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SCHOOLBOYS’ MEMORIES OF WORLD WAR II — PART EIGHT

NORTON PAINE

For us the war had various facets with part of our family living in Austria, but first and foremost it was exciting with noise and happenings. There were gas-masks and sandbags and bangs in the night. My parents went out with their ARP-helmets on fire-watch. They extinguished an incendiary which had been conveniently dropped in our front garden so that we children could have a really good view. There was fun in the Morrison shelter, into which our dog was always the first on an air-raid warning. The nearest bomb succeeded in smashing our windows, but otherwise we suffered no injury. One clear memory is that of a Spitfire chasing a doodle-bug on a beautiful Sunday morning after our Cubs meeting. The young Australian airman who came to stay with us was full of fun and jokes. What a life this was for a prep-school child! When the war was over life at school became much less interesting, as there were no more emergencies and we no longer had to duck under our desks.

All this in sharp contrast with the childhood of my wife, who grew up in a village south of Danzig where the battle-lines ran to and fro with the opposing armies wreaking vengeance on the way. She and her family fled, but were lined up to be shot, being saved at the last minute by a Russian officer.

SHAUN CROCKER

Our family was short of money during the war as my father was on piecework at The Times and the shortage of newsprint reduced his earnings to about £4 a week. This was not a bad wage by the standards of the day but my father had only taken on his first mortgage on moving from Barnes i 1937.

GERRY DUNPHY

Memories of those times linger, the war years were very hard for all of us then, families separated - in our case from '39 to '47 - a situation that would lead to divorce, today, most likely; so thank you, priests and nuns that brought pressure to bear upon our parents, not even to think of the word divorce, in the same way that there were many things that we did not even think of, much less dwell on - it was like a return to Eden, where the wearing of no clothes was just no issue - ‘Ignorance was bliss’.

But we enjoyed it all immensely and that is why OWs of that era hang together in our memories. Those who had to survive the end of the war saw greater hardships, of course, and had their minds pre-occupied with how poor the meals were, and how all the beautiful railings around the church confiscated by the Government were never used in the war effort at all. We hung around with friends, and the young hardly noticed how shabby things were, since no paint was available. But the break that did come in the universal health care system introduced by Strachey and Attlee in 1946 was not accepted well by many (our father at least), despite the obvious help to his strapped pocket book.

DENNIS HILL

Living in Mitcham at the outbreak of the War, so close to the RAF airfields at Croydon, Kenley and Biggin Hill, much time was spent having lessons in my Catholic Primary School’s air-raid shelter. Most raids were at night during the blitz. At home, sleep in the Anderson garden shelter was often disturbed. Entertainment was largely confined to collecting shrapnel in the streets from anti-aircraft shells or destroyed aircraft. To put the situation into perspective, by May 16th 1941, 20,083 Londoners had been killed. Between 1940 and 1945, due to two periods of evacuation to Derbyshire and north Wales, to escape the bombing of London, I changed primary school five times. During this entire time my father was away in the RAF, on active service in Burma and India. Despite all this upheaval, in 1946 I was able to pass the scholarship. Having been born in February 1934, I believe that I should have sat it a year earlier and that return from evacuation had upset the timing. I doubt that my family could have afforded school fees. So the award of a scholarship that allowed me to attend the College free of charge was a God-send, made via Fr. Sinnott’s vision.

Around 1926 the first Tuck Shop was opened. However, one did not exist in 1946. Perhaps it was closed down during the war due to sweet and food rationing. Even bread was on ration after the war. Sweets did not come off ration until about 1950.

RICHARD HARRIOTT

I spent most of the war years at school in St. Joseph’s, Kingston upon Thames. Many pleasurable hours were whiled away on the top bunks of air-raid shelters, avoiding the teachers who strode the duck-boards below. This seemed bliss at the time. But, when I arrived at Wimbledon in 1947, the chickens came home to roost with me.

Another link with Kingston was Father Pat Rorke S.J. His sister, Mrs. O’Connor, was one of our teachers in St. Joseph’s School. Pat returned to her home in Liverpool Road to recuperate at the end of the war. He had spent the war in a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp where he tore out pages from his breviary to assist the troops in rolling cigarettes. He had been fed on chicken food and was prescribed pints of Guinness for six months until his stomach could accept solid food. He was to cross our family’s path many times in succeeding years and to share many of our joys and sorrows.

He was by then back to his tall, broad, imposing figure. But, when I first saw him after the war, he looked like a figure in a Lowry painting. As he grew stronger, Father Sinnott invited him to give a Retreat in the College chapel. He explained how precious in his prison camp were several drops of water and expressed his present sense of wonder at turning on a tap and watching water flow freely. After more than fifty years, I still remember his words. I remember also the lesson he was putting across that we should never take any of life’s blessings for granted.

IN CONCLUSION

A REMEMBRANCE DAY ADDRESS

Given to the boys of Wimbledon College on 11 November 1996

PATRICK ROONEY

Just over six years ago - to be precise on 23 September 1990 - I was down at Coombe Lane for the ceremonial opening of the new pavilion. It was a special occasion for the College. It was a very special occasion for me because it was exactly 50 years after I had joined the College on 23 September 1940, a day that changed my life.

The war had been going on for just over a year. The ‘Blitz’ was in progress, there was bombing day and night, and the RAF had won the Battle of Britain, but we did not know that at the time. I slept each night in a brick air raid shelter in the garden with my parents and elder sister, and the following morning I travelled to the College by bus and train with my satchel on one shoulder and my gas mask in a cardboard box on the other. School did not start in those days until 10.00 a.m. to allow for our broken sleep. We grew accustomed to the constant roar of the anti-aircraft guns and the explosion of bombs but we slept only lightly.

On my first day after Mass in the Chapel all the boys went to assembly in the hall and learned the classes to which they had been allocated. By following other boys about my own age I found myself at one end of the Figures corridor to see at the far end Fr. Hoy calling out, ‘Figures I, this way’ . We sat down at our desks but within 5 minutes the first air raid warning of the day sounded. We all trooped down to the cellars under the hall and the House. They had been strengthened with timber and sandbags placed outside in front of the windows to protect them from blast. We stayed there most of the morning, the ‘All Clear’ being sounded just before lunch. We ate our lunch, started afternoon classes and then the siren sounded again. Down to the cellars we went once more. This pattern continued for some days with our class masters trying to keep our attention by reading to us from books. I remember that ‘Rodney Stone’ was one. Then Fr. Sinnott, the Headmaster whose portrait hangs in the hall, decided that enough was enough. Classes were now held in the cellars where we studied our Latin, French and Maths. I never did know how ‘Rodney Stone’ ended !

On 23 October our house was damaged by a bomb which fell nearby and we went to stay with my uncle in Windsor, not returning until March 1941

For the next three years there was a relatively quiet period with no daylight bombing, and none by night after the two big raids in May 1941. However, in February 1944 the Germans launched what became known as ‘The Mini-Blitz’. I came into school one morning and found that the College had been damaged in the previous night’s raid. A large bomb had fallen on the Convent of the Sisters of Mary in The Downs and five nuns had been killed. Many windows of the College had been blown in and slates had come off the roof. The roof of the swimming pool had been badly damaged and had to be removed. The school was closed for 3 days but the senior boys stayed behind on that first day to help clear up. I gave a hand until lunchtime and then went home. The swimming-pool became an emergency water reserve for the fire brigade and, there being no roof, we had to change for PT virtually in the open air protected only by a sloping roof along the side of the pool.

Nevertheless, we continued to play rugby but with a difference. Before each game began both sides formed an extended line across the field and walked slowly from one end to the other at least twice, collecting shrapnel which had fallen to earth during the anti-aircraft barrage. Collecting shrapnel was not unusual but only those pieces with an interesting shape or unusually large formed part of a schoolboy’s collection.

Just over a week after D-Day, i.e. around 14 June 1944, the flying bomb campaign started. These were missiles with an explosive warhead weighing about a ton and powered by a jet engine, the forerunner of the American ‘Tomahawk’ missile used in the Gulf War. They were launched from the Pas de Calais and flew at about 450 mph., their engines being programmed to cut out when they reached the London area. Several thousand were launched but the majority were shot down. However, those that did get through caused quite a lot of damage and disruption.

On that first day it was decided to close the school until further notice. In fact, the College did not open again until the following September. However, the public examination classes did not benefit from this extra month’s vacation. Arrangements were made for the boys to go to the Jesuit school at Mount St. Mary’s where they shared accommodation with the existing boarders and sat their exams in July. The College was the only school in the Wimbledon area whose pupils in that eventful year actually sat and passed their School and Higher Certificate.

Early in the morning on the first day of the new term the following September a flying bomb landed near my home in Norbury and caused quite a lot of superficial damage. One of the masters later told me that he had seen the flame from its engine dive down to the ground but did not appreciate at the time that one of his pupils was on the receiving end. My mother rang Fr. Sinnott and explained that I would be unable to go to school because I was busy clearing up the debris. He offered to send help which she gratefully accepted. About 10.30 a.m. George Bull, Henry Collis, John Palmer and Barry Collins arrived with their clean blazers, pressed trousers, white shirts and shining shoes. At the time I was up on the roof of the house having already thrown the broken tiles into the garden and was by then rearranging those that were unbroken prior to nailing down heavy roofing felt that the council had provided to keep out the rain. My friends spent the day knocking out the broken glass from the windows, replacing them with board or roofing felt and sweeping up the fallen ceilings, soot and general mess. As ever during the war everyone was prepared to help out come what may. I’m not sure what their mothers thought when they arrived home in the evening with their clothes dusty and dirty!

From that month of September 1944 until March 1945 London was bombarded by the V2 rockets. One evening after rugby practice I went up to the room of our coach, Fr. Watson, to discuss some points about a forthcoming inter-school match. The curtains were not drawn and as we walked across the room to close them we saw in the sky above the playing field a light curving down to earth in a great arc. We both knew what it was. As the light reached the ground there was a bright flash and a loud explosion followed by a roar like a hundred railway engines thundering by. It was a rocket that had been fired from Holland. Because it travelled faster than sound no one could hear it coming, the roar of its rocket motor arriving after the warhead had exploded. That one landed in Croydon and I witnessed this phenomenon a number of times.

As you know food was rationed during the war and although we certainly did not starve meals were generally plain and sometimes unattractive. The College provided a hot dinner but although the butler, Mr. O’Brien, and the kitchen staff did their best on restricted rations the meals were generally not very good compared to today’s standards. The kitchens were really too small for the number of boys and it was difficult to satisfy their appetites. I can remember mince with plain boiled potatoes and cabbage followed by prunes and custard, ‘soap’ (a kind of meat loaf), turnips and swedes which I could not abide then nor can I today, ‘bloody tombstones’ (hard pastry smeared with jam), and ‘frog spawn’ (tapioca pudding). How delighted we were when we were served ‘stodge’ (steamed suet pudding with either a watery syrup or weak custard). For me it was my main meal of the day. I went home to a tea of bread and jam and a piece of cake or a bun. If I was lucky I had beans on toast. Eggs were rationed in those days to one per person every two to three weeks and we had a small ration of dried eggs which came from America.

There was also a rationing system for clothing and as a result there was no compulsory school uniform. We were simply asked to look smart. I can remember in the last two winters of the war going to school wearing my father’s brown overcoat, his blue pin stripe jacket, and my brother’s trousers, shirt and shoes. All that I could call my own were my school tie and cap.

Compared to Europe the routine of school life in the war years was relatively similar to that of pre-war days but with one important and sad recurring feature: the death notice. Let me read you one:

‘Please pray for the soul of Lieutenant Colin Grant, OW 1929-39,
Head Boy 1939, who was killed in Sicily in July 1943’.

Colin Grant was the cousin of a very good friend, Henry Collis, who used to come to school with me on the train. Henry helped me with my Algebra and I helped him with his Latin. I remember also the notice that appeared for Lieutenant-Commander Eugene Esmonde who was shot down in the attack on the German battleships in the Channel in February 1942. He was later awarded the VC for his heroism in the action. His portrait hangs in the Hall together with two other Old Boys who won the VC in World War I. Photographs and obituaries of other Old Boys killed in World War I used to hang on the walls until they were destroyed in the fire of the late nineteen seventies.

There is no glamour in war. It is a nasty, brutish business. True there is bravery, compassion and indeed honour, but it is still horrific. War has a life of its own. It gets out of control and it ends in unforeseen ways, and frequently during its course there is only a choice of evils to take. Often we have to ask ourselves whether it was really worthwhile. Those who survive may have one answer to that question. The families of those who did not may have another.

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