大象传媒

A Boy in World War II

On that never to be forgotten day, 3rd September 1939 I was still a boy at the tender age of 10 years and eight months and living in Allingham Road, South Park.

It was a Sunday and we had all been told that the Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain was due to make an important announcement at 11.00 am. We gathered round the radio (or wireless as it was known then) at the appointed time and heard him say 鈥渨e are now at war with Germany.鈥�

This did not mean a lot to me but it certainly did to my parents and grandparents who well remembered the horrors of World War I. As soon as he had finished his speech we went to the front gate to see what the neighbours had to say. Most people stood at their front gates then just to talk to their neighbours and anyone who happened to be passing.

We had only been there for a couple of minutes when the air raid siren sounded. We thought the Germans had wasted no time springing into action but this was not so. The reason for the alert was because an unidentified plane had been seen coming over the channel so all the sirens in Kent and Surrey had been sounded. The All Clear sounded a few minutes later.

Many children were brought down from London to the Reigate area as evacuees so every house was asked to take in one or two. My mother agreed we would have two but as there were no air raids in London they went back after a couple of months. After this we had a succession of evacuees billeted on us finishing up with two brothers from St Dunstan鈥檚 College who stayed with us for about three years. They were about my age so we all got on very well.

When the blitz started in September 1940 some bombs dropped in the Reigate area but these were mostly because Spitfires from Biggin Hill and Kenly intercepted them before they reached London. My friends and I thought it great fun watching the dog fights overhead, never thinking of taking shelter. When a German was shot down we all wanted to get to the plane and wrench pieces off of it as souvenirs. We never thought that there might be a pilot still in the plane badly mangled. Immediately one was shot down a heated discussion began between all the boys as to exactly where it went down. We all had different ideas so we would jump on our bikes and race off to where we thought it would be. All this was quite useless as by the time we had found it soldiers were guarding it so we were not allowed anywhere near.

At this time I went to Holmesdale school and I well remember in 1941 reaching the level crossing one lunchtime and the gates being closed. Dunkirk had just been evacuated by our soldiers and they were on trains coming through Reigate en route for Aldershot. They were in a terrible state. After having reached the coast, on lorries, tanks, bicycles, or even on foot, then huddled on the beach for hours, often days, being bombed and machine gunned, they had stood for hours waist deep in the sea in long queues, hoping against hope that a boat, even a rowing boat would rescue them. All the boys were quite oblivious to what they had been through and were shouting out 鈥淭hrow out your foreign coins.鈥�
Soon after this I changed schools and went to the Parish school in London Road. This was an all boys school but there was a small section at the side for the girls from St Marks school to learn cookery.

The boys were kept well away from the girls but when there was an air raid both the boys and the girls had to go down the Baron鈥檚 Cave in the Castle Grounds which served as our raid shelter. Inside was one long cave which eventually came up in the centre of the gardens of the castle grounds but there were also some smaller caves leading off from this. Either side of the large cave there were smaller ones which we were forbidden to go into. The large cave had long seats on both sides on which we had to sit and wait for the All Clear.

However, boys being what they are managed to entice some of the girls into the side caves and pinch the cakes they had made at cookery lessons. I cannot remember anything worse than pinching cakes but who knows?

We did not mind at all when the siren sounded as it meant we would have to go to the caves and there would be no lessons. However, the down side of this was that when the time came to go home we were not allowed to go until the All Clear sounded. However, if your mother called for you she would then have the responsibility of having you on the street in air raid.

With so many additional children in the Borough arrangements had to made to continue educating all of them. A system was devised whereby halls were hired and the local children would have lessons in them in the mornings one week while the evacuees had the schools. The following week they would change over so the evacuees had the schools in the morning and the local children had the schools in the afternoon. We all loved this arrangement as it meant that the lessons weren鈥檛 so intensive in the halls as the teachers would read us stories and improvise. I well remember having Treasure Island read to us in instalments in the Somers Hall.

I was 14 years old on 28th December 1942 so I left school and started work the following day. I was a garden assistant at a large house in Coppice Lane which is now a rest home for writers and authors. The hours were 7.30-5.00 Monday to Friday, 7.30-1.00 on Saturday and 8.00-10.00 every other Sunday. 48 hours a week for the princely sum of 25 shillings a week. I gave my mother 拢1 so I had 5 shillings to last me the week.

The war was still on and we still had some air raids although they much less frequent than earlier in the war. However, in July 1944 a new type of bomb was launched, the V1 more commonly known as the 鈥榙oodlebug鈥�. I remember seeing the first one coming over Reigate with a flame coming out of its tail. I thought it was a plane on fire but of course it was not. It crashed in a field about half a mile from where I was and I felt the blast. Later in the day I learnt just what this was.

On 8th May 1945 the war in Europe finished and it was called VE Day. The whole country went mad after six years of war and Reigate was no exception. In the evening I and several other boys lit a bonfire in Reigate square in front of the old town hall. We kept it going all evening by piling on boxes and rubbish from the back of Sainsbury鈥檚 shop which was roughly where Sussex Stationers is now. Music was coming from somewhere, presumably a gramophone nearby and everyone was dancing in the square. We were doing the waltz, fox-trot, quickstep and hokey-cokey until the early hours of the morning and a really good time was had by all.

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.