大象传媒

My War Day Childhood Memories

My name is Syd Perks, born in Stone, Staffordshire, 1940. We moved to Penkridge shortly after I was born. My first recollection of things happening around me was about 1944, my father was a farm worker and we lived in a tied cottage. We were very lucky living in the country at this time because the nearest bomb that dropped was in a field about three miles away from where we lived.

In the 1940s there were lots of British and American tanks guns and transport vehicles stashed away around the Penkridge area hidden on Cannock Chase and in the woods probably for the build up to D Day or if Hitler got here. There were also a lot of American servicemen stationed around this area. It was at this time my older brother Tom started collecting American cigarette packets and matchboxes which he had given to him from these servicemen. My brother gave them to me several years ago and I still have them today. Another time my brother came home with some thick aircraft a piece of perspex window screen, I do not know if he got it off the yanks or a crash site and he sat making rings to put on fingers {which was a craze at the time).

My brother was involved in an incident when my dad was in the Home Guard, he had a revolver that he had kept since he was a youth, when he used pall about with Buffalo Bill鈥檚 cowboys and Indians from Buffalo Bills Circus when they came over to England during the 1930s. I can remember one day my brother came home with a microphone stand and earphones, which he had swapped for my dad鈥檚 Revolver, dad went mad with him, but he never got the gun back.

Although my father was a good dad to us, he was a tough nut and would fight anybody. One story my mom told me was about a day my dad walked into a cafe in Penkridge and there was a local man who was boxer, at what level I don鈥檛 know, but this man was picking on one of my mom鈥檚 brothers and she told me my dad asked this man outside but the outcome was he wouldn鈥檛 owing to my dad鈥檚 reputation. This is the reason I didn鈥檛 have a very good education because my dad wouldn鈥檛 let anyone take the micky, he would thump them there and then. What I mean is because we were living in tied cottages after my dad had thumped another farm worker or the farmer himself we would be off to another farm leaving me having to go to another school. Some of the cottages were so remote I didn鈥檛 go school at all. Having said that he was a good dad to us his raised voice was enough for me to behave.

My Godfather, who was also my uncle Syd, was an aircraft fitter in the R.A.F and whilst he was away in the forces his wife, my aunty, had a fling with the coalman. My Uncle Syd came home unexpected and found his wife in the coal lorry cab with the coalman as he was delivering coal. The outcome of this incident was that my uncle and my older brother Tom went out to meet him in the lane and belted the side of his lorry with a sledgehammer. At this the coalman and my aunty took off in the lorry, but uncle Syd and aunty Doll got back together after the war.

I had another experience with this same sledge hammer when my brother Tom was knocking an old bicycle frame and metal rods into a hole in the hedge to stop me getting out of our garden into the field where cattle were grazing. Being just a young child I walked up behind Tom [unbeknown to him] as he swung the sledgehammer back, the blow hit me on the head and knocked me up the alleyway close to the house. I still have this same sledgehammer in my shed today.

Another memory I have of this time was when my brother, who was 14 at the time, made a parachute out of a gents handkerchief with string and small bag of stones. He had me in the garden picking up stones, he was in the house with a small mirror using the sun to shine on particular stones in the garden for me to pick up, after making the parachute he came out to try out the parachute, but at that moment my mother came back from the shops and into the garden just as my brother threw the parachute up in the air and as it came down it hit my mother on the head, he then ran of till my mom had cooled down.

Tom used to ride my father鈥檚 motorbike when asked to fetch Dad some fags. He would go on my father鈥檚 motorbike to get them. The shed the bike was kept in was very dark, one day Tom went in the shed and took the cap off the petrol tank, being a bit stupid he struck a match to see if there was any petrol in the tank. An explosion occurred and he burnt his face and hair, he ran into the house and my mom seeing his plight reached for a large brown bottle of something that looked like custard which mom used for burns. Acting quickly my mom plastered his face and head with this stuff. My aunty Doll got a taxi and took him to hospital, when they got to the hospital they told my aunty off and said my mom should not have put anything on him, but in later years he never had any burn marks on his face so I reckon mom did the right thing in the first place.
These are just a few memories I have of the war years.

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