大象传媒

During the war we were living on Mayfield Road, Cross in Hand. I was a schoolboy at Tonbridge.

I started at Foxhunt Manor School in Waldron. It had to move in a hurry at the time of Dunkirk as it was being commandeered as a hospital. The school evacuated to Wales but as I was a day boy I went to Tonbridge. I went daily by the 52 bus. It took one and a half hours stop to stop. I boarded at Tonbridge.

Druing the last daylight German bombing raid during Battle of Britain the German bombers were turned round by our fighters. They never got to London. They were jettisoning their bombs and the only place which got any serious damage was Stakers farm at Five Ashes. The two farmers sons were milking and the cow shed got a direct hit.

This was during the holidays and I was at home. We were very aware of the bombs dropping all around.

Fortunately we had a very sophisticated air raid shelter which my father had built. As it happens it was a nice day and we were having a picnic tea just outside the shelter when the bombs dropped. We rushed into the shelter and stayed until the noise stopped but we had no idea what was really happening.

When we came out we didn't know what we would find. A bomb had come down opposite and all we got was a bit of shrapnel in one window. Both houses beside us had all the windows out and ceilings down.

We heard the Scows(?) farm had been hit so a friend and I took out bikes and went there. There was a bus which had been blown up and it had also been targeted by some German fighters which had been flying over. All the passengers were in the ditch but they were OK.

Later in the war there was a Ministry of Information. A leaflet produced called Home Front showed a picture of Scows Farm.

When the night raids were occurring in London the planes were flying over and at night you could see the red glow and the sky of London burning.

We had a doodlebug land at the bottom of our wood. When it cooled down we got some souvenirs off it.

During Battle of Britain there was a dog fight overhead and my father encouraged me out to watch. Then there was an almighty bang. Then the Spitfire did a victory roll over us and we realised that the German plane had landed on Mayfield Flat. We were just having some groceries delivered and the plane landed just in front of the delivery van. Thank goodness he wasn't half a minute earlier.

The plane came down exploding in flames. The police arrived. They cleared the wreckage surprisingly quickly to get the road clear.

Anyone who had any sort of machine shop or tool shed was making plane parts. My father had an interest in engineering and he had his own high quality workshop. He was making aircraft parts.

My father converted a lot of more amateurish workshops to production workshops he was paid a bit to do this but he did it as his war effort. He didn't make money out of it.

Strange Electrical in Heathfield conveted their lathes to production lathes - my father did the converting.

The baker in Heathfield had an amateur lathe and my father converted this for aircraft parts production.

These people were all sub contracting to Covell and Foord in Hurst Green. They had a main contract to supply the parts and they subcontrated out to local amateurs.

My father used to get all the awkward jobs which no one elso wanted because he had an interest.

One job my father had was to make some valve castings and normally Covell and Foord would chase him up but for these the Ministry of Aircraft production was chasing him direct. No matter how many he machined they always wanted more. He asked why it was all so urgent but they wouldn't tell him. We found out later that they were the heating valves used - Mosquito aircraft - and he was the only person making them in the country.

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