大象传媒

My father was trying to listen to the wireless. It was a wet Sunday morning in 1939, the day that the British declared war on Germany. The high tension battery was running out of power it was difficult for him to hear the Prime Minister say that we were at war. My mother told me that I could go out to play in the rain so that my father might hear without me making a noise. I paddled in the puddles. If this is war, I thought, it鈥檚 not bad at all.

The first indication of war was going to the ARP station in Park Road and getting a gas mask. We also saw that commandeered buses, camouflaged, had arrived under the trees on Belton Lane, Grantham. Near the steam laundry the army had erected a Bren gun. Later in the year a German bomber flew low over the laundry and a soldier fired at it. It was said that he hit the plane and it crashed near the coast.

The first bombs fell in Grantham in 1940. There was a direct hit on Ruston & Hornsby factory. My father was a builder and he was asked to check the roof damage on the nearby St John鈥檚 church. Unfortunately, the bottom section of the four section of the ladder gave way and my father fell down 60 feet into the nave. After two weeks, because of beds urgently needed for injured people, my father came home. I remembered his head looked like a black football.

In 1941 I attended the Boy鈥檚 National School. One afternoon the siren sounded and then three pips. This meant that German bombers were overhead. Mr Johns, our teacher, told us to get under our desks. The plane dropped bombs on the New Beacon Road area. A Mr Naylor, a postman, was killed and his name is on the plaque in Grantham Head Post Office. Mrs Johns, we found this out later, was the wife of Mr Johns who was the Forman who went to France.

My father, at this time, took a light job which needed us to move to Dysart Road. I was in the St Wulfram鈥檚 church choir. One Sunday, as we were walking to morning service, we saw that part of an engine from one of our Oxfords on the door step of number 86 Dysart Road. Apparently, this plane had rammed a German aircraft which crashed at Westry Corner at Barrowby.

One afternoon, in 1942, the Head Master of our school told us to assemble in Castle Gate. All the school stood on the pavement. Soon an army vehicle came slowly by and Monty stood up in it and waved to us. I now believe this was Monty鈥檚 double, as Monty was planning action in North Africa and this was a plot to fool the Germans.

In 1943 we moved house again, this time to Turnor Crescent. The Head Master of my school, the Boys National, asked me if I would like a job picking up litter in the hostel on Sandon Road. This hostel was built to house the young ladies working in the local munitions factory. I was given a security badge which said on it BMARC. The wage was seven shillings and six pence, per week. I remember some of the girls worked in certain environments, which caused their skin to change colour and also their hair. It was a deep sandy colour. They were paid extra money for this work. I suppose I was the youngest worker at Marco. Mr Dennis Kendall was the director of this factory and he lived in Belton Lane opposite one of his shadow factories. He later became MP for Grantham.

During school time we had to visit a gas chamber at Beacons Clinic to test our gas masks. We sat on benches while gas was pumped into the room. Your eyes would run if you had a leak in your gas mask.

The Americans began to appear in and around Grantham in this same year. By this time I was in Mrs Hutton鈥檚 class. One afternoon police came in our classroom and we had to turn out our pockets. This was because we were begging chewing gum of the 鈥淵anks鈥�, as we called them. Those boys with gum were told they had committed an office of begging and it must stop at once.

In 1944 I changed to the Boy鈥檚 Spittlegate, which was the large house now, the police station in Grantham. One morning our Head Master, a benign gentleman, Mr A. Aveling, came into our classroom and drew us a map on the blackboard of where the allied forces had landed in France.

One year on the war was over. A Mrs Harris, from the shop on Signal Road, hired the church hut on New Beacon Road and gave us children, in the area, a victory party.

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