大象传媒

TIN HATS AND TOY GUNS

chapter two
Evacuated ..... sort of ?
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By far my favourite radio programme was
' Into Battle '. each week I sat by the radio, waiting for the rousing tune ,
'Lilly Bolero ', that introduced the weeks episode. It told the story of our lads at the front I had a lot of admiration for the boys in the merchant navy.
More and more of them were dying out in the Atlantic, trying to bring us much needed supplies from Canada and America.
It was brought home to me when, much to my surprise, a lad called Jack came home from the navy.
He had worked in the local butchers department of the Co-op shop and he came back to his old job. Or, rather, he left his leg behind.
He would be nineteen at the time .
But, there were funny times too.
A lad who lived in the next street suddenly acquired an army hat !
We naturally wanted to know where he had got it from, as he proudly paraded up and down in front of us younger kids.
We sat on the wall and listened to his tale.
He had joined the ' Local Defence Volunteers' which later became the 'Home Guard'. He had an armband with the letters L.D.V. on it. He told us that, one day, he would get the rest of his uniform !
We were green with envy. My cub cap seemed childish now,
" Have you got a gun ?", we asked him.
" Oh yes " he lied " and a bayonet".
Later, we saw him on parade with the rest of them. His ' gun ' was a broom handle !
He avoided us for some time after.
But, he did get his gun, because, some time later he was called into the army and spent most of the war as a prisoner in Germany.
I used to go to the cinema with my auntie Elsie.
I was always amazed at the American films.
They showed a land that was so different to our wartime Briton.
Every American had a huge car and had a refrigerator and all sorts of things.
The kids didn't have to creep round in the blackout and they all crowded into places called ' drug stores ', and bought huge ice creams and stuff called ' soda', a bit like our lemonade.
We watched them eat huge meals and our dowdy clothes looked very poor compared to their amazing fashions.
And... they had cowboys !
But, most of all, I watched the newsreels very closely,
The Germans continued to push our soldiers further back into France and they seemed to be very efficient.
Their equipment made ours look almost amateurish by comparison. Our lads seemed to be totally outnumbered by these supermen in their funny helmets.
In fact, as I watched the L.D,V, running round the fields waving their broom handles, I sometimes wondered if, soon, I may be putting aside my cub cap and be forced to put on the uniform of the Hitler youth !
My auntie Elsie gave me a little badge,
It was made of tin and it was green. If you held it under the light and then pinned it on your coat, it glowed when you went out into the blackout !
I was the envy of my friends and I used to walk round just to be seen.
Often, it was not too dark because the moon glowed on clear nights and the stars were very brilliant too. The buses had dim lights and the lights inside were blue.
Just enough light to see the conductor who was often a lady.
Most of the buses were painted grey because it was thought that they would be camouflaged among the buildings.
There were few cars about, but plenty of military lorries. Later in the war, some buses pulled a little trailer with a sort of huge balloon on top !
It was gas to run the engine. Petrol was so scarce. Most of the conductors ' and a few drivers' were women. They were known as 'clippies'. The drivers were amazing.
Not an easy job in the blackout and driving a bus with three crash gears and very heavy steering.
Suddenly, there was a change of plan !
Because it was inevitable that the bombers would soon arrive, it was decided that I should live in the cottage in Wales with my grandmother. Mum was working, making shell caps for guns and dad was still nursing.
He was a bit older than the ones who had already gone into the forces.
I was evacuated ! Well, that wasn't strictly true.
I simply went to live with my grandmother at Tan y Foel.
But, any ideas I had of some sort of long holiday were soon shattered.
I was enrolled at the local school and it got much worse.
There were a lot of evacuees in Bethesda when I arrived. They were from Liverpool and were living with local Welsh families.
So, being English, I was put in school amongst them.
My education started then !
A lot of the Liverpool kids were totally streetwise and I was thrown in at the deep end.
I had only been in Bethesda for about two weeks, when I was taken along by two ' much older ' Liverpool kids to the village billiard hall. They sat me on a table and proceeded to smash the glass of the 'Woodbine cigarette machine '.
I didn't know how they even got into the place. The building was supposed to be securely locked up.
I was given a woodbine and it was lit for me. The two Liverpool lads calmly began to play billiards, totally ignoring me.
By this time, I was feeling quite dizzy because of my woodbine and wishing that I could go home.
Suddenly, the door flew open and in rushed the village bobby. Just as quickly, out rushed the two Liverpool lads !
I, of course, remained sitting on the table.
The bobby walked over to me and looked at me pretty carefully. " Arnold bach from Tan y Foel ", he muttered " Go home to your nain ". ( Welsh for Grandmother ).
I wobbled out, because, by then I was feeling quite ill.
I made my way up the mountain , but I didn't tell my grandmother about my adventure.
The following day, the two Liverpool lads got marched off to the headmasters office.
But nothing was ever said to me about the event.
The war affected north Wales just as much as my hometown really.
Most of the young me who had worked in the quarry were in the forces and rationing was just as severe. The biggest thing to hit Bethesda was without doubt, the evacuees.
They changed that little Welsh village forever.
We used to go to school for half a day and get lots of homework. The reason was, we were taught in English. At that time 'in theory', so were the Welsh kids. But most of their parents spoke little English and I don't think that the English language rule was pushed too much . It certainly had been in the past. There had been an attempt to obliterate the Welsh language !
One of my pleasures before the war had been fishing. I used to go down to the river Ogwen with my dad and his friend Emlyn Parry and try my hand at fly fishing. Also, I used to go down to Bangor pier with either my dad or one of my uncles and do a spot of sea fishing.
So, I decided to take my line down to Bangor pier and see what I could do on my own. As I walked down the pier things just didn't feel the same. I cast my line down into the green seawater below and soon I was thinking about those sunny days of peacetime. A few of my uncles were in the forces and I hadn't seen my dad for some time.
I looked down at the heaving water below me and my mind went to those sailors who were right at that moment. battling their way across the Atlantic, trying to bring me food! worse, I thought about the ones that would never again be able to do any fishing. And about their families too.
Suddenly, I felt very alone.
It had not been a good idea to come to Bangor pier fishing ...
Something else that caused me great sadness at the time was the number of planes that crashed in the mountains of Snowdonia.
No one was told at the time, but by the end
of the war there were a couple of hundred.
The war took on a much more sinister aspect while i was in Wales.
Our soldiers were driven out of France !
We were told at the time that there had been a brilliant and successful plan to move our lads from a place called Dunkirk.
But the news pictures showed tired, worn out soldiers, many wounded, grinning at the cameras as they came ashore from little boats !
They had no equipment and some of them didn't even have uniforms.
It didn't look like a victorious withdrawal.
I worried even more about joining the Hitler youth !
Soon , something else happened.
This time, there was no doubt about the outcome. It was the battle of Britain.
We saw lots of fighter planes roaring up and down the valleys among the mountains.
' they still do ', but, in those days they were mostly Spitfires and Hurricanes.
Much more was beginning to happen among the wild mountains of north Wales, But, of course, we knew nothing about any of it.
The posters that were all over the place were effective. One of them informed us that 'Walls have ears !.
During the long hot summer of 1940 the battle raged.
At sea another battle raged.
Little was known about it because it would not have been good for moral.
We were bringing essential food and materials across the Atlantic. But, uncle Adolf's U boats were literally getting away with murder. We had to escort our merchant ships as best we could.
We brought them across in convoys.
The idea was that we could use our fast destroyers to defend them.
The trouble was, we didn't ;t have many.
A lot of American powdered eggs are at the bottom of the sea. Oh, and lots of hero's are there too. No uniforms, no medals, no glamour. Nothing but a wet iron room to sleep in, or lie awake waiting for the explosion that would send the little iron room to the bottom of the Atlantic.
Imagine stoking the boilers of a leaky old rust bucket that should have been scrapped years ago. Deep in the bowels of it, heaving coal into the hungry boilers !
But, imagine that rusty old wall suddenly imploding and letting the freezing Atlantic rush in 1
I can assure you that little lads aged nine did imagine it .
Sometimes, I used to see some tired looking, pale man in Bangor. All that told his story was a little badge in his lapel.
It was blue and silver . It had the crown of Neptune and the letters M.N.
Thank you mister unknown sailor 'if you survived ', Thank you for my powdered eggs from America, they made wonderful omelettes!

Later, it was possible to do much more to protect our convoys. But, then in 1940, the thing that everyone noticed was the battle of Britain.
There were two battles of Britain !
We had got ourselves a new prime minister.
I didn't much like the look of him.
He looked rather like a headmaster.
He had a powerful, gruff voice and we listened to him on the radio promising us a long dark struggle ahead.
Ahead, to me, seemed like forever !
Meanwhile, I played on the slopes of 'Baby mountain, with my Welsh friend.
A girl of about my age who lived in the farm next to our cottage.
We played, oblivious to the fact that, at that moment, someone somewhere in the world was dying. We played at platting rushes and trying to block the mountain stream to try to flood the farm below ! @ if you read this SORRY '. We never did manage it .
Long innocent days of the hot summer of 1940. We were a bit hungry but, not a bad time for me.
Everything was happening. It was beginning to make the days before the war seem very uninteresting .
Time means little when you are nine and the war seemed to be very much a part of everyday life.
Uncle Adolf's toys had long since ceased.
So had most toys. Everyone seemed to be making something to try to win the war.
We were, without doubt, winning the battle of Britain.
The fields in the south east of England seemed to be littered with crashed German bombers and fighters.
No on ever told me that there were a fair number of OUR planes scattered there too !
Only airfields were being bombed and the decision was made that I could have Christmas at home, or rather, at my grandparents ' Long '. They happened to live in a very rural spot that was VERY close to Manchester.
So it was that I said goodbye to my Welsh friends , and some of the Liverpool lads, and we went home.
No one had told me, but, while I had been in Wales, a London lad had been evacuated to
MY house !
One of the daft things that happen in wartime. He too, went home to the safety of London !

Much had changed during my absence.
There were air raid shelters in the streets.
Little brick affairs with concrete roofs that didn't look very safe.
Also, painted on some walls in big yellow letters E.W.S. It meant, emergency water supply. I suppose it would have worked even if the water mains had been bombed ?
Up in the sky, there were barrage balloons.
Big silver things that looked to me like floating pigs.
Also, there were anti aircraft guns all round Manchester.
Everyone was so pleased to see me home and I was told that I could stay ! There had been a few air raids. Even one or two bombs. But, nothing really bad.
After all, hadn't our R.A.F. boys destroyed the German air force ?
Christmas 1940 will mean something to anyone in the Manchester area who is old enough to remember it.
It was when we found out that the Germans did have a few bombers left . In fact.
they had rather a lot !
The sirens started to wail quite early. We all went into grandads Anderson shelter in the back garden. Dad was not with us, he was working. An Anderson shelter was a corrugated iron thing that was buried in the garden next to the hen pen.
Inside, were little bunks and a few candles and a carpet ! It also had a little curtain behind which was a chamber pot.
All was silent for a bit, then we hear ed a sort of low humming sound, growing steadily louder. Then, the anti aircraft guns started to fire. They made a sharp crackling sound. The sky suddenly lit up with the light of a few searchlights roaming over the sky.
Grandad was wearing his tin hat and stood outside smoking his pipe which he had upside down, so that the Germans wouldn't see the glow of it !
He had left the wooden door slightly ajar and I could see the light reflecting off the barrage balloons.
Still the droning got louder. It had a strange throbbing sound. Later, I realised that the German planes sounded different to ours. Then, suddenly..... Everything exploded. First, there was a strange whistling sound, then a lot. Then came what we had been waiting for.
CRUMP, CRUMP. There was no doubting that sound . Sometimes near, sometimes far away, the bombs exploded.
It went on all night. I learned to count five. They seemed to release the bombs in groups of five, and then you knew that the last one had exploded from that plane.
Slowly, the bit of sky that I could see grew orange and much brighter.
I could see grandads face. His pipe had long ago dropped its last spark.
His unshaven face looked grim.
No doubt, he was remembering the last time, years ago.
I could smell a familiar aroma. Almost taste it. It was the smell of bonfire night !
The smoke of burning wood and something like fireworks .
There is little fear in little lads age nine. or, I can only speak for myself.
I felt excitement. This was the real thing !
At last, the war had arrived.....
I hoped for this excitement every night !
I could not hear any Spitfires.
Only millions of German bombers.
Well. It sounded like millions !
In my mind, the Anderson shelter was a trench in the first world war.
I couldn't tell the adults about my excitement. I think I was supposed to feel terrified ? My mum and Grandmother looked very thoughtful.
In the early light of morning, the mournful 'all clear' siren sounded. We climbed out of our shelter. Everything looked the same ! Just the strong smell of burning wood in the cold morning air .

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