- May and Bert's wartime wedding took place in March 1941; already conscripted, he wore his uniform on the day
- 4 months later he sailed on the New Zealand troopship, the Rangitiki, to the Middle East
- May became a 'land girl' working in the Women's Land Army on farms in her native Suffolk
- it must have been a difficult time for her after Bert's capture at Tobruk in 1942: she waited 6 weeks for the news that he was alive and 'safe' in a PoW camp
- she used to send him photos of herself which took months to reach him
- in early May 1945, Bert escaped from the column of prisoners being marched away from the PoW camps; after an eventful 3 weeks, he was released as a PoW by the Third U.S. Army and began his journey from Pilsen home to England via France
- Bert came home to May and their cottage in Paper Mill Lane in the village of Claydon, Suffolk on May 25th, 1945; he even recorded the time, 4.30 p.m., in his diary which he had kept throughout his wartime service, including 3 years as a PoW
I like to remember, on that day, at that time, to raise a glass of something good.............
It has been my great good fortune to meet Ian Douglas who has self-published his own books. We worked together to realise publication of my father's diaries, a long-held and unfulfilled ambition of my dad himself.
My modest royalties will be donated to the Red Cross without whose food parcels my father felt many of the prisoners would not have survived.
AMAZON: in paperback/kindle
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