大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by a volunteer from Radio Northampton Action Desk on behalf of Norman Mason and has been added to the site with her permission. Norman Mason fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.

Sunday morning, September 3rd 1939. For this one occasion myself and my sisters were not sent to Sunday school at the Congregational Church. Our radio set which was powered by an accumulator battery, was tuned in to hear the address by Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain who announced that we were at war with Germany.

As an eleven year old boy, I was left wondering if my dad would have to become a soldier. Three of my uncles were members of the territorial army unit based at the Drill Hall in Northampton Road, Kettering; Uncle Billy Mobbs was a cook and had previously fought in the latter part of WW1, Uncle Ernest was a TA Sergeant and Uncle Sonny was a TA private. Their unit was basically a Searchlight company. They were called to arms quite quickly to serve the country.

The TA had a firing range, which was known as the Butts, it was in the Slade Valley along the field road adjacent to Liners Brickyard in Orton Road. The firing points were set, at 100 yard distances. This range was also used by the eventually formed Home Guard which my father joined.

Two of my mother鈥檚 brothers were called up into the Army; Uncle Cyril joining the Royal Army Service Corps, and Uncle Leslie joining the East Surrey Regiment. Leslie was at the battle of Monte Casino in Italy and suffered a reoccurrence of an old football leg injury, but was saved from capture by some of his comrades going back to carry him to safety. Uncle Cyril spoke very little about his experiences, especially of his time during the D-Day invasions.

Another uncle, mum鈥檚 brother Henry suffered from broken arms whilst playing with me as a very young child and falling heavily, this kept him from the armed forces, but he was conscripted as a Bevin Boy in the Coalmines, working underground which was vastly different from life in a Shoe Factory.

My father was taken from his work as a Heel Scourer at Kettering Co-op Boot and Shoe Factory in Havelock Street, Kettering and was sent to work at Sterling Metals in Burton Latimer, where his job was to melt the metal ingots into liquid form prior to molding into Bombs Casings.

An important part of the process was to place the ingots to warm through before putting them into the melting pot. This was to ensure that if any ingot had air pockets in them they would not explode on contact with the heat of the furnace. Whilst he attended to a call of nature another worked used the ingot my father had put to warm through and replaced it with a cold bar. He did not tell my father, with the result that he picked up the cold ingot and on putting it into the furnace, it exploded leaving him with extensive burns across his chest, which invalided him for a long period.

On his eventual recovery, he was transferred to work with the Kettering Iron and Steel Company which operated Ironstone Opencast Pits up in Loddington Road. Dad鈥檚 job was to stand up onto the ironstone train wagons and pull out any lumps of clay which were picked up by the digger. This operation had to continue being done in all weather conditions throughout all seasons of the year. Dad became ill and was eventually allowed to return to the Shoe Factory.

My mother鈥檚 father, Grandad Thomas Tebbutt and her elder brother, Tom Junior both worked in the Ironstone pits until Grandad retired and the Pits Closed. I used to go up to the pits around mid-day during school holidays to take food to them and to watch the machines digging out the iron ore, and to see the small locomotives pulling the loaded wagons back to the Kettering Furnaces which were actually sited in Rothwell Parish, even though they stood beside the Kettering to Leicester railway line.

In 1939, at the age of eleven, I joined the Rothwell St John Ambulance Cadet Division in preference to joining the 1st Rothwell Scout Troop. This led me into many adventures and activities through to my call up for National Service at 18 years old.

Rothwell, like so many other places, made efforts to protect its buildings and its residents: The Market House where we met for our St John Training (now the Borough Council Office) also became the Air Wardens Post. Sandbags were filled from the orchard and gardens of the Manor House which is now the site of the Manor Park Bowls Club Green. Members of the St John Cadets and the 1st Scout Group, along with a large number of adults, filled the bags with soil and they were taken to be placed as protection around the Market House and also the Victoria Infant School, which was designated to become an emergency hospital in the event of air attacks.

The Sunday School Buildings (now re-named Trinity Centre) became a First Aid Post manned by nurses of the St John Ambulance Brigade. I was, as a cadet, designated to be a wartime Messenger Boy attached to the First Aid Post during air raid alerts. It was during the air raid alerts that some of the nurses brought in a portable Gramophone and some Dance music records and taught me to dance Old Time dances - something I have continued to enjoy for many, many years.

My first experience of camping was with the Cadets, and I enjoyed that activity for many years too. During my time as a Cadet I, along with some of my friends completed the St John Grand Prior Awards and obtained the Badge, which was worn with pride. We had to pass exams in 12 different subjects to receive the award and the efforts made then have stood me in good stead for the rest of my life. Before my National Service, I was promoted to be the Cadet Corporal, which was an honour.

At the age of 12, and in year six of the Gladstone Street Council School, I was at first disappointed to be there having had the chance to attend the Kettering Central School after getting good results in the then 11 plus exam. My dad would not let me go. In the Spring of 1940, I was able to take on a Paper Round for Ernest Poole鈥檚 shop, which is now Gilke鈥檚 on Bell Hill. I had to meet the bus from Kettering each morning with a Chassis to collect the bundles of papers at Fox Street Bus Stop. They were then towed round to bell Hill where we picked out our individual round papers ourselves before setting off to deliver them. I had a daily round of 84 papers to deliver 6 days a week and then collect the money on Saturdays. For this I was paid 4 shillings and 6 pence a week (22.5p today). My mum took 2s and 6d and I had 2s (10p today). I did this for 2 years before leaving school at 14.

Also in the Spring of 1940, I was able to go with other classmates to set potatoes in the fields to help the farmers. We were working in a large field up Loddington Road and had to fill galvanized buckets with seed potatoes and set them in furrows a foot apart. The furrows were long, the buckets were heavy and we worked bent double in the rows which took 30 minutes to get from end to end. It made a change from school work and we were paid 6d an hour (3p). We returned to the same fields in the autumn to pick up the potatoes which were spun out of the ground with a spinning machine drawn by a cart horse. We were again bent double for most of the day picking up every potato and the galvanized buckets this time got heavier as we filled them. It was backbreaking work, but worth the efforts when we were paid.

We repeated this process in 1941, but at a farm at Thorpe Malsor. It was down towards the reservoir and the field bordered onto the ironstone rail line, which went from Kettering Furnaces to the Pits at Loddington. This was invaluable in the autumn because we were able to throw potatoes onto the locomotive and the driver would roast them for us and throw them nicely roasted on the way back to the furnaces. We got the same wage as in the previous year too. At this farm we were collected with a vehicle and trailer from Rothwell; the girls traveled in the vehicle, the boys in the trailer which was normally used to transport animals.

In 1940, the school had to have its window panes coated with gauze material and crisscrossed with adhesive tape to reduce the risk of flying glass in the event of an air raid and bombs being dropped on Rothwell. I was one of the boys who helped to get the work done.

In Years 6 and 7, boys were allowed to work plots in the school garden which had a large number of small plots, all of them had a strip of about 50cms wide at the ends, all of them being planted with Marigolds. Two large air raid shelters were sunk into the ground on the garden site next to the fence, which divided the school ground from the town football club鈥檚 land adjacent to the place where the Top of the Town Ballroom and Football Social Club now stands. These shelters were brick built with concrete floors and roofs. The roofs were covered with a thick layer of soil and proved to be ideal for growing many marrow plants which concealed them from aerial view. The school garden site is now covered with new building extensions and a playground area.

The boys also did woodwork in what is now the first part of the school hall, the girls did needlework and they had cookery lessons in the end part of the present school hall. In the top two years, boys played football and I was lucky to be part of the school team and became captain in Year 7.

I reached the age of 14 in March 1942 and left school that Easter. I went to work at the Kettering Co-op Boot and Shoe Factory in Kettering, starting work in the Lasting and Making room. It was a revelation especially after my father had refused to allow me to take up an offer of a place in the Boot and Shoe Technical College at 13 years old for two years training in the trade. Many of the men were over service age, with the rest of us aged from 14 to 17; call up came for the 18 year olds.

We were very fortunate; our foreman believed there was only two ways to do a job - Right or Wrong, he accepted no in between. He also taught at the Technical College night school classes in hand shoe making and encouraged us to go. A number of us did so and valued his input into our lives, which was very important in our futures, which became apparent as the years passed by.

I still continued as a St John Cadet and twice came into contact with the Duchess of Gloucester, once when she visited Rothwell and the Rothwell St John members were all in a group photography taken during her visit to Victoria Infant School whilst it was still designated to be an emergency hospital. The second time was at a County Inspection held in the grounds of St Andrew鈥檚 Hospital in Northampton, with all the county divisions on parade.

On December 5th 1942, I played my first ever game of football for Rothwell Corinthians in the Kettering and District Amateur under-16 league. This was the start of 22 years of playing for the club, which was extended into the 1970s with several years as a linesman, first aid and committee man. Many years of enjoyment only cut short by work pressures.

The ending of the war in Europe in May 1945 followed by the surrender of the Japanese after the Atomic bombing of its cities, brought much relief to many people and much sadness to the families who had lost relatives through the horrors of war which took the lives of so many service men and so many civilians too. Many factories organized celebration parties for their workers.

During my own service in which I served as a Shoemaker with the Royal Army Service Corps, I was one of a group of soldiers manning an Army equipment exhibition held in Coventry, close by the ruins of Coventry Cathedral, on land devastated during the raids on the city. This experience brought home to me the terror which must have affected so many civilians in cities throughout the country devastated by the continuous attacks which they endured.

My service as a shoemaker was not by choice, as I wanted to join the Navy as a sick berth attendant, but my CV of four years in the manufacture of Boots and Shoes, including the making of Army Boots, plus my experience of learning hand sewn shoemaking proved too big an obstacle. My foreman鈥檚 teaching stood me in good stead as I was eventually posted to the Rock of Gibraltar where I was promoted to Corporal in charge of the Garrison Shoemakers workshop with six cobblers and eight Spaniards to maintain the whole garrison鈥檚 footwear.

A lasting memory of the war years was the old time dancing in the Harmonic Room of the Rifle Band Club in Gladstone Street, where the air raid dancing lessons proved their worth. The music too was great, played by the members of the Rothwell Mission and Albion bands who were too old for the armed forces. Many happy memories revolve around the group of girls and mates who were at school together, or played football together and enjoyed the pleasure of each others company as friends and dancing partners. None of the group eventually married to anyone in the group.

Ballroom and more modern styles of dancing were available in the Tresham Hall and became a magnet for the American servicemen based at the Harrington airfield. Music was usually provided by small dance bands which had a following, mainly of females, many of whom often traveled to attend dances at other airdromes in the area. Madam Parkes who taught swimming at various schools was instrumental in organizing many of these visits for the social benefit of the American forces.

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