大象传媒

Apart from the terror of the bombing air-raids, the most terrifying experience of the whole war for me happened when I was about 16 years old, which must put it in 1944. I can't remember for sure. My friend Phyllis and I had gone out for the evening to the Casino dance hall in Birmingham. It's not there now but it was at the top end of Corporation Street almost opposite the Magistates' Courts which are still there today. Despite the rather raunchy-sounding name The Casino was a respectable place. Indeed members of the Birmingham "city fathers" used to watch from a balcony above the dance-floor to make sure nothing untoward happened - even a man putting his arm around a girl counted as untoward. It was a popular place with british and american servicemen on leave, along with soldiers of many other nationalities, and the resident dance band was Ted Heath's before he went on to become nationally famous. The Americans had a big base outside Lichfield several miles away and so many of their personnel came from there (including, on a couple of occasions, film stars who were in the UK serving their country in uniform).

On this particular night we were enjoying ourselves as usual when a friend of ours who had a reputation as a "teaser" (she was a platinum blonde at a time when such a thing was rare) came up to us to tell us she was leaving early. She had made an arrangement with an american serviceman to take her home. Unfortunately she had also made the identical arrangement with a british serviceman. Since she couldn't go home with both of them she had decided to go with neither and to leave them both in the lurch. When the british and the american soldier each turned up at the appointed time and place and found not our friend but each other instead, a fight broke out between them. Had we had any sense we'd have left then but we were 16 and naive and didn't. Almost immediately other british and american servicemen joined in on the side of their own countryman. Now The Casino had at all times 2 british military policemen, 2 american and 2 canadian MP's (probably other nationalities, too, but I don't recall) on hand to help maintain order but this fight overwhelmed them. We tried to get away from The Casino but the fight spread faster than you could imagine and soon spilled out into Corporation Street leaving Phyllis and me hiding trapped in an office doorway by the uncountable mass of british and american servicemen fighting with each other and with the MP's too. The nearest civilian police station was just around the corner in Steelhouse Lane and so soon the Police arrived and pitched in. I saw one policeman bear down upon a fight between a british and an american soldier shouting, "Make way for the Police!". The two soldiers combined to knock him to the ground before getting back to each other. Civilians also joined in, for whatever reason. I saw an american soldier being held handcuffed by two of his MP's when a man, a civilian, swore at him and punched him in the face before disappearing into the crowd. It was a most cowardly act to hit a helpless man like that I thought then and still do. The soldier was standing there crying, not from the blow so much as from the frustration of not being able to hit his assailant back.

The civilian police clearly couldn't control the melee of british and american servicemen, military police of several nations, and themselves all fighting in the street so they put up a cordon at the top end of Corporation Street and another lower down and tried simply to contain it. Phyllis and I, meanwhile, were trapped in our office-doorway, scared to death and hoping none of these fighting and shouting bodies would fall in upon us because you can be sure they wouldn't have noticed two 16 year old girls huddled there. Corporation Street was just a noisy sea of fighting uniforms. Thank God that office-doorway was deep! We were there for what seemed like hours and probably was, considering that the various military police reinforcements had to be called in from their respective bases miles away. Eventually, though, a gap appeared in the mess and we slipped through to make our way home.

We never heard any mention of the incident in the papers or on the radio (there was no television then). Our platinum blonde friend later married an american soldier and moved to America after which all contact was lost. Phyllis and I remained friends for the rest of her life and so now that she is no longer with us I don't know anyone any more who remembers the incident. I have told the story many times over the years and generally been met with disbelief because it doesn't seem to have been reported, but I'm sure there must be others out there who remember it still. I bet the handcuffed american soldier who was punched in the face does.

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