大象传媒

NORTHGATE SCHOOL FOR BOYS

Your parents had to buy books. You had to wear a hat, loose stiff collars, ties, blazers, school coloured socks and short trousers.

There was a very high close-boarded fence with fencing wire above, a good 14 ft high between the boys鈥� school and the girls鈥� school.

It was an understanding that if the siren went off and the raid finished before midnight you were excused school until 10 am. If the siren went on after midnight you missed all the morning lessons.

If you went to the Northgate your parents were expected to buy you a bicycle - mine like many others was a second hand one. There was a bus came down Hatfield Road on the way to school for those that couldn鈥檛 ride a bicycle.

We had two games afternoons a week, but if farmers wanted assistance they used to bring lorries to the school - we would pile onto the open lorries to the fields where we would be asked to hoe to thin out the plants, pull up sugar beet which had been ploughed up, you had to knock them together to remove the mud and lay them down on one side in a neat row. We then took it in turns to cut the tops and tails off the beet with a ghastly special, very sharp small axe with a point at right angles to the blade. This was used to spike the beet; not your shins as many did, and pick them up. You then proceeded to top and tail them. Several cut their left hands. You then put the beet in another straight line. If you were lucky to go the day after this operation you had to use a special fork to load the beet into a tumble.

This was all good fun for 1/3d. (6录p) or 1/6d. (6陆p) an hour, a fortune in those days. We were rather dirty at the end of the day - we used to wear our football boots. There were no showers in those days and most houses only had a single tap. If you were really dirty you were ordered to wash in butt water outside regardless of the weather or season!

We used to dawdle to the air raid shelters, then one day a German aircraft flew past the school just over the top of the trees on the far boundary. You could see the crew it was that low! They opened fire and shot into the air - nobody was hurt, but we all laid flat on the playing field! When the all clear came we were all summoned into the hall - the headmaster (Mr. Morris) was really annoyed and said in future we were to double across to the shelters! It soon returned to a slow walk.

The masters I remember were:

1) Mr. Kerr- science.

2) Mr. Maltby - art - he was a cruel man, he used to look over your shoulder and if your work was not
good enough he would hit your head with his glasses case.

3) Mr. Bishop - geography - we were put in his classroom, as we were the most unruly of the three year
forms.

4) Rev. Yates - he obviously taught religion and said prayers in assembly;

And last but not least
5) Mr. Hotham - maths - he had come out of retirement to replace younger teachers who had been called
up. He was over 60 - tall and stocky with it. The main thing I remember about him was his habit of
starting the lesson by teaching us a triangulation problem for instance. He would then go round the
class and ask questions about what he had just said. If you couldn鈥檛 answer you would remain standing
for the rest of the lesson. He wore size 13 slippers and those who had remained standing got a taste of
them!

There were two lady teachers there at least. One was Mrs. Perkins, wife of a headmaster who lived in Felixstowe Road - dad knew her. The main thing I remember about her was that she was in charge of the school bus. We had a lot of snow and ice in those days. My mother and several more said no cycling to school (we were given the bus fare and lunch money and told to catch the bus). The first time Mrs. Perkins told us we were not her regulars and had to walk - it was always the case.

In a large house in Cauldwell Road near Fushia Lane (same side) were stationed a Royal Engineers Bomb Disposal unit. We used to call on them for a chat.

On another occasion, on the way to Newbourne area along Foxhall Road, a fighter aircraft overshot the runway, trimmed the tops of the trees on one of the turns. It crashed in a field on the other side of the road with the undercarriage bent. We ran to the plane but the pilot just got out saw us coming to his aid. We all headed for a ditch in case it exploded. The RAF came to his rescue as did some ground crew to guard the plane - we carried on our way.

Another pass time was visiting bomb damage sites; the worst one was in Cemetery Lane where a land mine had dropped. There were Butterfly Bombs in Holywells Park hung up in the trees (unexploded). They closed the park until it was cleared. The heath from the Golf Hotel to Bucklesham Road was set alight. The Germans thought it was Cranes and blasted it with bombs. They left craters in sandy soil several feet deep.

Not long after the incidents above there was a policeman on stage in assembly: 鈥淚t has been reported that several Northgate school boys have been seen round bomb sites etc. and we have reason to believe that bullets etc. have been sold to other boys. Any boy that owns up will have items removed, not reported to his parents etc.鈥� We returned to the class room. In those days about one-third of the desks were vacated by those who had been evacuated. These we kept locked as we stored our loot in them. Four of us went and owned up. Later presented the police and teachers with the keys and away went our stock. We were reprimanded by the headmaster. This did not stop our activities!

I was born in the short row of houses in King Edward Road, Felixstowe Road end of Ipswich, Murray Road Recreation Ground backed onto our rear garden. During part of the war a barrage balloon site was established and the crew manning the balloon were living in bell tents adjacent to this. The Council鈥檚 contractors built some air raid shelters in the sandy subsoil. Many families spent their nights down there. The field contained two football fields which were well used and during hostilities stacks of railway sleepers were placed across the middle of the field to prevent aircraft landing and taking off.

There was a spur constructed off the Felixstowe branch line near Levington bridge and a steel barn erected. The barn housed an armoured train with an ex-naval gun mounted on railway bogies. The engine also had armour plating welded to the sides.

A class mate was killed when a bomb hit his house one night, it stood on the corner of Nacton Road and Lindenburg Road. On the opposite side of the road was Ipswich airport.

One day when we came out of school we saw a great pall of smoke to the East. We headed in that direction and eventually found a crashed flying fortress which had made a very poor take off (this often happened due to the aircraft not getting up to take off speed at the end of the runway or mechanical defects etc.). It had exploded with a cargo of bombs. There were pieces of aircraft all over the adjacent ploughed field. Anyway this did not deter my two fewer mates and I to go and have a look and collect 0.5 cannon shells. We stumbled on many body parts which we helped to pick up. A big, coloured MP approached us after a while asked what we had in our in school satchels and we told him 0.5 cannon live shells. He asked to have a look and said 鈥淒o you lads know how to make fireworks from them?鈥� We did, but innocently said 鈥淣o鈥�, to which he replied 鈥淚鈥檒l explain it to you and tell you what the coloured tips on the bullets mean.鈥� He proceeded to explain that the colours defined, whether the bullets were explosive, tracer or ordinary. He then split the bullets from the shell cases put an explosive one point down into the ground with tracers all around, emptied the cordite on the top from the shells and then trail of cordite to an adjacent ditch which we got into. He set the cordite alight, which set off the tracers thus causing enough heat to set off the explosive shell with a good firework.

A German aircraft flew low over the town one afternoon when I was coming home from school and I dived for cover in a house porch in Felixstowe Road. Years later when talking to my wife she said one afternoon she was travelling on a trolley bus when an aircraft started to machine gun. They were in Nacton Road near Rands Way they all had to get off the bus and she ran home and she was only 13 years old.

Prior to the Normandy landings mock up landing craft and other military hardware were being assembled and stock piled. We later learnt that this was to create the impression that the invasion would take place in Belgium/Holland area. Still it was interesting watching these 鈥渂oats鈥� bobbing up and down on the river Orwell.

The school hall was large enough for all of the pupils. The headmaster, (Mr. Morris) and all the teachers in their gowns would assemble on the stage. Reverend Yates would take the prayers. From time to time, old boys would attend assembly and address the school and tell them what they had been doing. The Headmaster also mentioned old boys who had been killed or wounded in action.

The Bomb Disposal Attachment of the Royal Engineers requisitioned a large house near my grandparents house in Cauldwell Hall Road. They had defused bombs either side of the front door. They used an old, disused sand pit near Foxhall Road/Dobbs Lane crossroads. Needless to say we used to pay them a visit from time to time!

In Suffolk there were thirty-two airfields, thirteen of them in the Mid Suffolk District Council area where I spent the last 14 years working and I took the opportunity to visit all of them. The only one still operated by the RAF, Air Sea rescue and the Army Air Corp is Wattisham. A gliding club uses the runway and control tower at Rattlesden.

I have a friend, John Roper, who was born on March 16th 1934 at World鈥檚 End in a cottage in line with the end of the runway. He used to watch the B.17鈥檚 Flying Fortresses take off and get into formation before flying off on a mission. At the age of seven his Mother said he could walk across the field to Great Finborough School. One day whilst walking up Borough Lane he witnessed a Wellington two engine bomber crash in an adjacent field. The dead pilot was caught up in a tree by his parachute harness and was temporarily buried in the edge of the field with a make shift wooden cross above it to mark the spot.

The Germans made a low level attack on Wattisham airfield one day hit some of the hangers. The plane was 鈥淗edge Hopping鈥� and John saw the British tracer bullets firing from the airfield defence guns firing over the top of the aircraft - it was not hit. Lord Haw Haw, alias William Joyce, later announced the raid as a success on the German radio.

On another occasion a land mine was dropped and exploded in a field just before the local public house to the west of Buxhall and exploded. There was a very large crater in the field. Nobody was hurt.

FRED ANDREWS
I lived in King Edward Road and Fred lived nearby at 325 Felixstowe Road with his wife, son and daughter who were school friends.

Fred ran a greengrocery business with 2 horse drawn carts. When he went out his dog would also go (no lead). He sold potatoes and 7lb for sixpence (2.5p). Wild rabbit at 2/6d., 2/9d. and 3/-. Dependant on size (12.5p, 14p and 15p) complete with the skins on, (he used to skin them if required) and a lot of local fruit and vegetables. People with allotment gardens (Dig for Victory) also sold him fruit and vegetables.

The premises he occupied at 325, was a semi-detached cottage with a very long garden which ran down to the Felixstowe to Ipswich branch railway line. The garden was hand dug for vegetables, there was an orchard and at the bottom were pigsties. We children always watched the piglets being born. In order to supplement the pig food, Fred collected all the scraps from the table, peelings etc. and boiled them up.

At Christmas time I was roped in to help pluck the chickens, turkeys etc., a job which was not very nice and skinning rabbits and hares which was OK.

On Tuesday, market day, you could always find him in the Zulu Public House drinking and gambling away. It was said that after quite a few he got on his cart and went to sleep whilst his horse knew the way home.

For going down Bishops Hill in snow/ice weather he would fit special metal slides under two wheels.

During the second world war Dad had to work either manning the drawing office or doing engineering works which were necessary. I used to cycle to the office with our lunch and during the afternoon he taught me to draw plans, the level, make prints etc.

It also seemed daft to me that they should have chosen to build a brick and concrete roof strong room for all the plans, deeds of the railway land etc., right beside the left hand side of the tunnel mouth. It had a big steel door. The plans were all covered with soot and you got very dirty in there. But it never occurred to anyone that it was the most vulnerable place. A German bomb on the end of the tunnel would have been the right target to put the system out of operation together with all the plans.

During the school holidays my father took me to assist him with surveying at various places including an area of land to the south east of Stowmarket station where sidings were constructed to store transit wagon loads of bombs etc., which were destined for the American airfields at Mendlesham and Horham.

There were quite a few occasions when Dad had to leave home between 3 and 4 am on a Sunday morning and cycle to the Engineers depot of London Road and go on a special engineers train to do bridge reconstruction. The train consisted of several low flat wagons carrying precast concrete deck beams and deck/parapet beams, a lovely old steam crane, an old carriage for the workmen and a guard鈥檚 van. The guard鈥檚 van was Dad鈥檚 office for the day.

Dad also had army personnel assisting him with the work and helping with their training. I well remember at one occasion at Needham Market the down side having been completed, the train moved off to Stowmarket and as it passed the rear of the houses in Stowmarket Road it stopped long enough for the soldiers and workmen to raid an orchard and scrump for apples and pears. The train went on to Stowmarket came down the opposite line and proceeded to renew that half of the bridge.

There was one job on a Sunday he did not take me and that was when they replaced Bridge No.1 on the Mid Suffolk Branch Line on Haugh Lane, Haughley. This was an army training exercise when they blew up the existing bridge and replaced it with a type of Bailey Bridge. Dad took photographs of the explosion and was blown over by the blast. I still have the negatives and prints.

It was said that a train loaded with dead bodies came through Ipswich station in the early hours one night. A friend told me he met a chap who was born and lived at Shingle Street. On the night in question his family were woken up and he saw a body in a German uniform - the whole village was immediately evacuated.

There has been the correspondence in the press about speculation or otherwise and we will have to wait until to 2020 when the official papers about this event will be released by the Government.

It leaves one to wonder whether because Shingle Street has a very good landing beach with no cliffs and is very close to Bawdsey Manor where Watson-Watt was carrying out his trials. (The unit had been moved well in land early in the war) that a similar raid to that described above was not attempted by the Germans.

All in all, when I look back on my childhood in those formative years of growing up we lived through those dangerous times and where we lacked formal education we made up for it with unusual experiences which were very exciting because we did not realise until later what horrors, suffering, loss of loved ones etc., meant until much later when we were grown up.

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