大象传媒

I may have made a mistake about the name of Felipe鈥檚 Regiment. Was it The Staffordshire Regiment?

After a reading of the paper, my friend Ann said she thought all households in dangerous areas were issued with Anderson shelters. She said her family in Dudley (near Birmingham) had been given an Anderson. I asked her what her father鈥檚 employment had been鈥�.

HIS EMPLOYMENT鈥�

I have wondered if there could be any feedback to my paper. But then I thought: If a thing were outside a person鈥檚 experience they might not ask a question. And again, if they felt 鈥榗omfortable and familiar with a matter鈥� they might feel the item not worth the questioning.

Consider for example the statement 鈥楾he journey from Liverpool was long by train and included a cell in Ipswich Police Station and a lift on a motorbike鈥�.

The embers of this memory of mine after sixty years were:
The scheduled train journey time from Liverpool to Ipswich was eight hours changing at Rugby and Peterborough. Liverpool to Rugby was timetabled as two hours.
The Train was of open coaches 鈥� not a corridor train. It was full to capacity and with little more, or no more, standing room available. I do not know if any were unable to board the train.
There were lights in the coaches. It was dark outside.
Etched in my memory were two durations: Ten hours and another.
Whenever the train stopped where was it? There were no Station signs and there was The Blackout.
I have no memory of arriving anywhere. But I remember Ipswich Police Station vaguely.
I remember seeing insects in the light of the motorbike and fearing I might fall off. I do not remember any luggage.
So to the reconstructed memory鈥�

I boarded the train about midnight having spent as much of the evening at home as possible and planning to arrive at my Host鈥榮 in Wickham Market, Suffolk at a reasonable time of day: That is, eight a.m. or so into Ipswich, then a snack and a bus and into Wickham Market getting there about noon or earlier after a look at Ipswich.
The train was of open coaches and was packed tight with travellers with some sitting on the tables and others standing propped against seats or sitting on their luggage. There were no complaints and there was no acrimony between those sitting and those standing.
The train probably started on time but I don鈥檛 recall.
The train stopped from time to time. It was difficult or even impossible to know whether the train was on the main line, in a siding or at a station. One could not tell where the train was even by peeping round a blind, for the blackout was intense and rigidly upheld, and I was not near a window.
Occasionally someone would volunteer where we were. Sometimes when we were stationary a voice outside could be heard calling the name of the station if we were at one.

I seem to recall that once, when the train stopped at a station, a message came that there would be plenty of time for refreshment from the station tearoom.

I don鈥檛 seem to recall Rugby. But I do remember it took ten hours to get there with many of us standing since Liverpool. It must have been ten o鈥檆lock in the morning when we got to Rugby.
I do not remember the connection at Rugby; nor do I remember Peterborough, nor Ipswich.
How I found Ipswich Police Station I have no idea. The night was dark I suppose and I feel certain the staff gave me refreshment - possibly from their own sandwich boxes. They put me to bed in a cell I remember. They knew I was aiming for Wickham Market.

It was still dark when I was awakened with the offer of a lift by a motorcyclist to Wickham Market. I was given more refreshment.
The motorcyclist must have stowed my case - I have no idea.
I remember the insects in the light of the motorbike and I remember fearing being thrown off.
I don鈥檛 remember getting to my Hosts鈥� home in Wickham Market.

It was 鈥渢hirty-six hours鈥� since I had left home in Liverpool鈥hat is the other statistic etched in my mind!

On assessing the times from this account it seems it had taken twenty or twenty four hours to get to Ipswich, and thirty or thirty two to Wickham Market including the hospitality of The Policemen in Ipswich鈥ut readers can work it out for themselves.
One can try to imagine the state of travellers even after, say, the first four hours of standing. The journey thereafter would be as in something of a coma. But what a tribute to wartime food and to how tough wartime people were?

What a War! We had not heard the term 鈥楲ogistics鈥� then.

What an unbelievably wonderful job the Railways did. The railway staff got it right for my journey was of low priority in that massive task. My journey time was some sort of proxy for the effort of the Railway, the Civil Servants, and the Nation.
If Britain had gone under and not existed to sustain that tremendous effort 鈥楾he Thousand Year Reich鈥� would exist now.

Ann鈥檚 Dad was a railwayman. His Anderson was justified.

JOHN KNIBB

[This story was submitted to the People's War site by Wolverhampton Libraries on behalf of John Knibb and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions]

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