大象传媒

At the age of seven in 1940 the sky seemed always to be full of aeroplanes. They came in all colours ranging from yellow for trainers, some were of course camoflaged in shades of brown/green on their sides and upper surfaces, with black underneath (except special photo reconnaisance spy aircraft which were sky blue all over making them difficult to see when high in the summer sky). Night fighters were all black, so also were the night intruder bombers. Some Spitfires had one wing black and one wing silver, giving a poor outline of shape. They also had their own distinctive sound which I could recognise and identify without looking up. This became one of my many pastimes (to guess correctly) then look up. Tiger Moths were very numerous and some became lost on occasion, and force landed in the fields close by, much to our enjoyment. When asked which way to go by the pilots who then took off in our new given direction.

German aircraft had a different sound which was more of a growl, at night and I could identify their various noises. Some were diesels, some were petrol driven I found out later. I was also an expert at aircraft recognition and knew them all. One day I saw three Hurricanes chasing a Dornier 17 over Blunham, they were in a line astern and all three had a go in turn, their machine guns were very loud and the pieces fell off the bomber. I saw two parachutes over Tempsford and heard later it had crashed at Eaton Socon behind a pub. This aircraft had the nickname of 'The Flying Pencil' due no doubt to it's very thin, long fuselage. I heard that the survivors were taken off by the local polliceman into captivity.

Some weeks later during a raid when the bomb went off one evening, the blast effects turned over all the crockery and loose items in the house which swayed in a peculiar way (I was told later this was due to it being of wattle and daub and wood construction/thatch roof, etc.) as it absorbed the shock wave much better than a brick built house (which was too rigid). I still have a piece of schrapnel from this bomb, taken from the hole in the ground where it struck. It was said by the villagers that the bomber was trying to hit Little Barford power station but mistook our river for the proper river it was next to, and so missed the intended target.

My schooldays were full of excitment. Blast walls were built outside the school windows and a 'bolt hole' was made in the wall for escape purposes. When we had filled all of the pages of our exercise book during the lessons, we were forced to turn the book upside down and fill in the gaps left originally with the next lessons, to economise on paper (of which we were very short). We were not allowed to be issued with a new book until it was inspected to check that no space was left that could possibly be used up.

The village signposts were removed, so local knowledge had to be used by the villagers to navigate the local roads. This was to prevent spys from finding their way around should they come. There were also 'curious' posts which appeared situation at the sides of the road which had a square piece of painted plywood nailed at a shallow angle on the top. This paint, I was told was 'special' and changed colour if we were attacked with gas.

There was no petrol available so our car was jacked up on bricks and later became a chicken house, with nests in the glove compartments and back seats. Bicycles became valuable and were highly sought after. No spares/tyres, batteries were available and everything was best painted white so it showed up in the dark. The car of course had light protectors on the headlamps and were painted white around the wheel arches and bumpers.

We had to carry a gas mask everywhere. They were inspected weekly at school by, incredulously, a teacher who had the sharpest finger nails I have ever seen, and who thumbed her way through all the pupils rubber face masks. I'm sure some were holed and rendered unserviceable.

Living on a farm we found the most useful item was a bale wire (used to tie bales of straw very tightly together) it was used to repair almost everything, broken ploughs, carts, fences, gates and cars. It was indispensible. Sadly no longer with us, superceded by string (far less useful).

The men came from 'The Ministry' and took all the metal items in the village. Fences, gates, railing, etc. for the 'War Effort'. Also pots and pans for aluminium for Spitfires. There were regular collections for alunminium, and each village collected enough for a Spitfire (eventually). We then got a Certificate.

'Milestone inspectors' or Roadster as we called them, were men who roamed the countryside and regularly 'camped out' on waste ground at the edge of the village, as did the occasional gypsy family. We often had a 'roadster' call with his 'billy-can' for a top up of tea and sugar (which was put in altogether) and this stayed in the can for many brew-ups subsequently. It was always believed that it was bad luck to refuse this traditional offering and that a secret sign was put on your gate to tell other roadsters they could also partake of this service. It seemed that this did work for this became a fortnightly occurrence with other roadsters coming for their top up. That is until rationing came in but we still managed something using beet sugar.

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