Love and war
During the Second World War, in 1944, I found myself on the outskirts of Paris one night. It was quite dark – there are no lights on in a war. Two soldiers from my group, a Greek and a Syrian, had gone into Paris to have some fun and were late coming back. I waited for them because if they had been caught it would have been prison or the front for them. There were about 25 of us soldiers and as soon as it was light we had to leave for Antwerp to secure the Ford factory there, as we had information that the Germans were going to destroy it before they withdrew. When our two finally came back, it was very late and I was forced to knock on the door of the first house I saw. The door opened and we were shown inside and given places to sleep. They saw us as liberators. In the morning, they showed us where the British positions were. A month later, I came back to that house with cans of food I had collected from the army camp and wherever else I could find. And 14 months after that, I married the daughter of the people who had hidden us that night – my dear Louise. We have a son and a daughter. This November we will have been together for 61 years.
