大象传媒

Achtung. Achtung.

In and around 1940 Gowerton was, seemingly, far removed from the Second World War except for military uniforms and Army vans and lorries on the roads. The windows of countless hoses and many shops were heavily taped in case of shattering from bomb blast.
Each weekday morning we got off school buses in Gowerton and walked to the Intermediate School building to get ready for Morning Assembly followed by 2 lessons before our mid-morning break. Then we got our books ready for either Music or Latin.

Thursdays came and Thursdays went. But sometimes the German Luftwaffe appeared., at short notice on our timetables. Amazingly it appeared at that time the Air Raid Siren would sound at 5 minutes to 11 to enact the great escape from Latin for some!

Quickly we abandoned books, pens, satchels and desks and evacuated our red-bricked building and followed a pre-arranged plan worked out by the Head, Staff, Police, Air-raid Wardens and the inhabitants of Gowerton themselves. Some of the boys were dispersed beneath the hedges and oak trees around the school field.

I was among those who were part of what we have since looked upon as a crazy dangerous exercise. Fit in wind and limb, we ran out through the main gates and we jogged down Talbot Street and turned left along Cecil Road down to Sterry Road and on to the Square. Then according to our allocation we fanned out along Bryn y Mor Road, Mount Street past Bethania Chapel and Mill Street. Each one of us had been allocated a house of safety and shelter where we stayed indoors till the air raid was over.
Two of us were made very welcome each time at the home of a Mrs. Davies in Mill Street. She was a tall white-haired well-spoken lady with a younger woman who had a son of about seven years if I remember correctly. We sat in the back kitchen quietly, and spoke politely and behaved ourselves till it was safe to trudge slowly back to school to carry on with our studies. We had missed Latin or a weekly Music aural test. On the way back to school we bought a cream bun, cream slice or doughnut from Jones the Bakery shop which was on the opposite corner to the Co-operative Stores and the Gower Inn Hotel.

As I have earlier intimated, it was madness to disperse along the streets about 300 during an Alert. Any trigger happy, low-flying Heinkel or Dornier air-gunner would have reaped quite a harvest of young pupils.

Happily no one was killed or injured by the Luftwaffe.

Perhaps the enthusiasm for ' AMO AMAS AMANT of the Latin sufferers was killed off when they came to study VERGIL.

Later we left Gowerton Intermediate School and we joined H.M.Forces. We eventually won the 1939- 45 War but at the price of some young Gowerton lives.

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