大象传媒

This is the story of the life of an ordinary little boy living during the second world war.
Part 3.
I was worried. Mum was away undergoing tests for TB, so grandma was filling in for her, and it would have put unnecessary load on her to have to feed me each lunch time.
I was allowed to stay on in the end because of my family situation at the time, but I wondered why telling the truth had got my parents and me, into so much trouble. Of
course, now I know that telling the truth all the time is a very tactless thing to do, but as a child, I hadn鈥檛 learned the subtleties of tact!
Mum and dad still visited the friends they had made while living in Coney Hall. Now Coney Hall wasn鈥檛 a million miles from Biggin Hill, one of the front line aerodromes of the war. We had to bus there and back of course. The return journey involved waiting at a bus stop in Coney Hall, and of course, it was often dark while we waited for the bus. Many times we stood and watched the dog fights going on above, with the search lights stabbing the air trying to light up the enemy. I found it a very exciting sight, and the zing of shrapnel made us duck - rather pointless really, but a natural reaction to such conditions.
It was the announcement that the Germans were sending across flying bombs that made dad decide to send us back to the Cotswolds for the second time.
At the time, I had a gollywog that I took to bed with me every night. I was frightened to take it to our lodgings for fear that Miss Knapp would disapprove. My mummy chuckled at this! I was only a little chap of seven. She cuddled me and assured me that Miss Knapp wouldn鈥檛 mind in the least. So I did take my golly with me.
I recorded earlier that the local gentry were so impressed with Miss Knapp鈥檚 teaching methods that they sent their children to her for their basic teaching. This meant that us ordinary kids would be mixed up with the posh kids that lived up at the castle. The castle being Hatherop - which is itself now a school. In those day鈥檚 it was home for the Basley鈥檚 and the Howard鈥檚. They sent their son Esme and their daughter, Susan, and I was in love with Susan! At playtime I would seek her out and just be near her. After school, Susan and Esme had to wait for the car to come from the castle and pick them up. I made sure that I stayed out in the playground with them until their transport arrived. Miss Knapp took a very dim view of this - or perhaps it was the young gentry鈥檚 parents - I didn鈥檛 know. One day in class, we were all told that we were not to hang around in the playground after half passed three.
I simply didn鈥檛 understand this order. Half passed three meant nothing to me. I had no idea that that was when school finished for the day. I was very vexed about this and frightened to ask what was meant. My mum explained what was intended. But at that early age I thought that if there is an order to be given, it should be clear and concise enough to convey exactly what was required. Of course, now, after many years experience of life, I know only too well how bad humans are at such matters.
I went up to the junior school in Hatherop before the two titled children left. I was the same age as them, so I guess it was a way of getting me out of the way. I had to walk the mile plus. The titled two were delivered and collected by their mother/step mother, in the family car. Not a very grand affair, a shooting break as it was known then - now it would be called an estate. The back was full of blankets and dogs. The journey down to Coln-St-Aldwyn to pick the children up and take them home for lunch often coincided with my walk home for my own lunch. The dear Lady usually picked me up since we were both going to the same place. The return to school for the afternoon lessons also often benefited from a lift as the Lady made the reciprocal trip. Quite a nice arrangement for me. Like most boys, I loved riding in motorcars, and in those days, the opportunity had to be grabbed when it arose.
At the nearby village of Hatherop, there was a camp for American Soldiers. There was always a lot of activity. Trucks would come and go, and if the occupants happened to see any of us children, they would throw sweets and chewing gum to us. At Christmas, they threw the most wonderful parties for us, and we always went home with a bag of assorted candies and toys. We loved the Americans! We never hesitated to accept a lift from them if it was raining as we walked to school. The matter of our safety in the hands of these strangers never came into question. To my knowledge, there was never a case of child molesting, not in our part of the world anyway.
The camp was inhabited by white Americans. Coloured people were unknown to me at that age. They were images in story or history books. I had never seen a coloured person of any sort, not even the hawkers that after the war became a common sight on our streets. One day, during school assembly, the headmaster, a Mr Garner, who didn鈥檛 care too much for us evacuees, told us that some American black soldiers were due to come to the local camp, and we were told how to behave, and not to be frightened of them. He also warned us that the white Americans did not like the black ones very much, and that we might see fighting, from which we were to steer well clear.
At that tender age, I thought it odd that soldiers on the same side should fight each other. In fact there were reports of fights breaking out, but us kids never saw anything of them. As far as we were concerned, the new coloured soldiers were just as friendly to us as the white ones.
One day, one of the boys in my class, a local rough individual, was seen flashing a one pound note in class. The teacher asked him how he had come by this large sum of money, and the boy was reticent about giving an answer. He was sent to the headmaster to be questioned about it, and it turned out that he had taken it from his mother鈥檚 purse.
The whole school was told about this, and the boy鈥檚 parents were called in to discuss the matter. I suppose, in hindsight they were asked how they wanted their son to be punished. The choice would have been either the police or the school. They must have agreed that the school should apply a thrashing. The boy was called into the room. Us kids were listening in to proceedings from the playground. It could be that the window was deliberately left open for the rest of the class to hear the squealing cries made by the boy as the cane was applied. An effective way of returning a would be thief to the straight and narrow.
The teacher of the class I was in was a Miss Brindle. I didn鈥檛 like her very much, because she would show a child up to the rest of the class if he or she had got something wrong in a lesson. Also, she had a pet boy, who bore the unfortunate name Valentine Day. He was a bright boy, and very nice looking. Always well turned out and a bit stand-offish. Teacher鈥檚 attention made him almost unbearable, so he became rather disliked. If miss Brindle found a silly mistake in our work, she would take the exercise book over to Valentine Day to show him. Not very professional really, and those things leave a lasting impression on the mind.
We all had to learn to knit. What a performance! I was more into taking my toys to pieces than I was knitting. Mathematics, I couldn鈥檛 get enough of, and I used to hate having to go out into the playground and play ball games. After many hours of knitting, I produced, or had hanging onto my knitting needles, about a three inch square piece of tightly pulled work that was so tight, it was stiff. Miss Brindle grabbed it out of my hands and asked me what I thought it was. I had no answer. I was just knitting. It didn鈥檛 occur to me that I was knitting something. Miss Brindle proceeded to make fun of me and my knitting. She pushed her fingers through the holes left by dropped stitches, of which there were many. She showed Valentine and had a good jeer at me. I felt terrible. I don鈥檛 remember doing any more knitting!
A game us kids played, among many others, was rolling pennies along in the playground. Not a competitive game, we just rolled them along and ran after them. One day, I was the proud owner of a shiny brand new penny. I was so proud. Out into the playground at break time I went, Shiny penny in hand. We all lined up and off went our pennies, with us kids running along after them. Mine, my lovely new penny, hit the edging of the playground, jumped up into the air, and fell out of sight into the hedging perimeter. I never did find that penny. I must have cried, because Mr Garner came out to ask me what was the matter. When I told him, he took a penny from his own pocket and offered it to me. I refused to take it because it wasn鈥檛 my lovely shiny penny. Mr Garner couldn鈥檛 understand this, and tried to reason with me. In the end he gave up and went back into the building.
War activity touched us even out in the Cotswolds. A common sight was to see aircraft flying along beyond the woods that flanked the road between Coln and Hatherop, spewing out parachutists. I even saw a 鈥楻oman candle鈥�. That鈥檚 what the failure of a parachute to open was known as.
Gliders being towed by Dakotas were often trawling across the sky. Sometimes there seemed to be hundreds of them. Perhaps I was witnessing the start of the D day invasion.
There are always bullies wherever you go. Hatherop junior was no exception. Perhaps the boy was schizophrenic - I don鈥檛 know, but generally, he wouldn鈥檛 bother me. One day, I was walking home to lunch and I became aware that this little bully was following me. The walk home from Hatherop to Coln St-Aldwin was at least one mile, so I put on a spurt to get away from him. He put on a spurt too. I crossed into fields to cut off corners. So did he. In the end I was running and so was he. Perhaps he was teasing. My home was further than his, as I passed his home, I hoped I was OK and he would stop the chase and go in for his lunch. He did. That never happened again, even though we both did the same walk at about the same time, there and back, every school day.
Somewhere in that second stay in the Cotswolds, we were listening to the news and we were told - by Stewart Hibbert probably - that the Germans were killing untold number of people by taking them from their homes to concentration camps. They were told to strip for a shower, sent into the shower rooms, and gassed to death. It so happened that these people were Jews. I feel that the adults heard the news with a certain amount of disbelief. I was so young then that I didn鈥檛 really appreciate the gravity of the story. We kids knew that the Germans were a depraved lot anyway - not that we put in those terms, but to us they were a terrible people.
On Easter Sunday while dad was visiting us, we all walked to Eastleach to visit Aunt Edith for tea, I went out into the courtyard I referred to earlier, to play by myself. Out there, just near the door of one of the stores, I found a chopping block with a small axe stuck into it. The store was full of wood. I just had to have a go at chopping some up for the fire.
I dragged some bits of tree out of the store and started to chop when I heard the sound of a low flying aircraft coming from over the house. I stopped chopping and looked up to see a Spitfire almost at rooftop level, flying over me. the pilot dipped the wing and waved. Then he was gone over the trees at the back of the courtyard to land on Hooks airfield. I started to chop again when there was an almighty bang. Every one in the house came pouring out of the back door. Over the trees at the back, there was rising a huge plume of black smoke. The Spitfire had crashed! We heard later that not only was the pilot killed, but so was a man on the ground.
In early 1945, the Germans were sending not only the flying bomb, but now, a far worse bomb propelled by a rocket. That evil invention killed, maimed and destroyed even before it was heard coming. Dark days. But, by April, the tide of war had turned in our favour, courageous allied action destroyed the source of the two V weapons, the Russians were advancing fast - too fast for the west鈥檚 comfort and dad decided that it would be safe for us to return home again and so we left Coln-St-Aldwyn on April 19th for the second and last time.
Unbeknown to me at the time, mum and dad liked the Cotswolds so much that they were planning to buy a cottage in Hatherop. Unfortunately the place burned down, so that idea was shelved and we resettled in Beckenham.
We all waited at the play ground entrance for the taxi to turn up - driven by Mr Kiddle. As we waited, Miss Knapp kept us company even though it was a normal school day. Up the road came the lady from Hatherop Castle with her two children to start their new day at school. She pulled up at the entrance. Her charges alighted and walked past us into school. I took my last longing look at Susan. The Lady had a quick chat with mum. Then she turned her attention on me and said that I would miss all those nice rides in her car. I meant to reply that I didn鈥檛 really mind because we were to have a nice long ride with Mr Kiddle in his taxi, and anyway, we were going home. Unfortunately to my exasperation and my mothers embarrassment, I only managed to get as far as I didn鈥檛 really mind, when Miss Knapp interrupted and said I was a very ungrateful little boy and I should be ashamed of myself. With that, the taxi turned up, the lady waved us good-bye and I never did get the chance to put things right.
The war in Europe ended three weeks after we went home. Victory in Europe day was Tuesday 8th of May. The residents of our avenue built a huge bonfire in the road and held a wonderful street party. We were at peace. This was a state of life that all adults had been referring to all my life - as far as I could remember. We could have our windows open on warm nights without being told to 鈥減ut that light out鈥�, we could get rid of the Morrison shelter, and convert the old Anderson one into a pond. I think many Anderson shelter bases finished up as ponds!
Like most things that are looked forward to so avidly, the reality was less wonderful than the dream. Almost everything was in short supply and most essentials were on ration, and stayed on ration for some years. Mum spent a large portion of her life queuing for food or clothes, and often came home empty handed. On June 29th, she queued for fruit and got none. She did manage half a pound of tomatoes, and she enters in her diary that they were the first tomatoes she鈥檇 been able to get that year.
In January 鈥�46, she died.

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