大象传媒

FAMILY AT WAR

Having left my school, which had been to evacuated to Devon, when I was 17 years old, I went to work as a junior in a Quantity Surveyor鈥檚 office in Westminster; travelling there each day by bus from Highgate. The daylight bombing raids had ended, but most nights, there were air raids, the results of which were to be seen during my bus journey. Most nights there was an air raid warning and the family went into a shelter in a neighbour鈥檚 garden. Apart from some incendiary bombs, the immediate district suffered little serious damage.

My Father was in charge of a Church of England office in Dean鈥檚 Yard beside Westminster Abbey; he did his turn on the fire watch roster in his office and also in the Abbey itself 鈥� where he was credited with having extinguished several incendiary bombs. Not content with that, he took his turn on the fire watch at home and also enrolled with the Civil Defence stretcher bearers in Hornsey. During the early 鈥減honey war鈥� when nothing much happened, he got bored with that and joined the newly-formed Home Guard, never missing a single parade. He was then in his late fifties and how he did all that is amazing, although I think that he was by no means unique at that time. Younger people nowadays, having seen the 鈥淒ad鈥檚 Army鈥� series on TV have the impression that the Home Guard was a bit of a joke, but nearly half of his Platoon had fought in the Great War and he had been decorated with the DCM, second only to the VC, for his bravery, so they were actually quite a serious proposition.

My Mother was heavily involved with a charity nursery school for the children of mothers who had to go out to work when their husbands were away with the forces. My Brother, who was 5 years older that me, was away with the Engineers in Northern Ireland and later in India. My Sister, who was nine years older than me, was a member of the MTC, a civilian, but uniformed, unit which provided drivers for Government officials; she was driver for the Director of Tank Production at the Ministry of Supply and drove him all over the country visiting tank factories. At the end of the day, she had to park the car in Brewer Street in Soho and make her way home, coping with air raids and unreliable bus and tube services, but she always slept in her own bed, refusing to let Hitler spoil her beauty sleep! On one occasion when she was driving her boss up north, she felt the call of nature and, noticing that he was asleep in the back of the car, she stopped gently, got out and went behind a bush and then drove off quietly; about five minutes later, she looked in the rear view mirror and saw that he was not there! He had popped behind a tree on the other side of the road and Marjorie had driven off without him. Fortunately he a had a good sense of humour and shared a good laugh with her when she returned to pick him up!

At home, I joined the Home Guard at Highgate and drove a utility van, but that got a bit boring, so I applied to the Middlesex Regiment鈥檚 Cadet Battalion in Hornsey and was accepted as a Second Lieutenant as I had been a Sergeant in the school OTC and already had experience in training cadets; this involved me in going to parades three times a week and I rather enjoyed it. We sometimes went on parades with the Girls鈥� Training Corps and, at the age of 17, that was my first encounter with the opposite sex away from the supervision of parents or schoolteachers, so that was fun. I was studying at home for the examinations of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors and that kept me busy in the air raid shelter. My call-up was deferred so that I could take the first examination and immediately afterwards I went to the Westminster recruiting Office and volunteered for the Army.

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