大象传媒

This is the first of Brian Cable鈥檚 鈥楥HILDHOOD MEMORIES FROM RAYLEIGH IN ESSEX鈥�.

These memories were written by Brian, collated by Jo Taylor of the Holmewood and Heath CAP team, and added to the site with the author鈥檚 permission.

THE BUILD UP TO WAR
It is August 1939, and a hundred or more of us children are gathered on our local railway station, waiting for the special train to take us on our annual outing to Clacton on Sea. We consist of the combined Sunday Schools of the town, Baptist, Methodist and Congregational churches and we chat together eagerly as we watch for the first puff of smoke over the trees indicating that our train is almost here. We debate how much we each have to spend, I have two and sixpence halfpenny, my friend Charley has one and eleven pence, between us we have a fortune and we intend to make the most of it.
The train arrives and we all clamber in, Charley gets one window seat, I get the one opposite, the train moves off and we are on our way. As we went along we could see signs of what our parents and teachers had talked about, but what we could not fully understand. We could see army lorries parked in lanes, gun emplacements being installed in fields, shelters being dug in gardens and brown sticky tape being criss-crossed over windows.
We had a wonderful day by the sea; we watched the Punch and Judy, rode the ghost train and spent all our money. After our tea, in a cafe overlooking Pier Avenue, we wound our way back to the station in a long tired disjointed line. This was to be the last time as a child I had played by the sea, for war was declared and when it finished five years later I had started work.

About three years previous I had witnessed something that had given me a foretaste of what was to come. It was around 1936/7; I attended a very small private school a short distance up the road from where we lived. My mother thought I would get a better education there than at the Council School, but I am afraid she was very wrong!
It was run by two spinster sisters, and there were about a dozen of us pupils attending. There was a rota where we took it in turns to stay behind and tidy up and wash out the inkwells. On this particular day it was my turn, and after completing my jobs to the satisfaction of one of the sisters I went to walk home. At the gate, however, I stopped, frightened to leave the safety of the school grounds. The school stood on a long length of road and a large part of it could be seen in either direction.
As far as I could see, in both directions, were parked army vehicles bumper to bumper, tanks, Bren gun carriers, lorries, staff cars and mobile guns. On the grass verges soldiers sat and lay, talking, smoking and brewing tea. I don鈥檛 know what I was scared of, but I returned into the school where one of the sisters was hanging out some washing,
鈥淲hat鈥檚 the matter Brian?鈥� she enquired, I hesitated,
鈥淐ome and look Miss鈥� I replied. She came with me to the gate,
鈥淭hey won鈥檛 hurt you, 鈥� she laughed, but I was not convinced.
At that moment a girl in her teens came along to deliver the sisters some vegetables and being told the situation said,
鈥淵ou can walk along with me Brian, I am going your way.鈥�
As I walked along home with the girl the soldiers whistled and called to her, because I think she was rather pretty! She left me at the gate and I was glad to be in the safety of home. My mother was out, but I saw my father digging in the garden. I went out and told him what I had seen, and he stopped work and looked at me saying,
鈥淵es son, I鈥檓 afraid things don鈥檛 look very good!鈥� I returned to the front of the bungalow, and from the safety of a hedge watched the troops mount their vehicles and they all start up with a roar, and the convoy slowly move away and out of sight.
At that age the whole scene had a profound effect on me, and was to set the stage for things to come.

Moving forward to 1937, it was the year of King George VI's Coronation. I was now at Love Lane Council School and we spent many weeks preparing for the great day. There was to be a fair in Webster鈥檚 Meadow and a special marquee where our school were to have our Coronation tea. We all looked forward to the day and spoke of nothing else as we painted flags and made paper chains and received our Coronation mugs.
When the day came however, it teemed with rain, and I remember standing looking out of the winter with my parents, and they saying,
鈥淵ou鈥檙e not going in this, are you?鈥�
鈥淥h Yes, 鈥� I replied, 鈥淎ll my friends will be there, we are going to have a great time!鈥�
When we did arrive at the field however, it was absolutely waterlogged, straw and duckboards were everywhere and the amusements were all covered with tarpaulins.
I left my parents to their own devises and went over to a huge marquee with a notice saying 鈥楲ove Lane School鈥�. I went inside, the vast space was filled with hundreds of trestle tables and chairs, all empty, except for half a dozen children over the far side that I didn鈥檛 even know!
A woman came forward and asked me,
鈥淲ould you like your tea now love?鈥�
鈥淵es please.鈥� I replied.
She brought me a large plate of sandwiches and cakes, and a glass of orangeade, and there I sat, with rain pouring down on the canvas above and my feet squelching on the duckboards below, eating my Coronation tea!

Phoney War
Later, towards 1939, I saw our neighbour digging huge trenches at the bottom of their garden. I enquired of my parents - why? , and they said he was digging an air raid shelter. My father however declared he was wasting his time as they would soon fill with water and be useless
He was proved right, and they remained unfinished, and their son and I, who was about my age, used to play war games in them
Later on, in the summer, I was playing in the garden; it was beautiful day with a clear, cloudless blue sky. Suddenly there was a loud 鈥榖ang鈥�; I looked up to see two white clouds forming above. My parents came out to see, and my father declared that it was anti-aircraft fire. I stood watching the two puffs slowly break up and drift away, it was incidents like these that instilled in my young mind that something big and rather frightening was going on.

In August 1939 my father鈥檚 boss asked him if we would like to go and live in his house for a month while he was away at his cottage in Cornwall. It was a lovely big house with a tennis court, orchard, three paddocks, stables, pigsties, chicken houses and numerous other buildings. When war broke out he decided to remain in Cornwall and we remained at 鈥楬omeside鈥� for almost the duration of the war. Just prior to the war he had built a high tech (for the time) underground air raid shelter with electricity, gas proof doors and an escape tunnel into the orchard. He never used it, but we spent some time down there during the worst of the raids. The only trouble was, you had to cross a section of garden, the tennis court, and some shrubbery to get to it. This was not very pleasant on a cold winters night, so we often resorted to the comparative warmer safety of the cupboard under the stairs.

On Saturday September 2nd, 1939, my father suggested that we should go to Southend to see if they were going to switch on the illuminations. My mother doubted if they would be, as she had heard a blackout was to start that weekend. We decided to go however, and found that all along Southend seafront were troops and military and naval vehicles. The mile and a third long pier had been taken over by the navy, and at the beginning was a large blackboard saying, 鈥極wing to blackout regulations all illuminations were cancelled.鈥� We called in a cafe that still remained open, had a cup of tea, and then returned home.

WAR IS DECLARED
On the Sunday morning we were in church, and during the singing of a hymn, a deacon who had remained at home to hear the prime minister Neville Chamberlain鈥檚 radio broadcast, entered the church, went up into the pulpit and whispered to the minister. At the close of the hymn he told the congregation that we were at war, and there was an almost tangible silence fell over everyone. Finally he said a few prayers and the service closed.
Although I was nine years old, I must have been a very naive nine year old, because some time earlier I had seen an article in a newspaper. It showed a photo of German troops marching through a city and the caption underneath said 鈥楥hekovslovakia at War鈥�. At the close of the service I quickly went outside, expecting to see German troops marching down the road. I was disappointed to see only a woman walking her dog and a man on a bicycle!
On arriving home my mother went to prepare the dinner while my father carried on making up shutters for the blackout. The dog 鈥楴obby鈥� seemed to sense that something was amiss for he followed me everywhere.

For a long time the Phoney War continued, sirens occasionally sounded but we heard nothing. This was all to change however, I came home from school one afternoon and went up to feed the chickens, and while ladling some corn into a hopper I heard a distinct roar of unfamiliar aircraft. Everyday we saw and heard our own aircraft going over, and were very familiar with their sound.
These however were different and I immediately went outside, the weather was very cloudy and overcast and the roar overhead grew louder and more menacing. I saw the man who lived at the bungalow at the top of the drive standing by his gate looking upward.
鈥淲hat鈥檚 happening?鈥� I asked him,
鈥淭hey are German,鈥� he replied, and as he spoke there was a rapid burst of machine gun fire. The roar of the planes continued for some time, than gradually faded away. From this day on activity in the sky began to increase on generally a daily basis.

One morning I was going shopping for my mother and met one of my friends,
鈥淵ou should go and look up in the High Street,鈥� he said, 鈥渋ts chock full of busses!鈥� It was a detour out of my way, but I had to go and have a look.
Now our High Street was very wide, it is of course the same width today, but now car parking takes up a slice of it. As I turned the corner I could not believe my eyes, the whole vast area was full of busses of every size, shape and colour. They were packed tight everywhere, single and double-deckers both old and new.
Why were they there? , the troops had come to town, and were billeted in every available empty house, shop and hall. They took over the Baptist Church hall, and when my sister married they had the service in the Baptist Church and the reception in the Methodist hall. They had not taken over this because it was an integral part of the church.
As kids we loved having the troops in the town, the first lot had a bugle band and we used to go and watch them practise in a meadow. They gave us sweets and let us have a go on their bugles.

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