大象传媒

MY WAR 鈥� BY ED BROWNE

Part one - Evacuation

In September 1939 I was 11 years old and started the new term at a new school. My home was in Stratford in the East End of London. The teachers knew that evacuation was a strong possibility so at school there was no attempt to teach us anything in the few days leading up to the Friday, I think it was, 1st September. It was in this period at school that we were allowed to play cards and so I learnt, in my new school, how to play 3 card Brag.

On Friday, 1st September we duly marched to the railway station and were put on a train and, later that day, deposited near Felixstowe. Another lad and I found ourselves billeted on an elderly couple, late 60s-early 70s, I should think. My foster brother was a Jewish lad whose father owned a shop near the school, back home in the East End. At school one of the teachers took me aside and instructed me not to let on to our foster parents that Louis was Jewish. It was explained to me that some folks may not be happy with a Jewish lad. When Sunday came my elderly foster parents carted Louis and me off to the local Congregational Church. I guess it made a change from the synagogue for Louis! When Louis鈥� parents came for a visit, they did look and sound very Jewish and my foster parents tried to pump me gently but I didn鈥檛 let on. Anyway, Louis鈥� dad gave me half a crown, not to be sneezed at in 1939! The foster parents were very keen to observe the commandment about doing no work on the Sabbath 鈥� Sunday dinner was always cold meat and cold mashed potatoes, cooked on Saturday.

Part two 鈥� Back to the Blitz

Sometime in January 1940 my mother came and took me back to London and so to normal school until, that is, when the bombing started.

One Saturday afternoon in August, I think, I was accompanying my mother shopping in Stratford Broadway, when everyone became conscious of high flying aircraft and looking up I can remember seeing large formations of German aircraft. To the best of my knowledge there had been no air-raid warning. We hurried home and I can remember seeing the dog fights going on way above the barrage balloons. I can vividly remember seeing a Messerschmitt 109 coming down and crashing less than a mile or so away, also a Spitfire being shot down in flames and the pilot coming down by parachute. It was at this stage my father clipped me around the ear and told me to get down into the Anderson shelter; all this was very exciting to a twelve year old (the dog fights, that is, not the clip around the ear!).

When the Blitz got underway in earnest we, like all the neighbours, got down into our Anderson shelters when the air raid warning sounded. Some nights were worse than others. I can still recall how terrifying it was to hear bombs getting closer and closer and we were all pretty scared in those moments.

Opposite our home was a school, no longer open for children as schools were now closed, which served as an ambulance station. My father, an air raid warden, had warned the drivers on a numbers of occasions on their careless use of lights around the playground at night. Whether what happened one fateful night was a result of their carelessness I shall never know. On this particular night I was in our living room reading Robert Louis Stevenson鈥檚 鈥淭reasure Island鈥� and I had just started on the chapter 鈥滼im in the Apple Barrel鈥� when I heard the characteristic sound of German bombers. No warning siren had sounded. Suddenly there was the noise of a salvo of bombs, then a tremendous explosion. The window was blown out and I was covered in plaster as the ceiling came down. Dad, who was on duty, came rushing in and turned off the light as the window was now missing. He was well known for being uncomplimentary about the ambulance people and their carelessness with lights.

Part three 鈥� From London to the countryside

Eventually I found myself evacuated to various places 鈥� Cambridge and Worcestershire where I spent some of the happiest days of my life. For the kid from the East End coming in from school, milking the cow by hand, feeding the pigs, ducks and chickens, it was simply great. I stayed in a cottage three fields from the nearest road. Walking home from school across these fields, often containing cows and a bull, sometimes made for an anxious moment or two.

In 1942 I moved to Newquay in Cornwall. Like many boys I joined the Air Training Corps and often went up to St Mawgan, now Newquay Airport, in our uniforms and tried to scrounge free flights from pilots testing aircraft. On one occasion I flew to Nottinghamshire and on the return flight fell asleep, waking up over Dartmoor surrounded by Lancaster bombers en route for the U-Boat pens at Brest. I remember thinking what if an enemy fighter appeared 鈥� our little de Havilland Dominie was so slow, and unarmed!

It was while at Newquay that the war in Europe ended. Because of exams I remained in Cornwall and returned to my home in the East End on VJ Day.

For countless millions the war had been a dreadful experience but for this kid from London鈥檚 East End it opened up a world I hadn鈥檛 dreamed of.

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