The following was written by retired GP Ken Parsons, a member of the Ross and District Probus Club about an incident which happened when he was in the RAF.

CHRISTMAS 1944

Carl, Eric and I were trudging through a frost-whitened meadow, in bright moonlight. Carl was our underground guide, Eric and I had been shot down from our bombers over Holland five months earlier, and had been hurried away from a previous hiding place because of some threatened danger.

It was Christmas Eve, and our thoughts were wondering about what was happening to our homes and families. We approached a small farm, and Carl left us in the shade of a hedge while he went to knock on the door. The farmer, Jan, opened the door and Carl called us to join him, and entered with us to act as our interpreter. Jan and his wife apologised that they did not have a spare bed, and asked if we would mind sleeping on the hay and straw stored on a platform above the cattle in the stall.

We assured them that we would be only too glad to sleep there. Carl left, and we were given a simple supper of bread and cheese and ersatz coffee, Jan prayed before the meal, and read a chapter of the bible afterwards (in Dutch of course) which was their regular custom.

He then led us through a doorway from the kitchen into the stall, where the cattle were chained to posts supporting a platform above, from which he pulled down a quantity of hay and distributed it to the line of cattle. He placed a ladder for Eric and me to get up to and settle down in the stored hay, wished us 'Goode Nacht' and stepped out of his 'clumpen' back into the living room and closed the door.

There was much crunching of hay for a time, then one by one the cattle settled down and all was quiet apart from an occasional gentle moo. I hoped the cattle lowed so gently on the first Christmas night.