大象传媒

Mr Forest was born in 1905,in Chelmsford in Essex. The family lived here throughout the First World War. The one clear memory he has of the first world war was his brother dying, he remembers small parts but quotes what he saw would be of no significance really. He said also that he could remember seeing soldiers walking up and down streets. His brother was quite a bit older than him and enlisted in Coventry, he was taken in to one of the army regiments, he was enlisted into a special regiment that that took in all those people engaged in journalism in one form, or another. His brother was a journalist, the government wanted to get a collection together who worked in newspapers, journalism, writing and reporting. So basically they would be sent away with the troops and write about what was happening. Unfortunately his brother was killed with as single shot, he didn鈥檛 go to hospital and Mr Forest can remember hearing the news of his brother鈥檚 death very clearly. A letter was given to his mother, to quite simply say what had happened and that they were sorry for their loss. In those days people were getting them all the time, there really were some massacres at that time.

At this time Mr Forest was too young to join or help in anything. He had the one brother and one sister. She worked in a local council office. Mr Forest was the youngest in the family, She eventually died much later on.

Mr Forest went to school in Chelmsford and can say that his school days weren鈥檛 always unhappy but they weren鈥檛 equally happy so he had good days and bad days at school. When he finished school he went to be an apprentice to the firm of Compton, in Chelmsford, his father worked there also. The company made electric motors and generators. During the war the demand of the products grew due to the amount of tanks etc. He had full training to be an electrical engineer, similar to a degree. He stayed there until he retired, which was only a few years ago now. He has viewed the advancements of Technology over the years by working at the same company from leaving school to retirement.

Mr Forest got married in 1925, his wife worked as a secretary in various places, they were together up until she died which was 3 years ago now, they were together 77 years roughly. Throughout this time they lived in a place near Chelmsford called Danbury, it鈥檚 about a mile form Chelmsford. They never had any children. His wife enjoyed writing and used the font named after the place they lived, she had about six or seven books published before she died and Mr Forest said they did very well, they were romantic novels, that women seemed to read more so than men. Chelmsford is a very rural and peaceful place. Mr Forest used the bus service to travel around, as they didn鈥檛 have a car.

When asked about what life was like in the 1920鈥檚, he said life was much simpler than what it is now. They only had a radio, no television. Very simple radios. They went to the seaside a lot as they only lived about a ten-minute us ride away. They used to go on a Saturday or Sunday as they both worked in the week. Not too noisy, it was just very pleasant.

In 1939 Mr Forest knew what was coming, he heard the Germans, they made it obvious by saying 鈥� we want war鈥� they were not hiding things. It was six months roughly when people starting to guess that war was coming. People seemed to be prepared before but soon realised that you couldn鈥檛 really prepare for something that you knew nothing about.

There were air raids coming. One time in the factory where he worked, he had an office and there was a small office next door, the child in the room was playing with a bomb, fortunately no one was hurt and did not hold any percussion. He can remember some really nasty raids, he believes that they were trying to get the factory. And remembers feeling that he was in the danger point when he was at work in the day, as if they had of bombed the factory in the day, the chance of him not coming out was very large. At night they tried to bomb it, there was slight damage but they had actually missed. The factory Mr Forest worked at, seemed not to far from several other factories, one made firing arms, one made parts for a special aircraft and on made the ammunition for the guns etc. So each in turn had a bomb dropped, but none really got too much damage fortunately. Mr Forest carried on working during the war, as he had a professional occupation. He did have the option to leave, but if he had of left he would鈥檝e been called up and been in the army.

He went over to France as his company needed to over see some work over there. Mr Forest knew the pattern of the Germans quite quickly and knew that he was safer in the office over in France throughout the day and at night he would stay sheltered and safe. He flew over to France, by an army plane. Whilst over in France he did some devastation, the part he was in didn鈥檛 really get hit too much but he tells how he saw ruins of a house. He doesn鈥檛 feel that the place he stayed in France had anything too important to attack that would damage the French as much as like for instance, factories and schools etc.

However, there were parts of France that he saw that were extremely bad. He visited France several times through the war, his wife just carried on as normal whilst he was away a lot, it didn鈥檛 seem to worry her.

The rationing was a miserable time for Mr Forest, everybody moaned about it on a daily basis. At the beginning though it hadn鈥檛 seem to bother that many people. But as the war proceeded the rationing got worse and so di the moaning. After two years of the war the most simple of things you couldn鈥檛 get and that鈥檚 when people really started to feel it. Mr Forest wasn鈥檛 a smoker but he knew people that were and he said that these people were going off their heads because they were rationed on these as well. When he was over in France, the government over there had wangled it so that it was ok for him to bring some back to England.

Before the war the factory Mr Forest worked for were producing Electric motors and generators which used mainly transport, like trains and electric buses they had in those days. When the war the work was sort of twisted over to things that the army wanted. They produced a machine that detected aircraft and also ammunition etc.

MR Forest can remember the Battle of Britain as some of the bombs were dropped very closely to where they were living. One day he says a bombs dropped down and hit just over the road and fortunately it wasn鈥檛 a big one but it blew out all of their windows along the front of the house, which needed to be replaced. He purchased some of the black paper for the house as no one was allowed to be seen, and obviously neither was any light so they had to be blacked out. It was just before Christmas when they put their black out paper up over the windows. He can remember seeing some of the dogfights.

Mr Forest describes that when the bombs went off in London, the fires roared and lit the skies up, he says they were some bad, bad raids. At the start of the war the Germans really went to town, he had to go down through London once and he saw a terrible mess, there didn鈥檛 seem to be any defences against them. But as time went on our defences got better and they had Ack-ack guns to fire very accurately to the aircraft. As the defence grew the air raids seemed to die away.

He told how when he visited London on several occasions through the war, he saw it all first hand and said that it was a hell of a mess. He had to go down there as he was making equipment for the docks. The docks were in great demand, anything that stopped shipping coming in, there was hell to pay. Up to a point he was outside of all the bombings but he did suffer with all things as everyone else did he states that he was eating stuff that he wouldn鈥檛 put in a dustbin. Whenever you went to bed you were always a bit edgy, he said he would go to sleep both knowing what would probably happen but also wondering what could happen.

Mr Forest had an Anderson shelter put in their back garden it was just big enough for the two of them, which meant there would be no strangers asking to come in etc. They had this put in at the beginning of the war, as they were all warned about what was going to happened, so at the time it was a vital precaution. Whenever they heard one of the alarms they would head to the Anderson shelter. Usually they knew when the planes were over them and they knew when they had trailed off, and this is when they would come out of the shelter. It was ok. But like all things it took some wear and tear. He told that they would take some sandwiches down there and cups of tea. Fortunately where they were, there wasn鈥檛 a great deal going on, so it didn鈥檛 happen on a frequent occasion.

Fortunately to, Mr Forest didn鈥檛 have any experience in the V1鈥檚 or V2鈥檚. Unlike London, where Mr Forest and his wife lived there wasn鈥檛 too much to hit, so they did come off very lucky. They would drop lots in London. Mr Forest said that after a little time the V1鈥檚 and V2鈥檚 slowed down, because the majority of them were missing places, the germans realised that they were wasting their time.

When asked whether Mr Forests wife was a good cook he replied 鈥漌ell yes, she was up a point as it were, you cant make things out of nothing, she did her best with the food that she could get鈥�. It became quite repetitive, going to the same shop, buying the same things, therefore you were eating the same things week in week out. You had to put up with it, if you didn鈥檛 then you would have nothing.

The petrol was also rationed and this did effect the factory where Mr Forest worked, as there were vans and cars which needed to be run, but after all the sums, it worked out each person had a certain amount at a time, but it worked. Unless you could prove you had a government business or something to help with the war effort you weren鈥檛 rationed. So therefore most people ended up not really being able to use their cars etc. This lasted much of the war. The shortage of petrol was never announced.

Very near to where Mr Forest lived was a prisoner of war camp, he can only remember vague details about this. From the side of the street, you could see the big walls of the camp, but never saw anything inside and has no idea about what happened in there. There were some soldiers around in Chelmsford, and the numbers did increase as the war went on, as due to the war there became more who joined the forces. He states that where they were a few odd Americans and GI鈥檚 but never saw many more.

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