大象传媒

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Just before the war, my maternal grandfather retired from his work at the Waterlow鈥檚 factory. Soon afterwards my grandparents moved to Black Notley, near Braintree in Essex. They had a thatched cottage called St. Andrew鈥檚 in Baker鈥檚 Lane. My cousins and I visited them for a few days on several occasions. We got to know the area of the village very well. Just down the lane was a slaughterhouse, mainly for horses, where my grandfather helped out there for a few days each week. He told us that after each horse was examined, most carcases were put into a vat of purple dye and used for pet food in London, but some from fit young horses had their lower legs removed and were put in a cold room before being sent to Birmingham, he thought they would be turned into meat pies.

Eventually my grandmother persuaded her husband to move back to London in 1941. Their first home was in Clarendon Crescent that backed onto the Regent Canal in Paddington. They had a second floor flat. The visits we made there were rather like holidays as we could no, of course, go to the coast because of wartime restrictions. I liked these visits as it was possible to go to Royal Oak station and watch the trains running into and out of Paddington. There was a turntable opposite this station and there was a great deal of activity as engines were watered and turned for their next duty.

Once when my father was coming from Hereford, my mother and I went to Paddington Station to meet him. There were a lot of armed soldiers waiting for the train and before the passengers were allowed off of the platform, they marched up the train. They returned a few minutes later escorting some high-ranking German officers; my father eventually came through the barrier and told us that they were captured generals.

No matter where you lived, everyone was asked to save metal, paper and cardboard for recycling. The collection of such materials was known as a 鈥渟alvage drive鈥�. My grandmother said there was such a drive whist we were staying with her. On that afternoon we heard the sound of a Scottish Pipe and Drum Band. They were not dressed in traditional kilts and plaids but in black A.R.P. uniforms. They wanted children to help with the collection so my cousin and I joined a group of local children. We followed the pipers for two or three hours and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves collecting the salvage and giving it to the men whose job was to load the lorries and carts, after roughly sorting the material that we had been given by the householders. There was a sense that we were all helping out.

A footbridge crossed the canal at the end of the road and the path led to Warwick Avenue and 鈥淟ittle Venice鈥� where there was a junction with another canal. Warwick Avenue was exciting to us as there was a barrage balloon stationed there. Each evening, the crew would send the balloon into the air and bring it down the early the next day; we liked it especially when they were practising raising and lowering it during the day.

My grandfather, although over 70 years of age, helped with the clearance of bomb-damage just off Warwick Avenue. We used to go and meet him, they had a light railway to reach the far end of the site and the rubble was loaded into tubs that were pushed by two men. A motor winch was used to pull them up the final ramp for loading into the waiting lorries.

In early 1944, my grandparents moved to Penfold Street, which was near to Edgware Road station. I missed seeing the engines at Paddington but a consolation was that I could go to a shop in Church Street, Marylebone, where I could buy 鈥淜iel Kraft鈥� balsa kits for model aeroplanes. I saved my pocket money as the small kits cost 6d each for planes such as a Spitfire or Hurricane up to about 1s 6d or 2s for bigger aircraft such as a Lancaster bomber or Sunderland flying boat. In retrospect, I realise that my friends and I did not shape the wings and fuselages very well when making them. This was brought home to me when I saw a set of similar models displayed at 鈥淏letchley Park鈥� museum; these too had the same child-like faults in their construction.

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