大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People's War site by Lin Freeman of Radio Derby CSV on behalf of Roy Christian and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

Coming home on leave was sometimes a problem because this often coincided with blitzes, and stations out of action, particularly St Pancras. One night I arrived there and was sent into the cellars which were, I think, originally used for storage of Burton Ale. The recesses between the pillars were the same size as a cask of Burton Ale.
There was a fierce blitz going on at the time, but during a lull another sailor (not travelling with me) suggested going up top and having coffee at the coffee stall. I wasn鈥檛 too happy as there were planes overhead so he went by himself. He never came back. Did he survive? I don鈥檛 know.
We then went to Euston and caught up with another sailor that I didn鈥檛 know. A rather timid lad who asked 鈥渋s this London?鈥�. I said it was but 鈥榖etter than this in peacetime鈥�. That was one of my most inane comments of the war.
We had walked to Euston to catch a train to Crewe, I think, and then had to sleep on Crewe station waiting for the Derby train going at 5am. It was midnight so they allowed me to get on the train to sleep 鈥� the earliest I have been for a train in the whole of my life!
I slept on a lot of station platforms in 1940 and became quite a connoisseur of these platforms. St Pancras was the most dangerous. Once I slept on the floor there as I wanted the underground to Waterloo, and I lay against the closed grill leading to the platform, using my gas mask as a pillow. When I woke at 5 am I was at the head of the queue and likely to be trodden to a pulp when the grill was opened. Fortunately I had awoken just before the grill was due to open.
Other platforms I have slept on include Grantham, Crewe, New Street Birmingham and Stoke in addition to most of the London terminuses.
They were all pretty well uncomfortable although staff were helpful and would let you get on carriages early.
One of my overriding memories in 1940 was the number of people (civilians) sleeping on the platforms using them as air raid shelters in the Blitz. Sometimes as many as two or three hundred. It was quite a social event in some ways allowing them to meet people they would not have met.
When a party of airmen, sailors or army arrived they would all cheer as though we had come to liberate them.
1940 was a remarkable year. At the same time the worst and the best in my experience. The worst because of the Blitz and being chased out of Europe. Dunkirk was a terrible defeat, although we treated it as a victory and to some extent it was as there were nothing like as many losses as we might have had.
But the morale in the country was magnificent. People spoke to strangers in trains and class barriers collapsed. There was a saying at the time that we were 鈥榠n the final and on our home ground鈥�. Churchill鈥檚 speeches were the inspiration with assistance from Vera Lynn and her white cliffs of Dover.

The only good side of a war was the wonderful comradeship which you always tend to get with people in danger or acute discomfort. The friends you make then are friends for life.

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