ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½

I was born just before WW1 in January 1914. By January 1940, I was too old to volunteer and was exempt anyway as I was a farmer. Instead, I joined the ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ Guard, being appointed Lieutenant in charge of the Gravenhurst platoon. My younger brother was an engineer apprentice and joined the Navy Anti Submarine Unit, and my sister became a nurse. My father, who had been an ambulance driver in France during WW1 helped ferry small boats around our coast in WW2.

On the farm I had at successive times three Italian Prisoners followed by three Germans. I remember on a foggy day a German bomber flying low overhead to drop a string of bombs which just missed RAF Henlow. Later in the war, RAF Wellingtons flew low over in droves to bomb Germany.

My ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ Guard Battalion commander was Lt Col. Michael Bowes Lyon, elder brother of the Queen Elizabeth, who paid a special visit to inspect the Battalion at Biggleswade. As an officer, I was privileged to shake hands with her.

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