大象传媒

The following story is recounted in my fathers memoirs written in 1990 shortly before he died. This followed a conversation in which a friend of the family, who had travelled the world, stated that he ( my father )had not lived. This is rewritten exactly as my father wrote his notes.

I had married Alice on the 29th March 1937. We left Tamworth and moved to Coventry, both very excited at being on our own at last and in a brand new house. Alice got a job at a local hairdresser's and we had a bit of furniture in hire purchase and some second hand, we managed to make ends meet but by thursday we were just about broke but always saved about three shillings to go to the pictures and for some chips walking home. We were both quite contented with life but really needed more money to make us feel safe but Alice was a wonderful manager and we always had good meals and left out of debt. We only had payments on the furniture which most people seemed to have in those day's, not many paid cash.

Then out of the blue war broke out with Germany and I on the 28th March 1940 I enlisted in the Army at Coventry. Not long after that they conscripted all young men. When my posting came through I had to travel to report to the 8th Wocestershire Regiment at Norton Barracks, Worcester. That started coincidencies that lasted all my six years in the forces.

I had to change trains at New Street station in Birmingham and while I was walking up and down waiting for my connection I saw another young chap doing the same thing. We got talking and I found he was reporting to Norton Barracks as well so we travelled together. His name was Bob Hilton from Nuneaton. We would continually meet througout the war and be demobbed together in 1946.

It was not bad at Norton Barracks for our first training and one thing, as a rookie, I will always remember when two Officers, one on each side, came by and I tried to salute both at once.
We were given rifles with no firing pins in them so they were useless, except for drill and fixed bayonet training. Yet we had to stand to in case of Germany sending in Airborne troops. It was the same at dusk, goodness knows what they expected us to do if they had landed except stab them to death, we certainly could'nt shoot them.

The came the Dunkirk evacuation and we had to move out of the barracks into civilian house, this was very nice and most people took in three or four men. They really treated us very well and the family we stayed with could not have been nicer. The reason we had to move out was that the barracks was for troops evacuated fron Dunkirk. We did see them come marching in tired and weary but when they got near they put on a brave face and marched smartly and all in step.
They all had a good rest , refitted with everthing they needed, were sorted out into different groups as the came from many different regiments. Eventually tghey were once again a fighting force, then they were marched on.

We were sorry to leave our civilian friends and go back to our barrack rooms. After a short time we were sent to Falmouth and had to patrol along the coast in case of seaborne landings. Once again we would not have been much use as most of our arms were dummies. Our section was on the cliff tops overlooking Falmouth and we had a Bren gun mounted on a swivel stand. This was manned all day in case of air attack on the fort. One night we had just taken the Bren off its stand, as it was dusk, when a German bomber came very low over the trees at the back of us then straight over the bay and tried to hit a cargo ship unloading in the docks. Luckily he missed. We could actually see the bomber pilots as clear as a bell and one was smoking.

We had endless drill parades, bayonet practice and routine marches, rifle range firing and innoculations. Then came the chance for the Royal Corp of Signal's and as I have already said passed OK and left the 8th Worcesters on the 24.4.41. So I was with them just one year and six days.

I joined the Signal's section on the 25.4.41 as a Despatch Rider and this section Was attached to the 24th Field Regiment which had 25 pouder field guns.

There were four DR's and we were kept pretty busy dashing about all over the country. The RA had their own DR's but preffered to use ours. We spent quite a bit of timw in Devon and Cornwall om manouveres etc. then we moved to Spilsby in Lincolnshire which was our HQ. The three gun batteries were in different villages outside. Our section was billeted in stables at Raithby Hall just on the outskirts of Spilsby.

We were not there very long before we heard whispers we were going abroad. For some weeks I was having to go to York every day with despatches. We were all excited about it and it from here that I had my first Army leave. Whad had weekend passes from Worcester but not 2 weeks leave. Being among all tha irfields in Lincolnshire we used to hear our bombers going over to FRance, Germany etc but never heard much of enemy planes.

Anyway I got home to Coventry around tea time and as my wife was doing war work at GEC Electrical Works in the town I went down to meet her. We had a look along the shops and took a steady walk home. Alice cooked some tea and we had just sat down enjoying being together when the siren's sounded. It was about 7:00 pm. Then we heard the planes and the bombs dropping. Little did we think we should hear them all night until 6:00 next
morning.

It was the night of the Coventry blitz. Wave after wave of planes kept coming and what with the noise of the Ack Ack guns and bombs falling it was awful. I was more worried than Alice who had experienced previous raids. she had fixed up a large armchair under the stairs and use to sit there reading and knitting while the raids were on. If they were severe, she would go to a neighbours air-raid shelter.

If I had not gone home she would have been there when the shelter had dissapeared after being hit by a bomb. Our house windows, doors etc had been blown in by the blast. Everywhere you looked was devastation. It was a terrible sight.

They say that about 1,000 lost their lives but there must have been more than that. Owen and Owen, a large store in the centre of the town had built siper air raid shelters under the building but had received a direct hit causing the building to collapse on top of them burying all the people who had gone down in them.
I don't think anyone got out.

WE could not live in the house as it was so we went home to Alice's mother at Tamworth. It was only a small house so Alice went to live with an Aunt at Hopwas when I rejoined my unit. She had our furniture collected from Coventry and stored it at different realtives untill the war ended.

The Regiment was now making our kit up to what it should be. Then the day came and we boarded the trains at Alford, near Spilsby, and found out we were on route to Scotland. We got at Gourock station, which was next to the docks, and we could see our ship waiting for us.
I thought " That don't look very big" and to my amazement it turned out to be the Queen Mary being used as a troop ship. Once we got on board we found out just how big she was.
She was massive! and when you ran around the decks during PT exercises you were shattered.
They were also quite a lot of aTS girls on board but their quarters were strictly out of bounds but they could join us for Bingo.
Housey, Housey it was called in those days and they mixed in for concerts and other recreational activities.

She would take us south, through Biscay, past Cape town and on to Aden

Dear reader.

This is the start of a new chapter within my fathers memoirs and it is a convenient place to finish for the time being. I will attempt to add another chapter within a few days

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