After being evacuated to Coleford in l94l we didn't see or hear anything of the Jones family until many, many years later a man about thirty years of age walked into my office at work and asked if I was Tom Fletcher. I nodded and he held out his hand and as we shook hands he said "I'm John Jones". Obviously the name didn't mean anything to me at first. At that time we had about thirty sub-contract companies working for us and I assumed the man standing before me was a representative from a new company looking for work so when I looked  rather puzzled he repeated his name "John Jones" and then added "from Coleford".

The word Coleford meant only one thing and I was amazed to think the last time I saw this man he was less than 2 years of age. I then said, "John Jones" and we shook hands warmly again and he sat down and we tried to quickly cover the intervening thirty years.

He said his father had died when he was quite young (he was,  in fact, only six) which brought him to the main reason for his visit. His mother, Jessica, was very ill in Cheltenham Hospital and she asked John if he could contact Ralph and me with the hope that after all these years we could go and see her. I reassured John I would contact Ralph and we would arrange a visit.

A few days later John, his wife, Ralph and I went to Cheltenham  Hospital where John led the way to his mother's ward. Obviously she didn't recognise either of us although I remembered her - a tiny version of her old self and we gently shook her hand and introduced ourselves.

When she realised who we were she smiled a most radiant smile and was so very pleased to see us. We didn't say very much and didn't stay very long; I suppose the happy memories of Coleford  thirty years earlier were flooding back for all of us.

She died a few days later, she was sixty-seven.

Sadly to say some years later John suddenly collapsed and died of a heart attack, he was forty-nine.  He left a wife, a daughter and two sons.