大象传媒

I was born on May 18th 1935 we lived in Pasture Gardens Edmonton N.London all 9 of us Mum Dad and my 6 brothers and sisters I was the second youngest of the family.
Although I was less than 5 years old I do remember the day that war was declared Mum was cooking Sunday dinner and making rock cakes my elder brothers Charlie and Bill were in the back garden with nearly all their motor cycle team they were grass track riders getting their bikes ready for the meet and nicking Mums rock cakes me I was out in the street when Mum came running out of the house and picked me up and ran indoors with me.
The french doors out to the back garden was open and they were all standing there listing to the wireless.We was at war.
The next day my brothers and their mates went and signed on that was the first time I saw my Dad cry
My Father had been in W W 1 and was badly gassed you always new where he was with his breathing and when my brother Charlie came home and said that he had joined the Rifle Brigade (the greenjackets)Dad went mad (swearing was not allowed in our house)Dad called him a silly little sod and that he would be cannon fodder and with his skills he should of been a motor machnic.Charlie said his mate Willy wanted to join them.
My brother Bill joined the Fleet Air Arm his friend Jack went for the navy (he went down with the hood)
Jimmy Smith who lived across the road went into the R A F to be a pilot.
The allotments and rec behind our house had some ack ack guns and search lights put on it my eldest sister the oldest of the family had to do fire watch my Dad was a fire Warden I used to watch the training in our back garden as the Dads used to crawl on their bellies to put out a fire at my age I new how to tackle a fire.
Then we got a shelter in the back garden with ack ack guns search lights and shelters it was all very busy it was decided that me and my brother Reg was to be evacuated he was 5 years older than me.
And so we ended up in St Neots in Bedfordshire ?
My brother was taken to a house in the same street that I was taken too I was in a cottage with what seemed at the time a very old lady with grey hair and a dress that went to the floor it was very quiet there a G/Father clock that ticked very loud she did not have a radio she scared the life out of me.The toilet was at the end of the garden in a row of sheds and the wash house and about once a week a horse and cart would come and collect our bucket from the toilet my brother and his mates used to call him Mr Shit.
The lady took me to church every day and twice on Sundays after living in a house with 9 of us having a bed to myself scared me.
The school I went to was one class different ages sat in different corners at dinner time you had your dinner on your desk one dinner time they gave me some onions I took a bite and I did not like them or the swede so I left it.
The teacher said I had to eat it because our saliors at sea were dying bringing us this food the thought of my brother Bill dying really upset me but even if it meant the end of the british navy I could not eat these onions.
The teacher said that I would sit there till I did.Dinner time finished and the kids got on with their school work I sat there with my dinner in the end the teacher pushed an onion into my mouth I was gagging as she tried to hold me I picked up the plate and threw it across the classroom and ran out of the school into the road and got run over.
The news got back home and my Mum who was a very loving person and everybodies friend except when one of her kids got hurt Mum and Dad came to St Neots and Mum had a word with the teacher,I and my brother were sent back to London for being out of control.
Back in Edmonton it was very exciting my Brother Bill was on the Aircraftcarrier H M S Victorious
on the Russian convoys we heard how they smashed the ice of to stop the ship from turning over my brother Charlie had got back from Dunkirk where he was in the R A S C and now was with the 8th Army.
I was now 7 years old I had nits and scaybis and had to go to the town hall for treatment being put into a bath with this yellow powder that stung your sores and made you jump sky high this come about through sleeping in the shelter in the back garden no matter how many times you baled the shelter out water would get back in it was o k for my frogs and newts.
One night during an air raid we heard these bombs drop close we looked out of the shelter two Incendiary bombs had gone through our roof the house was ablaze.
My teenage sister had been asleep in her room she would rather face the bombs than what was crawling around in our shelter my other sister was at her factory on fire watch my Dad was out on duty.
When I saw Jimmy Smith the fighter pilot who lived across the road I had a word with him about the germans bombing our house which now had a big tarpulin over it.
Jimmy was a smahing bloke well boy really he was stationed at Hornchurch I think he flew over London it was not un usual for a fighter plane to fly along the North Circular Road then swing down our road it would be Jimmy. He drove a two seater M.G.which he drove very fast with his uni scarf blowing in his slip stream.
Jimmy assured me that him and his mates had got the blighters who bombed our house and the last he saw of them they were swimming back to Germany some how that made it better.
Jimmy went through the war and died in Germany thrown from a jeep returning to the airfield after a party one night.
After the bomb I was told that I was going to be evacuated again our teachers told us that we was going to a place called the friendly north.
Come the day with my gas mask my labal tied to me a carrier bag with a new pair of jim jams in it we got on the bus.If we was going to such a good place why was they all crying at the station some of the Mums pulled their kids of the trains some where crying but I new that big boys do not cry.
We left London the train went on and on we had eaten our food and we had gor fed up with singing ten green bottles standing on the wall we looked out on the fields and said we are going to play in them the train went on and on.
When it was dark we got of the train and formed a crocadail line and walked in the dark to this big church hall where we had coco and a sandwich and a straw mattaries to sleep on I do not think any one slepted there was a lot of crying and it was cold and I was sure the place was full of ghost.
In the morning there was bowls of cold water to wash in and told to sit with our brothers and sisters I was by myself.
The doors opened and people came into the hall and started to take kids away one or two spoke to me what was they saying they talked funny.
A boy came up to me and asked my name I told him how old are you he asked I said 7 he was 8 he said are you alone I said yes and broke down crying maybe I was not a big boy.
He said to his Mum he will do and off we went to his house.
We walked along cobbled streets and I could not believe it there was washing hanging across the street we went up a passage way into a back yard and into the house it was small but lovely and warm I was freezing and hungry.
The boys name was Raymond and he had a big brother called Fred who bashed him Raymond wanted to pass it on.
I was told that I was in Manchester which meant nothing to me.
We seemed to stay in the kitchen there was another room called the front parlour that you only went into if you was dead and layed out.
There was a front door that you did not shut a white door step that you did not tread on and they drunk some ting out of the tap called watter.
I went to school with Raymond it was very noisey as most of the kids wore clogs the teachers asked us our names and all the kids laughed at how we spoke.
At play time we went into the yard and some one shouted get the cockney bastards and before I new it me and the other two kids were getting a right pasting.Later talking to Raymond he told me it was because I was a cockney bastard I said what is a cockney he said you are you come from London and you are dirty and have got fleas and scabs
I learnt that the best place to get at play time was behind the big iron gates when the was open they made a triangle so if you got in there you could defend yourself a bit but those clogs hurt when they did land.
I did not like Manchester it was cold wet and miserable and it always seemed to be dark a bloke came round on a bike and lit the street lights.
They said that I came from the smoke the slums of London what had happened to London? our road had trees in it we had a front and back garden with hedges round it we had a bathroom with a shower they had a tin bath hanging up in the back yard
I hated Manchester but I learnt to fight.
We had to go to church on Sundays me and this other boy from London I cannot even remember his name we pumped the bellowes for the organ it must of beena Harvest Festival there was all these goodies layed out on the alter even a bunch of bananas.
We stayed behind in the organ loft the vicar called out is there anyone in here ifyou do not come out I will lock you in,we stayed where we was and he locked us in.
We took one banana each it was lovely we got out the back way.
At the evening servise the bananas had been missed and the vicar stood up and said that he and god knew who had taken the bananas and that we would go to hell no matter where we hid.We lost a lot of sleep over those bananas and as I now get into old age have I still got to answer for my crime.
I was so very home sick and bombs were falling in Manchester and I decided that I wanted to go home I knew that we had come by train and there was a train line at the bottom of the road so all I had to do was follow the line back to London.
I set of walking I do not know haw far there were workers repairing the line one of the said what are you doing on here and where are you going I said home he said oh you are a cockney are you my accent had dropped me in it again.
He said well London is 100s of miles away so you had better have a brew to get you there.
I was sitting in the hut with a mug of tea when the door opened and a copper said come on lad come with me.He put me on his cross bar and took me back and told Auntie (I cannot remember her name)not to let me escape again or they will shoot me.
Some how 3 years passed I was 10 and I was back in London with a broad lancashire accent home to where my young brother did not know me and Mum had to tell me what bloke coming down the street was my Dad.
We no longer lived in a house we lived in a rest centre for homeless people who had been bombed out.
The rest centre was Basseyshaw Hall in bury street Edmonton there was about 15 families living there if you can call it living there was more families than there was gas stoves which caused alot of arguments as the Mothers tried to cook a meal for their families and then a family might of left a table in a mess then to get a sink to wash up the church hall where we slepted was divided into cubicales about 7 by 7 the walls were paper mashy on wooden frames at night you could not sleep the crying babies the coughing the cells had no tops on them so you could climb in and out of them a cough or a sneeze would echo around the hall a fart would nearly bring the hall down as we awarded points for that
My brothers were their with us they had been given a few quid and a demob suit and told to go and rebuild their lifes and country yes my brother came back from the war he died at the ripe old age of 42.
After a couple of years we was moved into a house that had been repaired and passed fit to live in,fit for who?
I soon took up with a gang and soon got caught breaking and entering a wharehouse I was 13/14 the youngest of the gang my Father who worked at the Royal Mint was ashamed of me but he wrote a letter to the magisrate my Father was a mason and he used words to ask the court if they would let him put his own house in order as so far my life been trumatic.
The 2 older boys were delt with first one went into the Royal navy and in time ended up an officer on the guns the other was sent to borstal down in Kent where he was taught printing he ended up with his own print works and did not want to talk about our youth.
The Magistrate an Army Major x said to me he did not think I was a bad boy maybe I liked excitement therefore he was going to send me to an outward bound school for 6 monthes on board the H M S Discovery Captain Scotts old ship tied up on the thames embankment we was put into watches and god help you if you let your watch down If my memory serves me right the ship had four mast and rigging we scrubbed the decks learned how to tye knots how to row the old whaling boats the staff were old seaman who had been brought up before the mast and they were hard men the blisters that you got from rowing with oars I could hardy lift were harden by putting your hands in buckets of salt water and then to proof yourself there was the climb to the crows nest hanging more or less upside down to get over the spars the people on the deck below looked like ants some boys had to be lowered down in the bosons chair they had frozen with fear.
I am glad to say that I made it both ways.
My next proudest moment was when I put on my Red Beret to walk down the street I was in the 16th Airbourne.
My lowest moment was in 1997 when after driving lorries for well over 40 years I had an accident injuring my back and legs I was never able to work again I ahve never been out off work so when the D H S S told me that I was entitled to nothing Thank You Red White and Blue what do I think of you.
My Mother did get her new house in 1953 in time for her to dye an old lady of 62 all my brothers and sisters are long gone parhaps that banana done me good.

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