大象传媒

IN THE BEGINING

Sunday 3rd September 1939, I was 10 years and 8 months old. I was a 鈥淟ifeboy鈥� a member of the junior branch of the 鈥淏oys Brigade鈥� an organisation somewhat akin to the 鈥淪couts鈥� though leaning toward the church rather than the military, at least that is how I see it.

It was a Sunday much like any other, of course the grown ups had been talking of Hitler and the goings on in Europe. It seemed there were fears that there would be another war after all it was more than 20 years since the last, but these were the concerns of grown ups, I was just a kid.

Kid or not, war or not, it was Sunday, and Sunday meant Church Parade, wher we met up kitted out in our blue jerseys, with hat and belt, well those of us that had them. I guess looking back we were a bit of a ramshackle lot, but we marched proudly through the streets of Dagenham in Essex where I lived with my family, with the march ending of course outside the Methodist church in Bennets Castle Lane. Then into the church for the morning service at 11am. Well that was the plan, but at 11am there was a wailing sound from outside which seemed to strike fear into the gathered congregation. I was later to learn that it was in fact the air-raid siren outside the police station. Remember I was 10 and it was 64 years ago, but my recollection was that it was every man, and child, for himself as the church emptied. I ran out, down the steps and across the street where about a hundred yards further on was the house of my grandparents.

Now that house, then a council owned house, was right next to a council green which I guess was meant to add a touch of decoration to the street corner, and on that green was an Anderson Shelter, a corrugated iron structure set to about half it鈥檚 height into a pit especially dug for it, with the excavated soil being piled around and on top for added protection. It was cold and unwelcoming at that stage, but that never stopped my grandparents, aunts and uncles, crowding into it in case they were attacked from the air. When I arrived hotfoot from the church, they were already in place there and called me in to join them. I had no idea what was going on, but every time a vehicle passed it seemed they thought it was a German airplane, and a bus was a particularly ominous threat. The fear they obviously felt was soon transferred to me, up until that time I had no idea what was going on, but now it seemed serious. A little later the same siren sounded but this time with a single steady not rather than the varying tone of the first one I had heard, That eased the tension and we left the shelter.

That was the start of my war, it was to change my life in so many ways. We were to be denied so many of the things children these days take for granted. In short I think we grew up at a faster pace than was intended. Now looking back through the mists of time, some things stand out in the memory, some are clouded, some are best not remembered at all, but perhaps that is wrong, we SHOULD remember them, the good things, AND the bad, otherwise how will we ever learn, it seems we haven鈥檛 so far.

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