大象传媒

My name is Christine Wadsworth and I am writing this story about my Dad Roy Hodgetts.

He was born in Castleford, Yorkshire and worked in various industries including coalmining at Glasshoughton and Pontefract Collieries and then at Fryston Colliery where he was still working at the outbreak of war.

In 1943 Dad transferred to the Yorkshire Copper Works, Stourton, near Leeds, again a reserved occupation, where he did various jobs including working on the acid and vitriol bosh. Conditions in the works were such that no suitable protection was provided against acid spills and splashes. This was a bone of contention with the workers who although working hard for the war effort thought that they at least deserved to be provided with adequate protective clothing.

When Dad left the Copperworks in 1944 he was called up. He did his basic training at Catterick Camp and joined the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers, the REME, working as a motor assembler, on tank maintenance, on wading vehicles, (DUKWs), testing them for D-Day, and then in the messing stores and office until he was demobbed in 1947.

As he wasn't classed as medically A1, Dad didn't serve overseas. He was stationed at Fulford near York, Merstham, Caterham and Guildford, Surrey. Both York and Guildford suffered heavy bombing raids and Dad lost many friends when where he was stationed in Guildford was bombed.

Whilst in Merstham Dad's barracks were in a large old house, Rockshaw House. Canadian soldiers had moved out before the REME moved in leaving behind them bayonet damage to the wooden panelling and other decorative features of the house. In 1980, the year before Dad died, we went down to Merstham to try to find the old house, but when we got there it had been demolished and in it's place was a motorway. Dad was very disappointed as he had liked the old place

Whilst he was in the REME, Dad's nicknames were "Yorkie" and "Pop" which related to the county of his birth and the fact that he was in his early thirties, whilst the majority were conscripts in their teens and early twenties.

Whilst serving in the messing office Dad was asked to check that the large boiler used for cooking porridge was working. When he looked inside, the surface of the water was swimming with blackclocks so he emptied out the water and refilled the boiler. Next morning because the water had been changed, the porridge wasn't ready in time for breakfast. Apparently what the cooks usually did when they came in was scoop the insects off the top of the water and then add the oats. The men, including Dad, had often commented on what the black bits in the porridge they were eating could be, little did they know that they were bits of insect. After the incident of the bolier, he never again had porridge for breakfast!

Dad's girlfriend at the outbreak of war, was Dolly Preece. She and her family, moved from Airedale, near Castleford, down to Hounslow in Middlesex during the war. Mrs Preece, also called Dolly by family and friends, had been in the VAD in World War 1, working in the Royal Victoria Hospital at Netley near Southampton. Her father was a regimental sergeant major, Sgt Brown, and the family came from Sholin also near Southampton. Mr Preece, Will, had been wounded and brought to the pier at Southhampton by ship, and nursed at the Victoria. It was there that he met Dolly Brown and married and moved back up to Yorkshire where he came from.

Dad often wondered why Mr Preece had uprooted his family which included two daughters and a young son and moved to Hounslow which was being heavily bombed. I remember Dad telling me that the Preece's house in Tiverton Road, Hounslow was badly damaged when the family moved in, with only a pile of rubble with a hole in it and a damaged toilet bowl over, in the centre of the room. One of the adjoining house had been completely destroyed.

Although Dad and Dolly went their separate ways, we always kept in touch with her Mum and visited Hounslow many times until sadly Mrs Preece died. Dolly, her brother George and sister Evelyn who married a Canadian soldier and went to live in Canada as a warbride, have all now sadly died.

Dad forged many lasting friendships during his time in the REME. We as a family kept in contact with one of those friends, John (Jack) Sheard and his wife Dolly who lived in Fulford, for many years until first Dad, Dolly and then Jack sadly died.

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