大象传媒

In 1938 my parents bought a bungalow called Belle Vue for the princely sum of 拢400. Belle Vue was part of a ribbon development that then ran parallel to the main A45 Cambridge to Bedford road. Behind our row of bungalows a series of muddy tracks led to a hodge-podge of ramshackle dwellings, old railway carriages, wooden DIY constructions - a veritable shanty town. Our postal address was Hardwicke Cambs although the village of Hardwicke lay nearly a mile away along a side road. This whole area was still in the 19th century, our lighting by oil lamp, cooking by an oven linked to our kitchen fire or by primus stove which my mother managed to catch fire at regular intervals when attempting to light up. We had no mains drainage or tap water, our choice either to use rainwater from water butts full of tiny swimming organisms or 250 yds across the fields was a well operated by a large wheel. The well water was worth double the journey being crystal clear cool and tasting of iron. I have never since tasted any watery (!) substance to rival it.
Although poorly constructed each bungalow had its acre of land that seemed from a child鈥檚 perspective to stretch an eternity into the distance. Just as well perhaps, there was ample space to dispose of the contents of our lavatory buckets, after a suitable hole was dug of course our fruit trees seemed to flourish via the same source.
Our entertainment consisted of a large wind-up gramophone with three or four 78s, I think I completely wore out my favourite "Moonlight and Roses". We also possessed a large radio powered by a dry battery and an accumulator, recharged at the local garage price 6d.
The one redeeming feature of the locality was our local school 3 miles up the Rd at Childerley gate well built and functional. It was on the aforesaid radio that I heard the dry voice of Neville Chamberlain 鈥淲e have received no such undertaking and a state of war now exists鈥�. The phrase remains in my memory. After war broke out we kids had one fervent wish apart from seeing off Hiltler, that was our head mistress a Mrs Vincent Br眉ns a redoubtable lady would be interned. Fate as ever fickle was to deal us a double disappointment. The area adjacent to our lovely school was vacant and flat, the powers that be decreed that it was ideally suitable for an airfield. Childerley Gate school and a farm stood immediately in line with the approach to the main runway so both had to go. Mrs Vincent Br眉ns remained!
Next to our bungalow stood the Village Hall which became our temporary educational establishment. From always being on time for school although 3 miles distant, my punctuality slipped somewhat aided perhaps by the unhealthy proximity of my mother and teacher wherby regular reports on my lack of progress were exchanged.
A rather humorous interlude occurred when the London Blitz started. My mothers family emanated from Finsbury Park in N London all four girls in the family had migrated so to speak to Cambridgeshire. Gladys the snob of the family ran a guest house overlooking the River Ouse at Earith a fenland village. I assume that through her London connections she had mistakenly taken on guests that proved an embarrassment because she turned up with three London women and with a combination of bribery and bullying persuaded my mother to put them up in our tiny primitive two bedroomed bungalow. Nothing to see but fields, nearest pub two miles distant. Of course their stay was brief and even my mother described them as common!. My aunt had not learnt her lesson and turned up later with Josie and a young baby. Josie was a distant relative and seemed to fit in quite well taking me for walks, her husband was an army officer, hubby turned up one weekend and shortly Josie was on her way. All our Townee guests no doubt regaled their friends with horror stories about their stay at Belle Vue, Hardwicke, Cambs. Incidentally I still possess part of the bribe, a pair of Japanese vases.
Up to and shortly after the outbreak of war our main sources of supply had been various delivery vans, petrol rationing brought home delivery to an abrupt halt. My mother insisted on remaining loyal to our butcher so I was detailed to go into Cambridge each week then catch another bus to Chesterton to obtain our 10d a head meat ration. Fortunately we had a large vegetable garden and started to keep chickens, preserving the summer egg surplus in water glass. Rabbits in those pre myxomatosis days were plentiful. Farm labourers cycling past with rabbits hanging from their handlebars or crossbar would readily part with them in exchange for 6d. The fish and chip van somehow managed to come round weekly so that food although scarce was never a great problem in the countryside.
The War Agricultural Committee requisitioned half of our acre plot together with our neighbours' for the growing of crops. Next door but one to our bungalow stood a large white house with large outbuildings the HQ of Deamers Traction Engines. These mighty steam powered leviathans were in great demand rumbling forth at a snail鈥檚 pace along our roads towing an assortment of trailers, workshops, ploughs, threshing machines etc.
Lying shortly behind Deamers was a smallholding raising mainly chickens and goats. My mother would augment her milk supplies by sending me there to purchase goats milk a substance I could never abide. She made great efforts to disguise the flavour in her cooking but I could always detect the musky flavour and would refuse custards etc containing the same. One night a German aircraft jettisoned a stick of bombs, some bright spark worked out that there was a gap in the spacing of the craters on investigation the crater from the unexploded bomb was discovered smack in the middle of the goat farm how I wished it had exploded!
As the war progressed a new school (prefabricated) was erected a mile or so away bat far enough away to break the unfortunate liaison between my parent and teacher. Our first local war casualty the only son of a widowed lady was posted missing flying over the North Sea in his Hampden bomber.
Our skies were by then alive with aircraft of all types. Just up the road at Caxton Gibbet was a grass airfield from which numerous Tiger Moth training aircraft operated. Part of their training programme consisted of putting the aircraft in a spin shutting down the engine, pulling out and restarting the engine well above ground. One day while watching a Tiger Moth trainer go through this routine I lost sight of it behind some trees, shortly afterwards a pall of smoke drifted upwards. Running to the scene via a small wood I encountered a figure in flying gear, obviously in shock. He ran past me stumbling towards the main road nearby, shortly afterwards I came across the twisted remains of an aircraft. The fabric covering of the fuselage had burnt away, in the front cockpit a blackened figure charred beyond all recognition, silver coins stuck to the body at hip level. I turned tail and ran.
A really big occasion for us kids was when the Yanks entered the war and invaded East Anglia. Unfortunately thousands remain at the nearby Madingley War Cemetery. Us kids soon found that a bit of enthusiastic waving at the US trucks zooming by would elicit a shower of goodies unknown in our heavily rationed world.
The skies above that had seemed busy became positively crowded with aircraft - Fortresses, Liberators, Bostons, Dakotas, Mustangs, Lightnings, Thunderbolts to name a few. Of course we contributed Stirlings, Lancasters and numerous training aircraft.
Sometimes when cycling along main roads one was forced to stop while Flying Fortresses taxied across from their dispersal points. The grass verges that ran along the road to our local railway station were occupied by rows of canvas shrouded bombs awaiting delivery to Germany via our local airfields.
With such a density of aircraft, crashes were plentiful as was the sight of formations of American Flying Fortresses and Liberators often containing damaged aircraft attempting to return to base. In the evenings the RAF took to the skies not in any set formation but at varying heights and in large numbers on their way over to Germany. One dreadful night let down by Met reports our bombers returned to find England covered with dense fog. I well remember in the early hours the sound of of heavy aircraft flying low overhead. As dawn broke the full tragedy was revealed - nearby fields littered with wreckage. The large numbers of crashed aircraft meant that there was only a perfunctory presence of guards at the crash sites. Us kids made hay acquiring souvenirs of bullets, perspex, Aluminium, parachute silk etc. Little vultures of A/C in fact. I still shudder to this day when I remember watching one boy in his shed beating the hell out of a .5 cannon shell鈥檚 percussion cap with a hammer. If he had hit the right spot I would not be writing this now!
Mid air collisions were quite frequent I particularly recall one low level encounter between a Lightning and a Thunderbolt, (sounds meteorological but they were both American aircraft). No parachutes opened - they were too low. On another occasion while working in the fields at harvest time we watched as a Stirling bomber came in to land at Bourn airfield on 3 of its 4 engines. Suddenly another propeller stopped turning. On two engines the large a/c plunged into the ground seeming to immediately become engulfed in flames. As the smoke cleared I was amazed and relieved to see figures in flying gear standing by the wreckage.
Living in a largely agricultural community us school kids were actively encouraged to take extended school holidays and contribute ones bit to the war effort mainly at harvest time working for local farmers or the War Ag. We were of course paid for our efforts. In those days we did not dream of any financial benefit to us personally, it was accepted that ones parents became the beneficiaries of our wages. I did however benefit from the extra rations doled out to us weekly of cheese, preserves etc.
Childerley Gate farm where I worked during harvests was adjacent to our now demolished school. Mr Brooks the farmer relied entirely on horses to power all his machinery, the internal combustion engine a stranger to his wide acres. For instance the elevators that lifted the sheaves up to the stacking gangs were driven through a turntable mechanism by a pony walking in a continuous circle. At lunch times the regular farm labourers would repair to the farm buildings us kids would unharness the poor pony and ride it bareback across the fields whooping like red Indians seen on cinema screens. Fortunately the seventh cavalry in the shape of the Farm Foreman or owner never caught us.
Us lads were employed mainly, weather permitting, leading horses from field to wheat stack. The first job in the morning was to go into the stable and say a few kind words to your chosen horse, mine was called Bonny, then with some effort to lift the heavy collar inverted over the horses head, turn same around as it contacted the neck and then fit the rest of the harness and back the horse between the shafts ready for another day鈥檚 graft in the fields conveying sheaves of corn to the stacks under construction close to the farm. Some of the horses were highly strung and excitable. I remember one occasion I was holding the head of a young horse called Smart. The cart was half empty the horse fidgety the farm labourer on the half emptied cart knew the signs and called down 鈥渓et her go Bu鈥� as he jumped clear. Luckily I stepped aside, the horse careered off across the field and crashed through two fences before coming to a halt shaking but unharmed. Other chores included potato picking, back breaking work. I well remember it snowing in August one year as we toiled picking up spuds. An even worse chore pulling and topping Mangel Wurzels on an icy morning - sheer torture, and as for muck spreading!
At times I worked with members of the WLA, Women鈥檚 Land Army, their motto reputed to be 鈥淏acks to the land鈥�. At that time I was a naive 13 year old looking older than my years. Some of the thinly veiled invites I received were. looking back, quite blatant, ah the innocence of youth! I never quite got to the cider with Rosie stage.
One particular day a gang of WLA and us kids were working hard stooking a field i.e. gathering up sheaves of corn propping them up wigwam fashion to dry. Awaiting our next job we sat in the corner of the field when quite suddenly a local whirlwind capriciously tossed all our stooks into the air. I am not sure to this day if the supervisor accepted our version of events when he returned to convey us to our next job.
Other labour sources drafted in by the War Ag. were Italian POWs, largely unsupervised they roamed the countryside. They were so glad to have escaped the war not at all likely escapees. I formed quite a friendship with a Sonni Nastashi from Messina, Sicily. Their ranks contained some very competent craftsmen who could manufacture highly desirable objects from perspex, aluminium, bullet cases etc., quite a trade developing in a Britain deprived of luxury items.
To us country yokels the war just seemed to fizzle out, no great celebrations, no TV screens to witness the joyous crowds in our cities. Just the newsreel to watch that鈥檚 if we went into Cambridge - many did not. Rationing, of course, persisted . Our Traction Engine Co. wound up, steam a victim of the internal combustion engine. Goat鈥檚 milk went off the menu and gradually the war was no more.
Shantytown no longer exists, residents banded together sold off their surplus land to a development company. Hardwicke is now a commuter town for nearby Cambridge unrecognisable from the 30鈥檚 version. RAF Bourn whose ceation resulted in the sacrifice of Childerley Gate school closed down shortly after the cessation of hostilities and has now in its turn fallen victim to development, the site forming part of the new dormitory town for Cambridge, Camborne.

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