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My Life during World War 2
I was born in Epsom General Hospital in 1932 and my first recollection of the war was one Sunday morning aged about seven and a half, whilst playing in our back yard in Adelphi Road with my cousin Brian, the Air Raid siren sounded and my mother rushed out picked me up and promptly fitted my gas mask on my head. As it turned out the siren was only a practice warning to acquaint the populace with the sound !
Many of my school chums were evacuated to the west country & Wales but I elected to stay in Epsom with my grandparents as my mother and my siblings moved to Shropshire in order to be near my stepfathers hospital where he was a patient after having his howitzer blown out from under him during the evacuation of Dunkirk.
My average day during these times was as follows:-
Rise at five thirty and go to light the smoking fires at Marshalls fishmongers at the top of Adelphi Road so that by the time the Herrings were ready for smoking at approx 7.30 the fires were good and ready
At six thirty go to Knights newsagents in Church St. to deliver my first morning paper round and on returning collect the papers for my second round.
Around seven in the morning cycle up to Stanley Wootton鈥檚 yard to muck out and ride the horses with the other lads up to the Downs for first work, sometimes if time allowed I would cycle over to Walter Nightingales yard to help with mucking out and if lucky get another ride. ( During these years the regular stable lads and jockeys were called up into the forces,) It was great fun to sit on the horses and read the "Beano " on the way to the downs, there was no traffic at this time and in the main the horses were fairly docile as they sensed where they were going.
Back home to breakfast and then off to school by nine o'clock - my school was the C of E Boys School at the top of Adelphi Road so it was nice and convenient.
At the end of the school day I would go back to Marshalls to clean out the smoking trays and grates ready for the next day.
Memorable events of wartime.
Cycling to Bellingam to visit my cousin Brian and being blown off my bike as I passed Cheesemans store in Lewisham when the front windows were blown out by a German bomb.
One night as I was saying goodnight to my cousin Brian who was staying with his grandmother next door,as I entered the back scullery I heard a heavy thump on the back door and on investigating I saw a smouldering piece of red hot shrapnel embedded in the woodwork of the door (a lucky escape !)
The main Southern Railway line ran almost at the bottom of my grandfathers garden and at night a steam locomotive would haul an anti aircraft gun along the line firing at the Gernan planes making their bombing runs to London, we kids had great fun watching the planes getting lit up by searchlights and we would follow the ack-ack gun along the railway bank collecting the spent shell cases as they were ejected by the gun crews, (these made excellent fireside holders for pokers etc.)
One of my paper rounds included the Canadian camp site in eleven acres in Chalk Lane and one dark morning as I cycled along the lane I could hear a swishing sound coming from the trees and on investigation found that it was coming from a German oil bomb hanging by its parachute cords from a tree ! when I delivered the papers to the guard room at the camp I reported the bomb and was promptly told to report it to the police station ! The bomb disposal squad was called in to deal with it.
One of our favourite nocturnal activities was to watch the "dog fights" over London And see the bombers caught in the cross beams of the searchlights and in later years during daylight hours was to watch the Spitfires engage the doodlebugs over the downs and clip their wings to turn them towards the downs before shooting them down, in most cases the doodlebugs blew up in mid air.
A German Dornier 107 Bomber crash landed on the downs early one morning, in spite of the chains that were stretched across the race course and by the time the home guard and police arrived to arrest the only two crew members all of the local kids including myself had cycled to the downs and stripped the plane of souvenirs such as swastika decals and Perspex cockpit screens which made very collectable rings one lucky chap made off with the compass. (a real trophy)
One day during school time a Doodlebug came down on the cricket pitch in Alexandra Rec. and at lunch time the boys of Lintons Lane Central School Descended upon the wreckage and at afternoon classes there was enough pieces of aluminium on desk tops to almost build a new flying bomb!
I can remember that one day as I was helping my grandfather to dig his allotment a doodlebug came over and its engine cut out just as it was overhead , we both dived for cover as it literally whistled over our heads we could feel the heat from it's engine, fortunately it skimmed over the hedgerow and landed in the sewage farm nearby.

There were two types of air raid shelters available to families during this time, the Anderson shelter was an outdoor shelter and had to be partially dug into the garden of the property, it had some disadvantages inasmuch as it was cold and often suffered from water lying on the floor which made it a cold and uncomfortable place although it was a pretty effective bomb shelter. My grandfather flatly refused to have the Anderson shelter and opted for the Morrison shelter which was installed inside the house this was a steel framed structure with a steel top and wire grills on all four sides, the steel top made an ideal table tennis table but the real function was to protect the occupants from falling debris if the house was bombed.
The town was for the most time occupied by Canadian troops who were very kind to the children and gave them many gifts such as chocolate bars chewing gum and the backs of Sweet Caporal cigarette packets on which were printed the silhouettes of Allied and German military aircraft which made a very good collectors item, so the greeting from the kids was nearly always "got any Chiclets, Chocolate or Sweet Caporal packets mister?"
As the war came to an end many of the activities that were curtailed due to the war were restarted and life slowly returned to normality and sports pitches etc.that were dug up for dig for victory campaigns were returned to normal use and youth organisations were active again. Football was probably the most popular sport for boys and a Mr. Lee formed two local teams, Epsom Templars and Nonsuch F.C. I was lucky enough to play for both teams, Templars as a junior and Nonsuch as a senior.
I had been a member of the Boys Brigade during the war years but progressed to the Army Cadet Force towards the end of the war as things returned to normal.
In the main it was lucky that our family with the exception of my stepfather had survived the war unscathed.

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