大象传媒

I was born in October 1934, and started school at the age of five, one month after war was declared. As that was nearly sixty five years ago its not easy to recall all that went on but, certain things I will never forget.

One evening very early in 1940 just prior to my father being called up to join the forces, a mine dropped in a small woods (Bursted Woods), I can remember the sound of the explosion until this day, my father explained that a mine was about as big as a telephone box dropped on a parachute and packed with explosives, part of the crater of that mine still exists today. Sometime later, I was on the way back from school in the afternoon when I met my mother we had just reached the top of our road when a plane flew over low you could here the scream of a bomb as it was falling, my my mother threw me on the ground aginst a wall and got on top of me to shield me, the bomb fell a quarter of the way down our street
outside a bungalow of a family named Godbolt, the wall my mother had thrown uas agianst just fell over, yes it went the other way not on top of us.

My worst experience was when I had arranged to meet my Mother during the school lunch break to buy a new pair of shoes, my school Bexleyheath Secondary Modern was only 5 minutes from the school and my mother worked in the shops at Collins the cleaners, which was situated in Watling Street (the Old Roman Road, in the centre of Bexleyheath). Watling Street was so straight you could see for a long way. After buying the shoes we walked out of the shop and at the top of the street above the clock tower you could see this aeroplane flying fast and very low, we thought it was a Spitfire when all of a sudden it opened fire, my mother pushed me in a shop doorway, many people were killed in the street, and it straffed the cinema in the main road (The Regal) which on a Wednesday afternoon (which this was) used to have half price addmission for pensioners ( known to day as senior citizens) many of those died as well.

Late in 1942 women who's husbands were at war and only had one child had to find a minder and get a full time job, I went to stay with my grandmother (a wonderful person)in Woolwich, London, and my mother went to work in Woolwich Arsenal making bullets/shells working ten and twelve our shifts. I stayed with my grandmother in the week and went home weekends.

I should also mention that as well as working twelve our shifts, she was made leading fire warden for our area, often runing around in the middle of the night organising the rest in the area with their Stirrup Pumps and buckets of sand, this was to put out incendary bombs.

There were some funny sides to the war as well.
My other Grandmother my Mothers mother came down from Newcastle to stay for a few weeks.
In our garden we had a very good air rald shelter, built and reinforced by my father prior to being posted abroad (to the Sudan)
When of school my mother gave me strict instructions to get Gran into the shelter as she was as deaf as a gate post.
One of the things I was always doing was pushing gran around the garden in my large wheel barrow, one day the siren went and I told Gran we had to get down the shelter, well heave shove we tried everything but poor old gran was jammed solid in the barrow, we both panicked for a few minutes and the laughed and laughed as the planes went over we just didn't give a dam, I hasten to add gran never split on me, but would never get in the barrow again.
Education suffered the most, during my time at school I went to eight schools, and an awful lot of that time was spent in air raid shelters, plus at the later stages of my education, all the teachers were coming back from the war, and it was easy to get them of at a tangent telling us of their exploits during the war, being techers and well educated a lot of them were ex pilots.

In around 1942/43 the 大象传媒 did a weekly brodcast to the troops worldwide where there children would go on air and speak to there fathers the programme was called (Yours)I believe it was run by three women Beryl Orde being one the other one was Clare ??? and I have always had a funny feeling that the other one was the person who plays Betty behind the bar in "Coronation Stree", I have a cutting from a ladis magazine describing the show and also a photo of the children and the three ladies. W had a big party after the show and were given cakes fruit and ice cream things that we had not seen the like of since the war began, I can taste it now.

I like my father joined the RAF. Some 8 years ago, I advertised on Teletext to trace some old colleagus, I was inundated with emials and phone calls, and now for my sins I am the founder member and secretary of The RAF LYNEHAM OLD BOYS ASSOCIATION, which has in excess of 500 members.
My apoligies for the spelling and grammar I am almost 70 and not as sharp as I was

With Best Regards

JIm Semple (Alias) SpivLucky Jim

Have just thought of another funny, you are probably to young to know what a piece of shrapnel looks like, it is a jagged pice of metal usually a part of a bomb that can weigh anything from an ounce to many pounds. the thing to do was collect it after an air raid, then if your street had what today would be called (a miserable old git the sort that wouldn't give you your ball back), then when the next air raid was on and you knew he would be in his shelter you would lob a piece of shrapnell through his window, the next day it was al around the shops how old so and so was nearly killed by a piece of shrapnell, not very nice but boys will be boys.

The End

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