大象传媒

Life for me started in April 1939 in Redhill County Hospital, Edgware, London鈥�..war broke out a few months later!
I lived in Rayners Lane, Middlesex but only for a short while because we were soon to move.
We that鈥檚 Mum and Dad and my older brother by five years were all to be evacuated, not the usual evacuation however to distant rural parts but to a camp in Denham, Bucks. Not many miles from London!
The evacuation to Denham was so that the company my dad worked for, George Wimpey & Co. could concentrate on the war effort.
Denham was a place in those days more famous for the British film industry. J Arthur Ranks film studios were nearby and from the bus on the way to school in Uxbridge I could see the open air film sets in the distance.
At that time we had a large dog called Caesar, a black Retriever and my dad couldn鈥檛 understand when Caesar would return from his countryside wanderings with one of his paws bandaged up. It transpired he had become a film star, well nearly. It appears he used to go down to the film studios and he must have injured his paw so the film people did some first aid on him. They had been using Caesar in a film; they even paid my dad a few shillings just for the few weeks work. I did say earlier on about him nearly being a star, well he was supposed to have been in a film called 鈥淔ame Is The Spur鈥� but I have studied it many times very carefully looking for our dog but he was not to be seen, he must have ended up on the cutting room floor, shame!
My years as a toddler were all in this camp and incredibly considering how young I was I can still remember bits of the war years, my brother though can鈥檛 remember much despite him being five years older.
I recall seeing from the bus on the way to school some prisoners of war digging trenches by the roadside. I can also recall the lead up to the invasion with the lorries, tanks and the invasion aircraft, some pulling those terrifying gliders full of our soldiers!
I was lying in bed one night when I saw this flame go over, it was a Doodlebug, the V1. It landed somewhere near the neighbouring airfield.
There were dog fights and a parachutist descending but I must say I couldn鈥檛 see this as I was so small and there were all these grown ups in the way but everybody was pointing excitedly to the sky.
I had my own gasmask; we even had air raid shelters covered in grass like burial mounds. I remember these mounds in particular because of the terrifying experience of being chased past these shelters by this enormous white cockerel. I must have been only about four years of age then and this bird did seem big, glad to say it鈥檚 never put me off eating chicken.
We lived in single storey wooden huts and then later brick ones but they lacked cooking facilities and toilets, a heavy enamel bucket was our convenience for the night.
I remember our toilet bucket vividly for one morning and being a small boy and doing what small boys do, I thought it would make a good helmet. I lifted it up to put on my head, the bucket lid fell out and of course the previous nights contents covered me completely.
The surroundings now seem idyllic with the camp situated next to woods and fields and not far away a small airfield which is now Denham flying club. There was even a very small outdoor swimming pool, not very clean though.
Being in the countryside meant climbing trees, making dens and pretending we were in the jungle making Tarzan swings, playing Cowboys and Indians and that sort of stuff and starting fires. Oh dear!
It must have been around winter/spring because us boys (funny I don鈥檛 remember any girls) of the camp would collect frog spawn and keep them in enamel bowls and buckets outside the huts. Well one day we had started a fire in the woods and the bracken really got blazing, we started to panic then as there was no water around but luckily nearby were some handy bowls of frogs spawn, sorry frogs!
Another time my father, a kindly man made all the lads and my brother some wooden swords and they were painted brown, but I was a bit upset because the blade of my sword was two bits nailed together and not a nice long flat blade, no favouritism here, well I was the youngest!
Another country pursuit was horse riding, only twice that my mind wants to recall. For some reason I was in some sort of gymkhana and I was on a black pony called Tinker, anyway the saddle must have been loose for I remember the saddle slipping round and me clinging on for dear life underneath the animal, thankfully was rescued from this upside down position before I dropped on my head.
The other time was when I was on this big brown horse called Nobby and I could only have been about six or seven, there were four or five of us in a row going along this grassy track and my brother was just in front of me. Our horses were gently walking along when my brother鈥檚 horse decided to trot, probably with instructions from my brother, I don鈥檛 know, it wouldn鈥檛 have surprised me. Anyway my horse is trotting now and all I remember was me on this great big horse miles from the ground bouncing around like a pea on a drum, funny how you remember the terrifying things.
The camp had a canteen for communal eating, blocks of toilets and washing places. It all seems so primitive now but I don鈥檛 recall being unhappy.
We had Christmas parties in the canteen complete with a Father Christmas visit.
I remember him well, I would I suppose because it was my dad dressed up doing his yearly stint. We also had the occasional film show in the canteen, dad again doing his stuff but this time as the projectionist.
The camp was a community all of it鈥檚 own even having its own Home Guard, my dad would come home in his uniform complete with tin helmet just like in 鈥淒ads Army鈥�.
We were situated quite high up and when we people of the camp had go to Uxbridge for school or whatever we had to get to the bus stop, no cars of course. Unfortunately to get to the bus stop meant a bit of a trek through the woods down 鈥榚ighty nine鈥� concrete steps complete with centre hand rail, of course it was an even more arduous trek to get back up to our camp home, particularly as I only had little legs.
I know the mums of the camp didn鈥檛 look forward to this climb at all, the road at the bottom was known as the North Orbital road, the A412 Rickmansworth to Uxbridge.
I have since been back to the camp area a few times and it鈥檚 now a caravan park but the surroundings haven鈥檛 really changed much.
During a visit to this area a few years ago I made a specific point to see if the infamous concrete steps were still there and after clambering through the undergrowth and a hole in the wire fence, there low and behold were the steps, overgrown and dark through lack of use. Somebody however must be using them still because of the hole in the fence. I must admit I was quite overwhelmed for I hadn鈥檛 seen these steps for fifty odd years and naturally the memories came flooding back.
I must recall a nasty incident concerning the North Orbital road. As usual I had climbed down the steps to the bus stop to go to school, I looked both ways to cross the road and proceeded to cross and the next thing I knew was a sports car zooming past me, with a great screeching of brakes eventually stopping about fifty yards up the road, a very very near thing!
I know to this day that I looked in the direction of the car, maybe it didn鈥檛 register I don鈥檛 know or maybe the car was going really fast. The bus stop to the camp was quite a long way and the sound of the cars screeching tyres was heard all the way back up to the camp. For a while there were a few worried mums that day.
We had a ginger cat called Sam a great catcher of rabbits, he could jump the seven or eight feet to the top fanlight window of the bedroom complete with a full grown rabbit, consequently landing on my parents bed usually when they were asleep, he would then depending on his mood either eat the rabbits straight away on the bed or first chase them around the bedroom for a while.
I can鈥檛 remember for sure whether I was at the camp or not but it was shortly after the war, anyway we had a holiday at Morecambe and I can remember that we, mum, dad, my brother and I walking along the empty promenade when we looked around to see where my brother Jim was only to find he had vanished. We looked to the beach below and found he had fallen off the promenade, it was quite a drop and luckily he was completely unscathed, the reason he fell, that is apart from his inability to put one foot in front of the other and maintain a straight direction, difficult for boy鈥檚 I know, was because there was no railings for they had been removed for the war effort. I think that鈥檚 the nearest the family came to a casualty of the war, apart from the 鈥榙oodlebug鈥� I mentioned a while ago.
Another memory from Morecambe was while I was paddling in the sea I saw a jellyfish, it was the only one I have ever seen but it was quite memorable because it seemed so large and was extremely colourful, remember for a young boy locked away in the woods during the war to see this was quite something.
Another very important outing was to the 1948 Olympic Games held at Wembley Stadium, the famous flaming torch was just a little way behind me. Great Britain came sixth. Following on from the Olympic Games meant regular visits to the athletic meetings at the White City Stadium, my dad was keen on athletics, only watching I must add. The company my dad worked for had a top 鈥榯ug of war鈥� team and they were regular competitors at White City. It was always exciting to watch and I feel it鈥檚 a shame we don鈥檛 see that particular sport anymore.
I can also remember going to the London Palladium and seeing the Crazy Gang, who the heck I hear some of you youngsters say were the Crazy Gang? Well there were these six geezers who did this music hall turn, a few knockabout gags and a bit of singing, they were very famous particularly a couple of them called Flanagan and Allen and their rendition of 鈥楿nderneath The Arches鈥�.

I am coming to the end of my stay at the camp. I reckon we must have stayed on there for an extra two or three of years after the war.
At the end of my stay I went into Westminster children鈥檚 hospital for a cleft palate operation, normally something that should have been dealt with when I was a baby; I suppose the war stopped that. I can distinctly remember mum and me turning up at hospital only to be told they hadn鈥檛 a bed for me only a cot. They hadn鈥檛 updated their records and they thought I was still a baby! I was nearly eight years old by then.
I did go in soon after and had the operation. I was told it was quite a major op鈥� they took out my tonsils as well, naturally after an operation like that there was ice cream but the later food was memorably awful.
I do remember I must have been a bit too lively for they strapped me down in the bed to stop me jumping around. I do remember jumping around on one occasion like on a trampoline and my pyjama bottoms fell down, there was a girl in the next bed and even at that age I was very embarrassed.
Back to the pyjamas, I was wearing just them only when I went by taxi to another hospital somewhere else in London, I think to have an x-ray taken.
When mum and dad collected me from the hospital it wasn鈥檛 back to the camp but to a new home in Ruislip.

I never saw my friends again!

It鈥檚 fair to say that my evacuation was different to the usual ones you hear about.
A bit special I think!

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