This is more a Dad's Army episode than a war story. My family were mostly butchers or farmers. My parents had battery hens kept in barns. Obviously, these needed cleaning out and the muck went onto the middens, alongside the walk to the neighbour’s field. When the Home Guard were out on exercise, they crept up the side of the wall of the neighbour’s field. The leader (maybe captain) who was the local well-to-do joiner, cabinet maker etc jumped over the wall straight into the centre of our midden. Others followed on. I don't know what the outcome was, but we didn't see them doing that again!

Another memory. We lived in a bungalow with a veranda along the front, and one night sitting out on that, we saw hundreds (yes) of aeroplanes, too many to count, flying in a southerly direction. My brother, when I asked about it, said it was probably part of the Battle of Britain, with the very distinctive drone of the Spitfires. Yet again, living in central Yorkshire, we did not experience war like many others. We did have one bomb drop on a large department store in the city. Thought to be a stray bomb dropped by a pilot making his way home from a raid on Liverpool.

Also, the older brother of a friend of mine picked up a German pilot who had bailed out over the moors and they walked together to the police station. The plane came down in the village destroying four houses and killing occupants. Lots of shrapnel and the chance to play (not me) among the ruins. Trivial compared to London.

My mother had a sister and family who lived near Windsor. When the doodlebugs started, they came to stay with us. Aunt, uncle, their daughter and two sons. I remember looking out of my bedroom window and seeing this crowd of people carrying suitcases and boxes. The telegram telling us they were coming arrived the following day. I was shipped out to stay with another aunt. My uncle, who worked on the railways, and daughter, had to return home to work. My aunt and two cousins stayed for the summer. I played truant once (naughty me) and took the boys to the canal (Leeds/Liverpool) where they had great fun opening the swing bridge and jumping back to the bank. I don't remember anyone falling in.