Trip to London

Heroes Remember

Trip to London

Transcript

You get there, and you kind of get processed through the business, you know, done that. You had to get your billets and usually they give you a week's leave. So, where does everybody go? London. That was a good experience, too. Because you didn't know where you were going to go. But when you went to... stayed in one place there, and it was more or less pretty near in the place in the hallway with a cotton mat, but at least it was a place to sleep. And so I, I, you know, being a country boy, let's, let's, let's go back to that part, being a country-boy and not knowing all these things that goes on, so. And I, I... remember, she said to me "What time do you want to get knocked up in the morning?" I didn't know what she was talking about. Really, you've heard these things, these things, you know, and I, I didn't know what... I thought "What am I doing here?" But she wanted to know what time I wanted to get up in the morning, what time she'd come and wake me up in the morning. That was a favourite, that's just one of their ways of talking. It was natural to them, but, you know, for me, didn't know what they were talking about. But I'll tell you one thing, though, that all my life I enjoyed history, geography, and I took Latin and German in school. But the history and geography, from premier class up through... Because you read these books with King Alfred the Great and the, and the horse and the water on the street and all this kind of stuff. You're in their country and there's so much history and things to see, the Romans in there, and all my leaves were into, into someplace that I could go to see these things. Spent lots of time in the Imperial War Museum in London. Takes you days to get into that one, you know, if you're interested in reading all of what was there, with all the old armour and stuff in there. Oh, beautiful. Just beautiful.

Description

Mr. Garrison describes travelling to London and his interest in local history.

Glenn Garrison

Mr. Garrison was born in 1925 in Sarnia, Ontario. His family moved to Blackville, Ontario, in 1930. Although his father was a boiler maker with the Canadian National Railroad, Mr. Garrison's family was poor. When old enough, he went to work in a factory, then enlisted in 1943. He received his Air Gunner training in Lachine, Quebec, then shipped overseas on the Mauritania. He was a member of 428 Squadron. The Mid-Upper and Tail gunner positions were extremely vulnerable and he was fortunate to survive many bombing missions over France and Germany. These missions included the bombing of submarine pens in Southern France and the industrial area of the Ruhr Valley. At the age of 18, Mr. Garrison returned to Canada with 43 missions to his credit. At 19, he became a flying instructor at Fingor, then CO of the Turrets and Gunnery school at Mountain view. Mr. Garrison and his wife live on a farm in Sarnia. He has his own air plane and is still flying.

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