大象传媒

It was a funny old war: at first.

To paraphrase Stanley Holloway, the famous old music-hall comedian and his memorable two-liner about the 鈥�39/45鈥� war -- 鈥淭he day war broke out, my mother said to me鈥�, and in fact, on that Sunday 3 September 1939, I was in the kitchen of our house in Park View, Cefn Road, Blackwood in Monmouthshire and was listening to the radio whilst my mother was preparing Sunday Lunch. I shall always remember Neville Chamberlain making the historic declaration finishing with the words 鈥渁nd as a consequence, this country is now at war with Nazi Germany鈥�. My mother, tears in her eyes, turned and looked at me and said: 鈥楾hank God you are not old enough to be called up鈥�. 鈥楤ut what about Robin?鈥�, I replied. Robin was my older brother but he was living with an auntie in Birmingham and working in the Austin motor-works in Longbridge as a trainee jig and press tool draughtsman.
鈥淥h, my God, yes鈥�, said Mum, 鈥業鈥檒l have to send him and Aunt Vie a letter鈥�.
(As a matter of record, Robin was never called up. Try as he might, Austin would not let him go. He was put in a reserved occupation, approved by the Government and sat out the war with Austin motor company as a draughtsman).
鈥淏ut, not to worry鈥�, said Mum, 鈥榠t won鈥檛 last long. We鈥檒l soon sort out that lot, you wait and see. It鈥檒l be over in a year once our boys get over there鈥�. Pipe dreams, perhaps. Yet she had already seen two wars and their effect in her lifetime. As a young girl, the BOER war, which she could hardly recall, having been only eight years old at the time, and the First Great War of 1914-1918. She had married one of the veterans of that war, my father, only to watch him die of cancer at the young age of 48, contracted as a result of being gassed in the trenches in France.

鈥淚t won鈥檛 last long鈥�, she said. How could she know that? As it happened it lasted longer, two years longer that the first world war and after twelve months, less really, we came close to losing it. Evidence Dunkirk.

Yes, it was a strange old war at first.
Where we lived, in Blackwood, half way up the Sirhowy Valley towards Tredegar, in South Wales, the German bombers never came. Much too difficult a terrain for accurate, even haphazard, bombing. So life continued more or less as normal.
In June 1939 I had reached the milestone of 14 years of age and not having been able to get to grammar school, when the long summer school holidays started, I left school and started looking for work. In the evenings, however, we used to carry on going to dances in the Miner鈥檚 Welfare Institutes which were scattered around the valleys in practically every village, going to the cinema, hanging out in the many Italian owned cafes and soft-drink bars. Quite often, though, the air-raid sirens used to sound the alarm and from various vantage points on the hilltops and slag-heaps around the area, we could see the raids taking place on Newport and Cardiff, with the long white fingers of the searchlights probing the dark skies and occasionally the anti-aircraft fire flashing above the beams in an attempt to deter the bombers. Did I say no haphazard bombing up our way? Well, eventually, one German parachute with a large land-mine on the end did land just down the valley, about three miles away, on a street on the edge of Ynysddu, and wiped out half the street, but that was as near as the bombing war ever got to Blackwood.

Then, after the debacle of Dunkirk, the Government ordered the formation of the LDV, the Local Defence Volunteers, or, as they eventually became called the 鈥淟ook, Duck and Vanish Brigade鈥�. So I joined up and began what eventually turned out to be 28 years military service. The North-West Europe campaign, Italy, the Middle-East (Palestine), The Free Territory of Trieste, NATO Headquarters in Fontainebleau, France, and back to Germany.

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