大象传媒

Boyhood Memories of the War in Bedford

My mothers family permeated Kempston, near Bedford, which claimed to be the biggest village in England. My maternal grandfather, William Ford, became caretaker of Bunyan Meeting, Kempston and then of St Pauls Wesleyan Chapel, Bedford. He ran a canteen at the chapel during the war and invented a popular delicacy of beetroot sandwiches. I learned the alternative unrationed filling of mustard from my father. I was taken to the chapel鈥檚 Bright Hour on Mondays where I learned to dunk biscuits. The meeting seemed to be filled with elderly ladies.

My father, a tool-maker, was in a reserved occupation in 1939 as all W.H. Allen鈥檚 production went to the Royal Navy. He enrolled as an Air Raid Warden. The wardens had a post in a lock-up garage near the Bell pub, although as far as I know, my father never entered the pub. My Uncle Stanley was a sergeant in the Home Guard. I had a sneaking feeling this was more impressive. However, fortunately, the Home Guard was not needed as the wardens were.

Our main contribution to the war effort at home was the housing of evacuees. Initially, a family from London took over the first floor and my parents slept in the dining room, with French Doors opening onto the garden. When father was on duty, I shared my mother鈥檚 bed as space was at a premium. The garden contained our shelter of eight inch brick with seating at ground level. Mother refused to have the cheaper corrugated iron and earth underground style shelter as she was claustrophobic.

The Johnsons from London stayed only a few weeks. They were the first of a series of evacuees. Housing the evacuees led to paying guests and a move to a larger house after the war. I remember two sisters from a London school, who stole a packet of cigarettes from father鈥檚 walnut wardrobe to give him as a birthday present. Then we had Douglas Davidson from Owen鈥檚 school. Owen鈥檚 school used the premises of the Modern School in the afternoons. Douglas was with us for several years and returned as an officer in the Black Watch. We were disappointed that he was wearing trews rather than a kilt. I admired his model aeroplanes and recall the smell of banana oil, though its function was never clear to me.

Douglas was followed by Bob Snell, a midshipman from Allen鈥檚. He later taught at Bedford School. After Bob, at the close of the war, Teddy Warda from the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company arrived. He was an Assyrian Christian and gave me my first understanding of ethnic minorities.

My closest friends on the estate were Tony Knowles and Maurice Buxton. Tony was Welsh and relatively rich. His father worked for Pobjoy鈥檚 at Shortstown, RAF Cardington. He ran a Ford 8, the only car on the estate. Mrs Knowles boasted of Shelley china and Tony had a wonderful 鈥極鈥� gauge Hornby railway which stayed down in their front room. I recall cheese scones with Marmite and jam together, and 鈥淣orman and Henry Bones鈥� on Children鈥檚 Hour. Maurice Buxton鈥檚 father came from Chatham Dockyard. Maurice had an older sister and neigbours who suffered from teh scourge of TB. We played in the concrete streets and rarely saw a vehicle. I broke my left wrist at the VE day street party.

A garage at the end of the estate was used by the army and later by US soldiers. I successfully begged gum from them 鈥� and got into trouble at home. There was great excitement when a light aeroplane came down on Old Ford End farm and a DUKW was used in the river. We were close to the US Eighth Airforce and could see the bombers coming home to Thurleigh at rooftop height in the late afternoons. I think they were Liberators rather than Fortresses, but I remember more about the noise than their appearance. Stella Knowlton had a club for American officers in a little room above the High Street. I was given a fizzy drink there one morning, which even then I found unpleasant. Was this my first Coke?

During the war, secondhand goods were at a premium. Father bought a piano, which which I was not totally delighted, and a gold watch. He lost money on both, but with compulsory overtime was earning more than he could spend. He managed to buy me an 鈥極鈥� gauge railway with a German loco. This could not pull the solid Basset Lowke carriage which came with it. He also bought a clip-together construction set which was no match for Meccano. While he ws out buying these, Bedford had one of its two air-raids, which enabled him to boast that he had risked his life for my toys. He added a steam loco made by a colleague, but it was banished when it fell off the rails and burned the carpet. I recall a wooden Hampden bomber, but this did not survive very long and a secondhand Puss Moth which never flew. Later, there was an early plastic clipped wing Spitfire, but this may just have been for me to admire.

I first went to Sunday School at Wesley Hall. During the war, there would be several coaches for the annual outing to Wicksteed Park, Kettering. We travelled in blue Dennis Lancet Horseshoe coaches, a change from the green or wartime grey Eastern National buses, but one of them always seemed to break down. I now know that they hd rather underpowered petrol engines and suffered from hard work rather than old age, for they were little older than me.

I sang 鈥淭his is the Army, Mr Brown鈥� at the anniversary concert in 1941 with Tony and Maurice. I borrowed my uncle Don鈥檚 helmet and was rebuked for being too fussy in wanting authentic uniform. The helmet did not enhance the singing.

I remember an episode that must have been during Don鈥檚 embarkation leave in the summer of 1941. Don hired an Austin 7 Ruby, a vehicle which failed to impress me even at the age of four, to drive us to Grafham. Gran and mother were in the car, which felt hot and crowded. We went to Kate鈥檚 cottage for dinner, a perfect rural idyll in theory but for me the interior was dark and crowded. I wanted the toilet during the meal, a practice frowned upon as the height of bad manners in our family. I was filled with horror at being taken down the garden to the privy and was violently sick.

The Walker family lived at number 9 Oldfield Road. Their father had a modest job on the railway. Their mother, who was huge, had successfully brought up a son who was a pilot in the RAF, two clever daughters and finally a late child, David, a year younger than me. He was like William; always hungry and always into trouble. Left to his precocious guidance, I might have grown up less inhibited about girls, but my mother stopped that. Although at the time he may have seemed unwanted, this was not the case. He was simply on a looser rein in those safe streets of the 40's. He always seemed to be looking for attention and food in his cut-down clothes. I admired his sister鈥檚 row of Dent school classices and read their Katherine Whitlock novel.

Mother was very unwilling for me to go to school: my first term was reduced considerably by scarlet fever. As I could always read fluently and to myself, and I have no memory of learning to do so, I was given 鈥淎lice in Wonderland鈥�. This is in big print illustrated by Rene Cloke, which I considered childish. I was not impressed by being told it was a classic. I remember the fumigation process. I read 鈥淜idnapped鈥� in an old copy rented from Mrs Kimber the Salvationist Newsagent鈥檚 library. The Public Library had an entirely unjustified threat of contagion and small imitations of Boots'鈥檚ubscription system operated in the suburbs.

In order to get me to school, my father fitted a metal carrier to the back of mother鈥檚 New Hudson bicycle. This was very uncomfortable, but sped up the journey. Mother always got off on the right, which was moderately dangerous then and more so when she was window-shopping on the High Street. I do remember walking to school on my own. At one corner there was an allotment hedge and in the gutter convovulus flourished. I practised dropping to the ground when an aircraft flew over, but I did not see a German bomber until they filmed 鈥淭he Battle of Britain鈥� from Old Warden in the late sixties.

At school I started with a pleasant infant teacher, where I remember the afternoon sleep best. I romped ahead into Miss Bullen鈥檚 class. She seemed very old and a typical schoolmarm. She did persuade my parents to let me buy a weekly National Savings stamp: perhaps she was more sanguine about the value of this in the defeat of Hitler than they were. The top class was the one where I flourished under Mrs Coley. She was a war widow, and had a daughter a year younger than me who went to the Convent. She was a pillar of the adjacent All Saints Church where we sometimes attended plays on Good Friday. She brought the Bible alive for me through Joyce Lancaster Brisley鈥檚 version, which I still own. She also read us Alison Uttley.

This brings me to Christmas 1944. We were aware that the war was coming to an end, at least in Europe. Mother reckoned that they were better off in 1939 than at any later time. As a toolmaker, father鈥檚 job was responsible and skilled. Chapel, although they did not attend during my childhood, had given both parents a taste for good music, at least in the more popular Oratorios. Most households had a set of Dickens, and I read 鈥淒avid Copperfield鈥� with great application before I was eight. We had a radiogram, which was not very efficient, and a limited range of 78鈥檚. These included some Nursery Rhymes and Ernest Lough as a tenor singing a different tune to 鈥淎way in a Manger鈥�. My parents listened to the nine o鈥檆lock news, Music Hall, the Palm Court Orchestra, Chapel in the Valley and Sunday Half Hour. My reading was directed by Children鈥檚 Hour: especially Malcolm Saville and Arthur Ransome.

My childhood was safe and secure, despite slight hesitation when I used to swap stamps with a bachelor on the way to the bus. Our estate did well out of the war: there was full employment and we children were too young to fight, apart from the eldest Walker, who survived. We had fresh vegetables, fruit and eggs and the streets were free from violence and traffic. The election of a Labour MP and indeed government, in 1945 was passed from garden fence to garden fence. It was the end of an era.

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