Large and treeless

People who read this tale, and who know the area, will wonder how we were able to get such a uninterrupted view of what was going on.

This was effectively where our back garden was,  there were few trees to obstruct our view.  It is totally different now, with hundreds of houses and lots of trees and shrubs.

This was our back garden of ½ an acre;  from it one looked out eastwards towards a line of distant trees.  It was over those trees that a huge formation of enemy bombers appeared, flying low.

The two large houses (Dippers and Copperfield) on the horizon no longer exist.  It has all been intensively built upon.

My uncle

My Uncle Ronnie who, I was told, enlisted into the BRITISH army when he was 16 years old.  

He was on a troop-ship in the Mediterranean off the North African Coast when it was torpedoed.  He is supposed to have swum ashore.   

He 'fought' his way across north Africa, took part in the landings on Sicilly then Solerno onto Italy, was at Casino,  and went all the way up to Klagenfurt in Austria.  There he met and married one of the enemy, and brought her home with him to England..   

I can't vouch that all of this tale was true, or accurate, but he was one of 7 brothers who went away to war.