大象传媒

I did not think I had a WW2 story,until I watched and listened to some of your items recently and realised my dad's WW2 story was worth writing.My father was a University student when War broke out in 1939,he was also a committed anti-fascist, who felt his duty was to sign up for the University's Cadet Corps.He had gone to University in 1937,as a 19 year old.His degree course,in Politcal Economy,was due to be completed in 1940.In 1940 my dad was called up for duty in the Army.Recently we found his call up papers.He went off to "do his bit" for the war.He was assigned to The Pay Corps, but was later upgraded for active service and spent most of his war years in Malta.
My dad died in 1999 and we have only recently found out more about his war experiences.He never talked about his experiences until 1998,he was just an ordinary soldier,like so many men of his generation.He bacame a well known educationalsist,writer, historian and campaigner of so many issues he strongly believed in.
In 1995 I went to the Wartime Graduands Ceremnony,for the University of London,held at The Festival Hall.Dad wore his Phd.,gown for this ceremony! Dame Vera Lynn was there,to receive an honorary degree and she sang.There was not a dry eye in the house! It was an amazing day,wartime students/veterans came form all over the world,many were in wheelchairs and the average age of graduands was 80! Studies carried on throughout the war even if students were overseas on active service.
My dad received initial Army training in 1940 and for much of the early part of the war,was billeted in the UK.I recall him telling me of being billeted in London,awaiting being sent overseas.For much of the time he was playing the piano in a pub in Paddington! He and some of his left wing,academic chums were fed up with all the waiting and were on the point of writing to The Daily Mirror, a very left wing newspaper in those days.They were of the opionion that it was a waste of time keeping all these recruits backin "Blighty" who were anxious to serve their country and fight fascism.Had they been sent overseas earlier,they all would have been taken prisoner by the Japanese.The Army contingents that left for service overseas, before the one my dad was in,were all captured as they entered Singapore harbour. My dad kept this in his thoughts for the rest of his life and guilt feeling,that by sheer luck he did not become a prisoner of the Japanese.
He was sent overseas,to Malta,by way of South Africa,Suez and North East Africa,through treacherous seas riddled with German U boats.Along with everyone else in the convoy of ships,they had no idea where they were being transported to.The journey took several months.From Alexandria they sailed to Valletta,a journey of 8 days,into the Grand Harbour,where the hulk of the famous vessel,Ohio lay.This was the ship that broke the Siege of Malta.Dad arrived just after the siege, but Malta was still a difficult place to spend the rest of the war.
In more recent years,my family and I went with my dad on a trip to Malta.This was in 1998 and he showed us where he had been billeted for 2 years,on the roof- top of the Parliament Building in Valletta! My dad was stationed in Malta for 4 years up to June 1946.He got to know the islands very well and in later years he kept returning to a place that meant so much to him.
As a cerebral academic he questioned the philosophy of war and he also never lost his sense of fun and an awarenesss of the ridiculous.He and some of his pals, invented an award for pompous public shool trained officers of little brain. This was known as The Bullshit Award.Dad designed a shield,in the best of British academic and heraldic traditions,with a Latin inscription, "Taura excreta super mentem", roughly translated as "Bullshit Baffles Brains".In heraldic terms it had,a Bull on a ground,reverse,tail dexter rampant, droppings piled proper,surrounded by a banner, with the Latin motto and BBB in Gothic letters.My dad made the shield.I recall he was always very practical and could make anything from wood,includung furniture and household goods.He was also very artistic,creative and imaginative.He was also a muscician and played flute in the Malta Garrison Orchestra. He was also a talented piano player and I recently read how he played Chopin and Schubert for soirees in the homes of families who lived in Cape Town,where soldiers were invited to visit, en route to their overseas destination, pleasant backdrops to the every day uncertainty of life on a troop ship.Dad could play the piano in any style,wherever he was!
He did not start to talk about his war experiences in Malta until he started to write about them.In his career as an academic he wrote many books on a variety of subjects,but his last book,published just a year before he died,was all about his war years.He was able to call it, "On His Majesty's Service" and he did see copies for sale in the Maltese bookshops.
In his later years he would return to Malta as often as possible.It became a second home to him. He had become an old man in so many ways, but once back in Malta he was that young man again who had been there in such difficult times.He knew the islands like the back of his hand and he could speak the language,a difficult one to learn containing so many Arabic words.He showed us where he swam across the Bay of Sliema and back again, across the sea.He won the swimming competition for The Army. He was very proud of his Army swimming medal!
For anyone who knows the Maltese yellow buses, you will understand how people get arond the islands.My dad knew all the bus numbers and their routes as they had not changed since WW2(I suspect the buses had not changed since WW2 as well!)He could advise all tourists which bus to catch, what to go and visit and how to get there! Once on a bus trip with him to Mdina,he suddenly told me of an incident he witnessed, in the area where we were travelling.He told me a passenger had got off the bus, at a bus stop in the countryside and then had become a victim of a bomb as it dropped from a German plane,just missing the bus as it chugged along the unmade road.Malta was the most badly bombed place in Europe at this time,yet residents and troops tried to carry on as "normal" as possible.
After WW2 my dad,like so many other WW2 veterans became very anti-war and one of my earliest memories in the 1950's,is one of my parents and my dad's students walking on the early Aldermaston Marches,to London.We lived in Hampshire and every Easter the march was a momentous occasion.I was always sent to stay with an aunt in London,so I had a fabulous time, being taken to all the sights!As an old soldier dad stuck to his principles of being anti-war.He shared a correspondence with Spike Milligan for a time as their accounts of their own involvements in WW2 are not disimilar.They had a lot in common and shared their thoughts on many occasions.I recently looked at "On His Majesty's Service " again and found it very readable.It is both moving and funny. For example my dad's account of arriving at the NAAFI in Alexandria states, "It was moderately reminiscent of Blackpool but a good deal warmer". The book is an accurate account of "ordinaryness", similar to the experiences of so many soldiers at that time,but on reflection it is not ordinary at all to experience all the things that are part of War! On a more recent visit to Malta,after my dad's death, my daughters and I took some of his ashes with us.We scattered them on the sea between Malta and Gozo.
The opening pages of "On His Majesty's Service",the Author's Foreward starts:- "War is terrible and modern war especially terrible Ours has been the bloodiest of all centuries.Our means of destroying life and resources have advanced exponentially since the invention of the big gun and high explosive,iron ships and the aeroplane.We have indeed,now the capability of destroying all life on the planet".
I now feel that my dad's last book is a good read and I am so glad he did write it.My dad was one of a generation who did everything that was expected of them (and more)at such a terrible time in our history.He was always fully committed to everything he did and on his return from active service on 1946, he continued his studies,which had been rudely interrupted for 6 years! He went on to achieve further academic qualifications,a career in lecturing and he was a pioneer in the writing of text books for students in Further Education.He was awarded an MBE for his Services to Education in 1977.He wrote books on Education,he wrote commissions on historical subjects and historical biographies.He was an assessor of Teacher Education for many years and he also wrote about Conservation,thoughout his busy life.He did paint and drew some very funny cartoons, which he never published.He taught us all some very rude Army songs. We used to sing them in the car,on many a family holiday.Whenever my mother asked us to stop singing,we sang them all the more! My dad hated war, but learnt to live with it and knew why he was in the middle of it.I think because he experienced some dreadful things,he deliberately held on to his sense of fun and he lived his life to the full.He did not get round to writing about WW2 until nearly the end of his life.
"On His Majesty's Service" is available in paperback, published by Hamilton.

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