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This story has been submitted to the People’s War website by a volunteer from ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ Radio Lincolnshire’s Action Desk on behalf of Henry Symonds and Margaret Graham and has been added to the site with their permission. They fully understand the site’s terms and conditions.

My father was CO of the local ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ Guard. There were many ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ Guard men in the area because this was a farming area and a lot of men were not called to war; they stayed at home to work the land. The meetings and training times were held at our farmhouse.

We had prisoners of war billeted locally in tin huts. These are still standing today. The men were allocated to work on farm. Two of them worked on our farm during the day and returned to their Nissan hut accommodation at night.

I attended school in North Cornwall. There were no air raid shelters in this remote part of Cornwall. When the sirens were sounded twenty to thirty boys were taken from the school and stood beside a hedge for safety!

There was one day in particular I remember. A German plan flew very low and we were very scared. He started to bomb an adjacent field. It was obvious to our parents later that he had been aiming for the nearby gas works but that didn’t allay our fears and you never forget the terror.

Plymouth suffered severe bombing and we could look across from Delabole some thirty miles away and see the skies lit up.

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