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These are memories of mine from early in the Second World War, wrote Kath O'Sullivan nee Margerison. My family (mum, dad, myself and my younger brother Philip) lived at 20 Priesthorpe Avenue, Farsley, which was a small new housing estate on the Leeds and Bradford Road in the Pudsey district. I wrote this as a short story but it is essentially truthful and these things happened to us.
When Dunkirk came, the British Army retreated from Normandy. The retreat was unexpected and no plans were in place to deal with the huge influx of tired and traumatised men.
Exhausted, hungry, and suffering from wounds they were dumped at the southern ports and then despatched by bus and train inland. Which explains why our family came to have a soldier living with us for nearly a fortnight.
One afternoon a platoon of soldiers marched into Priesthorpe Avenue and came to a halt whilst their sergeant and corporal knocked at every door and asked if there was a spare room. Dad said that Philip must share my bedroom which would leave us with a spare room, and that was how we got our very own soldier.
He carried a backpack and a tin hat. His boots were huge and black. Mum whispered that we were to be very kind to him, as he had come from a dreadful battle and needed to time to rest.
Dad brought him inside and introduced him. His name was Jim. He was tall, and with his duffle bag on his shoulder he nearly filled our small hallway. Mum showed him Philip's room and the bathroom.
When he came downstairs he'd taken off his khaki battledress jacket and rolled up his shirtsleeves showing arms with tattoos on them. Khaki braces held up his trousers.
Mum served dinner, but I can't remember what we ate, I was too busy staring at the soldier. After the meal he asked if we had any black shoe polish and when Mum gave him some he went out to the back door step and polished his boots until they shone like mirrors.
To help get them really shiny he spat on the leather before he rubbed in the polish, then he huffed and puffed on them before polishing them with the rag Mum found for him. After cleaning his boots he brought his rifle outside.
Philip thought that this was exciting, especially when Jim allowed him to hold it. Jim was emphatic; Philip was not to point it at anyone even though it was unloaded. He pulled a thin piece of rag through the barrel to clean it. When Philip asked him how many Germans he had shot with it, he just ruffled Phil's hair and laughed.
Jim's regiment was the South Wales Borderers though he did not come from Wales. He was from Durham. Dad teased him about this and said he would have done better to join the Scottish Borderers.
He was older than most of the other soldiers who stayed in our street because he had been in the regular army before the war. He had seen service in India. There was a dent in his tin hat. Philip asked if a bullet had made the dent, but Jim said he didn't know.
At bedtime we heard him talking to Mum and Dad down stairs, and when Mum came to tuck us in she told us to say a special prayer for him and for all the other soldiers who had escaped, and to ask God to bless the many of Jim's friends who had been killed as they waited on the beaches to be rescued.
Some fishermen, in a small boat had saved Jim, snatching him up from the sea where he had waded up to his neck in the water. Thousands of soldiers had stood like this in the water waiting for someone to help them whilst the Germans shot at them and planes dive-bombed them.
Perhaps that was how the dent was made in Jim's helmet, but we were not to talk about it, because it made him feel sad.
At school, the next day, we discovered that most children had a soldier staying with them. Some of the children from the bigger families were disappointed that they hadn't the room for one.
Our next-door neighbours had a very unusual guest. Their soldier was black! Most of us kids had never met a black man before.
When we arrived home from school we were disappointed that Jim was not there. He and the other men spent the day at the local football field, drilling. They had been issued with kit to replace that which they had lost. He came home at teatime and after the meal Dad took him to the Farmers Inn for a drink.
Dad was very happy to have a real soldier to talk to. When they walked down the street together Dad swung his arms high as if he was back in uniform. Jim brought a ration card for Mum to get extra meat, butter, sugar, cheese and eggs for him.
He also brought us some sweets, which were a great treat. Even so early in the war sweets and chocolate were scarce. Mum beamed when he told how much he liked her cooking, especially her steak and kidney pie!
He was with us about ten days, then one morning early troops lined up and on an order from the Sergeant they marched away. Before he left he promised to write to us.
He gave Philip his cap badge as a keepsake. We did get two letters from North Africa, but nothing else. Maybe he was killed or wounded, maybe he was taken prisoner, or maybe he was too busy to write. I shall never know.
Although Kath O'Sullivan now lives in New Zealand, having emigrated there in July 1953, she insists that her ties are still in Yorkshire.
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