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This is my father's story. He died, age 83, in 2001. He was a grenadier guardsman in WW2 for the whole 6 years. By 1943, via North Africa, he was in Sicily and took part in the landings at Salerno. On landing on the beach, he came under attack and dived into the sand dunes, cutting his head above the eye, on the sharp grass. A minor injury, but lots of blood. In my father's words, a medic slapped a bandage over his eye and he was out of there!

Separated from his regiment, he was moved to a holding camp where he had the great fortune to meet up again with his best mate, Eric Machin. Eric had had a bad time and had just come out of a NZ hospital near Capua and was about to be posted to a mess job - A Mess Allied forces - outside Naples. Once there, he wrote to my father, asking whether he would like to join him. Compared to their terrible war experiences so far, this was a cushy number! The next thing my father knew, he was called before a commanding officer who told him that he was to report to A Mess, Allied Forces. The commanding officer told my father that he was very unhappy about this posting, but that the request had come from a more senior officer and so he couldn't countermand it. Apparently, the mess had needed a cook, so Eric Machin said that he knew just the man - that my father had been a chef at the Dorchester in civvie street (he had actually been a dispatch clerk at a textile firm in Lancashire).

'A' Mess was based in the beautiful Villa Theresa, overlooking the bay of Naples. It had been the home of the Duchessa di Bovino e di Taormina. I have a visiting card, left by the Duchessa, directed to a Major Morrison, requesting permission for a member of her family to visit the villa. My father and Eric stayed at the Villa Theresa for the rest of the war. All my father's memorabilia and photos of the war are from these years and he told many stories of his time there. Having had no leave for over two years, he eventually left Naples in Nov 1945.

I recently made enquiries, and Villa Theresa is still there, now derelict. My father never went back, but I intend to. Eric is still alive and living in New Zealand

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