Story 1: I was just over three years old at the end of May 1944 or it might have been early June - anyway it was just before the D-Day landings. Every summer my mother took me to my paternal grandparents house in Lee on Solent at the end of Southampton water. My grandmother ran a boarding house which was always filled with sailors as it was only a few hundred yards from the main gate of HMS Daedalus, a Naval air station. Playing in the garden that particular day, I looked out over the garden gate at the front of the house and was much surprised at what I saw. Our road, about three hundred yards long, had tanks parked nose to tail on both sides for its full length. The crew of one of the tanks parked by the gate saw me. I was told later they were all Canadians. A long way from home, and with an uncertain future, the sight of a small child must have struck a chord with them. For they picked me up and and lifted me to the hatch of the tank, assuming a little boy would be excited at the idea of actually getting inside a tank. But far from it! I can still remember my reaction: horrified at the whole idea of actually going inside a tank and flailing as best I could with my arms and legs.

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