大象传媒

鈥淲hy does Hitler want to kill me?鈥� (Part one.)

I was born at 42 Carfrae Terrace, Mount Gould, Plymouth, Devon the youngest of 8 children, and I was 2 years old when war was declared. My formative years were spent in the air raid shelter which was partly buried in our back garden.
We had 2x2-tier bunks with wire mesh but no mattress; night after night I would be hauled out of bed along with my sisters and brothers and rushed outside to climb down the steps into the damp smelly Anderson shelter. We sometimes had Ethel and her mother Mrs Edbrook, our next door neighbours, in with us as their shelter used to get flooded.
At times during an air raid my sister Thelma and I would plead to go to the outside toilet and we dragged out the walk through the wet grass as long as we could in order to watch the search lights, dog fights and barrage balloons above us.
At some stage during those long nights Ada, my eldest brother鈥檚 girlfriend, who later joined the Land Army, used to walk up the hill from Alexandra Road, Mutley and appear at the doorway with hot cocoa - I never questioned where it came from!
Our shelter had to be moved nearer the house because it was too far for Mother to run with us all. My sister Win, who with her baby boy lived with us while her husband was in the army, had been blown over by an exploding incendiary bomb and although she protected her son her knees were badly gashed on the shingle path.
My eldest sister Ede was married in 1941 to a Merchant seaman; the church hall was bombed the night before the wedding which caused quite a problem as the reception was going to be held there. But neighbours all got together and the reception was held in my mother鈥檚 house with kettles for tea being boiled on the fire. I still have a studio photo of her wedding which was superb. She had paid into a shop for the material over quite a long period; her future sister-in-law Idie made the bride鈥檚 dress plus 3 bridesmaid鈥檚 and the page boy鈥檚 shirt and velvet trousers. Her husband, a Royal Naval Officer, was Best Man and sadly was later lost at sea.
I attended Salisbury Road Infants鈥� School and well remember being taken down into the air raid shelter situated beneath the playground. Miss Lamb would encourage us to recite 鈥淚ncy Wincy Spider鈥�, making the movements with her fingers. After a particularly heavy night raid we would be allowed to sleep at school to catch up on lost nighttime sleep. It was so nice to be in a bright room on our folding orange canvas beds instead of the dark windowless shelter with heavy rugs hanging across the doorway and huge spiders doing their utmost to cover all available space with cobwebs which we invariably walked into in the dark. To this day huge spiders are 鈥渟helter spiders鈥�, a bright moon is 鈥渁 bomber鈥檚 moon鈥� and a damp musty smell takes me back into that partly buried shelter.
As a young boy I can remember collecting shrapnel on the way to school, playing in the bombsites and counting machine gun bullet holes in house walls. We were always fascinated at seeing wallpapered walls with their mantelpiece intact way up high on bombed buildings and sometimes even pictures in their frames and curtains flapping in the wind.
At home we would all sit around the fire singing, telling stories and acting out 鈥渕ake believe鈥� where we all had our role to play with Mother being the 鈥淟ady鈥�; I was always the chauffeur. When we didn鈥檛 have any coal to burn we made do with anything including wellingtons and old shoes.
I was walking home from school one lunchtime when the sirens sounded. Being half way along Salisbury Road, I decided it better to run home rather than back to the school shelter. The fear of being caught in the open was too much for a little boy鈥檚 belly and my lunchtime was spent in my mother鈥檚 comforting arms as she bathed my lower half.
Once she took us all out to a school at Plympton thinking we would get a good night鈥檚 sleep but I always remember lying on the floor with everybody crammed together and all, it seemed, breaking wind! That night a German aircraft was shot down and crashed nearby. My mother said 鈥渢hat was some poor mother鈥檚 son鈥�. Needless to say my Mother never took us there again.
Because the blitz on Plymouth was so bad my Mother let 4 of the children be evacuated to Cornwall. My sisters Vera & Thelma went to a family named Rashleigh who had a farm. Beryl went to a Mr & Mrs Williams who had a shop and a daughter named Betty, and my brother Ken went to stay at Helston.
My Mother wouldn鈥檛 let me go as she thought I was too young so I spent the entire war in Plymouth. I remember visiting them on a train once when my Dad was home on leave from the Navy.
We loved seeing the Americans in Plymouth and they never refused our cheeky shout 鈥淕ot any gum, chum?鈥�
There was a huge rubber dump down at Lipson Vale 鈥� it had a small window in the corrugated wall and we kids used to knock on the window and be given a packet of biscuits by a lady. Although they tasted vile, it was food.
When the dump was bombed it burned for several weeks and I used to go down to the allotments which we called 鈥淐ookies Fields鈥� (all built on now) and spend hours watching the flames and black smoke.
We were so thankful when the food parcels started arriving from America and I tasted dried apricots for the first time.
A bomb exploded down Carfrae Terrace, opposite Crossway Avenue and the front wall of the Wood鈥檚 house was blown out. On one occasion when my Dad was on leave incendiary bombs rained down and he climbed onto the Methodist Church roof and threw 2 incendiaries off and then fell into the garden of the end house when he was climbing down. Prams were set alight outside the house of the Air Raid Warden but he wouldn鈥檛 come out, staying instead under the stairs with his wife and daughters.
Part of my school was bombed so I had to catch a bus to a hall at St Judes Church for my school lessons. On my first day back at school after the Christmas holiday I left my satchel on the bus: I had taken my Mickey Mouse Album, a present from Ede my eldest sister, to show the other kids-needless to say I never saw either again and I was so upset.
Later in the war, my sisters and brother came back from Cornwall. Vera and Thelma had scabies, which meant we all had to go to a clinic at Hyde Park, Mutley where we were all painted yellow. Although given strict instructions not to open our eyes I had to be nosy and watched what they were doing which meant I then had to be led home along Mutley Plain and up to Carfrae Terrace unable to see and with tears streaming down my face.
(Concluded in Part Two)

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