I WAS born in Bletchley alongside the manor house that was annexed by the Secret Service for their code breaking efforts by Alan Turing and the Enigma decoders.

My father had moved there after the Barry Graving Dock paid off most of their workers due to the recession.

When I was nine months old, we returned to Barry, when the Graving Dock took on all their old staff due to the possibility of war. We eventually moved into 48 Kathleen Street.

When war started, a barrage balloon station was built at the bottom of Bell Street and when the Americans entered the war, they took over the station.

We had a Scottie Terrier name Gyp and a few months after the arrival of the Yanks, Gyp started to vanish at 8am and return at 9pm. We didn’t know where he was going, but he was fit and active so we weren’t too bothered.

At this time, aged two, I acquired a girlfriend. One morning, she hammered on my front door at 6am, shouting through the letterbox: "I want my butty".

My mother answered the door and called me. My girlfriend’s name was Margaret Jackson, and she lived six doors up. We became inseparable and on Fridays, her mother used to call at my house and take us both for a walk.

She would run ahead, with us each holding her hands, and she would then suddenly stop, which carried Margaret and myself forward until we clashed in the kissing position.

One day we went missing and my father came home to find my mother in hysterics. He jumped back on his bike to look for us. He got to Salisbury Road and saw me pushing Margaret on a tricycle.

He shouted: "Where are you two going?’ I told him we were going to Germany to find Margaret’s father. My father said: "How do you know where Germany is?"

"It’s over that hill," I told him.

"How do you know?" asked Dad, and I answered: "Because when the bombers have dropped their bombs, they fly over that hill."

My father shook his head in astonishment. He couldn’t work out childhood logic.

When Margaret and I were both five, we started school at Romilly Infants. We both insisted that we would go together – without parents. When we got there, we couldn’t find our way in. We went to this big door and pushed it open. It led to the senior school.

We then went along a corridor and pushed this huge door and stepped inside. To our amazement, it was the main hall and on all the walls were huge blackboards, with hundreds of names on them. These were the names of all the children in the famous W M Williams choir, which toured the world.

"What are you two doing here?" said W M Williams the headmaster. He then took us to Mrs Bacon’s infant class and when it was 10am she said: "Boys to the left, girls to right, to go to sleep until noon".

"We are not going, we want to be together," said Margaret and I. Mrs Bacon then said: "You two are inseparable, so ok."

The war ended and on VE Day, Margaret was missing from the party, so I went to her house. Her mother said she had scarlet fever, so I couldn’t see her.

Next was the VJ Day party and I went to check if Margaret was better. As I got near her house, huge black cars pulled up outside her house. Her relatives came out of the house, some carrying a wooden box.

I asked: "Where is Margaret?" and they told me she had died of meningitis. She was only seven.

When I retired, I decided to find out where Margaret was buried. I checked at Barry Cemetery, but there was no record. Two years later, I was passing Adams Funeral Directors and inquired with them if they had any details about where Margaret might be buried.

I was told there was virtually no chance of finding out any information as during the war, there were ten funeral directors using six cemeteries, but they told me they would check.

That afternoon, my phone rang and it was somebody from Adams who had managed to trace where she was buried. They gave me a grave number. I went to the cemetery, but the plot was unmarked.

A flowerpot I had been given I placed on the plot, and now visit "my butty" regularly, and I know the anniversary date, August 15, VJ Day.

After VJ Day, it was announced that the Americans were leaving. They were burying all their unwanted things at the Yankee dump next to the toilet disposal plant opposite Kathleen Street.

As fast as they dug the stuff, in we dug it up, and eventually every outdoor toilet was insulated with camouflage tape.

We went to watch the parade of the departing Yanks and one of them was holding a dog – it was Gyp! I shouted to him and the American, who was laughing, grabbed Gyp’s paw and waved it.

Maybe when the Americans come back to Barry in August they will bring Gyp back!

When I was working in Saudi Arabia, I had an American boss who had ME. One night, we had a party and with both of us sozzled, I helped him back to his cabin, but he fell over, so I picked him up and carried him to his cabin.

The following day when I saw him, he said: "Bill I’m sorry about your dog!" I could not remember telling him about it, but it was nice of him to apologise for the rest of America.

As I said at the start of this letter, I was born next to Bletchley Park. After I finished my apprenticeship, I went to sea and ended up as a 2nd Refrig Engineer.

When I left, I joined Thermotank Air Conditioning and working from Newcastle, commissioned all of the ships that took part in the Argentine war, including HMS Glamorgan, which led the fleet, and the Sir Galahad, which was sunk and was Simon Weston’s ship.

I then transferred to Bristol and looked after British Aerospace in Filton, whose computer room was cooled off by KDFG, which was half of the unit from Bletchley Park. The other half went to Nottingham University and then on to Honeywell Air Cond in America.

I then went back to sea as Chief Refrig Engineer with Fyffes banana boats, and then to Trane Air Cond, spending nine years in Saudi Arabia and 11 years in London with them, and later JSA Air Cond. I then retired.

You could say my life has been ‘a bit of an enigma!’ James Evans Owain Court St Athan