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Mr. Allen was soon to become my first teacher at the Junior Mixed School. When we bade goodbye to Miss Wilson at the Infants’ School just as the German army was poised to march into Poland, so igniting the fuse that began the Second World War, the Junior Mixed School was having a complete refit. Both the Temperance Hall and the Weightman Memorial Hall were in use as temporary classrooms. My first taste of junior-school life was in the former, now the Christian
Calvary Fellowship, and as well known a building as any in the village. In the main hall were two classes. Ours, nearer the stage was taught by Mr Reynolds Allen and the other, without a separating partition, was in the charge of his brother Robert. In the room behind the stage, Mr Kirk was the teacher.

The war was now under way and a daily requirement was to carry your gas mask to school. For me, the mask was too large, but over-nervous to tell anyone, just in case it wasn’t and I made a fool of myself, I worried in silence. If there was a gas attack, I was sure that everyone in Silksworth would survive except me! It was Mr Allen who set my mind at ease. He seemed to be an expert on gas masks, perhaps he was an ARP Warden, and regularly carried out checks at school. A class of children wearing respirators, the official name for them, must have presented an interesting sight viewed from the teacher’s high chair and it’s a pity that there was no camera,
strictly forbidden due to wartime regulations, to record the scene! One afternoon Mr
Allen inspected each boy’s mask and after reaching me in the back row and moving on without making an adjustment to the straps, I knew that I was chewing my self
unnecessarily. From then onwards, I was confident that if gas came I would survive!
My word, what a load from my mind that was!

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