大象传媒

I was still at Cirencester Grammar School when war broke out. By rights I should have finished but agreed to stay on an extra year as I was too young to be taken on as an apprentice. The place I had applied to was in Birmingham, and I was thought not old enough to live away from home by myself.

An apprentice electrician

Not long after war broke out, my brother came home and said they were looking for apprentices where he worked as an apprentice electrician. I quickly applied and was accepted.

I was 18, and we were working on the aerodrome at Chedworth, Gloucestershire, when I received my call-up papers. I was sent for basic training and then, after a brief embarkation leave, was shipped off to North Africa on Christmas Eve. I spent the whole of that Christmas being very seasick.

Working in the Lambretta factory

We were sent out in units trained to support and look after the vehicles. I served in North Africa until the war ended and then went to Italy, to Bari, Brindisi and Rome. We were finally based in Milan, where we worked in the Lambretta factory, putting together vehicles out of the wrecks that were brought into us. These were then given to the newly re-formed Italian police force.

One day, we got a call asking whether we could go and move a submarine. The Germans had been prefabricating them in one of the factories. At the end of the war one had just been abandoned, and the soldiers needed it to be moved as it was taking up the whole of the factory.

A landlocked submarine

Well, when we got there we couldn鈥檛 believe our eyes: it was massive. We thought the call had been put through as a joke. Needless to say, despite trying very hard, our little truck couldn鈥檛 budge the submarine. So it was left where it was, and the soldiers had to work around it.

After Italy, the unit was split, and my section moved to Greece. It was there that I ended my overseas services, nine years and ten months after first leaving home. I was sent back to complete my service in Britain before being demobbed.

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