大象传媒

The Wartime Memories of Alan Hakim

This story will be submitted to the People鈥檚 War Site by Jan Barrett (volunteer) on behalf of Alan Hakim and will be added to the site with his permission. Alan fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.
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When war broke out I was nearly 5 years old, and living in Stanmore, Middlesex. We were due to go to Broadstairs for a holiday the following week. This was cancelled and I was absolutely furious because we had had such a glorious time there the previous year.

My father had served in the First World War and was then in the Territorials, so he was called up immediately. He was, however, considered too old to be sent abroad, so we spent the war following him and his regiment around the UK.

I remember very well an incident a couple of months after war began. There was a big RAF base at Stanmore, and Barrage Balloons had been put up in the area. There was a terrible storm and I was standing at my bedroom window looking out. A barrage balloon about half a mile away was struck by lightning and went up in sheets of flames 鈥� I was terrified.

My father was posted to 23 Training Regiment RA at Devonport, so we moved to Yelverton, on the edge of Dartmoor. It was 1940 and a beautiful summer. The day the boats came back from Dunkirk, my mother and I were on Plymouth Hoe and saw them coming in, crammed with soldiers 鈥� she said she had never seen men looking so exhausted as those soldiers.

The Germans bombed Devonport so much that Father鈥檚 regiment was getting very little training as they were constantly having to dive into the shelters; so the regiment moved to Wales. My mother and I left early one morning by train, but the night before there was a big raid on Plymouth and from the train we could see a pillar of fire above the town which as light came, turned into a pillar of smoke.

We went to Newtown in the middle of Wales and it was lovely and quiet. But after a year or so, I was old enough to go to Boarding School and one was found at Llanidloes 鈥� St Wilfrid鈥檚 School, which had been evacuated from Seaford in Sussex. We used to have gas mask practice at school. The masks were all checked regularly to make sure they were not leaking.

Llanidloes was only 13 miles from Newtown, near enough for my parents to come over by train and see me sometimes. Some Saturdays, they would take me and two or three of my friends out to tea. We used to go to a little caf茅 over a grocer鈥檚 shop in the town, where I chose poached eggs on toast (it remains one of my favourite things to this day).
As well as basic rationing for things like meat, butter and sugar, we got so many points each month which could be spent on other rationed goods, whatever was available, but it was hard to find really nice things. On the way upstairs to the caf茅, my mother would hand over a shopping bag, and when we came to leave it was handed back and the assistant would say something like 鈥淭hat鈥檚 five and elevenpence please and 2 points.鈥� We didn鈥檛 know what we would get in the bag, sometimes it was nice things like SPAM (a great treat in those days) or some lovely pilchards, but sometimes it would be tinned beetroot!

Rationing was not quite so strict here in the country as in the cities. A weekly market was held at Newtown and people would come in and sell un-rationed goods. In the school holidays, my mother would send me and my elder sister (I was about 9 by then and she would have been 13) down to the shops. So two young children would arrive 鈥� a polite little boy and a young girl who had a good memory and would enquire sweetly after the
shopkeeper鈥檚 relatives 鈥� this tactic often ensured we got a little extra on the rations!

Around that time I remember all being called out of school to listen to the church bells ringing. This was unusual because we had been warned that during wartime they would ring only in the event of an invasion. But we were quickly told that they were ringing to celebrate a victory 鈥� it may have been Alamein.

Arthur Ransome鈥檚 books on the Swallows and Amazons were my favourites then, so I would ask for a new one for Christmas or my birthday. But they had to be ordered from WH Smith, the only bookshop, and took weeks to arrive. Would they arrive in time?

In 1944, Father鈥檚 regiment moved again, to the north coast of Yorkshire at Marske-by-the-Sea, a small village with three enormous stores camps, Zetland, Biddian and Pooh. (There was even a notice on the road outside: 鈥淧ooh Camp Corner鈥�.) It had its own private railway running goods trains between them. One of the greatest treats of my life occurred then. Father arranged for me to spend a day on the railway and I was even allowed to drive the train 鈥� a pretty special treat for a young boy of ten!

VJ Day arrived while we were in Yorkshire. Father had been de-mobbed after VE Day as the regiment was disbanding. We arranged to go back to Bromley as our house in Stanmore had been let to RAF officers and wasn鈥檛 ready for us yet. We planned to leave for Bromley on the 16th August 1945, but as we boarded the train, the door slammed and poor mother鈥檚 thumb was trapped in the door 鈥� she must have been in great pain, and it wasn鈥檛 until we got to Darlington that someone managed to get a mug of tea for her to put her thumb in. This gave her some relief and also it acted as a disinfectant, until we were able to take her to the Out-patients department in Middlesex Hospital when we got to London.

Later that day we toured London sitting on the top deck of a London Bus. I remember vividly all the crowds in Trafalgar Square, waving flags, cheering and hugging each other.

Alan Hakim
August 2005.

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