大象传媒

I had just turned 12 when the war started. We were on holiday on a Devon farm and sat down in the kitchen at 11 o鈥檆lock on 3rd September 1939 to listen to Neville Chamberlain. I can remember him saying 鈥渘o such undertaking has been received鈥� and 鈥渨e are thus at war with Germany鈥�, etc. I didn鈥檛 fully appreciate what this would involve but I had been aware for some months that something was up. Cinema newsreels for instance were full of things such as his return from Munich with the famous piece of paper.

We lived in Beckenham and our back bedrooms looked out over playing fields towards the Crystal Palace or at least what was left of it after the 1936 fire - we had a marvellous view of that. Because my father worked as a journalist in the City I was able to go the City of London School near Blackfriars station, to where I caught a train each morning. We boys came from as far out as Enfield, Ealing, Upminster, etc. The whole school was therefore evacuated to Marlborough where we shared facilities with the College, but were billeted in the town. About the middle of September my mother and I caught a train from Totnes to Marlborough and I was duly installed in a house in London Road.

Our activities were dovetailed with those of the College. We went to breakfast in the Dining Hall at 8 o鈥檆lock (08.00) whilst they had a lesson. Then at 09.00 they went to breakfast whilst we went to the gym or onto the playing fields for cricket or rugby practice, etc., for 3 or so hours, if I remember correctly. At 10.00 they went into lessons for 3 hours. At 12.00 we had lunch whilst they had their last lesson and then at 13.00 (try and keep up) they had their lunch whilst we went into lessons for three hours. At 14.00 they started 3 hours on the playing fields. Supper for us at 16.00 whilst they had their last hour on the field and then we had a final lesson whilst they had supper. It all sounds confusing but it worked quite well.

Apart from this change in our daily arrangements the most obvious and striking change was the Blackout. Complete and utter darkness after sunset, unless there was a moon, so German bombers couldn鈥檛 recognise anywhere. So mother and father constructed frames and curtains from black-out material to cover the windows. Air Raid Wardens used to patrol after dark and if they saw a chink of light through a window there would be the knock on the door and a shout of 鈥減ut that light out!鈥� From the start also we were all provided with gas masks as the Government was worried that gas bombs would be dropped with devastating results otherwise. These came in cardboard boxes of about 6鈥� or 8鈥� each side with a stout string attached. You had to carry them everywhere and woe-betide you if seen without one. Luckily they were never needed as far as I know.

Later of course there was rationing. Not everything was rationed (amazingly bread wasn鈥檛 rationed until after the war, to help all the displaced persons in Europe), and you could always supplement your rations. You could keep chickens and have the eggs they produced and of course eat the chickens after. Many people kept pigs, which were fed from all the food scraps, which you saved from the family table. You could of course grow vegetables and if you hadn鈥檛 done this before the War you were encouraged to start doing so by the 鈥淒ig for Victory鈥� campaign.

And then during the first winter of the War, 1939/40, there was the cold, a bitter cold with snow and ice, that went right into you and the telephone wires covered in ice. At Marlborough the temperature never rose above freezing for 16 weeks and for a period it was I believe the second coldest place in Britain. Not many people knew about it because, of course, it wasn鈥檛 in the news. The powers that be weren鈥檛 going to let the Germans know what conditions were like over here. Everyone remembers the 1946/7 winter after the War, but not this one. We were able, however, to toboggan down the slopes of the hill next to the Savernake Road as it climbed towards the Forest. Marvellous fun and reasonably safe as there was almost no road traffic.

Now the extraordinary thing about this evacuation was that we went home for the holidays! I suppose that as we were spread all over the London area we were comparatively safe during the holidays but would have been at much greater risk when all together in school 鈥� imagine a bomb falling on 700-750 boys. It did mean though that I saw things I wouldn鈥檛 have done if down in the country. For instance in August 1940, I heard the noise of aircraft and gunfire and so went to the end of the garden. From there I saw planes diving and weaving and puffs of smoke from anti-aircraft fire, so I ran to Dad and told him they were bombing Croydon airport, then being used by the RAF. 鈥淒on鈥檛 be silly, the siren hasn鈥檛 gone鈥�, but he came and looked. I learnt my first swear word then as he said 鈥渂loody hell, into the shelter with you while I get Mum and your sister.鈥� Just then of course the sirens went 鈥� 10 minutes after it had all started. The Battle of Britain had started but we did not see much of this as it mostly took place further out into Kent. Occasionally, however, we did see some vapour trails in the sky when the dog-fights approached the London suburbs. At about this time a small bomb fell on a house about 400 yards from us just round the corner at the crossroads. A policeman had to be sent to control the crowds and traffic because so many people came to see the damage. Later, of course, this sight became almost routine, if such a thing can be called that.

The next thing was the bombing of the docks in East London on the night of 7th September 1940. By then the bombing had become almost routine in the sense that the German bombers came over every night at about 18.30 and before that, at about 18.00, we had got blankets and books together whilst mother prepared sandwiches and flasks of hot drinks. We then changed into our pyjamas or whatever and were ready to go into our Anderson shelter, which we shared with our next-door neighbours. If the bombing eased off during the night and we were awake we quite often went into the garden for some fresh air and when we heard more planes coming we would dive back in. This is what we did that night and saw what appeared to be the whole of London ablaze. It was a most extraordinary sight, far greater than 1936 but we couldn鈥檛 stop long as we heard more planes coming.

Soon after I returned to Marlborough for the winter term but my parents and sister stayed at home during the long dark days of that Autumn. I came back for Christmas and the fire-raid on the City on 29th December 1940. That was another sight to behold but the night was also memorable because it was the night a parachute land-mine landed on my old primary school the other side of the playing field. The planes had all gone and it was quiet. I heard this swishing noise and said that I thought there was something coming down and was told not to be so silly and go back to sleep. A few minutes later there was the most almighty bang followed by a roaring that went on for 2 or 3 minutes. This was the noise of the roof tiles sliding off the church opposite the school. I still don鈥檛 know if my parents spoke to me like that to calm my nerves, as I completely forgot to ask them!

Thus life continued: down to Marlborough during term time, back home for whatever 鈥榚xcitement鈥� there was, then back to school and so on. We were not far from Boscombe Down airfield, then being used to test new types of aircraft and evaluate captured enemy ones. We thus saw a Westland Lysander with two rudders, the first Avro Lancaster with radial engines and so on. And what鈥檚 this Heinkel 111 doing over-head without the sirens having gone? It was then we saw the RAF markings and realised it was a captured aircraft being evaluated. There was also a lot of other military activity especially coming up to D-Day (6th June 1944), not that we knew about it of course, but suddenly the road outside the billet (I was now in George Lane) was lined with Sherman tanks with strange white stars on them. They stayed for several weeks and then they disappeared overnight. They had probably gone to a camp somewhere else in Southern England. Then, guess what! The City Corporation and school Governors considered that the risk of further bombing was now so remote that the school could return to London and the College could return to its pre-war calm routine. So, we returned to Victoria Embankment after the Easter holidays. Just in time for the V1 flying bombs - the Doodlebugs!!

These started, if I remember correctly, on the 9th or 10th June 鈥�44 and continued for about 6 months when the launch sites were overrun. In that time I seem to remember that I had seen over 100 but I can鈥檛 now find my notes. Whilst at Marlborough, I and several others, as a consequence of being in the Air Training Corps, had become extremely proficient at aircraft recognition when our interest had been triggered by all the unusual aircraft we saw from Boscombe Down as well as routine RAF models. So when the threat from the Doodlebugs became apparent, the Headmaster asked some of us if we would go up on the school roof (50ft above the Embankment), two at a time, when the sirens sounded. This was so we could press a button to sound an alarm if we saw one coming towards us, and the engine cut out, so the school could take shelter. We stayed up there! If I recall we only ever saw 2, the others, which we could hear, went well to the left or right of us or came down on the other side of the river. The rest I saw from home, in the evenings or at weekends.

These machines made an extraordinary noise with flames leaping out of the rear of the motor which was on top of the bomb and kept straight on until the motor cut out. So if you saw one go past you heaved a sigh of relief, but if you heard a motor cut out before that, you ducked. That is until the day one went past our house towards Crystal Palace when it suddenly started going round in circles. That was a heartstopping few moments until the motor stopped and it landed about a mile away somewhere in Penge. Whether this was a unique occasion I do not know. It was an extremely destructive weapon, the damage from which was caused by the extreme blast they produced.

That summer term we sat for our School Certificate (today鈥檚 GCSE) which was taken in the crypt of the Guildhall. We were all there except one boy. Where was he, had he been killed or injured on the way in as we had all heard a V1 explosion an hour or so earlier? It wasn鈥檛 until almost the end of the session that he turned up covered in dust and with his hands all dirty. He had been on his way, when he saw the Doodlebug come down and had stayed to help as much as he could. He was put in a room by himself and then allowed to take the exam when we finished.

The next Revenge Weapon as Hitler called them, the V2 rocket, was entirely different. You never heard it coming until after the explosion because it went faster than the speed of sound. Once I was standing in the front room talking to Dad sitting at his desk in the bay window when all the dust on the window bars suddenly blew in our faces followed almost immediately by the bang of the explosion. Then we heard the noise of it falling before it had landed in the Midland Bank sports field at New Beckenham about three-quarters of a mile away, badly damaging the clubhouse and heaving up great mounds of earth, some about 10ft high. After a while even these stopped coming as our forces advanced into Germany. I seem to recall that the Headmaster and Governors decided that there was no need for any of us to go on the roof rocket spotting, as we wouldn鈥檛 know that they were coming until after they had arrived!

A few months afterwards we celebrated VE-day, 8th May 1945, and so ended several eventful years, for what is now known as a teenager.

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