stuff for charity. My dad lost one brother when he was flying into Christchurch ariport delivering a bomber and had another brother in an Italian POW camp for an age. Both were 7th born of 9. Wojld have been 7:2 splits - 7 boys in dad;s family and 7 girls in mums but two boys were lost in child birth one each side. Im now down to just dad in his side and mum plus 3 aunts on the other side. Sdaly I've lost a kid cousin - both boys - on either side ot he family. I remeber my grandma on mums side telling me she remember the Zepplins over London. I also remeber her saying she stayed out of the shelter to watch a spitfire shoot down a German plane jumping up and odwn on the bed upstairs in her excitement until the ARP warden caught her. I remember then talking about the end of rationing. I remember my oldest aunt telling me about the farmer boys running off to caputre the pilot with their pitch forks when a German plane went down. I remember dad talking abiut his dad and the shell shock form world war 1. I remember my gradma going on about the secret tunnels in Wiltshire, which it has now been admitted did exist then and are still used now. I remember it was all lies and misonformation - which of course it still is now. You know my overall conclusion is that nothing changes much. They lie to us. They expect us to get on with it. They pay us peanuts and laugh at us behind our backs. Thats the biggest story about the war, same as the peace, the masses were manipulated and the richest got away with it. My uncles father was dropped at Arnhem. He never talked about it. My mum did mention some of the older girls who hung out with the GIs and yes, one or tow got very ill over that. She also said she wa sso annoyed by provate Ryan beauce when she looked out of the bus at the tents of Americans camped between Leicester prison and the rugby ground on the park all she saw were black faces - I cant say how true that is but it wouldn't surprise me. My uncle - son of the para - who died two years ago worked at Empire Stone in Narborough that helped build the Mulberry Harbour. My mother remember Coates a local firm building machine parts palced where the M1 crosses the road between Cosby and Whestone was bombed being biombed, and the wave after wave of bombers flying overhead toward Coventry (I just got goose bumps writng that bit down). Im 1966 when we won th eworld cup, I know those wounds were still raw and came to the surface during that game of football. But htne Dad new a Polish chap who used to work with him and any wounds our families carried were nothing like as raw as the ones he carried. So I wasn't old enough to see th eresidual devastaiton but it amazes me that if yu go to Aramanche you can still see the greater part of th emulberry harbour there and think of the massive amount achieved in those first two days ond June 1944 6th and 7th, And so much was secret and is till to be revealed, I remeber my dad first telling me about the enigma code. My aunt had worked at Bletchley and knew of it but of course no one was supposed to know about it, I must have been 10 or 11 when he told me about it and how we had to let people die to keep the secret. Thats a bot of a ramble but then these things come back to you in random order don't they. SOmething else I remember if the thailidomide scandal. I remember sitting in the barbers while 1 poor kid with vitually no arms or legs had his haircut infront of me - I musyt habe been 6 or 7. At leats I was spared the horrors of the war(s). Does that help you get a picture. I don't know. I feel immenselty proud of our paras and our royal Engineers in particular and what they achieved during the seocnd world war, it was amazing. If we had the same attitude to global warmimg we could be net zero in 10 years - kick all the landowners off the land and just spend the money on dams and tidal energy. No one will do that necause rich people would lose their lands and income tax would go up. Really - when there is a will there is a way. Maybe thats a lesson form the wars we should not forget. Its everyones sacrifice but its the success of the collective.
