大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by the Essex CSV Action Desk on behalf of Brian Keeler and has been added to the site with his permission. He fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.

Hornchurch was one of the main Battle of Britain stations and during this time was constantly flying off it鈥檚 squadrons, refuelling them and sending them off again. As youngsters, we used to be looking out of the doorway of our Anderson shelters at the end of the garden during the raids, watching the vapour trails high in the sky. However, the real events of wartime became more real when one of the lads who lived in my road received the news that his dad, who was a Sergeant Pilot at Hornchurch, had been shot down and killed in action. I was also to receive bad news one weekend, when my mother and I usually visited my maternal grandparents in Hoxton. Whilst in this area, I had made friends with the locals and one particular weekend, when I went to see if my friend Billy was coming out to play, I was intercepted by a neighbour, who advised that he and the rest of his family had all been killed during the week. A parachute bomb had dropped onto the sloped ramp of the communal shelter in which they and many others were taking cover, rolling down the slope and exploding when it hit the blast wall at the bottom causing utter devastation.

I can well remember listening to the radio news during the war and hearing the good news as well as the bad, sinking of the 鈥淏ismarck,鈥� the sinking of the 鈥淧rince of Wales鈥� and the 鈥淩epulse鈥� off of Malaya, the Battle of El Alamein etc. the invasion of North Africa then Italy, which brought feelings of elation that we were now winning. As mentioned previously, when many of the raids on England were taking place, we would be peering out of the shelter, sometimes seeing the flames as a plane was shot down and wondering, was this a German or one of ours. On another occasion as we looked towards London, there was an enormous great fireball rising in the sky, and we later learned that a gasholder at the Bromley by Bow Gasworks, had taken a direct hit and until recently, the crater could still be seen.

As the war drew on, rations were meagre and we used to look forward to food parcels which arrived from Canada, from someone I was advised was Uncle Norman. Later in life I discovered that he wasn鈥檛 an actual relation, but during the First World War had been a soldier in the Canadian Army, who before being sent to the front, did his training in the Honourable Artillery Company barracks in the City Road. However, accommodation there was limited, so that most of these Commonwealth troops were billeted out with families nearby and thus he spent his spare time with my grandparents, my mother and her sister Edith. They were only young girls at that time and I still have some of his postcards that he would send to the family advising to a limited extent due to censorship, some idea of what he had been involved. He was fortunate to survive that terrible conflict, where hundreds of thousands never came back from the front, and he was always grateful for the way he had been accepted into the family. He kept in correspondence right through to the second world war and for around 20 years after until he died. We used to look forward to receiving the small parcels containing chocolate, sweets, apples, oranges, sugar, condensed milk etc. which were either strictly rationed or were unobtainable, which he sent to us from Canada.

As the war drew on, we seemed to experience a lull in the bombing as the RAF began to take charge of the situation over the British Isles and also by commencing the heavy bombing of Germany. The Hornchurch aerodrome was taking on a new role, when enormous convoys of American troops and equipment poured through Elm Park and set up an enormous tent village on the airfield. As these vehicles rumbled by, we kids were calling out 鈥淕ot any gum chum?鈥� which usually caused packets of chewing gum or chocolate to be thrown down to the eager little hands. Things were changing as the Allies gradually fought back with the landings in North Africa and then Sicily and Italy and this brought about comment on the possibility of an invasion across the Channel whilst this concentration of troops caused many people to twig that this could be the start. Just as our suspicions were being confirmed by the announcement that the biggest armada had crossed the Channel and secured a bridgehead in France, Hitler hit back.

The air raid warning had sounded and as we peeped out from the entrance to our shelter watching the planes overhead, we thought there was a high success rate, as we saw several planes with flames coming from the rear. It wasn鈥檛 for a day or too that the news broke that this was the advent of the V1 or Doodlebug as it became known. We then came to appreciate that the flames were from the ram-jet propulsion unit and not just another plane being shot down! These were a completely random killer and we became used to hearing the yowl of the ram-jet suddenly cut out, which then meant that the Doodlebug was on it鈥檚 way down, wreaking death and destruction. This would sometimes give you a few more moments to scramble for cover before the massive explosion. We used to watch our planes, diving down from high altitude to gain extra speed, to catch up with the V1 and try to tip its wing in an attempt to turn it away from London which appeared to be the main target. However, as the Allies started to fight their way through the Low Countries, so many of the launching ramps still left were captured, but within a few more months, we were to experience the V2. These were much worse, as they just came down out of the sky without warning, no more yowl from the ram-jet before it cut out, just peace one minute and even larger death and destruction the next!

Luckily, the Allies were getting on top and the war drew to it鈥檚 close. The streets were then filled with tables and seats instead of troop lorries as the V.E. Day celebrations took place, then the return of the fathers who in many cases, had almost been forgotten during their absence in the Forces. It seemed quite strange that there was no need for a complete black out and the special masks were removed from vehicles headlights - it was remarkable how many drivers managed to avoid accidents without their normal lights. One could go to the cinema and not have to scurry out when the air-raid siren wailed whilst a visit to Southend saw the gradual removal of the tank traps and the barbed wire all along the sea-front, so you could actually go down onto the beach again.

I kept memories of the short time that I had been evacuated to Bridge, and I often wondered how accurate were my memories of the hamlet, Winsham and the 鈥淏ig House鈥� etc. The opportunity came many years after in 1964, when my wife and I, our one year old son and my sister-in-law were on holiday in Poole, Dorset. One particular typical English summer鈥檚 day was cloudy, cold and definitely not a beach day. Glancing at the map, I could see it was only a relatively short journey across part of Dorset and Somerset, to revisit the area. We came across Winsham first and my wife and sister-in-law were somewhat surprised to hear my description of the village and the school playground, followed by my journey home, before the various places came into view. One thing which was different was that the roads were in fact narrow lanes, so that if a vehicle came the other way, both vehicles had to put their nearside wheels up on the grass to enable them to pass. These had seemed so big to a 4 year old toddling home from school.

When we drove over the railway bridge and pulled up outside the hamlet, nothing had changed very much except for a new bungalow nearby 鈥� the cottage where I stayed was just the same. I knocked at the door and a youngish woman answered, who when I explained my quest, advised that Tom had died a few years back and the wife and daughter had moved to Taunton, where she had now become the postmistress at a sub post office. I also enquire about the 鈥淏ig House鈥� and this caused some puzzlement, as I was given directions to two or three places which might have fitted my requirement. We moved on and visited two places, which were not my Big House, with no long tree lined drive down the valley to the building itself. However, I was not to be disappointed as the last house turned out to be the one from my 25 year memories. We drove down the drive to the 鈥淏ig House鈥� and once again, I was peering in through the windows, as all the remaining furniture was under dust covers. As we looked around an elderly man came out of the side door and questioned our presence there, possibly thinking we might have been squatters! After some explanation, he was able to confirm where the mother had gone, even giving us the address of the Post Office in Taunton. After we left, we made our way over to Taunton and gave her quite a surprise when she was asked, 鈥淒o you remember me?鈥� After a few questions, she twigged that I was the little evacuee from all those years back.

Apparently the house which had quite a famous history and the surrounding estate which extended to over a 1000 acres was up for sale and it was eventually re-opened as the Cricket St. Thomas Wild Life Park in 1967. Shortly after this a new Televison series started and I immediately recognised the setting as Cricket, with Penelope Keith and Peter Bowles starring in 鈥淭o the Manor Born鈥�. A few years after this we visited the Wild Life Park itself, as by then our son had been joined by a little sister and brother, so we stopped there for a break on our journey to Torquay. My association with the 鈥淏ig House鈥� was not to end there as in 2003 we were to visit again. By this time, the house itself had been purchased by the Warners Group and had opened as one of their Historic Hotels and my wife had booked us in there for a long weekend as a surprise Birthday treat. Now after so many years, I was now able to actually step inside the 鈥淏ig House鈥� to see and photograph the many different rooms, which I felt was a fitting sequence to my long association started over 64 years ago.

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