大象传媒

"What is war Grandpa?" I asked as a nine year old child in 1939.
My paternal grandfather, who was a machine gunner in the First World War, knew all about it, having won the Military Medal on the Somme, and been promoted to Lieutenant in the field, on the spot!
He'd spiked a row of German guns, single handed, and returned with just minor wounds.
Unknown to me, I was to find the answer to this question sooner rather than later.
On the 25th June 1939, the St Saviour Junior School at Le Neuf Chemin issued a note to the parents of all the children.
It informed them that the children would be evacuated the following morning at 8.30 am, from the school in a coach to the harbour, and would board a mailboat that would take them to Weymouth in England.
Unknown to me the coach and boat left earlier to catch the tide.
I was sent home and told to return the next morning at 8 a.m. to travel with the mums and babies on a boat named the Duke of Argyle.
My family did not see me off, they were picking tomatoes like mad to get them on the boat before the Germans arrived.
I left with my gas mask in a cardboard box around my neck, an orange, and seven pence halfpenny in my pocket, and sallied forth into the unknown dangers which lay in my path ahead, just as my grandfather did on the Somme all those years earlier.
When the boat sailed I knew no-one on board, but the crew nurse gave me a cuddle and one of her sandwiches, which helped to allay the fears of being bombed, torpedoed or drowned.
I was kept below deck for the journey, which, like all old vessels of the line, were hot and stuffy and reeked of lead paint in the still air.
The shimmering heat of that flaming June day did nothing to ease my comfort, so to occupy my time on board, I, with another boy, found lots of lifebelts stored in large wooden boxes, so we proceeded to build a den, stacking the lifebelts high like a wall, in the passage way.
It was great fun, and hard work for hours until a crewman caught us and gave us both a good clip around the YERS! And made us put them all back again.
The wonderful and ubiquitous W. V .S. met the boat at Weymouth, where we were fed and watered, and put on a train to Liverpool.
I do not remember that journey, having fallen asleep in my seat, after being on my feet most of the day.
A local train took us to St Helens, and we were coached to Allanson St junior School, where we were allocated a camp bed in the gymnasium.
It was now very late in the evening, and the W. V .S. were to provide breakfast in the morning.
I was collected a few days later by Mrs Friar and her daughter Betty, and taken to their three bedroomed terraced house near the school.

Maurice Sangan

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