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No cases for me, not enough money for things like that… so my gear was in a pillowslip. It was great for an eight year old, my sister was to look after me so I just looked at every thing I could and I think I slept a lot. Fleckney was good for me. To add to my sisters memories, there was a dog and if we gave him a penny he would go to the pub and come back with a biscuit in his mouth, not for me, but for him!
Mrs Smith was very kind to us, I remember the lavatory was at the bottom of the garden and was a hole in the soil. Mrs Smith's son had something to do with farming and the big thing in my life was getting a ride on the steam traction engine and going to the farm. The village shop and petrol station was owned by a man called Reeves, so no relative. Another big thing I remember was the Sunday dinner. We sat at the table and the plates of food were brought in but we didn't start eating straight away, as we were waiting for the Yorkshire puddings, but they were not available in the country, that came after rationing ended. We went to school a fair amount but played a lot of football. We never played a proper game though, just ran after the ball so there were never any winners, we just got tired! The teacher that brought us from our school [St. Jude] in London disappeared after Mrs Smith took us in, but a few years later he came to the Bective's, our local school in Northampton to teach. We met and he asked me what had happened to me so we, so we had a chat about it. When mother came to Fleckney to collect us, going to White Hills was great… a newish house with a bathroom and a back garden looking over the fields, one of which had a search light and, I think, a bren gun. I also remember the open fields to roam in and the friends I made. I was playing with Colin pretending to box and he said shall we have a real fight, so I said, 'what's that?' and he punched me in my eye!! We were called foreigners by some and natives by other!
The war had started and London was bombed, people coming out of the air raid shelters to find that their homes were no longer there. Can you imagine that?! Nothing left and nowhere to go! We had an Uncle Chris, still in London and people asked him what can they do and he said try my brother up in Northampton and over the months we took them in until they found a place. We slept on the sofa, the floor and, Dad and I, in a small cotton tent in the back garden, now, what a treat for an eight year old. From then on I was and still am a camper, I love tents and the open air. Boughton School was great but a bit too much for the lady teacher, not enough room, not enough pencils, paper etc and too much noise. I got a clip around the ear one time for talking! That I remember! As a result of the fear of gas bombs, we always carried our gas masks in our little cardboard boxes and in case things got really bad, with the bombs and gas we had to have a supply of food in case we couldn't go home. So we had a biscuit tin with biscuits, bread, chocolates, Weetabix, water and many other items in it. Again, what an adventure for us children; the best part was, when the time was up, the food could be going stale so we opened them and had a feast.
Another memory of mine is the time of the Dieppe raid and army trucks pulled up in front of the houses and soldiers, British and Canadian, started to unload their gear on the grass verge, Mum came out with her water and anything else she could spare. When the men said ‘do you mind us sleeping on the grass’, she said ‘no you bloody don’t, you come on in the house!’, the blokes laughed, ‘the Sergeant won’t let us’, at which Mum simply said ‘where is this bloody Sergeant, so I can tell him where to go!’. Do you know, I was so proud of my Mum, but luckily the Sergeant didn’t turn up, well, not when I was there as it was past my bed time. I can’t remember how long they stayed with us, and I didn’t know about Dieppe until I was older. Very sad they were those blokes who slept on our grass.
We had air raid wardens going round at night saying ‘put those lights out’ and they had a whistle to blow. So we kids used to go round calling ‘put those lights out!’, some times we had to run fast to get away from the adults!
There was something called the ‘dig for victory’ and children were encouraged to dig and plant and we had help from people. I don’t think we lasted long…too much like hard work! But I did get other jobs…I was a butcher boy delivering meats to people, also a babysitter, stable hand to a pony, and clearing out the chicken shed — what a smell! We did go spud picking when we went to senior school and got away from school for days and got ½ a crown a day, or was it a week? - can’t remember now! It was good when spud picking was in the field behind our houses, for many reasons, one was I got a job there at weekends helping out, doing all sorts, from cleaning the pig spuds to celery cleaning with the boys from the gang. Cleaning the beetroot was good as you had hot water to put your hands in. Now I, myself, didn’t like beetroot, but my mates did and always scoffed a few. It was funny later on when they had a break and went behind the shed for a pee [if you eat enough beetroot, it changes the colour of your pee!], they were frightened out of their heads as they thought they were peeing blood!
We watched Coventry burning. My Dad used to go there and always came home with wood for the fire. My Dad was the one of the most honest men ever, I heard him tell Mum that some men took home things belonging to the owners of the bombed buildings. I thought that wicked and still do.
There are some many more memories, all the ones which I’ve told you so far are only some of them. Ah! Another memory has just come to me; the time walking home from Boughton School, I got to the crossroads on the Harborough Road when we saw a dog flight [two planes fighting each other] they were way up in the sky and I think we could hear the guns. We stood watching them, cheering the [what we thought] spitfire. Then a thought came to our minds, where do the bullets end up? Surely they could come down to earth and could fall on us; we jumped into the nearest ditch, which happened to be the over flow from the cesspit! — Good job they were dry! We got to White Hills Way and then split up, I walked up the street and Mum was coming down to meet me, telling me in no uncertain words what she was going to do to me because the sirens had gone off ages ago and she was worried sick and where had I been and what she was going to do with me again and again. But it was a good dog fight!

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