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This story has been added to the People's War Site by Margaret Walsh of The Royal Star and Garter ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ on behalf of James Cheseldene-Culley and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

I was a teenager during the war. My father was a soldier, posted to Sussex, on the South Coast. I remember that we were going to visit my mother in hospital in Bognor, when a Messerschmitt with a Spitire on its tail started to machine-gun the road we were walking along. My father pushed me into a ditch and fell on top of me to protect me.

When the war broke out we were in Dover, and I can remember my father taking me to see the British Expeditionary Force coming back into harbour, with all the wounded. It made a big impression on me.

After the war I went to the World Scout Jamboree for Peace at Moissons on the Seine. I remember seeing the destruction everywhere - bridges down, and terrible food, even the bread. I think of that as the last summer of my boyhood.

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