大象传媒

Part one of an edited oral history interview with Mr. Claude Banks at the Bedford Museum 鈥楢niseed Balls and the Missing Cannon鈥� project Outreach Event at Riseley Village Hall organised in conjunction with Riseley WEA.

鈥淚 was born on 25th January 1926, so I was 13, going on 14 in September 1939. My mother had died when I was four years old and I went to live with my grandmother and grandfather up at Manor Farm at Pertenhall. It was unlucky that my mother died but I think it was the best thing that happened because I really had a really happy childhood up there on the big farm.

It was Sunday the 3rd of September as everybody knows was when the war broke out and it happened that day we鈥檇 gone to church as we were told we ought to go to church. I think we enjoyed going to church and when we walked up the path away from the church a lady who lived in a bungalow opposite named Sue Bates, she met us up there and she said, 鈥榃e are now at war with Germany!鈥� And I think quite honestly we all went 鈥榩hew鈥� - thank goodness for that because they鈥檇 been talking about this war for about two years, it had got to the stage where they thought well, it would never happen. But I think really why Hitler kept occupying these bits of land in central Europe and I think what he was doing he was getting everybody in his armed forces ready for the big fight. I think all his skirmishes in Europe that he had were a bit like practicing nets for cricket. He鈥檇 sent some of his best squadrons of planes to the Spanish Civil War to get them to learn how to dive bomb. Then when he invaded Poland he had his tanks and the Blitzkrieg business and of course he got it down to a fine art. Then during the winter of 1939/40 - that was the period they called the 鈥楶honey War鈥� because on Monday the 4th of September we had our first lot of evacuees come. This evacuation business was all put in hand because of what everybody expected - that the minute the war was declared there鈥檇 be 500 German bombers fly over London and drop bombs and everybody would be blown all to smithereens.

We were all waiting up at the school at Pertenhall on the evening of Monday 4th of September for this load of evacuees to come by bus from Walthamstow. And of course we were all facing towards the B660 the Bedford 鈥� Kimbolton Road and time kept shuntering along and it started to get dusk and all of a sudden we heard these buses come from Riseley way and instead of one there were two. The first one was empty, they鈥檇 dropped some evacuees of at Swineshead and Riseley and the second bus, that stopped opposite the school gate and the bus door opened and these young women with small children started getting off. They鈥檇 all got these labels on they looked like items that were up for sale. The last one to get off, she never really actually got right off the bus - was an old lady all dressed in black with a black hat on. She said as she had got one foot on the ground and one still on the bus, 鈥楬ow far is the nearest pub?鈥� And somebody said, 鈥榃ell the Kangaroo is a mile, the Chequers at Keysoe is a mile and half and there鈥檚 two pubs at Kimbolton but that鈥檚 two miles.鈥� 鈥極h, bugger that!鈥� she said, 鈥業鈥檇 rather face the German bombers than live in a village without a pub!鈥� She got back on the bus.

But these evacuees during that winter I think they got fed up, they couldn鈥檛 stick it out in the country, everything was so different and they gradually migrated back to Walthamstow. There was perhaps an odd one or two that stayed.

Only about a month later and two bombs were dropped up the Swineshead Road, one quite near to Shelton鈥檚 house. They broke a few windows and the other one dropped in the adjoining field. It was in October 1939 that these bombs dropped, they reckoned there were the first two in Bedfordshire. I can remember me and John Shelton we went up there and picked a few of the bits of shrapnel up and took them to Kim School where we were being educated and sold a few of them to the borders! So there was nothing much more happened that I remember during that period. But then we got to May 1940 when the Germans decided to let loose their Army through Belgium and France. I mean everybody thought the French Maginot Line would stop the Germans there but of course everybody knows they outflanked that and came through Belgium and raced across to the Channel ports. I remember we were having a History lesson at school and the History Master said, 鈥榃e won鈥檛 talk about History today because History is being made at the moment. The German troops are coming through France at the speed of a motor bike and they鈥檒l soon be at the Channel coast and quite what will happen then I don鈥檛 know!鈥� He said, 鈥楾hey may invade this country, I just don鈥檛 know. We鈥檒l just have to see how things go.鈥� This wakened everybody up. We got our troops back from Dunkirk as everybody knows.

We started having Air Raid Precautions lectures in the school in Pertenhall and I was about 14 at the time but I was so keen to be all in on this. We used to look forward to these lectures because the old guy who did the lectures was named Woodcock, and I think he came from Little Staughton or somewhere. The reason why we were so keen to go was because instead of calling these bombs incendiary bombs - the ones that caught everything on fire - he couldn鈥檛 say incendiary, he used to call them 鈥榠ncidenary鈥� bombs. And he never got it right! I think that鈥檚 what captured our imagination! I mean there was a Fire Watching rota formed and I wasn鈥檛 old enough to be on the Fire Watching rota. My step-father was but he got so fed up of being on duty with these two old guys who were so boring he said, 鈥榊ou might as well go in my place!鈥� So I used to go in his place!

We had got two ARP Wardens and the one who used to be down our end of the village - he knocked on our door one night and my step-mother went to the door and he said, 鈥榃ould you please get your clothes in off the clothes line because the German planes might see them when they come over and drop a bomb on them.鈥� I think it鈥檚 because he lived quite close to our farm and he was worried about it.

Of course at that time we had another lot of evacuees come. Everybody had to evacuate from the south and the east coast and we got this allocation of a whole school of boys from Newhaven in Sussex and their Master landed on Pertenhall. All these children were spread around the village. In our farm we had a brother and a sister, so there must have been girls as well as boys, and the School Master was billeted opposite and I should think there was probably in excess of probably about 20 of these boys. I remember a lot of them were quite upset at being taken away from their parents and two of them in another cottage quite close to us one of those poor little devils used to wet the bed and he was about 10 years old. But I suppose it was just something that happened when you were taken away. This was about the time when the Home Guard, well for a start it was called the Local Defence Volunteers, but Churchill decided it wanted a better name than that to get people fired up so it was called the Home Guard. One of the head men in Pertenhall, he used to live at The Manor, named General Locke, he鈥檇 been a General in India during the peacetime and he鈥檇 been retired and then of course he was the right sort of chap to be the Head of the Home Guard. And he was exactly and looks like Captain Mainwaring who was in 鈥楧ad鈥檚 Army鈥� only he wasn鈥檛 quite so bumptious as Captain Mainwaring but very, very much the same, Captain Mainwaring could have been modelled on General Locke! I still wasn鈥檛 old enough to be in the Home Guard but my step-father was in the Home Guard. I know at that time there were few rifles available for the Home Guard to train with otherwise they鈥檇 just got their shot guns with cartridges with a ball bearing in them instead of lead shot. I don鈥檛 know what would have happened if they鈥檇 actually fired one off. But anyway they used to take these Home Guards in by bus to Clapham gravel pits where they had got a Firing Range. They all had a turn with the rifles and so I was really keen to hear how my step-father had got on when he got back and I said, 鈥極h, how did you get on dad? And he said, 鈥楴ot very well!鈥� And I said, 鈥榃ell, you are quite a good shot鈥� and he said, 鈥榶es, I know, but鈥� he said, 鈥業 don鈥檛 intend being in the front line when the German comes鈥� so he said, 鈥業 didn鈥檛 shoot very well.鈥� He said, 鈥楾he best shots will get in the front line!鈥� But it wasn鈥檛 鈥榠f鈥� the Germans come, he said, 鈥榳hen鈥� the Germans come and I think that is telling.

In September 1940 everybody thought the Germans had got sufficient troops and all the material along the Channel ports for the Invasion and when they set fire to the Docks in London, when they bombed it, they thought that was a signal for the Invasion. The Home Guard was called out in Pertenhall because what they had done to try to slow down the German advance if some of these armoured vehicles came down the road, they鈥檇 dug trenches on either side for the Home Guards to get in with their rifles. And some old farmer must have dragged his old farm machinery into the middle of the road but I don鈥檛 know how they thought they could stop the Wehrmacht from their advance by a few old farm implements. Mr. Pelham who was the Head of the ARP, he鈥檇 come down to help General Locke with sorting this business out about manning these road blocks. Of course it was pitch dark and Mr. Pelham had got this torch ushering the different people who were going to be on the left hand side and the right hand side. He was shining this torch along this trench but they鈥檇 told the men they weren鈥檛 allowed to smoke. Well in those days all these farm workers smoked 20 Woodbines a day, that was the only thing that kept them going I think, and then as they were not allowed to smoke they got in a bad mood. And so this chap said, 鈥榃ell, Mr. Pelham if you are not going to put that torch out, I鈥檓 bloody well going home!鈥� Mutiny in the ranks! I wasn鈥檛 there to hear it but I鈥檓 pretty sure that was a true account of what happened. Of course we know the Invasion didn鈥檛 take place.

What I remember a bit later on - the night they bombed Coventry (14 November 1940) it was a very moonlight night and it was probably 10 or 11 o鈥檆lock in the evening we all went out and stood out in Chadwell Lane to hear the German planes going over. It was just one continual drone, going backwards and forwards.

I think in 1941 we started to have these Italian Prisoners of War come onto the farms to help with the farm work and I remember that the ones that we had were billeted in a camp, they called it 鈥楧ucks Cross Camp鈥� at Colmworth. They used to be brought round to the farms in lorries and I remember we were riddling potatoes up from this potato pick during that winter and the first day these blasted Italians they would not work and I just couldn鈥檛 get them to get going. So the next day I thought of a fiendish plan, I said, 鈥榊ou chaps, when we get six ton bagged up鈥� I said, 鈥榶ou can pack up and you can do whatever you like then the rest of the day.鈥� We got the six ton bagged up by dinner time the next day and they鈥檇 got a football with them and they played football then until it was time for the lorry to come. It was good, that was.鈥�

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