大象传媒

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I was 11 when war broke out and living in Dunstable. I was born in 1928 and was always conscious of war. The Great War had only been over for 10 years and I was aware of this big shadow over the country resulting from the losses of this War. My father served in the trenches and was wounded in 1917 and each Armistice Day we all gathered, the traffic stopped, the guns came and fired and we had a two minute silence. So war was always there in the background.

In the summer of 1939 we were on holiday in Clacton. My elder brother was in the RAF at the time and on leave, but was then recalled. Around the 31st August he went to France before war broke out. I've never heard any mention of serviceman going before September 3rd, but he did. And so we came back from holiday and Mum joined the WVS. The particular reception centre for evacuees that she was associated with, was at the roller-skating rink.

We have a family album in which Mum wrote: 鈥淲hen war was declared, I was in charge of one of the rest centres where we were alerted to be ready to receive 250 children from London. We were prepared and after 2 days of hectic searching had found homes for almost all of them. Imagine our dismay when someone or something had sent us 250 mothers and children. Almost half the people who had agreed to take the children alone would not have mothers and tiny children and babies, so we had to start all over again. By 9.45 pm on Sunday evening (probably September 3rd), we had succeeded in housing 200 of them. We fed the remaining 50 and bedded them down in the centre. On the next day at 10.00pm we had reduced the number to nine, one mother with 4 children and one with 3. I took the 4 and one of my helpers took the 3. Here they are, Mrs W and family from London we have a picture 鈥� they were with us for 18 months or so eventually getting a house in Hadrian Avenue.鈥� We had this little family staying with us for 18 months. Alfred was one of the children, they called him Alfie; they were Cockneys. Occasionally we had a soldier billeted with us. One I remember was either Canadian or Australian and that was quite exotic in those days.

I started at the Grammar School in 1938 and was still on summer holiday when these evacuees arrived. I ran errands for Mum, dashing here there and everywhere. I remember Chamberlain鈥檚 broadcast on September 3rd; unforgettable. So we were at war and we had to get on with it. It didn鈥檛 make a whole lot of difference to me as a child, Mum and Dad had always been busy. Dad was headmaster at Northfields, Mum with her WVS and the Operatic Society. I was always very much free to do what I wanted on my own. I don鈥檛 remember any problems with the evacuees, they were quite exciting, they were Cockneys, bright, crafty and streetwise compared with us country bumpkins. A lot of the mothers and children went back because the bombing didn鈥檛 start.

Two of our masters went into the services, Freddy S and Freddy C. An old gentleman came out of retirement to teach us but he couldn鈥檛 maintain discipline and we made his life hell. Not very proud of that. One of the things we kids did, was to go potato picking. If I remember rightly, you got time off school to go. I did it once at Sewell. We also went looking for scrap, because scrap was needed for the war effort to make tanks. It was a great excuse for wandering all over people鈥檚 farms and property. I don鈥檛 think we ever collected any but it was great fun. The countryside was right on our doorstep. You just walked up Periwinkle Lane towards Beecroft Farm. We lived in 219 High Street South, opposite Cross鈥檚 factory.

I was always interested in aviation and the increase in air activity was quite phenomenal and we boys knew them all. If you wanted aircraft recognition, you didn鈥檛 have to ask an expert, you could go to a 12 year old boy. We knew just what mark it was, when it was made, how many guns it had, what colour it was and we didn鈥檛 have to see them, we could tell by the sound. There鈥檚 something about aircraft recognition - the way it sits in the air, its poise. There was plenty to do, plenty of airfields, we all had bicycles. We used to go to Luton airport; Napier鈥檚 and Percival鈥檚 factories were up there. Later we used to cycle over to Woburn where they stored a lot of bombers 鈥� Stirlings and Halifaxes all in the park. I think they were there to scrap.

We had the occasional bomb of course, although we were never really attacked in Dunstable. I remember some bombs dropping down Lancot Hill. We used to go searching for oil bombs. They were an incendiary type and they were filled with oil and other chemicals. Half of them didn鈥檛 go off.

In 1940 we were getting more and more raids, Luton was quite heavily bombed, and 30th August was the day they bombed Vauxhall. That day I was in Half Moon Lane when the German bombers flew over. A whole squadron of them having presumably just bombed Vauxhall, and I was amazed that they weren鈥檛 being attacked, there was no anti-aircraft fire but we had very few anti-aircraft guns round here, and they were just flying serenely on in a loose bracket formation. Heinkel 111s I believe they were. The other exciting time was when the Dornier flew up the High Street and machine gunned us all. I was in Peter鈥檚 house that afternoon in Blows Road when I looked out of the window at the top of the stairs and heard this rattling noise.

At Cross鈥檚 paper factory in High Street South they built plastic ray domes. On the bottom of some of our bombers we had a big ray dome which had a rotating thing in it. I saw them coming out from the side of the factory. Another little factory made aircraft compasses. I have one, it says on it 鈥� 鈥業nspected 18th April 1942, ACTS Dunstable鈥�. I think that was one of the little factories at the Station Road end of Great Northern Road.

My brother (a photographer) went to France with the R.A.F. After Dunkirk he came out from St Nazaire with a convoy in which one of the troopships was sunk with a great loss of life. Luckily he wasn鈥檛 on that particular ship and was taken to Liverpool. Everything was chaotic in England at the time and a lot of troops were sent home. When he arrived home he was absolutely shattered and slept for several days. Mum said he was home on leave for a month in her album.

Dad being an ex officer from the First War was put in charge of one of the Home Guard platoons. Their base was at the top of Periwinkle Lane near the water tower. Our house became full of guns and ammunition. They had the Ross rifle, some Lewis guns, all sorts of tin hats, hand grenades and ammunition. I became an expert at stripping down all these guns and putting them back together again. I was a great expert at pulling bullets off cartridge cases and getting the cordite out. My younger brother was in The Home Guard too. I had a very nice 9mm Luger gun myself, which Mum and Dad didn鈥檛 know about. We kept chickens and there were pig bins at the corner of many streets for people to put their kitchen waste. This was then carted away for the pigs. Once we needed to kill a chicken but no one could bring themselves to ring it鈥檚 neck so I shot its head off.

Entertainment - it wasn鈥檛 all doom and gloom. We had the radio and we all went to the cinema practically every week. We watched Path茅 and Gaumont News and the propaganda about how wonderful we were and how awful the Germans were. Tommy Trinder, the Garrison Theatre, Elsie and Doris Waters 鈥� the sister of Jack Warner. There was a lot of enjoyment to be had.

In 1942 my brother was killed. Prior to that our bombing campaign was beginning to get under way and early in 鈥�42 we had that first 1,000 bomber raid on Cologne. My cousin Jack was a pilot in a Lancaster on that raid and was shot down and killed. He鈥檇 been shot down before and survived, but this time he and his crew died. That hit the family. Casualties were coming in all the time, some you knew some you didn鈥檛. Cliff, a friend of my brother, he was a favourite of the family 鈥� I remember the last time I saw him and he said, 鈥淐heerio, you won鈥檛 see me again,鈥� and the next thing we heard, he was dead.

The Americans arrived in Dunstable. They were so generous, I loved them and being an aviation nut, they let you go onto their airfields and took you for flights. Not like the RAF when you couldn鈥檛 get past the guard. They had an airfield near Mentmore, quite near. A friend of mine went there regularly and flew with them in their B17s. We used to see the B17s flying round here in big formations. We鈥檇 see them go off in the daytime and at night we鈥檇 see the RAF go. Most of the B17s we saw round here came from Bassingbourn, I think it was the 93rd Bomb Group. They had a big triangle with an A on the tail.

I remember an incident in Dunstable with a GI and probably a lady of the night in the narrow passageway between Middle Row and the High Street. There was a great shrieking, shouting and swearing of this American and this lady. I often walk down that passage and think about it. The Americans were great. Whether you were over-fed or over-paid, if you make the supreme sacrifice it鈥檚 just the same. They brought their music 鈥� Glenn Miller; I still listen to him. For me there is still a special relationship with the Americans.

I joined the A.T.C in 1942 when I was 14; the 460 Squadron. Our CO was H J B, the sports master at the Grammar School. We used to go to lots of airfields, Wing, Stradishall, Waterbeach and flew in bombers and Hansons. We used to meet at the A.T.C HQ in Chews House and paraded at Britain Street School.

In 1943 I went to college in London, coming home at weekends. I was in digs and the mini-blitz was on. Nothing like the 1940 blitz, but it was an exciting time with a lot of noise and air raids. I woke up one morning to see a bomb sticking out of my next door neighbour鈥檚 garden that hadn鈥檛 gone off. I went to college and when I went back, it had gone.

We use to pick up incendiary bombs off the street. We were all adept at unscrewing the nose-cap and shaking out the magnesium powder and then they鈥檙e fairly safe. However, there were accidents. One night there was an air raid and an incendiary bomb hit a house I was in and started burning in the loft. It was fizzling away and we needed to put it out before it set the house on fire. For some reason we hadn鈥檛 got a stirrup pump, and while this was fizzing away in the roof, we were rushing up and down the street asking people if they鈥檇 got a stirrup pump. It was like Dad鈥檚 Army, absolutely true. Eventually we got a bucket of water and put the bomb out, just as it burnt through the ceiling and fell through onto the floor of the bedroom beneath.

I often stopped in central London overnight on my way home to Dunstable from south London. I slept in Green Park in the summer. London at night in the war was quite fantastic when there wasn鈥檛 a raid on. It was so full of servicemen and women. I was in London wandering around Leicester Square in the middle of the night when I heard a piano. I followed the noise and there was someone in the middle of the road playing Chopin on a grand piano. It was an incredible experience in the middle of war.

Trafalgar Square was always so full; I loved it. Servicemen from all over, Americans, Canadians, Indians, men, women, all so young. I was 15 or 16, just wandering about watching what was going on. When I go to Trafalgar Square now, I still see these ghosts, they鈥檙e still there.

When we had the doodlebugs, they were OK, because if the engine stopped and it wasn鈥檛 too near, you were alright and if it flew past, you were alright, until the dastardly Hun started playing tricks. We were used to the engine stopping and then they would go into a dive. Then the fiendish Hun started changing things; sometimes they would dive into the ground with the engine still running, sometimes when the engine stopped they would glide and sometimes they would go round in circles. One day shortly after June 6th doodlebugs came over and this thing was circling round us, and at one time it was pointing straight at us, anyway it landed about half a mile away.
I was young and had no possessions to lose and in a way it was exciting, sometimes frightening. I remember the first night they came over, we knew what German bombs sounded like and we knew what anti-aircraft fire sounded like, but the first night these things came over there was this different sound, and that was frightening.

Then the V2 rockets, one landed on Commer Cars in Luton and the occasional doodlebug came as far as Dunstable. I was standing outside what was the boys club in High Street North, just north of the Town Hall one weekend when a doodlebug came pop, popping up the high street and went all the way to Northampton I believe. They did come this far.

In the summer evenings in Dunstable there were waves and waves of British bombers flying over. The fire raid in Hamburg was all good stuff for us, we hated the Germans. In 1943 we spent about 3 nights destroying Hamburg, we killed about 40,000 people. On the 60th anniversary of that raid I was in Hamburg. There were several exhibitions which I went to see with my German friends, and I asked to go to the mass grave in Hamburg. I have lots of German friends now.

I did some fire watching round the area of the archway in High Street North just north of the Town Hall, there were quite a few old factories there, hat factories perhaps.

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