a surprising day in two parts

part 1

Out on the bike this morning and the fields are changing colour.  The harvest is in and the once golden fields have been ploughed, ready for the next crop.  Those that have grass are now full of cows.  

But this one?  I don’t know what to make of it.  I’ve never seen this field look like this before.   I’m sure a country-dwelling blipper will put me right.

part 2

I’m writing this next bit down because I don’t want to forget it. 

Anniemay and I are walking up the road towards the High Street.  In front of us an elderly lady is pushing her walker in the middle of the road.  We catch up with her and help her onto the pavement.  She stops to catch her breath.  

“I’m 91” she says “I live over there”.   She points to a block of sheltered housing.  “I moved here a few years ago when my husband died”.  “I have four children.  They’re all pensioners”.  She laughs.  

She has a strong Yorkshire accent - but with a twist.  There’s something else and I can’t work out what it is.  “I love Yorkshire”  she says, “I lived there a long time”.

Suddenly it’s 1946.  She’s a 16 year-old girl living on a farm in Austria.  One day a British soldier walks in to her village.  They meet and talk.  He’s very handsome “with English manners” she says.

As he leaves, he takes her face in his hands and says “One day I will come back for you.”

Two years later - to her great surprise - he does indeed come back to the village.  When he finds her, he gets down on one knee.  She’s laughing as she tells this.  “ I though he’d fallen over, so I bent down to help him up.  We both fall over.”

She explains to her father that this British soldier wants to marry her and take her to England. “You must go” he says “the Russians are coming”.  

There’s more - much more to this story.  It’s both funny and poigniant.  She talks of the initial prejudice she experiences as a "foreigner" in post-war England.  "You understand?"  We understand.  

She’s lucid and sharp in the telling of her life.  As we listen I’m thinking someone should be recording this; it’s oral history at its best.

We’ve been standing here for almost half-an-hour.  Suddenly she’s tired and we walk to a nearby bench.  “Say hello next time you see me”.  We promise.  “We were married for 66 years” she says “I still miss him”.