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I am born on the day that Churchill made his famous speech "We will fight them on the beaches etc", 4th June 1940, in the Netherlands. So, the first 5 years of my life I lived in an occupied country.

My father was a sergeant in the Dutch army, and followed the then queen Wilhelmina鈥檚 order not to surrender, which he did. He went in the underground movement and we went in to hiding. Once my father was picked up by a German patrol and marched into a cafe. The German officer checked his papers and said they were false (which they were) but he could not prove this. He then threw the document on the floor. My father also bluffed and said to the officer that he had thrown a genuine German document on the floor and he would report the officer. The officer picked it up and gave it back to my father who was then allowed to go. My father turned around a corner and almost collapsed as his legs then gave way.

I also remember that once 2 German soldiers came to the farm where we were hiding and looked in, obviously to arrest my father. However he was gone, tipped off by a mayor who was a so-called Nazi sympathiser. I can not draw which is a shame because I still, after 62 years, remember their faces.

After the war my dad received a medal; the officers who did surrender and lived a reasonable life in Germany were then financially compensated, which was a great injustice. Although we did not really starve everything was rationed and even then seldom available and I do remember great suffering. During the severe winter of 1944/45 many thousands died, sometimes literally in the streets. Many of us remember when in January 45 the RAF dropped bread etc. which was done with the cooperation of the German commander.

One funny story happened on the 4th September 1944. The allied troops were already in Belgium and a rumour spread that they would invade Holland the following day (still known in Holland as Dolle Dinsdag - Mad Tuesday). Most of the German troops were tired of the war and wanted to go home. Thousands of our bicycles were stolen but some did not get far. They were stopped by their officer and ordered to go back to the front. Obviously they left the bikes where they were stopped. If I now get angry with an elderly German who may have been involved in the war, I will ask for my father's bicycle. Till now I have only done this twice and in both cases the German understood what I meant.

We are still very grateful for the liberation of my country in 1945

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