91Èȱ¬

When we’d been in Burma for a while, we worked out how to improve our beds - we used lengths of bamboo, and fastened on the ground, and you’d lie on top of that. And sometimes you could make a little bed off the ground. All very carefully made. We even made legs — all out of bamboo.

Then we put a roof over our head with leaves and so on. We lived in the jungle all the time, on the ground or in the ground; in our fox holes. We didn’t have any buildings.

All our food, everything was dropped by parachute; from the planes, and sometimes if you managed to get hold of a parachute, you could put it inside your fox hole to line it and keep it clean. Now that would be a luxury bed, off the ground, with a leaf roof made from throngs of whatever it is - perhaps banana leaves and then your half blanket and your ground sheet — and your mosquito net of course - you had to put up your mosquito net because the mosquitoes were around all the time.

This story was submitted to the People’s War site by Becky Barugh of the 91Èȱ¬ Radio Shropshire CSV Action Desk on behalf of Richard Jones and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

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