大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People's War site by volunteer from The Chepstow Society on behalf of Keith Underwood and has been added to the site with his permission.Kieth Underwood fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

KEITH UNDERWOOD

On a wet November 9th 1940 a lone German bomber(perhaps a Junkers JU 88 A1 or a Bf 110)from the Luftwaffe鈥檚 Luftflotte 3, operating from airfields to the south of the Seine after the fall of France, dropped a 1000lb bomb on the then Army Technical School(Boys)at Beachley. It hit the back of Department 6 workshops and, although it did not explode, it did considerable physical damage.. Fortunately it was either breaktime or lunchtime and there were no casualties from the bomb. However, the staff and apprentices were thronging the camp and the plane turned and strafed the area, killing an apprentice tradesman, young Thornton, and badly wounding a sergeant. My father attempted to shield the boy but he had already been hit. The plane, as was customary, had split off from its Gruppe to search for its target, possibly at Filton or Yate, when it is alleged it came under ack ack fire from a floating battery in the river. It had turned and recognised a military site.

I lived with my family in the army quarters at Pennsylvania Village which at that time was isolated on the Offa鈥檚 Dyke at what is now Sedbury. From the RAF aerial survey of 1946 it is now only too apparent that the village and the camps at Sedbury and Beachley must have stood out only too clearly from the air but, despite the German planes flying overhead at night droning on their way to bomb Bristol, and nights spent in the air raid shelters that had been built in the gardens, I do not recall any other daylight raid. I do remember that November 9th was a dull, wet day and that the rain drops were running down the window. My mother looked up as the plane flew overhead, recognising the German markings. She initially thought that the bomb was a rain drop. At the time my grandmother and aunt were staying with us as a respite fom the bombing of North Kent and East London. At this time the Germans stepped up their attacks on Bristol and from November 24th the devastation that destroyed much of the old city began. At least 200 people died, with nearly 700 injured. I remember being woken up sleepily to be wrapped in a blanket in the dark, the only light from a guttering candle, to be taken to to the shelter, sometimes the blind of my bedroom window being raised so that we could watch the flaming sky over Bristol. On one occasion it seemed that lightning had set fire to the balloon barrage and it was an astonishing sight to see balloons dropping from the sky, blazing. Strangely, apart from these memories and the extraordinary experiences of our journeys through London to see our family, my childhood seemed very rural and normal.

I was born at the Military Families鈥� Hospital at Hilsea, Portsmouth on June 21st 1934. At the time of my birth my father had been posted to the 22nd Fortress Company at Haslar. He and my mother lived in rooms, one of their landladies having been a Mrs Sigrist (of the Sigrest family who were noted for their interests in flying). The Farringdons were another family with whom they lived. My earliest memories were of water seen between planks (we evidently went to and fro on the Gosport Ferry) and the feet of many people passing to and fro along a promenade (we often went to Southsea and the Isle of Wight).

My father was (at the time of my birth) a Lance Sergeant in the Royal Engineers. He was Alfred Thomas Underwood and had been born in Haggerston, East London on March 9th 1902, the second child of five (four brothers and a sister). The family moved by cart and horse to Dartford in Kent in 1909.

The old town had been a market town on the Dover road, but had become industrialised with chemical works, paper works and Vickers engineering works. My grandfather was obviously moving to where the work was.

Before he enlisted in the Army at Maidstone in 1922, he had been a paid-up member of the Amalgamated Engineering Union and was working at Vickers.

My mother was Winifred Violet Underwood nee May who was born in Dartford on April 21st 1905. She was the youngest of nine children (three brothers and six sisters). She worked first in service and then in the canteen of J & E Halls in Dartford.

I came to Chepstow with my parents on January 13th 1939. I have no memory of our arrival, but my mother thought she had come to the ends of the earth, arriving in winter on Severn Tunnel Junction with all her possessions. To make matters worse, our Army quarter at 10 Bridget Drive was not yet ready for occupation and we were found rooms with the Boughton family at Buttington Lodge - which in those days was a primitive cottage attached to a smallholding. Evidently there were rats and mice and the ill-fitting doors let in cold draughts.

After a week or so we moved into our house in Pennsylvania Village, my parents鈥� first real home since they were married in 1930! It might have explained why my father did not take a commission, but was apparently allowed to stay at the Army Technical School (Boys) at Beachley during the War. All those men who were commissioned from Beachley were obliged to leave quarters and find their families other accommodation, while they left on active service. My father was a first class tradesman and marksman, so I assume the Army felt he was better used as an Instructor to the many apprentices who passed out of the school, many to die on service.

My father came to the School as an Instructor (Turner) to Instrument Mechanics and Electricians in Department 6 of the workshops, in B Company. At the outbreak of War he was promoted to Staff Sergeant Instructor to General Fitting in C Company. In 1941 he was A Warrant Officer ll Instructor in the Machine Shop of Department 6 and in 1942 he became Warrant Officer l Foreman of the same department.

Department 6 became a familiar place to visit for me as a boy. I suppose it was where I was introduced to drawing and the fascinating prospect of being close to all those art and stationery materials provided by HM Stationery Office. Early on I always remember having brushes, pencils and watercolours. On my visits I was encouraged by the elderly civilian instructors like Mr. Sadler, Mr. Nichols and Mr. Pollard and drew while waiting to be taken home by my father. The smell of machine oil and metal swarf always bring back vividly the excitement of life among the staff and apprentices in Department 6. Fortunately I was not there when the bomb was dropped on it in 1940! Had I not been sent to Monmouth in 1946, I would have gone to the Modern School at Lydney and probably become a mechanic, although I have never been interested in machines and don鈥檛 have the kind of patience necessary for that kind of work.

Pennsylvania Village was a world apart from the civilian world outside, although we did shop at Venn鈥檚 and Henderson鈥檚 at Sedbury and, of course, were quite often in Chepstow. Some of the Army families were related to local families (e.g. Mrs Mary Braybrooke was a Cumper) and we began to get to know local people, some of whom worked at the Camp (as we always called the school) in a civilian capacity.

The Village had been built in 1917 as part of the proposed huge garden city residential development to house the workers for the two shipyards. It comprised fifty-six houses of different types, each designed or intended for a different level of worker. The Army had used the Village as quarters since about 1927, though aware of the distance away from Beachley. The houses were allotted according to rank, but we stayed in our hosue at No. 10, despite my father鈥檚 promotions (perhaps another indication of my mother鈥檚 disinclination to move!).

The house was in a terrace of four, quite close to Penn Farm. It had a kitchen with a black iron kitchen range which provided the only cooking facilities until the gas pipes were laid (I do not know the year, but remember the pipes lying along King Alfred鈥檚 Road). There was also a large scullery, with the sink which had a water filter attached to the water tap (cold). In the corner was a coal-fired wash boiler with its own flue. There was also a walk-in pantry and a large coal cupboard next to it. Its other feature was a large scrubbed kitchen table. I recall going to see the house with my father before we moved in and being fascinated by a pile of electrical and other fittings piled on a doormat in the scullery for him to select anything he might want. The man was a Mr. Elkham (but I have yet to track him down via the Robot).

There was also a small, cosy sitting room with an open fire downstairs. Upstairs there were two large bedrooms, a small bedroom approached at an angle and a bathroom, with bath and washbasin. The toilet was built into the scullery, but the entrance from the yard! This was usually like a smoke house, since both my parents smoked heavily! I hated it!

The back garden was approached up a flight of three steps, either side of which my mother grew flowers in between the vegetables. The upper part of the garden was for vegetables entirely and there was a large sage bush. My mother was a keen gardener. One year we tried artichokes (root variety), but we didn鈥檛 like them much. Runner beans, tomatoes, broad beans etc. were always grown. As a result, I became interested in growing seeds and plants. I always had my own patch. A later addition was the air-raid shelter, although it was neither a Morrison nor an Andersen. The great curved gothic steel pieces lay about on the grass at the entrance to the village, gathering water which then froze solid. This seems to imply that this was during the winter of 1940/41. When not in use, it was a play area and the earth-covered top (originally sandbags) was also used to site model villages and miniature slit trenches for my toy soldiers.

Early on in the War I came home with the exciting news that I could have some rabbits! This was not received well, but I was not to know that rabbit breeding for food was being encouraged! My parents reluctantly agreed and a black buch, Old Bill, and a white doe arrived, my father first making some excellent hutches for the top of the garden. It became, of course, a great bind, since they needed looking after and I always seemed to be sent out to bring back dandelions in an old shopping bag. Vegetable peelings were boiled up and mashed and shaped into balls that my mother floured for the rabbits. The smell was delicious, but I was not allowed to eat them. I did have a reputation for sitting with my Aunt Jess鈥檚 dog, Gyp, behind the sofa in the sitting room, and sharing his dog biscuits! When realisation dawned that a rabbit was going to be killed, I vanished, along with my mother. Dad had to cope with that! The white doe went early to the pot, since she turned out to be vicious beyond belief. The offspring, however, kept us well supplied. Old Bill eventually turned ginger and then white, dying as a pet at the age of well over eleven years old.

The front garden was largely uninspiring, since vegetables were grown here too, either side of a central, grass-verged path. Dad did fancy himself as a chrysanthemum grower, however, and I was early introduced to 鈥渂udding鈥�. The smell of these plants I still find very evocative. Every house was surrounded by clipped privet hedges that created a private domain. The front gate was flanked by two topiary-like blocks which gave the entrance a castle-like appearance. When going out to play in the morning it became my custom to stand looking over my rampart to look about to see who else was about. Two families would not allow their children out to play and I felt it was very sad and unfair that they should be always looking over their hedges. The Quartermaster or QM was the senior officer in charge of stores and ruled the quarters with a rod of iron. On inspection day these hedges were expected to be kept neatly clipped, so one was used to hearing the gentle sound of clippers, particularly when sent to bed while it was still light!

I do not remember the declaration of War. Perhaps I was already in bed and my parents were downstairs listening to the radio (I still have the set!). It must have been during the fine summer of 1939, before I started school in the autumn, when I remember hiding in a hay meadow near Tallards Marsh with a girl called Pam Powell whom I used to play with. Her family and the Davies鈥檚 lived in Tallards Marsh Cottage on the river bank. We were hiding because we had seen a crocodile of children from the school making their way through the field, obviously on a nature walk. We were intrigued to know what it would be like to be at school, particularly since we had been told that the headmistress was an ogre!

June Traynor comments on the freedom with which she used to roam the fields around Bulwark. We did exactly the same and parents seemed to have no fear or anxiety that we would come to harm. I now find it astonishing, knowing as I do now like the back of my hand every natural feature in the countryside along both river banks. As I say, I spent a great deal of pre-school time and certainly afterwards, playing down on the riverbank at Tallards Marsh. It was a magic, marvellous world. In the background, of course, was the noise of the shipyard, with rivetting going on all the time, together with other clankings. They were building landing craft and other structures and, now and again, we would get wind of a launching. In the evening we would wait to see the Severn King and Severn Queen come upriver to their berths near the Tubular Bridge. The other background sound was of the trains on the railway that was far busier than today, freight trains moving to and fro all night, all pulled by steam engines with their characteristic sounds.

By the Pill at Tallards Marsh were the remains, quite substantial, of a trow in which we often played. Year by year the skeletal timbers of gunwales and ribs and keel sank further into the mud, but we were often pirate captains on the poop deck! The fact that the raw sewage emptied out into the river here did not seem to worry anyone!

Nearby were extensive reed beds, the tall stems floating their feathery tops in the breeze. It was an excitement to get into the depths of these (being careful to avoid falling into the concealed and muddy rhines) and make wigwams by pulling the stems together. Of course there was always the inner fear that other children would find them, the Village having its small hierarchies of children in particular 鈥済angs鈥�. Boyhood was very much like a 鈥淛ust William鈥� experience for us. We seemed inseparable from the earth and the water of the place.

I think I remember more about play than I do about school. When our fathers came home from the Camp, and we were not to be found, they would go to the 鈥渟tile鈥� at the end of Offa鈥檚 Close and bellow with their parade ground voices! The Bulwark Cliffs acted as an excellent sounding board and heaven help us if we did not respond!

Cars being in short suppply, as was petrol, only one or two senior NCOs had them, and the wartime bus service was apparently infrequent. Our fathers travelled to and from the Camp by bike and several of us often sat on the watt at the bottom of Buttington Hill to wait for them as they came home, running alongside them up the track past Penn Farm鈥檚 orchard, or cadging a lift on a cross-bar.

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