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Mike Chandler interviewed by Radio Buernsey. The recording transcribed and edited by John David

I………. Do you ever question why you were sent from a safe place here to somewhere where you were possibly at more risk of the bombing, the blitz?
Well I do now because the script of history is manifesting itself more, I wasn’t interested obviously in the politics of the whole thing, all the strategy or logistics, all I just knew was what was happening on the day, but as the years have gone on I have asked questions, why we were sent into an area up north, the Industrial North, places like Coventry, close to Coventry, when we could have been safer in the South-East of the island, even Skegness. I think that I was very fortunate, with all these other people, they went away, and were kept in relative comfort, you know, well fed, warm bed, and no matter what the winters were like we were always kept warm and well fed, and that’s the main thing, a full stomach and a good night’s sleep, apart from the air-raids I have to say, they were shocking experiences, and I’d look through the Germans-mask, all the children sitting around, some of them screaming their heads off, and I’d look through the window of this gas mask, and I’d see hideous gas masks, made for children, with a tongue. Have you heard about those?
I………. I think I’ve seen them
They had a blooming tongue sticking out, you know, and big eyes like glasses in this gas mask, and this tongue, it looked like a cross between Mickey Mouse and Frankenstein. Looking back, that was quite amusing.
I………. They’re horrible things, aren’t they. I remember we had one in our house when I was a child, I don’t know why, I think it must have been someone’s from the war, but the smell of it, the rubber, and you put it on and its got this certain smell.
I think what you could smell there, they were made of this wadding, cotton layers, and carbon. And carbon, charcoal, is probably one of the best filters you can get, because they use that for Charcoal tablets to give people who have had an overdose, that mops up all poisons. I believe they were made of Charcoal and the very tight gauze filters compacted into this drum that could be unscrewed and the filter changed. But I’m wondering about the effectiveness of these, because they were never really tested, because we never experienced a nerve gas war, the First World War was very tragic,
Another thing that stands out in my mind, that I was told by Mr Brown, the late Harry Brown, we used to have discussions about war, was this Polish Lad, he was brought in to the Children’s Home because he was displaced, his father had gone off somewhere, on business, and he was place in the Children’s Home, in Daneshall in Lancashire, and there was talk then of an invasion by the Germans, people were on the alert all the time, and it was around that time, when we were all down the air-raid shelter. Responding to the warnings, and we heard this “Plump, plump, plump [taps table]” stop. And Harry Brown, and his wife Vera Brown, were very concerned about us, they thought the Germans had landed, and they thought they only had to open the door of the cellar, and toss a grenade into the cellar, and that would have been the whole lot of us wiped out in one go.
And he said this door opened, and we just froze, and the father of this Polish boy put his head round the door and said “I’ve come to see my boy”. What a relief. And also a bomb had dropped in the front of our building, and Mr Brown was out doing fire-watch, of all things, he was and ex-policeman so he knew, he had a, how can I say, sort of stoicism I suppose, and he was patrolling the grounds with one of his female staff. This bomb came down, he heard a whistle, and he dived on the lawn, and when he got up, the print of his body was so — you know what I mean — so terrifying, and the bomb landed in the grounds in the front of the building, and it buried itself thirty-five feet into the ground. The story goes that when the bomb disposal unit disarmed it in the nose unit it had a load of sawdust, and it said “With the compliments of the Polish Resistance”. Forced labour was used in these bomb factories in Germany. That’s the story, and I believe that, because Harry Brown told me that story. There are many things like that, and I remember the fire buckets, we had big tin buckets, just made out of tin, the top of a corned beef tin had been taken off, and a handle put on, and in the winter a fire bucket was useless because it used to freeze solid. And in the Summer time, a different thing, we were quite a way from the sea, Harry Brown used to use a stirrup pump. Now how useless were those in a big inferno, the pump with a little piddly stream of water coming out. But he used to be good in the summer. He used to spray this stirrup pump all over us, in our bathers.

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