大象传媒

TIN HATS AND TOY GUNS

Chapter five
1943 Growing up !
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A lot of things had changed during 1942.
Now, 1943 everything moved on a bit.
It was the year I went to the BIG school.
Suddenly, I was not required to be on the 'stirrup pump' team any more.
I had put out a lot of oily rags in St John's schoolyard, but, no actual incendiary bombs.
In a way, I was disappointed. I would certainly not have hesitated. I would have proved something to myself.
Also, there was my personal air raid shelter. No one looked after it now. It was a bit more of the process of moving towards World war two, part two, I guess ?
So much had depended on our shelters when the Heinkel's had clouded our skies.
Now, they were a rare event and my little shelter rapidly started to look abandoned.'as indeed, it was'.
I often looked at it rather sadly as I passed it during the second part of our disagreement with uncle Adolf.
Due to my dyslexia, which had a different name in those days.. It was called 'Stupidity', I was going to the big school.
It was a large red brick building on the hill, opposite where we lived, past the gasworks. It had a huge sports field.
Part of the field was used for growing vegetables during the war, and one of the pairs of goalposts had sandbags hanging from them ! They were used by the Home Guard, who used to run at them with bayonets held out on the end of their rifles, screaming and uttering bloodthirsty curses !
But, before I moved on, I had the chance of spending the last bit of my summer holidays in Wales.
The weather was really good.
Some days, fleecy White clouds drifted across the tips of the mountains, casting deep mysterious shadows down into the deep valleys, where distant sheep grazed among the summer grass and the yellow gorse bushes.
Little mountain streams rushed down the mossy rocks and down into the river below.
From our little cottage at Tan y Foel, we looked down on the slate roof tops of Bethesda.and over to the galleries of the Penhryn slate quarry beyond.
Little steam engines chugged along in those days, pulling little trucks of slate to the cutting sheds.
I used to sit on the drystone wall and watch them puffing along.
Sometimes, I would hear a whistle sound. A warning that blasting was about to take place. Then, a couple of minutes later, the rumble of an explosion would drift across to me.
But, there was something else.
High up on a ridge called 'Cylfach', I think, to the side of the 'Black ladders', forming a ridge between the mountains, Dafydd and Llewelyn, was the wreckage of one of the many aircraft that Had, and would continue to crash among the mountains of north Wales.
I decided that I would go up and have a closer look.
For years, I had walked those mountains with my Grandad and I had no doubt about my ability to get up there.
I to;d my parents that I was going onto the mountain, but, I didn't say where.
At first, it was just a matter of scrambling over a few rocks and walking the soft springy turf among the grazing sheep. But, as I got higher, so the rocks became bigger and the streams, wilder and swifter.
Upwards I struggled
Higher and higher ' Slowly'.
I stopped to look back. I could see right over Bangor and, beyond to Anglesey and the Irish sea.
A wild place indeed. Not much further.
I knew something about the plane.
I think it was a Blenheim bomber and it had crashed into the mountain side a couple of months before.
The crew had been killed. It was some time before the R.A.F. mountain rescue people found the wreckage because of the very severe weather.
The whole mountainside had been covered in the freezing, driving mist that often cove res the tops.
It was actually a quarry man from Bethesda who discovered its exact location.
So, when I came over the last ridge and found myself very close to the plane, I was close to crying at the thought of the poor lads who had died there.
Of course, the R.A,F. had, long since taken the bodies away, also the guns and ammunition.
It all looked so peaceful on this lovely summers day.
What had begun as a boys adventure , full of enthusiasm ,to see the wreckage, had become, without any doubt, A very sombre time for an eleven year old lad, standing in this wild spot !
I did some growing up, as I stood among the wreckage. I was overcome by the thought that I was standing among what had been, a short time before, a mighty modern weapon of war.
How flimsy it all looked now.
I think that the remoteness of the place really showed me the disaster of it all.
Listened to the mournful bleating of the sheep and looked over to the towering face of the 'Back Ladders', and to Dafydd beyond. Suddenly, for the first time, I really felt the utter futility of what was going on all over the world !
Some distance from the wreckage, I spotted a leather flying helmet.
Had those lads known that they were flying right into a mountain ? I think not.
It was a much subdued lad that scrambled down the mountain.
I didn't tell my parents where I had been.
I was just in time to hear the familiar sound of ' Lilly Bolero', as I reached the tiny cottage.
It was the introduction to my favourite ' Into Battle ' programme, but, for once, my mind was not on the drama.
The Catalina flying boats were still moored in the Menai Straits.
Something else. There was an old wooden battleship of Nelson's time, H.M.S. Conway
moored near the pier. It was a training ship for young cadets. They were laughing as they came ashore at the pier for a day in Bangor.
The sea was still blue and the sun was warm. But, it was time for me to go back to England, and my new school.
As the train pulled into Chester station, with a great hissing of steam, and stopped with a jerk, I remembered that this was where it all began for me. I had been coming home from a holiday in Wales with my uncle, when, here at Chester station, the loudspeakers had announced that we were at war with Germany .
Surely, it couldn't last much longer ?
I was wrong..........
Very few planes flew up towards us now. Liverpool still got a few raids, and Hull and places where they knew that there were military supplies.
In 1943, even London got a short breathing space !
What I did notice, was that the Americans were everywhere. They looked very smart in their well cut uniforms, but, they didn't look at all like good soldiers !
After all, our soldiers had been involved in the war now for three years. They had seen our cities bombed and suffered the defeat of Dunkirk. They had done a lot of pretty hard training since then and it was slowly becoming obvious that there was a professionalism now.
The civilians who had gone to war, were becoming fine soldiers.
My own little war carried on.
I went to visit my friends at the anti aircraft gun.
They had hear ed a rumour that they were moving out. I still worked at the farm. I enjoyed that.
They now had a tractor. A big blue monster with 'Fordson' across the front in big white letters. The old horses still did a lot of work in the fields ,by now, we were great pals. Big, soft, gentle giants.
The girls had become much more professional
too.
They were very organised.
The 'Women's Land Army. They had a smart uniform.
There was another sort of uniform appearing in the fields too.
They all had a big coloured patch sewn in the middle of their jackets.
They were German prisoners of war.
They were escorted to the farms each morning by armed guards and dropped off at the farms in little groups.
The music was changing too !
Our good old patriotic songs were moving over to make room for bands like ' Glen Miller'.
American culture was creeping in , even then.
I was totally converted ! The cowboys were actually here among us !
The skies were filling with Flying Fortresses and Liberators and a lot of strange fighter planes with white stars on their wings.
A lot of American soldiers were going south, but we didn't know that.
Another thing arrived from America.
We loved Spam and Prem and dried eggs, But,
on a visit to Grandad Walkers home, Auntie Elsie put something on the table that I didn't recognise.
A sort of long, black, hard looking thing.
With pride, she brought the kettle and gently poured on some hot water.
We watched , fascinated, as the black thing slowly expanded and changed colour to a sort of dirty looking brown.
" There you are ", auntie Elsie said with pride , " Try that ".
" What is it ?". I was very doubtful.
It looked awful !
" It's American dried banana "
I remembered what banana's looked like.
They had changed a lot since 1939 !
I approached the table rather like the army lads approached an unexploded bomb.
I picked up a fork and wondered what the Americans had got against me !
Slowly, I placed a very little piece on my tongue. I was amazed. It tasted like banana !
WE really appreciated all the things that came across the Atlantic. We would have had a much harder time without them. But,
dried bananas were not at the top of my list.
About this time, my uncle Joe left the home guard. He had been in since the days of broom handles. Now, he was going into the army. He did his training and went on to do further training with radio and signals.
He went over to France just after D day, and stayed on in Europe until after the war ended.
According to the B.B.C. everything was going very well.
More merchant ships were getting through.
We got fifty ancient destroyers ; ships' from America. It seems that Churchill Had done some sort of deal with them .
My father was not happy about it, but we needed those ships very badly.
It made no difference to our food situation.
We knew that there was a big build up of military supplies coming over, and we guessed why !
Old Hitler was heading for 'payback time '!.
The Germans were beginning to get their share of bombing at last.
I certainly did not feel any sort of revenge. Even at the age of twelve, I knew only too well about the misery and hardships of bombing.
I had been lucky. I came through the bombing at an age when everything was a great adventure.
But, for many kids of my age, and a lot younger, the adventure turned into reality, when their homes were destroyed ans many of them died.
Yes, I had no feeling of revenge.
The Germans were human beings and nobody deserved to spend night after night under a blanket of falling bombs.
We had faced it, but I didn't wish it on German families.
Before the war, we had ALL played with our toys and gone to school. ' the lucky ones had been taken to the seaside during the summer holidays. I was sure that the German kids made model planes out of bits of firewood.
I was very confused about it all.
Sixty years on, I am still confused !
Over the skies of Germany, our R.A.F. boys flew during the night and the American U.S.A.A.F. flew during the day.
I knew that Hitler had to be defeated, but, why did so many innocent people have to suffer ?
( that is how little Arnold thought about the war when he was twelve ).
So, our B.B.C. was welcome.
But, we had another source of news 'From Berlin '. A chap known as ' Lord Haw Haw' used to give up news in English.
He WAS English !
His accent was silly and the rubbish that he told us was even more so.
He used to tell us that we were losing the war and he warned the Jewish people that the Gemans would be here before very long !

I remembered again, my little Jewish friend.
She had been forced out of her country. I did not think that we would allow Hitler to come here.
By then , we knew that it was not all going as Hitler wanted it to.
Really, Lord Haw Haw was a joke. As he was English, he should have known that his silly talk would have no effect on us .
I listened to the new music.
Boogie woogie, Jazz and the new dance music.
We had been brought up on a diet of 1920s and 1930s music.
I like to listen to it even now !
It brings back to me, a feeling of the innocence of those far away days.
It takes me back to' ARNHILL' and Bangor pier, where I used to sit, watching my uncles dancing among the little coloured lights.
I used to sit, watching the water under the pier flickering in the moonlight.
Surely, it would go on forever ?
Ha, Ha, I just didn't know !.
Now. I was fascinated by this new music from America.
In those dark days of rationing and blackout, when a lot of buildings were just rubble and all the young men were in the forces, we needed just what we got !
It was like a glimpse of fairyland !
'Little brown jug ' and' Pennsylvania 65000'
It was magic.
Very few of us even had a a telephone !
Uncle Ken was in the desert now. My dads brothers were both in the army.
Cyril, the eldest, had always been the wild one of the family.
He joined the new 'Parachute regiment' and was going to win the Military medal at a place called 'Arnhem'.
But, in those days, we had never heard of 'Arnhem' of a lot of other places that were to become household names in the future !
I was busy adjusting to life in my new school. One of the things we did was, one day every week, we went out working on the farms, doing things like Potato picking an pulling and chopping the leaves and root off turnips.
It was very hard work. Row after row of turnips had to be pulled out of the wet clay and we had to chop off each end with a blunt muddy knife.
Standing up was considered unpatriotic ! Our farmer wanted lots of work out of us. We got seven shillings for a months work.
I never got my seven shillings !
I managed to get permission to do my day on the farm where my pals the horses were.

We had our dinners at school, or rather, not far away.
There was an old converted chapel. now, it was called a 'British restaurant '.
These establishments sprung up all over the country.
The idea was, that workers who had no canteen, could get a mid day meal.
In our case, we were classed as ' workers who had no canteen'!
I suppose they did their best in view of rationing.
But, I can still have nightmares if I think about those dinners.
A scoop full of chunky mashed potato and warm hard carrots, some sort of fish or perhaps wartime sausages.
That fish was supposed to have come out of the sea!
Pudding, yes. Usually prunes and custard, or bread pudding and custard.
Jam rolly polly without the jam.
But, there was always custard !
Wartime custard tasted of saccharine and cardboard. I am being kind to the custard manufacturers !....
Sometimes, we got sago. I loved sago. how can you destroy sago by cooking it ?.
Sago doesn't give me nightmares.
After dinner, we schoolkids were required to wash up.
Piles of heavy, grey looking wartime plates and dishes.
There was always plenty of custard left !
Oh, I almost forgot the Corned beef.
The ministry of food and agriculture, made mountains of tins of corned beef for our troops.
I was told, after the war, about a group of our gallant soldiers who were required to dig a hole in the desert, for their officers to work in.
( in soft desert sand ) The only thing they had to line the hole with was ....
( yes, you guessed it ). 5 pound tins of corned beef !
So, somewhere in the Libyan desert, there is a filled in hole still lined with corned beef !
We even got corned beef at our British restaurant, but, not often.
I have not visited Radcliffe for many years, but, I wonder what became of the big gaunt stone building at the end of School Street ?
Is it still a ' British Restaurant ?'.
If so, stay away from the custard !
By now, we had got used to the sight of the German prisoners working in the fields.
Because I did my little bit of war work on the farm, I came into contact with the Germans.
Always the same crowd at the same farm.
They still had an armed guard with a rifle, but they didn't seen to be very inclined to want to escape !
I was not, of course, supposed to come into contact with these , the enemy, soldiers.
But , the more I saw of them, the less they seemed to be the same soldiers that I had seen marching across Poland and Belgium with their tanks and jackboots .
Perhaps, they were just waiting for the Fuhrer to arrive and free them ?

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