大象传媒

42b - Dennis Vokins: (continues talking about the Maudlsey Co.) Yes, I don鈥檛 think they had a lot to do with Standard, but they made the Maudsley car, and there is one in existence still in the Coventry Museum which belongs to the Maudsley Motor Company; who it belongs to now I don鈥檛 know, but it is in the museum, a 1910 Maudsley car it is. They started out with cars, and they went on to lorry chassis, and eventually coming up to the 1940s, 鈥�45, they couldn鈥檛 get components for that, and eventually AEC took them over (Associated Equipment Company), and they became part of them, and they built a lot of vehicles during the war for the army and that.

Neville Usher: What about fuel during the war. Did you have a lot of problems getting it?

Dennis Vokins: I personally had no problems whatsoever with fuel, 鈥榗os I used to handle all the coupons and suchlike going out to all the vehicles we used to operate, and it was red petrol, there was very little diesel. But coupons, perhaps I would have thousands of coupons issued from the Ministry in Birmingham and used to go round the different garages who used to supply them, and say how many do you want you know, guess what happened to a few of them.

Neville Usher: But I suppose really you were in a reserved occupation?

Dennis Vokins: Yes. I wanted to go into the Navy before the war, and each time I went everything was OK passing, I had got flat feet, they were not having me. And then when I got this during the war they said well you鈥檙e a reserved occupation you can鈥檛 go, so I never went at all - just one of the fortunate ones I suppose, but people were doing as much at home in the factories and all that sort of things as people on the front. 鈥楥os people get killed in the bombing, and things like that.

Neville Usher: In a way did you enjoy the war? Or it was interesting?

Dennis Vokins: It was interesting, I suppose you would enjoy yourself because you 鈥�, well I was young and you don鈥檛 absorb a lot of the tragedy that鈥檚 happening and things like that. But I think when the Americans came into the war it made the British soldiers very discontented, because they鈥檇 got far more money, better clothing, better facilities and everything, and I think that did make the British soldiers and sailors and airmen 鈥�, made them a little bit envious I suppose is the word.
But I have no doubt about it they were far better off, the Americans. They used to come into Stratford here I think on two or three nights a week, and then they used to have a truck to take them back to Moreton I think it was, used to go back about eleven o鈥檆lock at night back to Moreton, and I remember we used to see that out a lot.

Neville Usher: What about Stratford itself from when you first came to now, better, worse?

Dennis Vokins: Stratford was quite a quiet little town when I first came here, I used to know it quite well, mostly for the cafes and that for food. Because I used to lodge at various places, but they鈥檇 hold my ration book but I was always out, and I used to have most of my meals out - I used to know where all the different cafes were and I used to get my food and that.

At night time it was difficult to get anything to eat at night, after about, oh, five o鈥檆lock, very difficult. And I remember the first time I came here, I came to Solihull, Lode Lane, I came up on the train, I had a heavy flywheel with me which is about this big, all my tools and various other things to change the clutch on an old Leyland Lion, and I think it was one of the coldest day 鈥�, or the coldest day, it would be about 1942, something like that, or early 鈥�43, it was the coldest day they had had for 50 or 60 years, and I can remember laying down under that vehicle changing the flywheel, and it was that cold I had got my pyjamas on underneath and everything, I had got an overcoat on, and I was absolutely perished on that. And I arrived up there on a Sunday evening, I could not get anything to eat anywhere, I had had nothing to eat all day, I couldn鈥檛 even get a packet of crisps at the local pub and I was starving, and I never got anything to eat till the next morning, and that stuck in my mind, and that鈥檚 the sort of thing you remember isn鈥檛 it. That was in Lode Lane where the Rover works are, there it is, about by there it was. 鈥楥os there was a War Agricultural Hostel just there, and I stopped there that night, and I managed to get some breakfast there the next morning, and I remember I was hungry that night - I think you remember the bad things more than the good things like that.

Neville Usher: Of course the station isn鈥檛 that near Lode Lane isn鈥檛 it?

Dennis Vokins: No. I think I came into the centre of Birmingham, if I remember rightly I got out there on the old trolley bus, 鈥榗os that鈥檚 the only place from Birmingham was from the centre down Albert Street down to Lode Lane, to the Rover Works, that was the only trolley bus service in Birmingham, and that disappeared I think just after the war that went out, but I can remember that very well it was a cold day!

Well Stratford I presume has got much bigger, but not for the better. During the war it was quite a sleepy little place I suppose if you can call it that.

There was a lot of service men, because there was many aerodromes around here, and army camps, one at Long Marston and things like that - aerodromes galore round here. Atherstone, Bearley, Long Marston, Honily - so many I can鈥檛 remember them all there were so many, and there was a lot of personnel round here. I know there was a lot of flying accidents and a lot of people killed in flying accidents round here.

One thing I do remember, I wonder if anybody else does, would it be 1944 I went to go along the Shipston Road and I couldn鈥檛 get along. A flying Fortress had made an emergency landing on Atherstone and he鈥檇 run out of road, or runway should I say, and he was across the road. He had gone right down, he was across the Oxford Road and I suppose they moved it afterwards, but I know I couldn鈥檛 get along there because this Flying Fortress had landed there!

Neville Usher: That was the main Oxford road from Birmingham?

Dennis Vokins: That鈥檚 right, that was the main road in those days, and that was blocked there.
And 1947, that was after the war finished, it would have been March time I think - January to March, it snowed and it snowed and it snowed and it snowed, and it was the worst winter they had had on record, and I abandoned a car nearby Atherstone aerodrome on the same spot, and I thought I had left it on the road, 鈥榗os there was another chap with me and we walked through and then decided we鈥檇 go down to Newbold, and we stopped the night in Newbold, and when I came to get the car back next morning, I suppose there was 50/60 yards off the road, the road was there, and the car was right down there. Do you know where those few houses are on the Shipston Road before Atherstone aerodrome? Well it was that bend there, we had abandoned it, we were right over the road across there, that鈥檚 how the road had moved across with the snow in that time! Of course we don鈥檛 get the snow now like that.
And during the war we used to get some really bad, cold winters, and it鈥檚 been that cold I remember we had a Land Army vehicle at Atherstone aerodrome there, they had a hostel down there, and they hadn鈥檛 started the vehicle overnight or anything 鈥�, we can鈥檛 start it, I went down, and it was so cold it had frozen the battery and the battery was burst open, and it鈥檚 got to be cold to freeze acid like that, it just burst the battery wide open. And radiators, used to freeze them regularly even when you had got antifreeze in them they used to freeze, and if you didn鈥檛 cover them up, well!

Neville Usher: You used to get mufflers on them?

Dennis Vokins: That鈥檚 right yes, yes. And it used to be difficult driving at night because you had the headlights, you used to have the 鈥淗artley bars鈥� which was better, there was just black and 3 slots on them, the Hartley had a bit more but it鈥檚 very difficult when driving. And I was living, not Great Alne, Haselor at the time, and when I went to work for Maudsley, it must be 10 years or more afterwards, a chap came up to me and he says 鈥淚 know you鈥� - I said I doubt it. I said what鈥檚 your name, he says Ken Sumners, oh I said your dad used to farm in Haselor didn鈥檛 he? He said yes, he said I can remember you he said, I wasn鈥檛 very big, having this foglight when they鈥檇 lifted the restrictions, you could have a foglight on your vehicle, he said you had got this amber foglight, and you were shining it up in the trees before you fitted it on the vehicle, and he said I can remember that, I mean that was a strange thing after all those years, and he remember me with this foglight, it must have made a big impression on him, yes.

Neville Usher: Fog lights were really the thing. I had some foglights when we were in Birmingham in the 鈥榮ixties.

Dennis Vokins: You were allowed them towards the end of the war, you could have them on, but you weren鈥檛 allowed them before 鈥榗os they were too bright!
But it was rather strange that I should meet up with him after all those years, 鈥榗os I can remember his dad at about the same time, he said would you like to try some home made cider? I said yes. And it was rough cider, I didn鈥檛 like it a lot, but he only gave about that much of course, a bit stingy with this stuff, but about half an hour after I knew I had this cider, I was ooh! like this, my head was going round, I think this was about the first time I had ever had rough cider that was, I don鈥檛 want any more of that, it was really potent that was.

Neville Usher: Driving in the blackout must have been a nightmare, especially with big vehicles.

Dennis Vokins: Yes. We had a landgirl, she was driving at Long Marston, and she collided with another vehicle with the girls in, her name was Beryl but I can鈥檛 remember the surname, but she lost a leg from the accident, and the girl who was driving, I was going about with her at the time, and she was in Stratford Hospital, that was when it was a little narrow building, I don鈥檛 suppose you would remember that would you?

Neville Usher: Not really.

Dennis Vokins: No. You know as you go up the road into the side now, there used to be a very old building there, two storey building and she was in there. And it was snowing like the devil that night, and I said well I have got to let your mom and dad know you鈥檙e in here 鈥榗os I knew her mom and dad quite well, they lived in Coventry, so I went over to Coventry that night to tell 鈥榚m. That would be the beginning of 鈥�43, I am not certain about the date, and it was snowing all the time, and I can remember 鈥�, I am going to take off in a minute, you had the experience, 鈥榗os you had only got these little lights on the front, and the snow was coming down like this and it was an awful sensation, you felt like you were going to take off like in an aeroplane, I mean about two hours of driving like that it just about had enough by the time I got back.
And when I heard earlier in the day about this accident, I had been fitting a new spring on the front of a van I was using, on a Ford van, and I had a transverse spring on the front, they didn鈥檛 have springs like normal cars they were transverse, and I had got a tyre lever in that, a bar, levering the spring in, brought it up and I went, and I got up the Warwick Road on the bend, near where those two lads were killed not long ago, and instead of going round the bend I kept going straight, and I was fortunate I stopped! And I found when I got out, I had left this bar in, in my hurry, this bar was still down 鈥�, it had come down into the wheel, and if you turned that way, but I couldn鈥檛 turn that way, so I was fortunate there wasn鈥檛 two accidents that day, but it just shows how easy things happen like that.

Neville Usher: And of course in those days, you couldn鈥檛 have phoned her parents could you?

Dennis Vokins: No you couldn鈥檛, it was impossible, no. I can remember that very well. As I said before, you remember tragedies more than the good things.
I personally never had any trouble with getting food during the war, but I knew all the different cafes here within 50/60 miles of Stratford you know you always knew where you could get something to eat and always plenty, because the cafes were well supplied with food for transport people and that, and there was always plenty to eat.

Neville Usher: The train must have been a bit grim to travel on, I should think?

Dennis Vokins: Well, the trains I always found 鈥�, I did use the trains quite a bit, they were very good service, they were absolutely crowded, you were always standing in the corridor and everywhere but they were running on time always, the trains were very rarely late in my experience anyway, I mean other people may have had different experiences, but trains were always kept on time when I 鈥� It was crowded I know, but I know I used to come up from Portsmouth to Waterloo, Waterloo to Paddington, which I knew like the back of my hand, all the little dodges you would get there quicker and things like that. I used to go up to the north a lot too, that would be after the war. I used to come from Bolton to Manchester and back to Birmingham, I used to learn the different things. You鈥檇 come to Manchester, you鈥檇 come on the one train to Birmingham, if you got off that train, say half way, nip across the platform, you鈥檇 get another train that was going, a quicker train, and you鈥檇 get back a bit quicker, all those sort of things like that.

Neville Usher: Did your family get out of Gosport as the war 鈥�

Dennis Vokins: Yes. Well mother and my younger brother they were up in Cheltenham with one of my other sisters most of the time. And then my father was a Royal Marine, my eldest brother was a Signals Officer, the other one was on Submarines (he was lost in the war) the other fortunately went through. And the other brother was in the army, National Service he had to do, and I think my sister鈥檚 husband was a Lieutenant in the army, so really we are a military family, more than anything.

Neville Usher And you just lost one brother?

Dennis Vokins One brother during the war yes, he was lost in submarines in the Med somewhere. They were carrying these miniature submarines that were going 鈥�, there were two of them went through but one was lost, they reckon they struck a mine somewhere.
So I have seen a lot of bombing and what not, and when I was in Gosport when I lived there, when houses, one or two were bombed you know and old people just shoved to other places and things like that.

We were a big family, but I think that was the norm in those days, to have quite a big family. I was one of eight. There was like four of us early on from 1910 up to 1918, and then my sister and myself and my other brother, we were like a second batch, we didn鈥檛 know them really because they were out working and that, and they got married, we didn鈥檛 even know them really, we didn鈥檛 know much about 鈥榚m. Like if you were at school, 1 year鈥檚 difference, that鈥檚 another life wasn鈥檛 it, you didn鈥檛 know the people."

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.