大象传媒

CHAPTER ONE 1936 - 1940

FAMILY TREES

I was born on the 11 November 1936 at 11.00am,during the two minutes silence, at 362 Brighton Road, Shoreham-by-Sea, Sussex. This was my Nan and Granddad Howells鈥� house. As well as them, lived an adopted daughter, Enid and an (adopted?) son Mick Gates. I called Enid by name and Mick, 鈥淯ncle Mick鈥�. Granddad was a Panel Beater/general engineer at the Southdown bus works in Vale Road, Portslade. Enid worked for Dubarry鈥檚 cosmetics factory in Brighton or Hove. I don鈥檛 know what Mick did ; I only ever knew him in the Army, as he volunteered at the very beginning of the War, and went straight from basic training out to the Western Desert and stayed there until 1945. Nan had a dog called 鈥淐hum鈥� but they had him put down just after the Blitz started, after Dad came back from the raids on Southampton and said how he had seen so many cats and dogs injured and left just wandering around. Dad had worked locally at a local building company, R. A. Gates. I think he was just some sort of labourer cum general dogsbody. At the beginning of the War he had tried to re-join the army, but was not accepted as he was over the age limit at that time. He joined the local fire brigade ( Auxiliary Fire Service ) which soon became the NFS ( National Fire Service ). This is why he was involved as far away as Southampton.
Going back to my first year or so, we lived at 11, Buckingham Street Shoreham ( near the Swiss Cottage public House),but moved to 4, Hamfield Estate, Eastern Avenue. This became 75 Eastern Avenue sometime early after the War. Just after the War started, our old house received a direct hit and was completely demolished.
My earliest memories include starting school at four, in the nursery class at Victoria Road School, where, in the afternoons, we had to have a sleep on small cot/camp beds. As we moved up the school, memories include having to go into the air raid shelters regularly. These were immediately outside each classroom and held the children of one class with the teacher. We had to take our gas masks to school with us each day and sometimes had to practice putting them on. Saving paper was the order of the day, and part of this campaign was to ignore the margins in our exercise books. The other part was recycling waste paper (the term then was not 鈥渞ecycling鈥�, but 鈥渨aste paper salvage鈥�). We were encouraged in this by competitions run by the school. We each took newspapers and magazines and these were weighed and entered on our record cards. Every so often we were 鈥減romoted鈥� up the Army ranks, as we hit various weight targets. I can鈥檛 remember the details, but I think I ended up as a Field Marshal and having cardboard epaulets to wear.
Friday afternoons, we could take in games to play. I still have one of them; a board game called 鈥淪mash the Nazis鈥�, based on 鈥淏attleships鈥�.
We also took war souvenirs to show, sometimes to the horror of the teachers, when such items as ammunition (which may or may not been live!) were shown. The odd hand grenade or Nazi dagger or equally lethal bayonet made their appearance from time to time!
Somewhere along the line, I acquired a German Officer鈥檚 Luger pistol complete and useable - and took that in to show! Equally, somewhere along the line I parted with it in some sort of swap.
There were sometimes moments of sadness too, when an announcement was made in assembly, that someone鈥檚 father had been killed in action, had been shot down, or ship had been sunk.
I remember one friend, Tony Portlock, whose father was drowned when his ship was sunk - it was one of the famous incidents, like the Ark Royal or the Hood. Tony鈥檚 father is named on a plaque in St Nicholas church, Old Shoreham. There are other names listed whose sons I was also with at school. Occasionally, children were late or away because of air raids on the way to school, strafing, by enemy aircraft, diversions because of bomb damage, or for happier reasons like Dads being home on leave. Sometimes, of course, it was leave prior to going abroad for God knows how long. Some, of course, never came back.
I had several relatives in the forces. Uncle Mick was batman to an officer in the Western Desert (where he met Gordon Dinnis, who was, later to marry Enid.) Gordon had been quite badly wounded and had quite a lot of schrappnel in his back and legs. Uncle Dave (Howells) was also in the Western Desert and was at Tobruk.. Great Uncle Ern (Howells) was in the Merchant Navy.
My Nan (Howells) sister, Aunt Carrie, who had the married name, Funnel, lived almost opposite the Coliseum cinema in an old centre-terrace house. She had, at some time, converted the front of the house into a grocery/provisions shop, with the back-room serving as the kitchen/dining room/office and where she sat when there were no customers to serve. She had two sons, George, who was married to Dorothy and after the War, took over the running of the shop. He had been in the Army in Italy, I think. He had a younger brother, Ron, who had been wounded in the War., and walked with a stick
None of the Lelliotts was in the forces as they were all too old
I was very pleased to have an RAF Air Gunner living next door to us. He was some sort of foster son of Mr and Mrs Young at No 77. His name was Wally Fitch, and some fifty years later I found a photo of him in an Aircrew Association magazine, where he was one of the crew of a ?TBA bomber. Old Mr Young had been in the First World War and was in the Home Guard as a Sergeant. He wore his WW1 medal ribbons on his battle dress. While on the subject of local War Heroes, it is worth mentioning another. On our way to school we passed by the house of where, as local folklore had it, some sort of RAF hero, but noone seemed to know exactly why he was famous. He was, in fact Flying Officer J B Nicholson VC, and the only VC to be awarded to a paricipant in the Battle of Britain. This was in recognition of his act of chasing an enemy aircraft in his Hurricane, which was on fire, badly burning his legs. He survived, recovered and went back into action. Ironically, he did not survive the War. He was killed, as a passenger in an RAF transport plane. There is now a cul de sac named 鈥楴icholson Drive鈥� about where he had lived. In 2005, while I was giving one of my talks at the Shoreham Airport Society, I learnt that he had worked before the war at my old firm of Ricardo and Co., doing the same sort of job as me!
Our house in Eastern Avenue was like most of the nearby houses, equipped with the standard anti air raid precautions. These took the form of tape across the windows, reinforcing timbers in the hall, black out curtains etc. Our houses also had 鈥渂last walls鈥� front and back, which I subsequently found were quite unusual for private houses. These were brick built, free standing walls about a foot thick. They stood about three feet outside of the front and back walls of the house, in front of the windows and doors, and stopped just above the tops of the window frames. Naturally, they made the rooms very dark. We may have had them built for us because we were only a few hundred yards from an anti aircraft site. They had a couple of Bofors guns there, and when they fired the noise made the doors and window rattle violently, even with the blast walls. They were very active, regularly during the early part of the war, firing at enemy aircraft. This activity then tailed off , but then increased after June 1944 as they attempted to shoot down the V1s ( 鈥渄oodlebugs鈥� ) as they came over.
In many ways, where we lived might have been regarded as a schoolboy鈥檚 paradise. There was the gun site which we regularly visited and sat on the guns, turned the handles to raise or lower them, rotate them etc,. The soldiers also let us use the listening devices, which gave advance warning of approaching aircraft. Then, nearby, was the supporting searchlight unit, where we enjoyed the same sort of priviliges, and the same just across the back field where there was a barrage balloon unit. About a mile to the west was Shoreham Airport with its constantly coming and going low flying aircraft. The town was always bustling with soldiers - many of them French Canadian. They used to frequent the Duke of Wellington pub, a few doors from Nan鈥檚 house and were always having brawls there. The Police, both Civil and Military were always being called to break up fights.
At the beginning of the war, there were too many soldiers for the nearby army camps to hold so some were billeted in private houses where there was a spare bedroom. We had two such soldiers billeted on us. One was very tall and the other very short. The tall one was named Laws, and was a 鈥渂ounder鈥� or 鈥渁bsolute rotter鈥�. I vaguely recall him looking like Walker from Dad鈥檚 Army, but that might be a trick of the imagination. He went home on leave some week- ends and before he went, sewed Sergeant stripes on his uniform for some, no doubt, dubious reason. He then removed them when he got back. We never knew what misdemeanour he had perpetrated but one day two Military Police with rifles and fixed bayonets knocked at the door and took him away. I don鈥檛 recall anything about the short one except that he spoke with a music hall type Lancashire accent and was caught one day by Dad, cleaning his boots, sitting in an armchair - a crime that was considered most grave! Before long he too left, and we had no more billeted on us.

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