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I was in the RAF for five years. Before that, I was an ambulance driver for the local area, Woolton. We had a station set up in the local cinema, the Plaza, and the vehicles outside, because they had a car park. That was near Speke airport. That kept us pretty busy.
We made a pact between us that whatever came up, we would always turn up for work, so that’s what we did. We were caught out sometimes, when they trapped one or two in the triangle they’d made, with guns and things, and they’d be dropping their bombs onto us. We didn’t think they were Germans, at first, and then we found out that they were, and that they were dropping bombs. But we got used to that. We got used to a lot of things. We made our own minds up, whether we’d let it affect us. It’s hard to say, but we did get used to it.

And then I put myself down for the RAF, and regardless of what they say, I was 17 when I went in, and they sent me down to Gloucester for the usual drill and training, and then they asked us about where we were going, and I said ‘driver’ so we went on the driving course. We went to Blackpool. That was good and bad billets, but we did alright. A good billet was Mrs Banks where we lived. When we were off duty, she’d always have something for us. And she had a piano. And she didn’t mind what noise we made, and believe me, it was a noisy house sometimes, with everybody singing, and what have you. And we stayed there til the course ended. That was about twelve months.

Then they sent us out to various stations in the UK. I was attached to the Fleet Air Arm. Whatever the Fleet Air Arm got up to, I was in it. Whether it was carrying detonators around, or.. that was what we did mostly. And we used to have to sign our lives away to the men at the gate. They couldn’t believe that we carried detonators round. But we did!

Things do stick in your mind. I had to get detonators from Liverpool. I was in the Headquarters of the Western Approaches Command, with Sir Percy Noble. I was in Derby House, in the Cunard Building. We were in the basement, of course.

We used to work 24 hours on, and 24 hours off, and spend our time in the garage, that was even lower than the offices, because that contained the transport.

And we got to know all the marines, and we heard a lot of tales about how they’d been serving. And we really regarded them as gentlemen. It was just talk. Some were going to write a book about it, but I don’t know if they ever did.

I’ll never forget the war, and the time in Derby House. Some of the boys were in that terrible sinking of one of the biggest battle ships we had, but I can’t even remember the name of the ship.

I took the colonel and the lieutenant to a little street in Birkenhead, where they’d discovered things to do with catching the submarines. I forget what you call it now. And because of that, we won the war. Suddenly the sinking stopped, and the Germans couldn’t understand why we knew where they were. (Why did you go to the street in Birkenhead?) Because that’s where this chap lived, the one who’d discovered it.

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