大象传媒

Memories of Early Childhood in southeast England during WW2
Tim Aldington
Part 3

There were several defining moments as the events of war unfolded which I was increasingly able to participate in as I grew up, having the advantage, perhaps, of being in a quasi-military environment where everyone followed the course of the war very closely. The first was the campaign in North Africa with the main protagonists being Generals Mongomery on the allied side and Rommel on the German, particularly the Battle of El Alamein. By that time, 1942, occasionally our mother would take us to the cinema when, apart from the main film (I think I was more scared by 鈥楾he Phantom of the Opera鈥� than by any war experience) and perhaps a 鈥楤鈥� film as well, there would be the cinematographic news screenings which always had a certain propagandistic optimism about them and El Alamein certainly offered a genuinely good opportunity for that. There were also more overtly propaganda 鈥楤鈥� films generally along the theme of armed merchant ships forcing U boats to the sea surface and knocking them out with gunfire from implausibly small guns. But all of this did the spectators much good. Then followed the successful Allied landings in Sicily, succeeded in due course by the initially less successful ones at Anzio in Italy. The latter plus the apparent stalemate at Monte Cassino caused considerable gloom at home. But D Day, 6 June 1944, was the defining event. For some months prior to it, the presence of American troops was increasingly noticeable with their generally large stature, white teeth (by the current British standards) and high quality uniforms (again by current British standards). It was around this time that I saw my first Black American in uniform, big as a cupboard, wearing a shiny cotton uniform and with a matchstick held between his immaculate teeth. I was duly impressed. American jazz and boogie-woogie was increasingly heard in our living room. The presence of American servicemen in SE England probably was an attempt to convince the Germans that the Allied landing would take place rather to the East than to the West of France. The actual site was a well-kept secret and we were always conscious of the placards placed here and there that admonished us with the words 鈥淐areless talk costs lives.鈥� We all knew that something big was brewing but never mentioned it out loud. Then one day, 6th June 1944, the wireless announced the landings in Normandy that had taken place during the previous night. That was really a sensation of not only the 鈥渆nd of the beginning鈥� but 鈥渢he beginning of the end鈥� although we could not know that it would take almost another year for hostilities in Europe to cease.

There were some late concerns: General von Rundstedt鈥檚 counter attack through the Ardennes in the winter of 1944/45 and the Battle of the Bulge鈥� which ensued, well pictured by editions of the Illustrated London News which I read with a sort of fascinated horror. Then there was Arnhem in the netherland when, in the late summer of 1944, the Allies tried to land, by glider and parachute, troops to take strategic bridges over the waterways of the lower Rhine. Hearing the noise of what seemed to be an endless armada of aircraft flying overhead at night, quite low, heading for the nearby coast, going outside we saw numerous dark shapes moving against the starry skies, large planes, bombers perhaps, and others which must have been the gliders, smoothly traversing the sky with a slight whooshing sound audible even against the noise of the engines. On and on they came and passed on to the Channel and then silence.

While I don鈥檛 remember the beginning of WW2, I do remember its conclusion which, of course, was in two parts: Europe and Japan. For the first I remember well walking down the stairs of our house on a nice sunny morning in May 1945 and hearing the 大象传媒 announcer intone over the wireless that the armistice had been signed and that 鈥渢omorrow, the 8th May would be VE day.鈥� But it was something of an anticlimax because for sometime such an announcement was expected daily. Yet, the relief and excitement when it finally arrived were tangible. Yet again, as so often after such periods of stress, the immediate desire was for contemplation and repose rather than for excessive joy and partying. It took time for the events to sink in. VJ Day (15th August) was perhaps even more sober with the concurrent announcement of the new terrible weapon, the atomic bomb. At the time I don鈥檛 remember anyone asking how many unfortunate Japanese had died in these two explosions, but just that everyone was so relieved that the War, after nearly 6 years, was finally over. By then I was 9 years old. My mother went up to London for both of these celebrations, joining her brother by then just qualifying as a doctor. She returned in great spirits from one of these, I cannot recall which, having, so she claimed, caused a rare London taxi to turn around in its tracks by the sight of her lifting her skirts with the aim of stopping it. The driver must have been disappointed when her brother and friends accompanying her then emerged from their hiding places and jumped in after her.

At about the time of VJ day, there was a military pageant held at Dover to mark the end of hostilities. It wasn鈥檛 just a parade of soldiers but also some sporting events such as tug of war and other things. What remains in my memory though was the riding display put on by a group of Russian Cossack soldiers mounted 鈥� but more often than not, dismounted - on their small, muscular horses, almost ponies, concluding with a traditional Cossack dance. As my grandfather was presiding over this celebration, we were seated in the grandstand as it were, and the Cossacks who were considered the stars of the show, were introduced to the local and military dignitaries and also to us. My mother thought them most handsome in their distinctive uniforms and supple boots and I seem to recall some moves to invite them all over to the house for a party. But military protocol intervened and they went their way. Within a very few years and the intervention of the 鈥楥old War鈥�, such encounters became impossible.

Perhaps a postwar postscript is justified because some aspects of the war years dragged on for a time, particularly food scarcity which became even worse when the US cut off its food programme, thinking that we could then fend for ourselves. But also I was growing up and becoming hungrier I suppose. In 1946 we visited Ireland and I was very much impressed by the richness and quantity of food available compared to England: butter, milk and cream, eggs, varieties of meat not to tell of things sweet and delicious, they were all available in profusion. So much so that one night I was horribly sick in the hotel room I shared with my uncle who had to apply his newly acquired skills as a doctor: he diagnosed a severe liver attack, rather rare in a 10 year old I would think.

Back in England, schools started opening up again and in the late summer of 1946, the first summer when we could finally go the recently de-mined beaches, I finally attended what I would call my first proper school, in Folkestone. We were about 40-50 pupils, assembled there. What a motley crew we must have been coming from a variety of backgrounds and experiences. There was even a small French boy, wearing strangely (for us) abbreviated shorts, peculiar boots and with his hair cut 鈥榚n brosse鈥�. We became school friends for a while and about 40 years later, we were to meet again at a conference in Paris I was attending where he was an interpreter. He remembered my name from the list of delegates, approached me and we recognized each other immediately.

Back in 1946, the poor headmaster looked at us in consternation at our, to him, woeful ignorance: algebra and geometry were mysteries to most of us; Latin? What was that? Knowledge of sports also was seriously lacking and we were initially soundly beaten at football by the schools which had been evacuated and then returned to south-east England but had maintained some standards. Perhaps our worst moment was to be soundly beaten at cricket by a team from a nearby girls鈥� school: they out-bowled, out-batted and out-fielded us completely. The expression on our headmaster鈥檚 face at this ultimate disaster is perhaps an appropriate memory with which to conclude.

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