大象传媒

As a young boy, I was evacuated during the World War Two. When I say that I was evacuated I don鈥檛 mean the official, railway station, label tied to the lapel, type of evacuation that everyone is so familiar with. My parents had taken things into their own hands and organised their own, sort of do-it-yourself version of an evacuation.

In order to get me away from the air raids that were happening in London, my parents had rented 鈥淪andy Island鈥�, a delightful cottage in Ewshott near Farnham. At that stage of the war they both worked in London during the week, travelling down to 鈥淪andy Island鈥� to spend the weekends. While they were in London, I was looked after by a succession of "Nannies" - young girls really, who had an appetite for hanging around the local army camp collecting wolf whistles and admiring glances from the resident soldiers. I enjoyed these trips, watching the camp activities from the perimeter fence. One weekend I persuaded my mother to make just such a visit.

We set off down the lane in the direction of the camp. After walking for a while we became aware of a strange silence: the birds had stopped singing. I noticed a group of soldiers standing in a field in the 鈥渁t ease鈥� position: in a line, legs apart with hands clasped behind the back. Strangely, they all had their heads bowed as if attending a funeral. Quite suddenly my mother and I were both enveloped in a cloud of eye-stinging tear gas. We had been caught up in a Canadian army gas exercise. The wind had unexpectedly changed and blown a cloud of this horrible gas onto the lane. Our eyes were streaming and the stringing pain was indescribable. We were compelled to run back up the lane in a frantic attempt to escape the gas. After running for some time, we finally cleared the tear gas and stopped to regain our breath.

Our relief was short lived, for now we encountered a second cloud: a cloud of even nastier gas. Out of the frying pan and into the fire! I don鈥檛 know what this gas was, but my mother subsequently referred to it as 鈥渃hoking gas鈥�. An apt name since the desperate coughing and the burning rawness that we both experienced in our lungs was unbearable. Again we started to run, fighting frantically for air. When I could go no further, my mother lifted me into her arms and staggered further up the lane. At the point of total exhaustion, when she could go no further, fate intervened and the cloud cleared as suddenly as it had appeared. We desperately sucked in the fresh, clean air as my mother rushed us to the door of a nearby farmhouse. They took us in and gave us a great deal of milk to drink which the farmer claimed was the only way to obtain relief.

The incident was never reported to the Canadians. It remains fixed in my mind as perhaps the most dramatic event that I experienced during World War 2.

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