大象传媒

THE BEGINNING.

THE BLACKSHIRTS ARRIVE.

I was eleven years old when the Second World War started. My family (mother, father, and brother Bill were living in Woodland Street, in Hackney, E.8.just a mile or two from the Dock area and the River Thames. We'd recently moved from Islington where we'd lived in a quiet residential street (Canterbury Road, N.l). - Off the Balls Pond Road.

When an Association called the British Union of Fascists set up in premises opposite Canterbury Road. Dad decided it was time to move. Suddenly men and women wearing black shirts began to use our street regularly as a kind of parade ground. They marched up and down the street, their arms raised in fascists salute. Their leader was Oswald Mosley.

Dad told me that the Blackshirt Movement had started out under the guise of a social facility for young men and women. If offered physical training, social activities, and ostensibly a chance to better yourself. As a young man he'd found this appealing and had joined the Movement. He soon left, recognising its covert nature and sick philosophy evidenced in its basic hatred of the Jewish people and foreigners. I don't recall any of the ordinary working-class people in my immediate environment giving any support to the Blackshirts, but there were supporters as I soon discovered.

It must have been a non-school day in 1938 when Bill and I joined onto the rear of an anti-fascist march to Stamford Hill. I was barely eleven and Bill was just coming up to fifteen. He took my hand as we marched. We must have looked incongruous trailing behind the long line of adults, yet nobody objected to our presence. I don't believe we were only there to enliven a boring day.

We were used to asking questions at home and most of the time we got a true and considered answer. So I believe we had an understanding of what Blackshirts stood for and the purpose of the March, even at our young ages.

It was a long march. As we neared Stamford Hill we were met by crowds of hostile Blackshirts, scowling, shouting abuse and giving the fascist salute. If there were scuffles I've forgotten them. Probably the police just cleared us all off.

WAR DRAWS NEARER.

GAS MASKS, AIR RAID SHELTERS AND EVACUATION.

It couldn't have been many months later when we began to see air raid trenches being dug in the parks. At school we were issued with gas masks. We knew that War was coming. Soon after this I was evacuated to Northampton. Mum and Dad had tried to get me and Bill evacuated together, but it wasn't possible. Bill's was a Grammar school for boys; mine a mixed Elementary school for Juniors.

School-leaving age at that time was 14 years so Bill opted to leave school. He probably put up a good case for leaving. His future wasn't jeopardised and in adulthood he gained a 1st Ph.D. with the Open University. It meant, though, that he could stay at home whereas I didn't have that option. I was evacuated to Northampton. I've no recollection of parting from my parents, either at home or at a railway station. All I recall is being in a train carriage with four school friends and a teacher. The train would have been packed with evacuees yet I have no memory of them. I'm good at blocking out painful memories.

At Northampton I was taken to a large hall and put on the end of a queue of children. "Have you got your Russians?" I was asked. 鈥淩ussians鈥�? What did this mean? "No" I said, thinking that "Russians" might mean Wellington Boots. A parcel was put in my hands which turned out to be a food parcel. The only contents I remember were a packet of Osborne biscuits which gave me comfort for some time, though there was other food.

I was billeted with a middle-aged couple who ran a pub/cum hotel called the Barewood Arms for commercial travellers. My four school friends were placed there too.

There was a large shed in the grounds which our hosts converted into an eating and living space for us five children. We also shared the upstairs bedrooms which were warm and comfortable.

"YOUR COURAGE, YOUR CHEERFULNESS, YOUR RESOLUTION WILL SEE US THROUGH."

I missed my home terribly. As soon as I returned from school each day I went up to the bedroom to cry in private. The sound of the pips at the beginning of the 6 O'clock wireless news sent me into floods of tears as I recalled the chinking of the tea cups and my mother setting the table for the evening meal at home.

I couldn't have been a rewarding child to care for. My hosts had a car and they took me for a drive on Sunday afternoons as a treat. I should have appreciated these rare events - there weren't all that many motor cars in those days - but my longing to be at home with my family was all powerful. It wasn鈥檛 fair on the 0ther four kids either. They never had the 0ffer of a drive out. I don't know how they passed their Sunday afternoons. Or perhaps I've just forgotten.

There came a day when I couldn鈥檛' constrain my feelings -any longer, although I'd done my best. I wrote a letter home or, rather, I wrote three letters home that day. The first was an impassioned plea to be fetched home at once! As soon as I'd posted it doubts started about the intensity of my words.

I realised I鈥檇 given Mum and Dad a problem. They couldn鈥檛 just drop everything to come to take me home. I also realised that I'd not taken into account the cost of travelling from London to Northampton and back. I had no idea of the cost involved. I might have given them an impossible task.

I had to write another letter playing down the first as being just a temporary mood. That things weren't as bad as I'd made them appear. There was no need to worry. But I wasn't satisfied. I must have been an obsessive child! My third letter was based on a propaganda poster I'd seen that day on my trips to the post box. " YOUR COURAGE, YOUR CHEERFULNESS, YOUR RESOLUTION WILL SEE US THROUGH". The words obviously made a strong impression on me as I remember them to this day. I quoted them in my letter, promising that they would be my motto until the end of the war. I told them that they were not to worry about me, nor did they need to come to fetch me home.

Mum and Dad received the letters together as they'd all three been written and posted on the same day. Bill read the last letter and saw its possibilities. He sent it to Tit-Bits, a popular magazine then. It was published and Bill received a guinea for it. I was genuinely pleased for him. As my big brother he was always generous to me so I felt good about giving him something in return.

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