大象传媒

Home was a new brick semi-detached three-bedroomed house on Nevill Estate, just outside Lewes on the edge of the Downs, where there was a racecourse and car speed trials were held. Mum and Dad and I moved in in May 1937, when I was four-and-a-half. The house cost 拢750 and the garage an extra 拢50. There were small gardens front and back, where Dad grew many vegetables, including runner beans and potatoes.

Our next-door neighbours on one side were Mr and Mrs Channon, and their only son Brian - slightly older than myself. He was a manager for Eastwood's Cement, who had a works and quarry at the other end of town. On the other side was Miss Rolls, a slightly dotty lady of a certain age.

Because my Dad was Clerk of Works for the East Sussex County Architect's Department, and had to travel all over supervising work on County property - schools, old peoples' homes, police stations, and roadmen's cottages for example,he needed a car.We were one of the minority of families owning a car in the late 1930's. In school holidays, I used to go out with him on his trips and got to know the whole county which, in those days, went from Portslade and Handcross in the west to Rye in the east and inland fron the English Channel to East Grinstead.Mum had been a manageress for Boots Chemists but hadn't worked since they married in 1931.

The house was cosy and comfortable. The front door was at the side of the house, opening onto the drive. Inside there was a hall, with the lounge opening on the left. Further along was the dining-room and, at the end,the kitchen - which had no washing machine or fridge - just a cold slab in the larder, although there was a coke boiler which heated the house and provided hot water. Upstairs were three bedrooms and a bathroom, but no shower. Baths were weekly, usually on a Friday or Saturday. We didn't seem to go short of anything, although I was carefully shielded from any influence of that sort.Coffee was drunk only on special occasions and chicken featured on the table only at Christmastime.

On the morning of Sunday, September 3, 1939, Mum was in the kitchen making Sunday dinner. Dad was digging vegetables to go with the roast, and I was chatting over the fence to Brian Channon from next door.
Mum had the radio on and just after 11 o'clock, came running out of the back door, shouting to Dad "Jack, it's war!"

Over the next year, the signs of war became more and more evident. Dad built an air-raid shelter in the back garden, where we used to sleep at the heart of the blitz, when German bombers flew over every night on their way to London. Invasion scares abounded. Daytime raids meant meals in the shelter, where we were frequently joined by the dotty Miss Rolls. Mum and I went to live in Gloucestershire with her parents for four months in 1940 - after Dunkirk. Dad started an affair with a fellow fire-watcher, a lady.

The nearest I ever came to tragedy was when a stick of incendiaries were dropped on a field opposite the end of our road. Mum threw me into a cupboard under the stairs and laid on top of me. The blast travelled down the road, doing surprisingly little damage, and blew out the butcher's plate-glass window. Our front door gave at the hinges, but stayed in position. Other bombs were dropped on Lewes, which was a significant railway junction, and once a damaged German plane came down on the race-course.V1's (doodle-bugs) appeared in the skies in 1944 and used to pass over us regularly. I once saw an ack-ack battery score a direct it on one, exploding it in mid-air.

I survived the war, as did many others, with no physical damage. Mentally, the enormous pressure of mere existence in a war situation, and the deteriorating relations between Mum and Dad, shaped the adult I was to become.

There were three shops serving the estate just up the road - a newsagent's, a butcher's and a grocer's.

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