大象传媒

This is an extract from the memoirs of Harold Francis added to the site, with his permission, by Byron Whitehead of the Folkestone Heritage Team. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

The next part of my story made a big impact on my life. When the time came for me to return to Wales I would not go as I鈥檇 had enough of being an evacuee. On the morning that I was supposed to leave I locked myself in the toilet and no one could coax me out. In the end everyone gave up and I was allowed to stay at home. Soon after I was admitted to The Royal Victoria Hospital with appendicitis so mum was pleased I hadn鈥檛 returned to Wales.
I was now able to settle down to normal family life in my own home and things were much happier. I really began to enjoy myself with all my mates, and being home with mum and dad. I also realised how much I had missed them. It was shortly after this that we moved house down to 21 Queen Street.
There were quite a few incidents with 鈥渉it-and-run鈥� raiders during May 1942. One of the most disastrous was on the morning of Sunday 17th, when Christ Church in Sandgate Road was hit killing two ladies who had arrived early. If the attack had happened half an hour later the church would have been full, as troops were due to arrive for their service and were already formed up the Leas.
It was during this month that the public were allowed to be on the East Cliff Sands again, much to our delight. On one occasion, as we were on our way to the sands, I decided to play about in the fish-market and started larking about with the chains overlooking the harbour. This was a silly thing to do as the next minute I was laying on my back in the harbour. The tide was out so I landed amongst the rubbish. I was completely winded and a fisherman rushed down to give me artificial respiration. It was decided that I should go to hospital for a check-up and Mr Goden, a wholesale fishmonger, produced a stretcher. Two of the fishermen then put me on it and as they lifted me up, (of all the things that should happen,) the fabric tore and I landed back on the ground again. Anyway it turned out that I didn鈥檛 suffer any damage, although in later life I did have kidney trouble.
The old railway bank was still our main play area, we even built our own air raid shelter out of old corrugated iron and anything else we could find. One of our favourite games was to slide down the bank on sledges made out of old enamel advertising signs taken from the front of bombed out shops and there was no shortage of those.
It was about this time that, along with some of my mates, I decided to join the scouts. The troop that was nearest was the 22nd Folkestone Parish Church group, who held their meetings in a club room at the rear of St Eanswythe School. The scoutmaster at the time was Doug Smith, who worked for the electricity board and later became manager of their showrooms.
We all enjoyed our evening meetings, playing British Bulldog, and carrying out various tasks in order to pass our proficiency badges. One I particularly remember was the cooks鈥� badge. For some reason or other it was held in the play area at the rear of the clubroom, which before the war was the school鈥檚 playground. We were told that the first part would be to boil some potatoes, which of course needed a fire. The fires were lit in twelve-inch holes in the tarmac, made by shrapnel from a bomb that dropped in august 1942, at the rear The Central Cinema, which used to stand in George lane. The tarmac soon caught alight so that put a stop to that. Life was full of fun and games!
Shelling continued through 1942 along with 鈥渉it-and-run鈥� raids and high level bombing by Fock-Wulf鈥檚 190鈥檚. in October I told a newsagent that I was thirteen years old and got a job as a paper boy at Jordan鈥檚 in Dover Road. Part of my round was in that area and during November we had some heavy shelling. On one of those nights a shell landed in Clarence Street and living in Queen Street, I was almost shaken out of bed. At that time I used to sleep in a double bed with my brother Doug and for some silly reason we would sleep with our heads one way one night and the other way the next. On that particular night we had our heads away from our window, which was extremely fortunate as the bed got showered with glass. It wasn鈥檛 until the next morning that I realised where it had dropped, as I had to carry my bike-load of papers over the rubble. Whilst negotiating the ground, I spotted a piece of shrapnel which turned out to be the nose cap of the shell. This I have kept ever since, highly polished, and have recently put it on a hardwood plinth.
This incident was the first time that I saw the human results of war, as one of the men killed by this shell was Mr Simpson, a coal-merchant, who was standing at his front door at the time of the explosion. He was hit in the midriff by what must have been a piece of shrapnel and had left a trail of blood and other things along the passage wall.
Another incident regarding shelling occurred early in December after leaving a scout meeting. I had just got home when there was an almighty bang, the house shook and all the windows rattled. It turned out that a shell had landed at the bottom of Dover Road where I had passed ten minuets before. Seven or eight shells landed that night.
1943 arrived and it wasn鈥檛 long before we lost our freedom as Dover Road School opened on a sort of part time basis. As there were not enough teachers to cope with all the children, some had to attend mornings and others in the afternoons. This would be reversed the following week to keep the number of hours taught, even.
This put a new aspect on things, as we met new mates, and in some cases renewed old friendships. We still had plenty of free time and were always looking for new adventures although we never wandered far.
It wasn鈥檛 long before more teachers were found from somewhere, and we had to attend school all day. We were only allowed in the ground floor classrooms due to the occasional bombing and had to get to get to the shelters quickly when the sirens went.
Towards the end of the year I left the scouts and joined the Buffs Army Cadets at Shorncliffe Camp. I found this quite exiting as we were taught how to fire the Lee-Enfield 303鈥� although the ones we used were adapted to 22鈥� with what was called a Morrison tube. I was also taught how to dismantle a Bren gun and reassemble it. This all came in handy in later life, as did the marching arms drill, when I had to do 2-years National Service in the army.
There was a lot of troop activity in the bombed houses around the harbour especially Dover Street and we used to spend a lot of time hanging around there. That was until it got a bit dangerous when they started using live ammunition, and was cordoned off by the police. What we didn鈥檛 know at the time was that they were preparing for D-Day鈥�.
One of my friend鈥檚 brothers was a Messenger Boy in the civil Defence so I thought I would put my age up again, to fourteen this time and joined myself. You got paid depending how many hours you were on duty, which was every time the sirens went until the 鈥渁ll-clear鈥�. The shelling was very frequent especially from the middle of 1943 until the German guns were over-run by the Canadians in September 1944. My post was at the Salvation Army Hall in Bradstone Road, and this being a First Aid Post, was out of action during the shelling. This was because nearly all the shells dropped in a line from the harbour to the viaduct, nicknamed 鈥渟hell alley鈥�, so it was highly possible that the post could have been hit. I used to go on duty with a chap called Sid Mercer and to make sure we still be paid, we would go across the road to a Rescue Post in Clarence Street. Sometimes we would skip off and go to the Leas to watch the gun flashes from France, and see how long before the shell landed over here. It worked out between fifty and sixty seconds depending on which guns were firing, and to where.
We still had fun at school and one day a photographer from the Folkestone Herald wanted to photograph us running out for playtime. This was all set up for the camera in order to get a good picture, but anyone who knew the school could see we were running the wrong way.
Things went along much as before at the beginning of 1944, nothing much in the way of enemy activity, and I was still a Messenger Boy and an Army Cadet. Our Civil Defence social room was moved though, from the Old Post Office in Sandgate Road to a private house that was empty in Dover Road, opposite were St Mary鈥檚 School used to be.
In April I attended a fortnights camp with the cadets, and we were billeted in some huts at Shorncliffe Camp. They are still there behind the wire fencing in North Road. This was great fun as we spent a lot of the time training with the troops who were getting ready for D-Day, although, as I said before we didn鈥檛 know.
There was also a lot of things going on around town, which we realised later on, were to fool the Germans into thinking that the invasion of Europe was to take place across the straits of Dover. All the main road junctions between the Central station and the harbour were dug up and relayed with reinforced concrete so that tanks wouldn鈥檛 churn up the roads. There was also a large slipway built down the fish market so that they could be loaded onto Tank landing craft, and dummy LCT鈥檚 (Landing Craft Troops) were floated around the harbour.
At Easter I left my school days behind and started work at Ashford Railway Works. This concludes my story regarding the war whilst I was at school, but it was still another year before it ended and a lot more happened in Folkestone.

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