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This is the year that it all started to happen for me. War was declared, I was 15 years old and I had just left school. I had been school captain, and quite happy, but it had ended and it was time to start work. In 1940 I started work at Hardy Spicers Ltd., Birch Road, Witton, Birmingham as a print boy in a drawing office. It wasn’t a very important job, in fact it was quite boring. However, I managed to do something Hitler did not. Part of my job was to maintain the blueprint machine, which operated with ammonia to develop the prints. I had to receive the shipments of ammonia from the delivery bay which came in Winchester bottles. I dropped a bottle in the entrance and as a result I cleared the factory as everyone was crying from the fumes.

Shortly afterwards I was given my own drawing board and instructed in drawing and sent to night school. This did not fit into my personal schedule as for many years I had been trained in music by Edward Godbold, the deputy organist to the City of Birmingham, in piano, accordion, and theatre organ. So me being totally different, I joined a dance band as a drummer, what else?! This did not go down too well with my father who said that if I was to play the drums I should have proper tuition, so he arranged with a professional percussionist to have me trained. With engineering night school, band work, day work and percussion tuition I had a pretty full life but somehow I managed it.

Transport was a problem. Drums are quite a large time to move about but again my Dad came to the rescue. He made me a trailer so that I could tow the drums behind my bicycle (I was too young to drive). So I would set out to a gig one hour before, set up my kit, play, and arrive home one hour after the gig. I would then do my homework and the next morning cycle to work. It kept me fit!

The age for driving was lowered shortly afterward, and my dad had a Ford 8 but no petrol as it was rationed. By this time I had progressed in my musical endeavours to a ten-piece dance band directed by one Hugo Morris, who was musical director of Moss Empire Theatres in the Midlands. He had the pick of all the best musicians around. He was a hard taskmaster and insisted that you played from the ‘dots’, so you learnt musical discipline the hard way.

Meanwhile, I was continuing my engineering educations and bearing in mind the war was still on, bombing was a nightly problem and the Yanks arrived! They had a big base at Fradley, just outside Lichfield. I had petrol for entertaining the troops so I could run Dad’s car. The Yanks had high octane fuel, we had paraffin oil, when mixed together it would run my Ford 8 — not very well but it got me to gigs without having to cycle. Some of the venues I played at in different bands were the King Charles Pub, The community Hall Kingstanding, The Happy Hour Road House (Bassetts Pole), Thimble mill Baths, Kings Heath Baths and the Mirror Ball in Dudley

In engineering I had to go through the shops meaning that one had to go through the different areas of manufacturing. I was eventually transferred to Forging and Presswork Ltd, still a part of the Birfield Industries Group in the tool room. I was still studying at Aston Technical School, night school, to go on later to university to take a mechanical engineering degree. All this time the dance band money came in very useful!

During my period at Forging and Presswork Ltd. I volunteered for the RAF only to be told that I was in what was called a ‘reserved occupation’ because we made Rolls Royce valve seats for the Spitfire Merlin engine and later the more powerful Griffin engine on up-set heading presses.

So my war was spent with my head in a very hot heading press, or sitting behind some very hot drums — day and night!

This story was submitted to the People’s War site by Anastasia Travers a volunteer with WM CSV Actiondesk on behalf of Howard Stokes and has been added to the site with his permission. Howard Stokes fully understands the sites terms and conditions.

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