大象传媒

When war began I was in a reserved occupation, but early in 1941 I left and volunteered for the RAF. At that time rail travel had not reached its peak, and most journeys were reasonable, except one. I was stationed at Yatesbury in Wiltshire. We had a 36 hour pass, and a bunch of us wanted to get to Birmingham. Unfortunately Bath had just been bombed, so we had to go to Bristol via Swindon. We arrived at Bristol eventually, only to be told that the next train to Birmingham was 6 o'clock the next morning. We took a bus to the outskirts, and managed to thumb a lift on a flatbed lorry, Fortunately it was a fine night. I arrived at my fiancee's home in Blackheath at 1 a.m. They had given me up, and there was a long pause after I knocked on the door!

Later in my training I was in London for three weeks, at ACRC (Air Crew
Receiving Centre), known to all as Arsytarcy. This was early in 1943. At this time air raids on the Capital were rare, and the only thing I saw was a barrage balloon falling in flames. It had been struck by lightning! The Underground coaches at that time had windows covered with a sort of self adhesive rug canvas, to prevent splinters in the bombing. You could see through it, but not very well, so people used to pull up a corner
to see the station names. This gave rise to little notices saying

"Pardon me for your correction,
But that stuffs there for your protection!"

to which some humorist on one occasion had added:

"Thank you for the information,
But I can't see the ruddy station!"

Servicemen could buy a ticket for one shilling. This enabled you to travel anywhere on London Transport for the day. It was a good way of seeing London. One trip I made,
purely out of railway interest, was a complete circuit of the Inner Circle.
From London I travelled on a service train to Bridgnorth. I remember us tramping across the old long footbridge, kitbags and all, and on up the hill to the RAF station. It was a hot day, and we lost several pounds on that march. One weekend my fiancee arranged to come over. In those days it was just possible to go from Blackheath to Bridgnorth by train, but it was a mighty roundabout route, mostly GWR (the Great Way Round!), so I'm afraid Edna arrived by bus. At the end of our course we again entrained at Bridgnorth, and eventually arrived at Hereford, whence buses took us to Madley, where we at long last took to the air.

Wartime journeys on public trains, as distinct from service ones, were memorable.
Main line trains were so long that it was standard practice to draw up twice, even at long platforms like New St. The standard signal to the drivers to stop again was three blasts on
a whistle. I can still remember that "peep-peep-peep". It was very difficult to get to the toilet along the corridor, past crowds of fellow servicemen and their bulky kitbags. On late night trains you sometimes had to step over sleeping bodies stretched out on the floor. If you did manage to get a seat in a compartment, the lighting was too dim to read by, and of course the blinds had to be pulled down, so you hadn't a clue where you were.
Nearly everyone smoked, because we didn't know about lung cancer then.

One journey sticks in my memory, later in 1943. I was stationed at Wigtown in Galloway. At the end of the course I got a week's leave, to get married. I got the funny little branch train at Wigtown, and meandered through delightful Galloway to Dumfries in fair comfort. The train south at Dumfries was absolutely packed. About 50 of us could
not even find standing room in the corridors. We squeezed into the brake van, and either
sat on whatever luggage was there or on our long suffering kitbags.

We had our two day honeymoon at Warwick, and on arrival at Blackheath I found a telegram ordering me to report at RAF Wymeswold by 0800 hours. This entailed catching a train at Rowley Regis station, about ten minutes walk away, at 0500. We got
up at 4, had some breakfast, walked to the station and waited and waited. The train
never came, so I got a chit from the Station Master to say so, and went back to bed.
I arrived at Wymeswold about lunch time, only to discover that none of the rest of my
course had arrived. The never-to-be-sufficiently-cursed clerk who wrote my telegram should have written 2000 hours (8 p.m.)! We made up for it later, but that's another story!

(This story was submitted to the People's War site by a volunteer from Wyre Forest Volunteer Bureau on behalf of John Allison and has been added to this site with his permission. Mr Allison fully understand the site's terms and conditions.)

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