大象传媒

In June, 1940, along with many other children from all schools in the Thurrock area, I was transported by bus to the Regal cinema in Grays, where we were given sandwiches and labels in our different groups for the train journey to Devizes in Wiltshire.

I was almost eight years old, and my sister, who was thirteen, went on the same train but in a different group, so we virtually had no knowledge of the other!

At Devizes, on a hot summer afternoon, my sister and her party must have been deposited in Devizes, while my school party was put on a single-decker diesel bus to travel onwards to a little village called Erlestoke. At the tiny village school we were met by a party of receiving villagers, and one by one, we were allocated out to various families. Two of us were left to last, so I remember being given some strawberries for being brave!
In fact, I was the last, and there were no billeting places left, so one family, who ran the village stoes and post office, who had already taken two evacuees as brother and sister, agreed to have me for the first night before another place was found.
Fortunately, Mr.and Mrs.Sartain kept me with them for the next two years, and despite being homesick, I am eternally grateful to them for their kindness in that time, and thoroughly enjoyed the comparative freedoms of the estate grounds which surrouded the village, including the unusual Wellingtonia trees and other rarer plants in various areas broken up by differing waterfalls and lakes.
The mansion which was sited on the rise above the village had been taken over by the Eighth Army for training of its engineering officers, and they enjoyed shooting at the pike which liked to "sunbathe" in the huge lily pond.

Each year, an exhibition of the specialist tools used by the engineers was held in the park, and a finale was always the drilling of an old tree, filling the holes with an explosive called aminal, everyone ordered to stand back, and the explosive was then detonated - usually with destructive effect!
In my second year, the same treatment was given to an old but living cedar tree, which was considered by the army to be "in the Way"
and much explosive was prepared.
When the plunger was pushed down, there was the usual muffled "bang", there was lots of smoke, the tree shook - and stayed there as if nothing had happened!

You can imagine the humiliation felt by the explosive instructors, and the laughter and relief of the villagers, but subsequently, the engineers dug a trench around the base of the tree to blow the tree from the roots, so that it eventually toppled.

I left Erlestoke to go home to attend my local grammar school, Palmer's Endowed School for Boys, and revisited Erlestoke some 40 years later, to find that the old mansion had been converted to a Young Offenders' Institution, with high fencing all round the estate grounds and staff housing built in the "park".

I have more memories of that two-year stay, but that will have to wait for another time.

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