大象传媒

In 1942 when I was three years old, I can remember a bright blue sky with lots of white vapour trails; this was about the time of the Battle of Britain.

One Sunday my aunty came to take me out in the pushchair, she walked me to a place called Anstey鈥檚 cove (near Palace hotel which was an RAF hospital during the war and this had been bombed) and through the park. Two low-flying aircraft came over and I pointed these out to my aunty when they started shooting at each other, I later learned that one of these was a Hurricane and the other a Messerschmitt 109 which was shot down, the engine was recovered and is now in the Brixham aircraft museum. Aunty panicked and said 鈥渞un鈥�! On returning home mum said 鈥漟ancy taking Ernest out in an air raid鈥�. The same day our church 鈥� St Mary鈥檚 Church of England was bombed, with a direct hit. I would have been there so my aunty really saved my life by taking us out as many of the children lost their lives.

Another Sunday my father went to the local post office at the bottom of our road to buy cigarettes and took me with him. German planes came over and started machine gunning us so I said 鈥渓ook at that aircraft鈥�, but my father was deaf, having lost his hearing in the navy during the First World War, we ran for cover to the shop. That same day my one year old brother was asleep in his cot when cannon shot came through the window becoming embedded in the wall, and had just missed his head.

From 1943 onwards, my friends and I used to pick up shrapnel and aluminium foil which was used as a radar spoof (it had black paper on the other side) and had great fun swapping them.

One day a bomb demolished a house in Third Avenue (we lived in Second Avenue) and all of the emergency services came to my mother鈥檚 house thinking that it was the one that had been bombed, my mum was in the bath at the time and answered the door with no clothes on!

The reason why there was a lot of bombing in our area was because there was an ammunition dump in the woods near our avenue and ack ack guns on Lion Rock at the end of the avenue, the German planes were also overshooting their targets of Plymouth or Exeter would sometimes drop heir bombs before their return.

I can remember collecting our gas masks when I was about two, I tried it on and thought that it smelled horrible 鈥� like rubber and gas mixed. My brother being a baby had his body completely enclosed within his.

Down in Torquay harbour there were lots of barrage balloons. These prevented aircraft from flying low. My cousin who was about ten years old climbed up the ropes, they thought that this was great fun, but they were always getting chased off.

About 1944 the Americans and Canadians came over, we were offered drinking chocolate, they used to say 鈥渄o ya want any gum, chum?鈥� and we thought that they were very rich, with very smart uniforms. My cousins from Canada came over with the army (John and Tom Croker 鈥� one was in the Canadian Pioneer and the other in the army) at Christmas of 1944. We had a big family party including my English cousin, Joey Boyd who was in the Royal Artillery and at home on leave from Holland. He was later killed on the last day of the war, in Holland, he went swimming and got caught in a tank trap and drowned, he was a lovely man, and he had earlier sent me some puzzles from Belgium, which was a real treat.

The party was the first time that we had seen a Christmas tree. It was two foot high with real candles on it; and we all sat around a piano which Joey played, whilst his sister Edna played the violin, and with the Canadians joining in we all sang carols.

I later went to Canada to see Tom and John only to find that they had died so I visited their graves, they had survived the war.

My cousin Jeannie Boyd went dancing with the Americans and she had this lipstick from Woolworth鈥檚, she kissed me and I was plastered 鈥� it was horrible!! This time we wore cut down battle dresses and army trousers and socks re knitted into balaclava helmets.

At the end of the war we had a street party. My brother aged four and me aged six, dressed up in girl鈥檚 tartan skirts and got 2nd prize as Scotsmen. I was sick through eating too much chocolate!!

I can remember the Royal Marines band marching around Torquay.

The air raid shelter that was in the grounds of the school always stank of wee.

The baker used to bring freshly baked bread around with a horse and cart. He opened the back of the van and there was a lovely smell of fresh bread, then the horse would go to the toilet so this pleasant smell became mixed with that of horse manure!

There were lots of bombings in the centre of Torquay 鈥� lots of shops were bombed 鈥� I can remember playing on the bombsites. It was the British versus the Germans but nobody wanted to be a German!! We used old basins for hats and made guns out of pieces of wood.

There were lots of people in uniform and sand bags everywhere, all the street signs were taken down and the army just took over houses if they needed to.

My father was a fire watcher, if he spotted any fires he鈥檇 get onto the portable telephone to report it to the fire brigade, he sometime saw some horrible things 鈥� like body parts when he helped the fire brigade.

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.