Not far from our farm in the upper Thames valley was a hill, and on that hill was a prisoner of war camp.
During the war it held lower rank German soldiers.
There may have been others, but I was not aware of any.
At the end of the war these prisoners-of-war (p-o-ws) were ready to be repatriated, but Germany lay devastated and for many men there was no home to go to immediately. They had to wait.
Many of them were highly skilled. They included engineers, mechanics, drivers, electronics experts and others. Life in the camp must have bored them, so when they were offered the chance to work on local farms they leapt at the chance. Likewise, my father was pleased to offer them work for a number of reasons, not least because Britain was also severely damaged by war and farms were still called upon to produce as much food as possible.
Very soon we got used to welcoming the army truck that called at the farm every day, bringing 'our' bunch of p-o-ws. And what a cheerful gang they were. We, and the other men on our farm, soon made good friends, as far as I remember, with every one of them. Some became lifelong friends.
After being cooped up in a prison camp for months and years, they must have found our farm a blessed release.
I remember three of them in particular, Ade, Phillip and Heinrich. All three became personal friends of the family and joined us for meals. This was daytime only, because they all had to return to the camp each evening on the lorry which came back to collect them. However, now the camp gates stood open for long periods of the day and they had much more liberty.
I was only five or six years old at the time, but one thing which imprinted memories of Ade, Phillip and Heinrich on my mind was that they made toys for me and my brother Mark. My sister Sarah was only just about making her debut on the world stage about this time.
Toys were unavailable in shops so soon after the war, and I can remember the joy these unexpected gifts brought to us. As I mentioned, these men were highly skilled and thus able to make, from all sorts of scrap materials, marvellous toys, tools and gadgets. Some toys I recall in particular. One was a circle of pecking hens, made from an old broken table tennis bat, string, a heavy lorry wheel nut, some odd drops of paint,bits of wire and scraps of wood. It was multi-coloured and worked perfectly for years, giving us hours of fun. Another toy was a bright red monkey with green eyes standing on a barrel. By pressing the base of the barrel you could make the monkey jig and dance. Also they made for us a large board with numbered hooks to hang on a wall. Then, armed with a handful of rubber rings made from an old bicycle tyre, we could throw the rings at the hooks on the board to get as high a score as possible.
Best of all the toys they made for us was the garage.
It was just like the real one in nearby Clanfield in miniature. It had three fuel pumps on the forecourt, green, blue and yellow. Each had a face, like grandfather clocks, but instead of the time the one hand showed how many gallons had been dispensed. Around the forecourt were tiny Castrol oil cans, car tyres and other garage bits and pieces, including a little wheeled tray of the type mechanics used to get underneath cars. Behind the forecourt the garage buildings had been beautifully modelled, with lift off roofs. And inside, model cars! Of course it was an instant hit, the Christmas they gave it to us, and Mum had to almost prise it out of our hands at mealtimes.
They also showed my brother and I how to make some toys ourselves. One was a kind of crawling device made from a tintack, a cotton reel, an elastic band, a pencil and a small amount of candle wax. Just press a tintack near the hole on one side of the cotton reel, loop the elastic band over it and thread the rest through the hole. Loop the other end over one end of the pencil, wax that side of the reel, wind it up and watch it go. Armed with a couple of those, Mark and I held races all over the house on various domestic terrains.
My favourite toy by far, though, was the one which Phillip showed me how to make. I must have made dozens over the years since then. All you need is a pencil about 10cms or more long and a similar length strip of light wooden batten. Drill a hole exactly halfway along the batten, small enough to be a tight fit for the pencil.
Now fashion the batten into a simple propellor, and fit it to one end of the pencil.
With practice, by putting the pencil between our palms and rubbing them quickly together, Mark and I were able to make our 'helicopters" soar up into the sky. We would try to get them to fly right over the big barn. The only trouble with this was trying to find them afterwards on the other side. Often they'd be stuck up in the gutter.
One of the Germans, I think it was Ade, was an expert clock maker, and he made Mum and Dad a wonderful kitchen clock out of an old radio casing and a restored alarm clock movement. It looked beautiful, as though straight from a Bavarian 'alpine' workshop. And it worked for many years. My parents used it as their kitchen clock well into the sixties as I remember.
The most memorable times of those days were at Christmas. Our new friends had permission to stay with us well into the evening on Christmas Eve, and we all enjoyed a magical mix of English and German customs. To be honest, I can't remember details of those wonderful Christmas times. It's all a warm glowing mish-mash in my mind of mince pies, Christmas pudding, apple juice and German novelty presents. I can still feel the warmth of the large log fire in the sitting room. Mum, Dad, Ade, Henry and Phillip, sitting in armchairs and along the big old sofa, basking in the warm glow as they raised their glasses, topped with home-made wine, to a variety of bilingual toasts.
Happy memories for a six year old boy.
Eventually our friends got the call that they could return to Germany.
Some went home and stayed there, losing touch with English friends.
Some went home, and then returned on holiday with their families to introduce them to English friends.
Some stayed and married English sweethearts.
But some went home, found and married their girlfriends, and returned with them to live in this country.
Such was Phillip. He set up home, not far from us, and his family and ours remained friends ever afterwards.
I felt immensely honoured that he called his first son Patrick, because he had so enjoyed his time with us on the farm. Later, sadly, Phillip met a very untimely death here in England. He was working at his job on an estate nearby, when the tractor he was driving flipped over and crushed him. There were far fewer safety guards in those days. But he will always be remembered with warm affection as long as I and other family members live. Thank you dear Phillip.
Some years after the war, my mother and her sister Maureen were treated to a wonderful never to be forgotten holiday in Germany as guests of Ade and the others.
But there is a sad footnote to these happy memories.
As I grew older and began to understand what war was about I realised the cruel madness of it. Months before our happy times on the farm getting know our new friends from Germany, we could have been trying to kill each other as sworn enemies. We would have been expected to do our utmost to capture or kill each other as our duty to our respective countries..
Is this crazy, or am I wrong?
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