A nine year old's march for chocolate

This story was submitted to the People’s War site by a volunteer from BBC Radio Berkshire on behalf of Bill Mundy and has been added to the site with his permission. Bill Mundy fully understands the site’s terms and conditions.

When I was about nine there was a Canadian troop based about three miles away in East Hamstead. We children didn’t know why they were there, it was 1944 and later I found out they were part of the invasion force across the Channel. We as little boys followed them, three of us marched with them back to base. We asked them, “Got any gum chum?!” When we got to the camp one of the soldiers opened a great big cupboard full of sweets. He said we could have one thing each so I chose a big bar of chocolate. So we ran home and I showed it to my mother. At the time there was four of us in the house — my brother, grandfather and my mum. My mother said we’ll have one square every Sunday cut into small pieces. That lasted us fifteen weeks or so. It tasted wonderful, I couldn’t remember ever eating chocolate before. It was fantastic.

© Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.