大象传媒

Hedge End was a lovely hamlet, with really only one street St Johns road. People say that the old days were better days but they don鈥檛 realise how much better they have it now. I played in lots of bands because I played the piano and saxophone. I was in a reserved occupation so I was called on to play a lot. The accent on poverty was very strong pre-war. They could go on the land or get into one of the local shops, if they were a man or for women they became secretaries or went into the local shops. The effect of the war was to make a lot of work. It was work for destruction. We had about 5 factories down in Southampton building planes and other tools for war. So when the war ended we were bankrupt.

In Hedge End my father ran the butchers, Hedge End had a cobblers, harness maker, sweet shops, drapers and undertaker. That was the size of the village. All the youngsters played sport.

I was called up in 1945 to be an aircraft fitter. I was stationed all over, in Wales and North England. I worked on the pneumatic legs on the spitfires. I had a strangulated hernia because of all the work I had to do. When the soldiers who were being demobbed left the services they still had to fill their vacancies.

After the war there was no work so I went back to playing the piano and saxophone and I made a living for a year. I started selling insurance for the Liverpool Victoria and did so until I was 65.

I also was in the Hedge End Home Guard during my early years of the war.

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