大象传媒

I was born in February, 1928 in the Wiltshire town of Trowbridge and was eleven years old when War was declared in September, 1939, the very start of my entry to Trowbridge Boys' High School.
My first memory that the War was for real was the arrival in our back garden of half of a large thick iron boiler delivered by horse and cart by Sammy our local rag and bone man. All the family, my father, mother and younger brother set to, digging a large hole some six feet deep in the garden. Father made the foundations, built the brick walls and the steps down to it. The heavy half cylinder of the boiler was manoevred across the top on to the side walls and all the soil piled back on top. This was to be our Air Raid shelter.
Next, our large collection of budgerigars had to go as there was little likelihood that the Royal Navy would have the time to escort shiploads of budgerigar seed to the Country during a War. Go they did, but I cannot remember where. The large aviary was converted to make twelve rabbit hutches and hundreds of rabbits were produced during the War to augment the food situation. I even had one particular fine and lucky buck rabbit, with a broken ear which rather saucily hung down to one side- therefore no good for exhibiting - which I retained for stud and earned me a half a crown a time!
I was happy and he was more than happy!
My brother and I did all the work of rearing, collecting green food from the countryside and making and storing hay. With our knees ninety degrees apart, we rode our bicycles home with the full sack chin-high, balanced on the crossbar. I soon became adept at killing and paunching these animals especially after watching my mother trying to pluck up courage twice in one day to kill a young rabbit for a meal only to put it back into the hutch.
A Fur and Feather Club, like elsewhere was started in the town and further interest arose from exhibiting of rabbits and poultry. I well remember my brother and I cycling a round trip of 42 miles to Shepton Mallett in Somerset with a box containing a rabbit on the rear carrier of my cycle for exhibiting in a rabbit show - and we did win a prize!
The local Council, in line with the "Dig for Victory" Campaign took possession of a field on the edge of the town for use as allotments. Father rented "ten lug", a piece of the field, 30 feet by 90 feet. We all worked hard to remove the turf which whilst some was dug in, most was disposed of by way of a "burn-bake." This was achieved by getting a good bonfire going and when it was very hot, covering it with turfs of grass. As these burnt through, more were added to cover the hole and keep in the heat. The intense heat burnt the turf to ash but it was necessary to visit the site morning and evening to ensure complete coverage. Often a "burn-bake" could reach some five feet high, before it was no longer possible to keep it going or all the turf had been burnt. Being virgin land, it was very productive. Crops of potatoes were outstanding and there was a good supply of all other vegetables, some of which assisted in the feeding of the rabbits we were rearing.
Nothing was wasted. Tiny potatoes and potato peelings were boiled and mixed with bran or barley meal when we could get it, helped to put more weight on the young rabbits. Anything left over from the kitchen and unsuitable for the rabbits, was put out for collection every week as
"pigs swill."
Like most other foods, eggs were in short supply and in the spring, my brother and I who were frequently wandering the countryside would search the rivers for moorhen's nests. As soon as the bird lined its new nest with fresh grass, we knew it would lay within a day or so. We collected these eggs when they numbered six or seven and mother was always happy to receive them to fry for breakfast - the yolks were very red in colour. I hope my adult interest in ornithology where I have over a long period provided many nesting boxes and sites, thereby successfully rearing hundreds of other birds, has earned me some kind of pardon!
Our small front garden, like all other properties in the street had iron railings abutting the payement.
One day workmen arrived and the railings were cut down and taken away "for the war effort," we were told to make into tanks. Each household was given a paltry sum so that the confiscation was viewed upon as being made legal.
At school, while those in their first year during their music lesson were being taught "There'll always be an England" and "The Marseillaise" all the windows were being taped in criss-cross pattern to reduce the danger of flying glass in the event of an air raid. Protective "blast" walls were built a short distance opposite doors opening on to the playground. Trenches were dug under some hedgerows and a static water tank was built behind the buildings in the playing field.
In 1941 a squadron of the Air Training Corps was formed and based in the school. Pupils in the Upper Fifth and Six Forms, most of whom wanted to be pilots were allowed to join, given uniforms, received instruction from the RAF and attended
week-end camps and many had their first flights. Some of the staff were given honorary ranks and looked very professional in their uniforms. I remember meeting one of the staff in later life when he reflected how pained he had been when he knew that in a very short time, some of these young men he had helped to train would be dead as indeed did happen. Some two or so years later, on one of our usual Wednesday afternoon sports lessons, I remember the thrill of a Spitfire roaring in low over our heads across the large playing field. We knew who it was and he did survive the War.
As the months went on, we were told we had to give food and accommodation to a number of evacuees from London. As inquisitive boys do, we went to the local railway station to stare down at the platform to watch the new arrivals, looking so unhappy bearing large labels and carrying their gas masks. At home, we had two bedrooms and I remember our surprise when we had billeted upon us a young girl of about 16 years old along with two very young children, a boy and a girl. I believe the older girl was a family relative from East London and was taking care of the two small children. They were obviously from a quite poor family and it took mother several weeks to rid the two small children of the wild life in their hair. It was amazing that having only two bedrooms, two downstairs rooms plus what was called the "scullery" where the cooking, the washing and the Saturday night bath (in the tin bath) took place and that the cold water tap here was the single source of water in the house apart from the toilet outside, that our parents had to take in three children. My parents occupied one bedroom and my brother and I shared the other and the evacuees were therefore accommodated in what was known as the "front room" downstairs.
After some months, however, the children became homesick and all returned to London. We then received a boy of my own age called Robert Chubb from Romford, but after a year, he too returned home.
Part of a London Grammar School with a few of its teaching staff was evacuated to Trowbridge, the pupils being accepted at both the Girs' and Boys' High Schools in the town. During holidays, pupils were encouraged to go back to school on named days when occupational sessions were set up, such as philately, chess, and other hobbies and sporting activities staffed mainly by the London teachers. My own participation in those sporting activities turned out to be the source of what became my future modest Athletics career between 1948 and 1952 when I represented Wiltshire Police and Wiltshire County at County, Regional and National level. It seemed there was a great attempt to keep us occupied and together (maybe killed together?) or perhaps under some kind of supervision.
Youth organisations flourished. Our local Church formed a Boys' and Girls' Brigade and joined in with other local organisations in Church Parades and sporting activities and this of course helped the evacuees to mix with the rest of the children. Soldiers from the local camp sometimes attended our Boys' Brigade sessions assisting with drill, physical training and boxing.
My mother answered an appeal from School for help with meals as quite a few pupils travelled from surrounding towns and she worked there during the afternoons. We as a family were all at home for lunch which was always followed by the pot of tea. After each having one cup, the pot was refilled and taken round to next door for their use. Next day, the roles would be reversed and in that way the tea ration was made to last a little longer! Breakfast was nearly always fried American dried egg. Looking very much like a pancake, it was very popular and after the war substitutes were never as good.
There was a time when the Government made an appeal for knitwear badly needed by the Forces, who were performing duties in dreadfully cold conditions. My mother taught my father and myself to knit and we all set to, my father knitting socks (mother had to 'turn the heel'), my mother knitting balaklavas and gloves and myself - because it was simple - scarves. My brother unravelled any old navy blue knitting and wound into balls to add to the wool we purchased or scrounged.
My father had served in the First World War and was too old to fight in this one. He became a member of the local Fire Watchers. Their roll was to assemble outside at night when there had been an Air Raid warning to ensure no lights were visible and keep a look-out for any fires from incendiary bombs.
There were 339 Air Raid warnings in Trowbridge mostly during the first half of the War and the majority of these occurred at night. We left our beds on every one of these occasions, sometimes twice a night, but we were always at school by 9 o'clock in the morning. The cupboard under the stairs was considered the safest place in the house but we would play darts and how I remember having Wrigleys and Beecham gum to chew every time. The darts made us all excel at arithmetic. 93 to get out "triple 19 and double 18" quick as a flash!" If we heard a bomb drop or the droning of an aircraft (always recognised as a German), we would retreat to - the "cupboard under the stairs". The worst nights were the 24th and 27th April 1942 during the bombing of Bath when our doors shook and the windows really rattled. Father would from time to time look in from his fire watching duties to reassure us but as time went on raids were less and less and eventually disappeared altogether.
However, during the whole War, we never once made use of the Air Raid shelter built in the garden!
In the event, only a few bombs fell on Trowbridge but it did result in the deaths of three people. A soldier in a Guards Regiment at a Camp off Frome Road and two girls who had sought refuge from London died in an early morning daylight raid when their building was hit and the centre of the town was also machine gunned, about three quarters of a mile from our home.
Boys attending our school from places up to nine miles away were each morning following the dropping of bombs were subjected to questioning by one inquisitive master as to what had happened and where before any lessons could begin - no doubt for staff room discussion later. These particular boys were lucky in one way in that they were excused having to perform cleaning duties as they had to leave on time to catch their trains and buses. The rest of us, on a rota system had to clean the classroom. As school ended, chairs were placed on top of the desks, damp sand was sprinkled across the floor which was then swept, after which the chairs were replaced for next day. What would the Health and safety people say to that today?
The School also provided working parties to help on the Wiltshire farms during the summer holidays and I spent part of the holidays in 1943 on a farm at Overton, near Marlborough, ostensibly to help out with the harvest. I thought the harvest meant bringing in the corn, but I found that this had already been completed and I discovered that harvest also included picking up potatoes, a very back-breaking exercise! We lived in the village hall. It was interesting though as we were working alongside Italian prisoners of war who in their chocolate coloured battledress bearing a large coloured patch, were gradually being given their liberty. At Christmas, also in 1943, we were allowed to take temporary employment with the local Post Office to assist in delivering the mail. I had my own round. It meant getting up early but we were finished by
mid morning and we were paid!
Most schoolboys of my age were good at 'plane spotting' - we were encouraged to do so. The skies were full of them - the Spitfire, Hurricane, Blenheim, Avro Ansen, the elegant Mosquito, Halifax, Lancaster, Dakota and the Lysander, nearly all we could identify by sound alone. As the build-up to invasion day increased, the Army Camps in the town were overflowing. It was an everlasting memory of mine to have witnessed on various Sunday parades the long columns of immaculately turned-out troops marching behind their respective regimental bands, the heavy sound of the measured tread of their highly polished boots, the bands in turn being led by the Drum Major, who was not afraid to throw his mace high! Nearby Keevil airfield was teeming with airmen and glider pilots and we frequently cycled to Westbury some six miles away and view from the hills above the then camouflaged White Horse the Stirling bombers taking off from the airfield and watched them release their Horsa and Hamelcar gliders, somtimes two gliders to one aircraft. It was exciting for us to see them make their way back to the airfield. We had no idea that months away in September 1944 that we would see the skies over Trowbridge filled as far as one could see with an armada of these aircraft and gliders en route to Arnhem.
At Warminster, some nine miles away where we would cycle to visit grandparents, the street known as Portway leading into the town was lined with tanks being fussed over by their crews - this was their temporary parking space while awaiting D-Day.
At school, despite some Air Raid warnings during term time, surprisingly we suffered only a little disruption, though on one occasion a School Certificate examination was disturbed by an air-raid warning. We lost just a few teachers when they were called into the Services but in the main the teaching staff was an ageing one from which I am sure, in one sense, we were able to benefit their being less upheaval. I left school in July 1944 after having taken the Oxford School Certificate and still awaiting the results. The War was still on, the D-Day landings having taken place just six weeks earlier.
Fearing the worst, I was not sure at that time whether there had been any point in learning French but I'm glad I did. Many years after the War whilst enjoying travels in France, when the waiter offered rabbit on the menu, I felt so smug in replying,
"Non merci Monsieur. Parce que pendant
la guerre en Angleterre, toujours les lapins"!

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