大象传媒

Part three of an edited oral history with Mr. David Sharwood conducted by Jenny Ford on behalf of Bedford Museum.

鈥淚 remember the ARP Wardens coming round for the lighting and the Street Fire Guards where based down the road. We lived at number 12 St. Michael鈥檚 Crescent and the Fire Guard Street
Office was probably about 24 or 26, further down the road. And because I was a cyclist I was nominated as a Messenger. Luckily they never called upon me because the theory was that if there was a bad raid and fire bombs were being dropped that the local Fire Watchers and Fire Guards couldn鈥檛 deal with they鈥檇 have to summon the Fire Brigade. And if the phones were out of action they鈥檇 have me to call on for my section of the road to race off to the Fire Station that was over a mile away in Pinner Road, North Harrow. It was a duty I would have done if it had been necessary.

Most of us boys bought the Spotters books which were, I forget the name of the publisher, in comparison with present day paper sizes they鈥檇 be about A5 in landscape format, a page per plane. They published one for the British aircraft, another one for the known German aircraft and another one for American aircraft - showing pictures, the silhouettes and the known dimensions of them to get an idea of the size of them.

Talking of aircraft I had a few Dinky toys, mostly cars and vans before the war and then when the war started I started collecting Dinky toy planes. I had some, I think it was three Gloucester Gladiators, planes that were used to defend Malta, a Hurricane. A German, I didn鈥檛 get the bomber version, a Junker JU-90 I think it was, airliner. The bomber was converted out of the airliner I think. And a Boeing Flying Fortress and because they were obviously made of metal and the shortage of metal during the war for toys got worse but I did get a couple of Bristol Blenheims. I was building up my own aircraft and later when the war eased off they were allowing metal for some more toys but luckily it was regarded as an educational asset in some respects so Dinky toys were allowed to make more. I used to string them from the ceiling with bits of cotton. I鈥檝e got a pre-war type flying boat and then what I call a Mayo composite which was a flying boat which carried a sea plane on its roof. This was to fill the sea plane full of mail to get it from Britain to America, have it on top of this flying boat which took off and then helped to get the sea planes load into the sky then they separated. The sea plane went across the Atlantic and the flying boat came back to Southampton. It was a very good invention. They鈥檇 developed it just before the war but obviously the war stopped anything further being produced.

We just had the one radio downstairs which we gathered round and listened to the News. I think we had the Daily Express which was a large format paper but there was only two sheets to it. It was all worded out to be good news all the time. Even the local papers didn鈥檛 give any reports of what had been 鈥� bombing and such like. I remember the importance of Churchill and his speeches and that.

Another thing to do with the war - at this time of the year, September time, at weekends we used to go to Chorley Wood Common which is out of London on the Metropolitan Line. We used to walk down to Pinner Station, which was probably a mile and a half away, get on a train which at that point had an electric loco pulling it, took it as far as Rickmansworth and then a steam was put on the front of it and it went on to Aylesbury. We got off at Chorley Wood which was the next station beyond Rickmansworth, walked up on to the Common and picked blackberries. There used to be tremendous crops of them there. And one Sunday a lot of planes were coming across, all heading in one direction and a lot of them were towing gliders and we wondered what on earth was going on. Or where were they coming from and where were they going to? It made a tremendous noise from them all too, one after the other. We didn鈥檛 try and count them, there were so many. Then we heard when we got home, I suppose it was the next day that it was the Arnhem landings. (17/18th September 1944).

We were having V2 rockets and as far as I know there was only one relatively close to us. That was in North Harrow end of Pinner and in fact it was only about a couple of hundred yards from Pinner Fire Station. Behind the Fire Station and to one side of it was a big cemetery and strangely on the approach drive into the cemetery from Pinner Road were two blocks of flats, one each side. I always remember them because they were white with green tiled roofs. One of these blocks had been hit by a V2 during the day. It made a mess of it.

I was always interested engineering. I had Meccano from my father, a set which was one of the first sets sold in London in the early 1900s and expanded with some from my mother鈥檚 brother. Then some more was added to in the early days of the war when Meccano was still available, I was always building things with that. But in Pinner County, when we arrived there, the whole year was divided into three Forms, A, B and C we were divided alphabetically by surname until the Third Year. Before that we had to decide whether we wanted to do an extra language, Spanish or Science which meant more detailed Biology, Physics and Chemistry 鈥� I hated Biology I couldn鈥檛 stand that and didn鈥檛 fancy the idea of cutting up frogs! So I said, 鈥楴o!鈥� to that. The A Form was no particular pursuit as far as I know. And I plumped for Spanish and I wish I hadn鈥檛 now 鈥� I should have gone for the Science and was more interested in the Physics side of things. Anyway I failed the Spanish and the History and English Literature, I couldn鈥檛 stick Shakespeare! As far as my blessings went I got distinctions in English Language and Maths and was sufficiently grounded that when I went for the Careers Interview and said that I wanted to be an engineer. My father suggested that I went back to Farnborough as an apprentice. The Careers, it wasn鈥檛 a person from the school itself - I presume he was from the Education Authority - he said, 鈥極h, the Farnborough Apprenticeship Scheme has closed down. You can鈥檛 go there.鈥� When I went back home and told dad that he said, 鈥極h, dear! Let鈥檚 find out about it.鈥� So when he got back to the office he rang Farnborough, came back to say, 鈥楾hat person is completely up the spout. I鈥檒l write a letter to them and I鈥檒l put you in for the entrance exams.鈥� So he took me down to Farnborough for a day. I sat two exams, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. The answer came back 鈥� you are in! I finished school at the end of June that year and I started at Farnborough on the 30th of August 1946.

I was in Pinner when we celebrated VE Day. Oh, there was great happiness and jubilation and a street party was rallied round. There were air raid shelters being built with brick on the kerb sides in the streets, they were put on alternate sides of the streets so it made a chicane virtually down the road. Some of us boys, who were what, 15 or 16 years old, broke down one of the wooden doors to the nearest shelter to our house and started taking out the wooden bunks to take down the road to make a fire where they were having the tea party. A woman came along and she said, 鈥榊ou can鈥檛 do that! That鈥檚 Government property!鈥� Oh, dear it was too late for some of it but that put paid to the further fuel for the fire! VE Day was celebrated because it was much closer to home. We didn鈥檛 realise, it was 鈥榯he forgotten war鈥� as they called it out in the Far East, we didn鈥檛 appreciate what was going on.

Rationing went on and on and on. In fact I think one or two things got worse. I can鈥檛 remember just what they were. I think bread was bad. When I got called-up into the RAF in 1952 we still had sweet 鈥榩oints鈥� and we had to take our 鈥榩oints鈥� into the NAAFI. And then while we were in that first two months at the beginning of 1952 they said, 鈥榊ou don鈥檛 need those coupons any more!鈥� Thank goodness!鈥�

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