大象传媒

I was born in 1915 and I went to work when I was 17 at Muntona Limited in Midland Road direct from Bedford Modern School as an Industrial Chemist. When war was declared in 1939 I was recruited to be Gas Identification Officer for the Borough of Bedford. I was 24 years old and because I was working Muntona, which was a food producer I was classed as working in a reserved occupation. I went to Cambridge for a week for training. Training was identifying different gases, gas compounds in the field. Different gases were presented and had to be identified correctly. I remember mustard gas which blistered the skin. There were about four different gases.

After that of course I returned to Bedford and was then on call. This meant, originally, attending the Town Hall (which is now the Civic Theatre) every time that the air raid siren went. I assembled with the chief ARP Warden and other officials in the corridor leading to the stage of the Town Hall. The call outs became too frequent and actually interferred with your day time work. So it was arranged that we didn't come during daylight hours and they installed telephones in the houses of those people who would have assembled. But at this time we still had to come to the Town Hall at night and sleep over so then an assistant Gas Identification Officer was appointed to share the night call outs. Mr Woodward was appointed my assistant during September 1940.

I received a letter from Mr G K Bowes, Medical Officer of Health regarding Gas Contaminated Food in 1941. It reads ...

"In the event of our own Public Analyst not being available for investigations if foodstuffs are contaminated by enemy poison gas, Mr Robinson, the Science Master of the Bedford School, has expressed his willingness to undertake this work. As soon as the scheme for carrying out such investigations has advanced a little further Mr Robinson will no doubt wish to obtain your advice on some aspects of the matter and I have suggested to him that he gets into touch with you direct. I hope this will be agreeable to you."

J. B. Graham was the Clerk of the County Council and ARP Controller during the war.

Mr A L Nicholls was the ARP Sub-Controller for the Bedford Borough.

A. L. Loveridge, Police Inspector became the A.R.P. officer for the Borough of Bedford.

I had joined the Home Guard in about 1941 and this caused a clash with my duties as GIO for the Borough. I had to resign from the Home Guard as it was essential that a GIO was available at all times.

By early 1942 it was decided that the threat of gas attacks wasn't imminent so from then we were purely on call by telephone. We had several gas attack trials in Bedford and combined with the ARP Services. I also attended at W H Allen Sons & Co. Ltd, Bedford to instruct their own Gas Identification Officers. I received a letter from Rupert S Allen thanking me for instruction of the portable field testing set to their two GIOs, dated 2nd July 1940. I also experimented to test whether Arsine gas could be detected, whilst I was working at the Muntona laboratories and reported that the papers proved sensitive to the gas to my boss, R. W. Saunders.

Towards the end of 1942 Muntona had employed ladies from the High School and I instructed two of them to do my chemical analysis, etc.

By the end of 1942 I was de-reserved at Muntona but before I could persue another post another GIO had to be found to replace me to undertake my duties at the Borough and this took some time. However, I went to Cambridge at the end of November for an interview with representatives of the Ministry of Defence. This was arranged through my works and the ARP set up so that the a deputy could take over my Gas Identification Officer (GIO).

I was appointed to a post with the Ministry of Defence as a chemical assistant at the Bomb Filling factory at Ruddington, near Nottingham. I was there until the end of the war with Germany.

And also during this time we lived on site and had join the Auxillary Bomb Disposal Section of the Notts, Lincs., and Derby Home Guard.

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