大象传媒

My story starts in 1939 at the outbreak of the war. I was at school at Chale on the Isle of Wight where I was born. We lived in a bungalow below the cliffs at Chale near Black Gang chine, which was called Blue Pencil Chine due to all signs not being allowed. The army took over our garden and set up Ack Ack guns. Each time these guns were fired the ceilings kept dropping on us, so my father made us move to Ryde.

My father had already made my brother John two years younger than myself, ready to be evacuated to Canada as we had a grandmother living there. My brother failed the medical for us to go, which was on the ship "Andorra Star". We later heard it was torpedoed off the coast of Ireland so we were lucky.

Eventually, my father made us move to Surrey, to a great aunt and uncle at Earlswood, near Redhill; my mother, myself and three brothers. The night before our departure from Ryde, Portsmouth Pier was bombed and we all walked through the burning embers. My father had to stay on on the Isle of Wight for a while at Saunders Row aircraft factory before he could join us.
My brother John and I had to go to Hooley School at the top of the road where we had to take the bedding up every night on our great uncle's greengrocers carts to the shelters for all the family.

When my brother and I wanted to buy a special treat we were allowed to buy toffee carrots made by an old gentleman opposite our school. They were very good.

My older brother Ernest was 17 and volunteered for the army. He joined the Seaforth Highlanders, went to Italy and was so badly wounded he lost both his legs. My brother Ronald was in the navy and on HMS Maurituse, he survived the war. The first week we were with my great aunt and uncle at Earlswood three screaming bombs obliterated the next street to us.

We spent many nights in those underground shelters. During our first weeks in Earlswood an older brother who was a soldier before the war started was very fortunate to be evacuated home from Assam, Burma when the Japanese invaded. A cousin of ours came to stay from Canada on his was to Dunkirk. He never came back.

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