MEMORIES of D-Day prompt thoughts of the war.

I was 14 and still at Nunthorpe Grammar. My dad was away all hours, often in his guards’ van behind ammunition trains as a railway goods guard.

I was the oldest of five and my mother’s right-hand man. We were evacuated for one night once while an unexploded bomb was dealt with.

I got them up when the sirens sounded and under the big table in the living room, then later the shelter. I was out in front with the next-door neighbour watching the German bombers on the night of our big raid until my mam made me come in.

We often saw Hull alight, attacked for the shipping which would set off to Russia with supplies for their defence.

My mother had three brother soldiers serving in India and Europe, but dad was an only son. He had volunteered in 1915 in the Royal Navy for five years and served on eight ships including the Royal Australian Navy cruiser Sydney on which he was in the Gulf at the time of Gallipoli as leading telegraphist.

My hope now is that our descendants will not see our country fighting off attack again.

George Appleby, Leighton Croft, Clifton, York.