大象传媒

My story has many Chapters

Chapter 2

As I explained in the first five years of my live living with my mother, sister and two brothers in North Camp and then being taken from my family and then living in Frimley Green some four miles away but still surrounded by many military barracks Blackdown Camp was just a mile away. The presants of solders training and marching was very clear also being bombed one night, three bombs very close to the house and waking up with the loud noise was very frightening for a young boy of five years old.

My Father was still away training new recruits to ride motor cycles and become dispache riders, it was a home posting because he contracted diptheria and nearly died as a young boy he was not fit to go abroad, he got a home posting but was doing a great job for the country so we only saw him once or twice a year but I enjoyed his company when he came home, he love to watch Aldershot play football, as war time Aldershot had many great names playing for them as they were at the Army physical training centre in Aldershot,Stanley Mathews and Tommy Laughton and other were ofton playing,He loved his football and often took me to watch,

My grandparents who I was living with made the best of every thing and just managed as best they could,my grand father who was a solder in the Boer war in Africa so was well used to war.My grandmother earned money from washing and starching the parsons and choir boys gowns for the Church in Blackdown, all the washing was done by hand so it was very hard for her.

So at night with the blackout in place we had to sleep all together in a Morisson Shelter,a steel shelter in the front room it was cramped but we felt safe and during the day this shelter was used as a table to eat our meals on. I remember it well a steel top with four corner posts with strong square wire mesh at the front sides and end and painted black, so if a bomb hit the house and the house collapse we would be hopefully still alive.

The date is now 1944 and remembering many events the mass of increase in troop movements around the streets and roads as each Saturday we used to travel to Aldershot by bus, the well known Aldershot and District Bus service, a regular and reliable bus service from Frimley Green to Aldershot and passing masses of troops marching from the barracks and parade grounds I remember the Queens avenue a major road connecting Aldershot and North Camp about a mile long just full of marching solders from one end to the other.

The only good thing I remember was I had an uncle who lived with us during the war and he worked as an electricians mate in the field stores in Aldershot just next to the Cambridge Military hospital and nearly every friday night he would collect food from the army cook house and bring it home to us, meat pies and lardicakes and often bread so it had some advantages being close to the camps or working in them,just a small bonus when times were really hard.

A sight that has to be seen to appreciate what was happening at that time and of course as a small boy I did not inquire I just took every thing for granted and enjoyed watching all this activity that was going on. I was so used to seeing them all as I had not known any thing else other than every where I was, it was just many solders and equipment, lorries of all sizes,tanks,guns,and horses everywhere.

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