WHEN Elizabeth Cook's soldier father Evan Jones was found in a London hospital after going missing during the chaos of the Dunkirk evacuation in 1940, she and her mother Joan went to visit him.

But during the return journey to Newport, they and a trainload of fellow passengers found themselves pursued by the same enemy that wreaked so much havoc on servicemen waiting to be taken off the French town's beaches - a German plane.

The incident, in which the aircraft pursued a Great Western Railways train along the mainline toward South Wales, forcing it to stop in the Severn Tunnel, was mentioned in an article in the Argus last Saturday, to mark the tunnel's impending 125th anniversary.

It is understood the train was strafed with bullets and the driver broke wartime rail speed regulations during the pursuit.

And for Mrs Cook, it brought back memories of a time ripe with individual and collective anxiety as the reality of the Second World War began to be felt across the British Isles.

"I couldn't believe it when I read the article. I thought, 'I was on that train!'" she said.

"We were on the way back, and this plane followed us for miles. We were watching it out of the window.

"There were a lot of our troops on the train, it was very busy, and they knew it was a German plane.

"We went into the tunnel and the driver stopped the train. We were so grateful to him because we heard the plane dropped bombs either side of the line at the other end. We had to be bussed us back to Newport."

Mrs Cook, of Hendre Farm Court, Ringland, celebrates her 86th birthday next month. But she was just a teenager when her mother received a telegram informing her that her husband, who served in the Royal Engineers, was missing.

"He'd served in the First World War, and changed his age to join up for the next war. My mother didn't speak to him for days!" she said.

"It was a terrible time, not knowing if he was alive or dead and my mother was in despair. My brother and one of my sisters were in the RAF, which made us even more anxious.

"It was a fortnight before we found out he was alive. The police came to tell us he was in a hospital in London. We were so relieved.

"He didn't talk much about his war experiences, but I understand he was among soldiers who stayed behind after the main evacuation.

"Later, back in Newport, he defused a bomb near Mannesmann's (tube works, on Corporation Road). But we didn't know about that at the time."