大象传媒

I was born in Horsham Sussex on the 19th October 1935. After my birth my parents obtained a rented house in Oxted in Surrey.

My father was head waiter at the local hotel 'The Hoskins Arms' in Oxted. I remember that my greatest treat in those early days was that when I got up in the morning following a function at the hotel my father would bring home a cooked chicken leg wrapped in a linen napkin. For some reason I always consumed this treat hidden under the table which was covered in a red damask cloth.

The smell of cooked chicken always evokes this vivid memory.

Just before September 1939 after my brother David was born my father got the sack from the Hotel and as he sensed war was coming he joined the RAF as a volunteer reserve. I can remeber waving him off from the station with my mother and baby brother.

Soon after his departure war was declared. My mother coped on her own as all mothers do,but we had superb help from our relatives and neighbours . My uncle Bert was in the RASC and part of his run was to collect stores and supplies and deliver them to Aldershot. He often callen into our house which was just off the A25 and delivered some supplies.Bacon,ham,butter all arrived at regular intervals not quite under the cover of darkness but openly in daylight.Sometimes the neighbours would benefit from the contraband as it must have been.

Following the phoney war we watched as shelters etc were built. we also taped up the windows and put up blackout curtains. Then I can remeber the Battle of Britain starting.I would go out into the garden at the first sound of an aeroplane and watch dog-fights going on overhead.We lived close to Biggin Hill and Croydon so the area was very lively. We tried to estimate where either the planes that were shot down or the parachutes we saw would come down. Some were close enough to run to and try to be able to get parts as souvenirs. I had many pieces of german planes in those days.

The first actual german I saw was shortly into the Battle of Britain when a junkers bomber was shot down and the crew had bailed out. The plane came down behind Detillens Lane in Oxted but although some of the crew landed in the fields around, the pilot landed on the roof of a house in Detillens Lane and was sitting on the chimney pot when me and my pals arrived to capture him.Unfortunately we had been beaten to it by local defence volunteers who were armed with garden forks etc. The only gun was the one the pilot had strapped to his waist. The police came and persuaded him to give up without a struggle. They took him away in an open top car ,this gave everyone the opportunity to shout at him as he was taken to the local police station.

It must have been the summer of 1940 that we went down to the recreation ground to see the soldiers parade. It may have been Canadian soldiers I can't remeber but when we were there the sirens sounded and we the civilians made for the new shelters. When we arrived at the gates they were all locked and then everyone ran for it. There were two or three Meshersmits strafing thefield obviously attracted by the assembled troops. We ran and the enemy plane followed us along the road but my mother always believed that seeing her with me and my brother in a pram the pilot did not shoot in our direction.

Soon after this incident my father was sent to Oban in Scotland and we went to live with my grandparents at Easebourne near Midhurst in Sussex. My grandfather worked for Lord Cowdray on his estate as a gardener. The house in Easebourne had no inside Loo this was up the garden about thirty yardas away. Bathtime had to wait till the copper was empty and had been refilled with buckets of water. As a child having Cowdray Park almost to myself was wonderful.

Eventually in the summer of 1941 we went to live where my father by now the steward of the Officers Mess in Oban. The squadron based oin Oban was the 210 Squadron Coastal Command. This flew Sunderlands and later Catalinas used to protect Atlantic convoys from U-Boat attack. Because Sunderlands could fly long distances they were also used for recognisance. All the time we were in Oban we never saw a german plane although some of the planes returned to base having come under fire.

Life for me and my fellow refugees from England was an exciting adventure.(I apologise if this statement offend those who may have suffered in the war but apart from the death from Whooping Cough of my baby brother to me the war was an exciting adventure). The english contingent mainly families of RAF personell and som Navy families were all billetted in the same area. Some scottish children obviuosly disliked thes newcomers and tried to pick fights with us as much as they could. "Och awa ye english/sassenach pig dogs" being their usual terms of endearment. To which we would try to reply along the lines of them being trashed one nil at the battle of Culloden! Serious fights did break out and as we were all only between the ages of six and ten I cannot turn round and denounce modern youth too much.

However most of our scottish hosts treated us wonderfully well. Mrs Lockhart and Family were we lived in one side of her Butt-an-Ben and the next door neighbours the Fergusons were all like aunties and uncles.

The undertaker who arranged following the death of my brother to drive the family plus David in his small white coffin all the way from Oban to Limpsfield in Surrey for burial in home soil. This alone must have been expensive in the use of petrol. I remember he had driven through the night and we were all woken with a bang when he had veered off the road and infortuneately collided with a bus queue.A lady was hurt but not seriously however her shopping basket and contents were all over the road. The matter was settled amicably as everyone could see the small white coffin in the back of the car, my father in uniform and my greiving mother.

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