大象传媒

When we got home my elder sister had started work and was bringing money home, but my father had discovered scrumpy cider, which made him worse and he cut mum's housekeeping.

I started school in a chapel and then moved into a proper school. My health was improved and I joined the army cadets. I became a very good shot with the 22 rifle, Lee Enfield 303 and the sten gun. We used to shoot on Wormwood Scrubs.

In the summer holidays of 1943, I got a job with the local coalman. As I had been on the farm I was able to groom his horse, which pleased him, and the horse. We would go to the coal yard, weigh the coal into one cwt and five cwt sacks, and deliver them. I sometimes carried the five cwt sacks up 6 flights of stairs - hard work, but I was able to help mum with my earnings.

This went on until the so-called February Blitz of 1944, which was another frightening experience. We used to go to the tube station at Hyde Park Comer every evening and go home in the morning. Just imagine hundreds of men, women and children sleeping on the platforms. The noise and the smell were awful. After this came the Doodle Bugs. They used to come over all day, the noise of the engine, the silence and then the explosion. You were on edge all the time.
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After some weeks of this we were evacuated to Heckmondwike, Yorkshire. When we arrived we were taken to a chapel where we were told to line up so that people could choose which child they wanted. It was bedlam. In the middle of all this a voice shouted, 鈥淢rs. Walker is here鈥�. Everybody went quiet in walked Mrs. Walker with her chauffer she walked down the line, stopped opposite me and said, 鈥淚 will take him鈥�. She walked out and the chauffer said, 鈥淐ome on son鈥�, and we got into a big car.

We drove to a great big house outside the town. I was taken to the kitchen, a huge place and one of the women there was told to run me a bath. I followed her to a bathroom. My clothes were taken from me and I was told to go downstairs when I had finished. I got lost.

When I got to the kitchen, the cook gave me hot milk and a slice of parkin. She asked my name and where I came from. While this was going on my clothes were being put on the boiler. I was shown to my room, given some pyjamas and I was tucked in.

In the morning I had tea and biscuits in bed, had a wash and found my way downstairs to the kitchen. Mrs. Walker was there and she said, 鈥淚 will find you some of my son鈥檚 clothes he had when he was your age, and then we will go to town to get you some new ones鈥�.

After breakfast we went down to the town and went to a shop where the shopkeeper was already pulling up a chair for Mrs. Walker who said, 鈥淲illiam must have some new clothes鈥�. I got a suit, jacket, several pairs of trousers, shirts, vests, socks, shoes, pants, and slippers and not a coupon had changed hands.

I lived like a lord, - good food. I was waited on. Everybody in the kitchen and the outside staff was called by their surname but I was called William. They had everything - library, sitting room, morning room, as I have said everything. In the attic was a model railway to die for.

I did attend school until my birthday in August 1944. Mr. Walker gave me a job in his office. He had three woollen mills. I had to keep a ledger on the output of the mills per day.

At the first mill I went to, to get the output, I was mobbed by the mill girls. I was stripped naked and daubed from head to toe in lanolin. They roared with laughter. The foreman phoned for Mr. Posnett, the chauffer, to come and get me. At home the cook scraped me clean and put me in the bath. Everybody including Mrs. Walker had a good laugh.

That was the best period of my life - fondly remembered.

We got back home to London just about the end of the V2s. Mum wanted us back.

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