How a French family fleeing Dunkirk found a warm welcome in Shropshire

In Shropshire they were given a warm welcome and made lasting friendships.

For the Osmont family from France their abiding link with the county was forged in war, in the dark days of 1940 when bombs were falling on Dunkirk.

"The Germans arrive," Louis Osmont wrote in a little notebook recording events as they unfolded.

"They encircle Dunkerque. We are in battle. The bridges are cut. We can't go back - the order for evacuation comes on June 3."

The Osmonts were from Cherbourg, but had made their way to the Dieppe and Dunkirk area, and as they waited for a boat to take them across the Channel crouched with soldiers as the Luftwaffe strafed.

Louis, wife Hortense, and children Georges and Denise sailed at midnight, arriving at Dover on June 4 at 6.30am. The Red Cross took care of the women and children, but as Louis was in uniform - he was in the gendarmerie - he was classed as a "fighting Frenchman" and had to return immediately to France.

France fell soon after his return and Hortense and the children would not see him again for five years. They would spend the rest of the war staying with Shropshire families. Denise would attend St Patrick's Roman Catholic School in Wellington, while Georges went to Ketley School. They had befriended the Forgham family of Horsehay and Miss Forgham was a teacher at the Ketley School.

They had at first stayed with a butcher in Dawley High Street, and then the Osmont trio stayed at the Clayton family home at Prospect House, Horsehay. They called Hortense "Madame," and she would help around the house.

The French visitors could speak little or no English when they arrived but picked it up, and Georges won a prize for an English essay at school. By the time they left Georges was speaking English with a Dawley accent, although the accent had disappeared when he spoke English in later life.

The Osmonts returned to liberated France in March 1945. Many years later they came back to England for a holiday and would see the Claytons again for the first and last time since the war.

Georges became a successful businessman but was killed in a road accident in about 1997, and by the time of the 60th anniversary of Dunkirk in 2000 Denise was the only one of the wartime visitors still alive. She shared her recollections with Ernie Dabbs of Oakengates, who had been at Ketley School with her brother, and had kept in touch with Denise after the war and had been to visit her and her family.

"When we went back to France they gave us many presents - Mr Tarr, Attwood, Keen, Forgham, Clayton. Miss Cossentine gave me a book of David Copperfield in memory of the time passed at St Patrick's School," she said in a letter.

"My mother had a WVS (Women's Voluntary Service) civil defence badge - she had done some camouflage work at Dawley.

"I have good memories of the kindness people showed us in England, and especially in Shropshire.

"I'll never forget. Shropshire has a big place in my heart."