大象传媒

LIFE IN ELTHAM , London SE9 in 1938 just prior to the Second World War
In 1938, my father who was working in the Research Department at Woolwich Arsenal in London SE18. He was a mathematical physicist and had been working at Woolwich since 1915 when he was sent there with other scientists to form a research group under the direction of the War Office.In 1938 he was convinced that war would come to Britain and so he prepared plans for a deep air raid shelter in our back garden near to the house. My father, mother and me dug a very large deep hole in the garden and on the base of the hole we poured concrete onto hardcore to the depth of about 4 inches. My father then purchased a medium sized garden shed which he erected on and bolted to the concrete base, which was to act as the inner shuttering for the sides of the shelter. Six inches away from the shed walls we built the outer shuttering with wooden planks and placed reinforcing steel bars between so that they were imbedded in the concrete which was then poured into the gap. The result was a solid re-enforced concrete box about 10 x 8 x 6 feet. The roof was made of 9 inch reinforced concrete which completed the structure.
The entrances to the shelter was via a wide concrete vertical chimney which you climbed down and entered the shelter proper through a side door. An emergency escape hatch was fitted at the far end of the shelter in case the entrance was blocked by bomb debris. The reason for the chimney type entrances was that they serve as a blast wall and could be covered at the top to prevent the entry of heavier that air poison gas.
The Government believed that if we were attacked by Germany they would attack military, industrial and civilian targets with massive air raids and might possibly use mustard gas. The concrete structure was then covered with 18 inch layer of earth. This took us about 4 months to make, much to the amusement of the neighbours who told us there would not be a war because Mr.Chamberlain said so. Life went on as usual until about June 1939, we were all issued with civilian gas masks. The Government decided later in the year to sell a corrugated steel Anderson shelter, named after the Minister of Home Security Sir John Anderson, which could be buried in the garden and which would give protection against bomb blast.

THE SECOND WORLD WAR

Evacuation to Tunbridge Wells
About August 1939, just before we declared war on Germany, the schools in London were evacuated to the country areas. We were not told the date of the evacuation so we went to school each day with a haversack containing clean clothes for three days, sandwiches for a day, and our gas mask..

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On the fateful day the school left by steam train from Lewisham station and arrived at Tunbridge Wells. We were we walked from the station to a church hall. Here we lined up and were picked out by the families who we would be billeted with. Most of these people did not want to take us so we were going to be reluctant guests. Of our group, Rawstron and me were the last to be picked. We went to a Mr and Mrs Thair. Mr Thair was a newsagent and did his best to be kind to us.
His son had just been called up into the Royal Artillery and he was doing his primary training at Larkhill. Mrs.Thair had lost her teeth probably due to a gum infection and we lived on a diet of minced meat and soft foods. Rawstron and me remained there until the Battle of Britain started in June 1940. During evacuation as we shared a school we only had half time education. Our schooling was done in the afternoon, so during the morning the masters arranged for us to go for walks and collect plants etc. We covered most of the wood and open spaces around Tunbridge Wells. One incident I remember was watching young soldiers digging slit trenches on the high ground in Mount Ephraim Road and an electric car driven by a liveried chauffeur stopped by them. A very old lady dressed in black, looking like Queen Mary, stepped out of the car and gave each soldier a packet of Woodbine cigarettes. She then got back in and the car glided off silently.
During this period there was considerable anxiety about the possibility of an invasion by land and by airborne troops. This was the period after the retreat of the British Expeditionary Force from Dunkirk. One day we were asked to go the Tunbridge Wells railway station to help the Women's Voluntary Service give tea and sandwiches to the men in the troop trains returning from France. Most of these soldiers were in a bad state, having lost their uniforms and equipment during the evacuation from the beaches in France. They were dog tired and could hardly keep awake. I had to take mugs of tea to the carriage windows when the trains stopped and then collect the empty mugs. Unfortunately on that day after we had given all the mugs out to the troops the train decided to leave Tunbridge Wells towards Southborough with all our mugs. One of the masters, who had a car, rushed to Southborough, where the train was stopped to recover the mugs.
Later that week we were sent to the Royal Tunbridge Wells Hospital to paint the outside white and workmen then painted the roof white and put a large red cross on it. A few days later a German bomber dropped a large oil fire bomb onto the hospital. So we were sent back and the building was sprayed with drab green paint and we tied thousands of strips of cloth onto chicken meshed frames which were then sprayed with camouflage paint. These panels were screwed against the side of the hospital.
The Battle of Britain
During the Battle of Britain the German fighter aircraft would machine gun civilians in the street or fields. A number of people were killed picking strawberries in the fields at Poll Hill. Posters were put up showing the appearance of German parachutists. Our headmaster, Mr Morris, one afternoon at assembly, announced that the Germans might land dressed as nuns. If any boy saw a tall person dressed as a nun they were to inform their housemaster or the nearest policeman. I am glad to say I never saw such a nun.

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Leaving Mrs Thairs was a joy to me especially because I was then billeted with a Captain and Mrs Osborne . They treated me like their own son. They had a grown up daughter who had married a farmer and lived in the Tunbridge Wells area but my interest was in their red setter called Rusty who took a liking to me and we became friends. Their house was in Rusthall, a few miles from Tunbridge Wells so it was good way from my school. I was bought a Royal Enfield roadster bicycle by my parents so that I could get to school, but it also meant that I could, once a fortnight, cycle from Tunbridge Wells to Halstead where they now lived.

In 1940 my father was moved from Woolwich Arsenal to Fort Halstead, a secret Armament Research Department away from the expected heavy bombing of London.

Cycling along the roads in Southern England during the Battle of Britain was an interesting experience. Road blocks were placed on all main roads about every few miles. These consisted of wooden X frames covered with barbed wire. I was stopped at these checkpoints and sometimes my saddlebag was searched. The summer of 1940 was very hot and dry. The only incriminating thing I had in the saddlebag was a bottle of lemonade and some cakes given to me by Mrs. Osborne. One weekend I arrived at 4, London Road, Halstead, where my parents now lived, and went into the garden to see how my one- man trench was getting on. I had dug a circular pit at the end of the garden as a firing point. I had just got into my hole with my 0.22 calibre air rifle when a Messerchmitt ME 109 flew low over the road outside and fired a machine gun burst at a Green Line bus, passing along the main road. Some of the Green Line buses were used as ambulances but being painted green the Germans thought they were military vehicles. Unfortunately for the ME 109 there was a Spitfire on his tail, the pilot had forgotten to look in his mirror. I fired at the ME 109 and the Spitfire shuddered as he fired and smoke came from the German plane. We had a Lewis gun team in a hedge at the end of the row of houses, but because ammunition was very short they had to get permission from Bromley to open fire. The German pilot climbed in order to bailout and he came down by parachute in a wheat field at the back of our row of houses. The Local Defence Volunteers [LDV] had just been formed and they had only armbands and any shotguns etc they could find. Mr. Vallis, a local solicitor was in charge of our LDV unit. He had been an officer in the First World War and he had a Colt pistol but no ammunition. Vallis and some farm-workers in the field with shot-guns surrounded the German.
I was told to remain by the gate, and Mr Vallis went up the German pilot with his pistol. The German was over 6 feet tall and had across his chest a machine pistol. Vallis went up to him and shouted" Hande hoch". The German replied by spitting in his face. Anyway, he was captured and we all went into Mr Vallis's house. He lived with his mother who had been a Sister at St.Thomas Hospital in London. No member of the Luftwaffe was a match for an ex ward sister from Tommies, remember Forence Nightingale!! She insisted that we all had a cup of hot sweet tea. The German was sat in the kitchen with us and the tea duly arrived. He would not drink it because he thought it was poisoned. Only when we drank would he join us.

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Our LDV hoped to keep the machine pistol because that would have given us superior fire-power. When the prisoners escort arrived, the sergeant asked what had happened to the machine pistol, so unfortunately we had to hand it over.
The group of houses in London Road had a communal concrete sided air- raid shelter which my father and the neighbours constructed. When the air- raid sirens sounded we all took cover in this shelter. Along the road lived a Mr and Mrs Higman. Mr Higman ran a Thames Barge Company so was on essential war work. Mrs Higman was a large jolly lady who probably had been a barmaid in East London. She had a heart of gold and used to have open house to the soldiers manning the machine gun post at the end of the row of houses.
She would invite me into her house for fish suppers which were washed down with ginger beer. The soldiers were given a hot bath and then a good supper with stronger beer. What I also remember of her was she had a black chow called George. George idolized her and when to raids started she would come into the shelter with George duly muzzled, both her and the dog shaking with fear. I used to sit between them calming the dog while Mrs Higman gave us all the benefit of her vocabulary of swearing against the Germans.
During the weekends when I visited my parents there were constant air raids both during the day and at night. Biggin Hill was attacked almost every day by Heinkel 111 bombers escorted by Messerschmitt fighters. The family .the Dobbs living next door to us had a daughter, who during the Battle of Britain, volunteered to serve in the British Red Cross as a nurse. Her baptism of fife was when she had to go over to Biggin Hill, with the ambulances, after the air raid shelters had been hit by bombs. She arrived home after this experience ashen faced after she had searched among the mutilated bodies for survivors.
Life with the Osborn's looked up when I found an old army Sam Brown belt hanging in their garden outhouse. I cleaned it up with furniture polish and Brasso and Mr. Osborne decided it was so good he would wear it on the LDV parades. He discovered that in the local museum there was a First World War Lewis gun with two empty ammunition magazines. He wrote out an IOU for the Curator on behalf of HM Government and took charge of this machine gun. Some short time later, as platoon commander, he received a box of American 0.300 inch rifle ammunition for his section. It was hoped that his platoon would be issued with American rifles that fired this ammunition. He telephoned the Army drill hall in Southborough who had 0.303 ammunition but needed the 0.300 size for their American Rifles. So we did a swap. Now his platoon had a working machine gun with a box of ammunition. They set up a machine gun post on the Common opposite his house and practiced with the gun.. They could not fire it because Winston Churchill said that ammunition was only to be used against the enemy, not for practice.
At the end of the Battle of Britain, the Luftwaffe had failed to gain air superiority which was essential before the invasion of Britain. Although we had lost most of our army and much equipment, the Royal Navy was very strong and would have could terrible losses for the Germans if they had crossed the Channel in barges, which they intended to do. Churchill decided to rebuild the army as soon as possible and to fortify Southern England and East Anglia.

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