大象传媒

MEMORIES OF WORLD WAR 2

I was 14 when the Second World War started, living about 6 miles south of Manchester. My first memory of anything warlike happening was seeing the mobilisation of the Territorial Army Yeomanry squadron at our local Drill Hall - all magnificent shining horses, polished leather harnesses and troopers' equipment and sparkling boots and brass buttons. Very soon, they were sent of to the Middle East, where I later learned that they kept their horses until about 1942, when they were mechanised. Not at that time really a match for the German panzer divisions which swept across Belgium and France only 8 months later, but I think an example of Britain's unpreparedness for mid-20th century warfare!
During this "Phoney War" period, nothing much seemed to happen, although the Royal Navy was involved in the war against the U-boats from Day l and the country was shocked to hear of the torpedoing of the battleship HMS "Royal Oak" in the naval base at Scapa Flow in October 1940. There were occasional "wireless" bulletins that the RAF had dropped leaflets on Germany!
Everything changed in the Spring of 1940, when a massive German attack led to the fall of France and then to the Battle of Britain and the threat of invasion. During all of this, I was taking my School Certificate exams, which didn't make it easy to concentrate on serious revision!
My father, who seemed to me to be quite an old man (he was 43!) joined the Local Defence Volunteers (LDV = Look. Duck and Vanish), later the Home Guard, and appeared in an ill-fitting denim uniform with a WWl rifle covered in thick grease. The headgear was a forage cap, meant to be worn on the side of the head, but as he was almost completely bald, it kept slipping off. As he had also lost a leg in WW1, I was convinced that things must be really serious if this was an example of our defences! (Sorry, Dad!).
I continued at school, and having been judged to be good at languages, was put to studying the works of 17th and 18th century French and German authors. This didn't seem to me to be a sensible use of time and effort at a period of extreme crisis in the country's history, so against the advice of my parents and teachers, I left school, and being too young to join the Forces, joined the Manchester City Police as a Police Messenger (forerunner of Police Cadets). This certainly opened my eyes to the wicked real world we live in, and I rapidly became what would now be called "streetwise", for which I have subsequently been grateful. Since this was a time of heavy bombing raids on Manchester and Liverpool, there were several unpleasant and frightening incidents of warlike activity, and everyone seemed to have to tell all their acquaintances what narrow escapes they had had!
For a time, I was at a Police Station in South Manchester which covered the area now occupied by Manchester airport, then called Ringway. This was used as the base for training parachute troops, many of whom were Polish.. We used to watch them jumping from captive balloons, and then from converted Whitley Bombers. The latter took place over a large country estate called Tatton Park. My father, who was a telephonist/receptionist at the nearest hospital in Altrincham, used to come home and tell us how many Parachutists had been admitted that day with broken arms or legs some almost every day.

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