The surprise

The surprise ....well we woke and made ready for our tour guide, Anna, to materialize . I made brekky with Nigels help, we all cleaned up and ironed our clothes in readiness. We were all dressing the "by jeep to freedom tshirts supplied by myself and I must  say we all scrubbed up very well. Anna appeared and the intro's were made. Now for the surprise ...Anna was so excited as she announced that after extensive searching through the basic records the Russians handed over to them, the microfilm we were so proudly shown by Anna and her staff showed the word " FLUCHT" which in German means flown the coop.the records showed he had escaped with "digger"and now we have him name too. It was official. This , however, was not his last escape from Stalag V111b . Anna then diected us into the board room where we were treated to tea & biscuits & a detailed chat about dad and the records I had. Then in walked a camera man with a professional broadcast camera on his shoulder. Followed by the local tv celeb with a big microphone in hand . TVP 3 Opole was printed proudly on a triangle on the handle. We were then interrogated by the celeb in heavily spoken broken English.  Now that we had been etched into tv history it was time to mount the bikes for a display of sincronised riding for the camera. Surprisingly enough Anna produced a bike of her own and we were off to Stalag V111b ( we were in the admin block) after a pretty two km ride we arrived and were shown what was left....... No buildings but the cobbled roar that all the unfortunate troops walked along were there . This track was in it's original condition . Anna was a wealth of info as we rode. 62,000 men perished while under the "care" of the Germans including whilst in work details. The major memorial for soldiers of all countries was dignified and solemn. It was five o'clock before we got back to our accommodation.    We raced for the Telly to watch our debut on OpoleTV, we missed it, no matter, Anna promised us a copy in the mail. Chef Anton knocked up two soups then chefs Nigel & Jon treated us to a chicken and rice dish, ............ Not too bad either. Thanks Mark for doing the dishes as I typed the one finger IPhone tap tap. Nigel & Ant were now on the maps for tomorrows great adventure. Its Good night from me and its good night from him. The one Ronnie. Happy birthday Rita xxx