大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People's War site by Helen Avey of the 大象传媒 London Team on behalf of George Jone and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

It was my sixth birthday on the day that England declared war on Germany. Mr Father was already a territorial soldier and I have memories of polishing the buttons on his uniform and admiring his rifle in the months leading up to this momentous and life changing event!

The public were already very patriotic and I have a photograph of myself at two years old and holding a very large union jack in the back garden of 269 Chigwell Rd. Woodford Green. The 3rd of September 1939 a picture imprinted on my mind of bustle and confusion, of whistles blowing and my father seemingly disappearing, I don't recall any goodbyes, last cuddles or sadness in the house. He had, like so many others, gone to war.

My mother was alone now with her two children, myself and my sister Audrey who was three years old. I suspect that my parents didn't have a very happy marriage, because in no time at all the family home and all that was in it was sold and we were carted off to stay with an aunt, my father's sister who lived near Minehead in Somerset.

We were of course quite young and our stay there was short, therefore I don't remember much about it or if we were happy or otherwise. I know that my mother went out most of the time and I think my aunt being disgusted by her behaviour threw us al out!

Our next abode was a wooden hut on the beach which I remember as being reasonably comfortable and fun, one night a large bomb fell fairly close to us, probably by accident but it was very frightening. At daylight I ran to see where it had exploded and collected some pieces of shrapnel that I kept for many years as a souvenir, until they were eventually stolen!

I have always retained a vivid memory of our next stopping place, it was a very pretty thatched cottage in a Sussex village called Barnes Green, the memories of that one are both sweet and sour. During the day I was given jobs on a local farm, e.g. Pea picking, potato picking and helping with the wheat harvest are some that come to mind. I enjoyed eating the fresh peas and at the end of a day's potato picking, a big bonfire was lit and 'spuds' were baked in the cinders, whenever I smell baked potatoes I can visualize these evenings and the camaraderie of singing songs around the fire. Much fun was had at harvest time chasing the rabbits that were frightened out of the wheat by the noise of the binder, bearing down on them.

The sour bit was the abject loneliness at night, when our mother had gone out to have a 'good time'. When the terrifying sounds of planes would be heard overhead and we would listen to the engines and try to guess if they were English or German planes, we did learn to tell the difference and I think that I could still identify the same eerie sound today. My sister would cling to me in fear and to this day she still suffers badly with nerves and is a little unstable, surely this must have had a detrimental effect on her!

Our mother had apparently been trying to join the ATS, which eventually she did, of course I don't know precisely what transpired, being by this time around seven years plus, but imagine that the local authority got wind of the family situation and decided to take charge of the children. I was put into a nursery and my sister was given the status of evacuee and sent to a family in Huntingdonshire. She tells me, that she was never happy there and that they ill treated her.

We will leave Audrey here, because I neither heard from her, saw her, or heard about her for the next five years. Being almost eight years old by this time, I was sent to, what was called a 'camp school'. It was a complete school that had been evacuated from Leytonstone east London, its actual name was 'Tom Hood School' dispatched to the countryside, to what was 'Wedges Farm', Itchingfield Sussex to get away from the London bombing.

There were boys and girls in the school and we lived in long wooden huts and slept on bunk beds. There were some children who 'wet the bed' and they were all put into one dormitory. Of course it smelled pretty awful and there were always freshly washed sheets hanging outside to dry. It was a terrible stigma to be put into that hut and I vividly remember being terrified of this happening. I had been wetting the bed and now I stayed awake late and drank very little in the evening, anything rather than be put into the 'wet beds' dorm. Somehow I managed to keep out of it!

Being eight years old, slight and one of the youngest at the school was quite a frightening experience. On the plus side after a year of living in a village in Somerset and working on the farm, I had unknowingly developed a strong country accent and the older, bigger and sometimes rough London boys, were very amused by it and burst into fits of laughing every time I opened my mouth, thereafter I was adopted was a sort of mascot, alright to have around if I made them laugh!

Another thing that sticks in my mind that worried me was that I appeared to be the only child in the school who couldn't read or write, yet another stigma that I determined to overcome.

Most young teachers had been 'called up' and discipline was fairly non existent. I can remember very few lessons and a little gang of us boys myself being the youngest, and tolerated as the mascot, would head off into the surrounding Sussex countryside. We climbed trees, forded rivers, chased squirrels and caught grass snakes and hedgehogs, it sounds like a small boys' paradise and I suppose it was. But I also felt very much alone and crying myself to sleep was the norm!

My mothers' stepmother, Auntie Minnie had found me, and she would travel down from London to see me every so often. She would bring me a new pair short of trousers or a shirt, check over the contents of my bedside locker and ask the housemaster if I had been behaving myself. She was a bit of a dragon and these visits used to terrify me. On one occasion my little gang of 'friends' had tossed me into a dirty pond and rather than report this and get everyone into trouble, I just rolled up the clothes and stuffed them at the back of the locker. Aunt Mins' next visit was quite memorable, as she exploded on finding all the 'smelly' clothes hidden in my locker. And me not telling her what had happened, she reported me to the housemaster and I got into yet more trouble.

Oh! What about the time that we were 'birds nesting', just about all of us collected bird's eggs and I had a particularly good collection, until that was stolen! On this occasion I was crawling along the wall edge of a round sewer wall to reach a ducks' nest when the inevitable happened, I fell in!! Walking back to school with my clothes and body smelling so bad was probably my worst ever experience but imagine good old Aunt Mins' face when she discovered these clothes screwed up on my locker and smelling to high heaven! No wonder she got angry with me.

It was years later before I really appreciated the great effort that Auntie Min had made, to travel miles under difficult circumstances, in the 'black out' with very little money, just to visit me in the country!

A few years into the war and more and more foreign soldiers were being stationed in 'blighty', and in Sussex in the vicinity of the school, there were several army camps, some with American servicemen some with Canadians.

Inquisitive as kids are and with 'time on our hands' we were soon visiting these camps and making friends with the soldiers, the American 'squaddies', always had chewing bum and sweets and of course cigarettes, believe it or not we were already smoking!! Buying the odd packet of five Woodbines or rolling tobacco into a Rizla paper, sounds awful doesn't' it!

The Americans were always very nice and very generous, but I think we somehow had a better rapport with the Canadians; perhaps they weren't quite as 'flash' as the 'Yankees'.

On many occasions we would watch English and German fighter planes engage in 'dog fights', and naturally give a big cheers when 'jerry' was downed. When a plane crashed reasonably close by, we would trek over to the wrick to find souvenirs, bits of plane or ammunition, of course this wasn't officially allowed and most times the police or home guard would get there first and keep us away. The precious stuff I did collect was eventually stolen with the shrapnel.

Food was a problem for the whole population and the camp school was no exception, naturally sweets were rarely seen, potatoes were difficult to get and I remember a period when there just wasn't any and at meal times they produced a powdered substance, mixed it with water and called it 'pom2, ghastly stuff!

We were always hungry, being energetic and out in the fresh air I suppose, each child was allowed three pieces of bread at breakfast and dinner, I always seemed to be asking the other boys to give me their bread if they didn't' want it, one lad got into terrible trouble when caught stealing a loaf from the kitchen! When Auntie Min paid a visit she would bring some 'grub' with her. I know that I dreaded those visits and what she would find out but with hindsight she really was a lovely lady!

Chocolate from the American soldiers was always welcome but here is where the Canadian nature or character, or whatever you want to call it, came to the fore. One of our soldier friends, Leslie Prescott, a member of the Lorne Scots regiment and stationed at Itchingfield Sussex was a particularly nice man. He was obviously a family man and homesick, he really took to us kids. It happens that the Prescott family ran a grocery shop on Vancouver Island British Columbia, in a lovely spot called Strawberry Bale. Leslie didn't only give us what he had to give, he actually wrote to his parents and asked them to send us each an individual food parcel there were always three or four of us. The cakes that Mrs Prescott sent were superb fruit cakes absolutely scrumptious!

As time passed, our friendship with Leslie grew and I introduced him to good old Aunt Min who in turn, invited him to visit her home at 253 Church Rd, Leyton E10 and would you believe it? She also started to receive food parcels from Canada, I also know that two of the other boys in the little 'gang' Ken and Do0n Lofthouse and their parents who lived in Leytonstone E11 were receiving food parcels, and these are just ones that I can remember. I am sure that there were more. The Prescott family were not rich and these strange foreign kids in a far off land were not relatives of theirs, they were just being loving parents to a far off son and wonderfully generous people.

My mother did visit me on one occasion at the school I was about ten years old by this time, she was with a foreign serviceman from somewhere in the Balkans she had with her a very small baby whom she had named Robert. They took me to a posh restaurant and plied me with lemonade and ice cream and tried to persuade me to run away with the, I refused and they returned me to school, I have not seen or heard of her since, that was sixty two years ago!!

I had one more thing stolen at school, my precious stamp collection that I had lovingly looked after, carefully sticking the stamps into a nice album that was probably a gift from Leslie. I think these unhappy experiences taught me not to place too much value on material things.

Speaking of values, although I hadn't got a family of my own, this soldier from far away had introduced me, and my fiends to his and accepted us as part of it without a second thought, this taught me the importance of family values and of being loving and generous to others.

There must have been many such stories during the last war, many soldiers like Leslie shipped unwillingly to foreign parts, who instead of killing maiming and destroying, did in fact leaving behind a legacy of love and affection that were sadly missing in many young lives at that time. I have always wanted the opportunity to tell others, what an important roll these servicemen played on the home front during the war and to offer our grateful thanks. They certainly didn't receive any medals for it!

My father was demobbed in 1945, he had never been posted further than Ireland but had never communicated with either me or my sister, he very soon obtained a divorce and remarried.

He then told me not to visit or communicate with poor old Auntie Min, who had been the only relative to help me, I suppose because she was his ex mother in law, I did though!!

My father bought a house in Lytton Rd. Leytonstone E11, sister Audrey went to live with the, she wasn't happy and as soon as she was old enough she found a nannies job in America and has lived there ever since, she has four grown up children and lives in Florida. Dad also took half brother Robert on board, but I don't think that either of the children were treated very well, as soon as Bob was old enough he joined the Royal Navy, he married and had three children but sadly he left home sixteen years ago and has not been seen or heard of since, sad echoes of our mother!

Dad was a very hard man I fear, but then I got my ideas of love and affection from a Canadian family, and my father thought that Canadians were foreigners and therefore not to be trusted.

Leslie suffered a stroke a few years ago, he joined the Canadian Police Force after demob' and married Joyce, they had three sons Donald, David and Douglas, was it a coincidence I wonder that they named their first child Don?

My wise and I have had the pleasure of visiting them twice, and we have just booked a flight to see them once gain in September. It will be part of our own 60th end of the war anniversary.

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