大象传媒

My father was a police inspector and we lived in a flat at the Central Police Station which is now John Dower House recently the Countryside Agency. At about this time everybody was expected to do some voluntary work in their spare time and I was an ARP messenger.

I worked at Flowers Brewery office on the corner of Regent Street and the High Street. I was a clerk and each week, on Friday nights, two men and myself slept in the office in case there was an air raid and we were expected to tackle any incendiary bombs. This was, 'Fire-watching' and we were each paid three shillings for the nights work!

At this time my elder brother was serving in the Far East in the Royal Engineers. I think he served from 1940 until 1945, most of the time spent abroad. I don't think I saw him for about five years.

To return to the picture, the man in the middle with the white helmet was my father on the left is Sergeant Tremlin and on the right of the picture, holding a small attache-case, is P.C. John Parsons. I knew Mr. Tremlin and Mr. Parsons very well. Mr. Parsons is showing the contents of the case to my father. It was taken out of a bombed house and contained 拢1,000, a vast amount of money then. Mr Tremlin is holding some books also rescued from the house.

It would have been lodged at the Police Station awaiting a person to claim it. The fear was that it might have been looted, people weren't all heroes! There were many items on my fathers' desk including a Luger pistol a false eye and several sets of false-teeth-all awaiting their rightful owners!

Mr. Parsons was one of my favourite people. He was married and lived in St. Paul's Street North with his wife and youngest son who was at school. He had two older sons, one was in the R.A.F. and was lost on a flight to Gibraltar. His other son was in the Royal Navy serving on H.M.S. Dorsetshire which was the ship which fired the torpedoes to sink the German battleship 'Bismark'.

The 'Dorsetshire was later sunk taking Mr. Parsons' son with her. His wife never accepted the loss of her two fine sons and, each night would leave the back door of their house unlocked in case one or both of them came home.

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