'I offered up a silent prayer'

She was given only two months to live.

She wanted him to write down his war experiences so her son, then seven, would understand what his grandfather had done during the war.

Charles' second wife, Lyn, said: "I had been trying for years to get him to put something down."

Charles said: "My first wife, Irene, did not even know I had been wounded or taken prisoner or been made a sergeant."

Over the past seven years, he has researched and written the story that he had blocked out for more than five decades.

It is an astonishing story of bloody battle, terrible injury, kill-or-be-killed action and the extraordinary capture of about 100 German prisoners.

The Northern Echo tells that story in Charles' words. We start here in the boats a day or so before D-Day. We will follow him as the 9th Battalion of the Durham Light Infantry pushes through Normandy, suffering terrible losses at the Battle of Lingevres, and we will end with him being blown up by a mine on July 22, 1944.

After about three months in Dryburn Hospital, in Durham, Charles was discharged from the Army and told he would be in a wheelchair by the age of 40.

Now 79, he is still on his feet, but finding mobility increasingly painful. Yet, a couple of weeks ago, he made it back for the first time to the D-Day beaches. He relived the assault at Lingevres and found the grave of his best friend, Private Lewis Turner. A fellow member of the DLI, "Lew" died at Lingevres aged only 21 and was buried at Bayeux.

Charles said: "I never had a mate after that, I never made friends; it was too traumatic.

He was just a young lad.

"They met such terrible deaths. What a bloody waste of lives; they were lads who had never lived."

In the 60 years since, Charles has certainly lived.

Now semi-retired and living on the outskirts of Sunderland, he is still involved in the photography business he founded in 1972 - Charles Eagles and Son - which has branches in Maritime Street, Sunderland, and the Milburngate Centre, in Durham.

Probably best of all, Sandra, of Middleton St George, near Darlington, has confounded medical opinion and is still alive to read his astonishing story . . .

Part 1: In the boats

IF I remember rightly, it was quite breezy on June 1 and 2, 1944. There was quite a bit of horsing around, with grown men acting like kids, lots of high-pitched laughter that didn't seem real - it was all to cover up our nervousness.

We'd been told that the invasion was imminent and had rushed off to pack our kits and write our last letters home. I was in the 9th Battalion of the Durham Light Infantry, although I originally come from Newcastle-under Lyme, in Staffordshire.

It's a long story. In 1943, aged 18, I joined the Commandos, but I fell down a cliff while training in Scotland and was sent to hospital. When I recovered, the adjutant asked me where I came from, I said Newcastle, thinking there was only one. And they sent me "home" to another one - Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

So instead of joining my local regiment, the North Staffordshire, I ended up in my new local regiment, the DLI. I was posted down to the 9th Battalion's training camp at Saffron Walden, in Essex, on February 12.

We spent a couple of months building up our fitness - on one occasion, in conjunction with some Yanks, we covered 105 miles in six days wearing Army kit and heavy boots and carrying our rifles.

We started at Boston, in Lincolnshire, and ended in Hull and in between managed to "capture" five villages.

I had gone on an explosives course to learn how to deal with mines and booby traps and to earn 6d a day extra. It meant I was in S Company.

"Does S stand for stupid, sir?" I asked Lieutenant Jack Williams, tongue-in-cheek.

"No, it bloody doesn't, " he roared back. "It's superior, special, and it's elite."

I liked Jack Williams. He was a miner from Brandon, County Durham, and like me, a keen boxer. I would go to hell and back with him, which was a good thing because, as it turned out, he took me there and I carried him back.

Because I was in S Company, I had to carry a large pack containing detonators, gun cotton, fuse cotton, rope, string and a pair of wire cutters. All in all, I had about 100lbs on my back which, with hindsight, was a ridiculous amount to try to carry.

But, as we were crammed into the hold of an American ship like sardines with just enough room to lie down, we were keen to get on and fight.

Yet the weather wouldn't let us. We were told that, because of it, the invasion was postponed and we would have to stick it out onboard for another day.

Little gambling schools formed all over and we took turns to go on deck for fresh air. Some men wanted to talk, others just played cards; some oiled their rifles, others sat poker-faced - they were the ones that had already seen action.

One soldier was on the brink of tears, repeatedly opening his wallet and looking at his pictures of his wife and children. The heat in the hold was dreadful and the smell was awful, the rations were boring and the lads were getting grumpy.

Then, on the night of July 5, Lt Williams came down and excitedly told us the invasion was on, and that we would sail that night. He gave us instructions, landmarks to recognise and told us to put on our waders that came up to our necks about an hour before we were to land.

The lads cheered up; at last something was happening. In fact, it was an amazing turnaround. The men were keyed up and raring to go, the American sailors were cracking jokes and a cheer went up as we set off.

Yet to me inside the hold, the sea seemed deadly quiet.

It was an echo of ourselves;

calm on the outside but deep and unfathomable feelings on the inside.

There was a quiet buzz of conversation and louder murmurs from the gambling schools. A few tried to get some shut-eye, but every now and then someone would step over you to visit the toilets on deck.

I went up and was amazed at what I saw. Thousands of boats of all descriptions had amassed around us - but all I could see in the night light was their silhouettes. Hundreds, thousands of ghostly vessels all sailing in the same direction.

As I scrambled back down, I thought to myself: "If we get a direct hit, we won't have a cat in hell's chance of getting out of the hold."

I offered up a silent prayer to my guardian angel. Because I never knew my father, I developed a close relationship with the man my mother worked for.

He built a little truck for me to push round delivering things, and when he died, I believe he came to look over me.

I crossed my fingers and thought: "Look after your little friend, Tom Kerry."