大象传媒

Bad Dream come True - Torquay.

TORQUAY

I was a very unhappy boy sitting on a wide flight of stairs. People were walking across in front of me at the foot of the stairs and also behind me on the landing but more important than that, I knew I was in a Borstal institution. So, this was a place to which they sent young offenders. Then I woke up.

I fretted about that dream for about two weeks before September the seventh nineteen forty two. This was when with a number of other boys I set off on a train from North Road Station in Plymouth, to be evacuated with my new school. My two wonderful years in the Cornish countryside were over and I had been given a place in the Plymouth Junior Technical School, part of which was on detachment to the South Devon Technical College in Torquay.

The usual confusion accompanied the journey with adults fussing around like broody hens, panicking and failing to give clear instructions. The biggest flap was when we arrived at Torquay station and there were not enough billets for all of us to be distributed into on the first day. Consequently most of us were taken to a big house for the night, a sort of reception centre where we could be held until they had sorted themselves out.

I was a very unhappy boy sitting on a wide flight of stairs. People were walking across in front of me at the foot of the stairs and also behind me on the landing. Totally dejected I suddenly had a horrible feeling I had been there before. Slowly I got to my feet and approached a likely looking grownup.
"Excuse me sir. Could you please tell me what this house is used for when it's not full of evacuees?"
"Why do you ask?"
"Just curious sir, I like to know where I am."
"Well it's usually a Borstal but that doesn't matter to you." ''Thank you sir.

BILLETED

Next day I was taken to a house attached to a commercial garage. Upon seeing this I thought my luck was in, my father ran a garage and I had spent many hours there. Then one of the first things I was told was that it was out of bounds because it was too dangerous.

My protestations that a garage was like home to me, and I needed a workshop to try making things in, fell on deaf ears, and being told the place was too dangerous when I had so recently had the open drive belts of a thrashing machine and the traction engine powering it to avoid, unfenced garden edges to fall off, trees to fall out of and sharp tools to slash myself with, simply registered as stupid grownups being silly. Anyway the South Devon Technical College workshops had accessible drive belts and lathes for us to get tangled up in as well.

However I had to console myself by standing in the side door, and smelling the wonderful aroma of petrol oil and rubber, which still gives me a great sense of wellbeing.
There were six of us in the house of about my own age, I think it was two family and four evacuees. We had a scruffy lounge to ourselves. Then there were cards and board games and table tennis to be bored with as well. In my opinion that equalled nothing to do so I took to roaming the streets.

THE SCHOOL

The school was modern for its time with plenty of space and enthusiastic teachers, especially the sports master who was a sadist. We had to do boxing, I soon found a sparring partner who agreed with me that this was not on, we deserved Oscars for our performances.
Another of this teachers favourite stunts was to find any excuse to make pupils "run the gauntlet", that meant running between two lines of pupils who were all instructed to hit you as hard as they could with their towels, fortunately most of the students did not share his cruel streak.

We also had to play Rugby, or keep running around the field. I opted for this at first but then realised that I was expending more energy than those chasing each other for the ball. Consequently I settled for "playing" Rugby, and contriving to keep as far away from the ball as I could.

DESPERATE REMEDIES

Many week ends I caught the bus home and soon got my bike back to Torquay which helped a lot. Riding the roads was much better than being stuck in the billet and a few trips as far as Totnes soon cheered me up, though not much. Evenings I walked the streets of Torquay finding out where they went and for the first and last time in my life I started going to the cinema, anything was better than the house.

One day I decided to try a paper round as this would give me more money to spend being bored in the cinema, and instead being fed up in the house. That was a total disaster, the paper shop gave me no guidance, it made me very late for school and I got awfully wet. That was enough of that.

A LECTURE

There were family friends living in another part of Torquay, a vicar and his sister. I visited them once or twice and on one occasion the reverend gentleman walked with me while he gave me a long sermon about the dangers from strange people to innocent children. I had no idea what he was talking about because his attempts at explaining were so convoluted as well as oblique that he could as well have been using a different language. I gave polite responses and was glad when the lecture was over.

A LITTLE ENTERTAINMENT

In my walks around the town there was just one thing I found regularly amusing. The gas company had a van with a gas bag on top to supply its fuel, you could hear this coming from streets away as they simply could not get it to work properly on the town gas and it proceeded with a series of loud explosions which some people confused with an air attack.

Another chuckle was when a dog chased a van and found itself enveloped in black smoke as the driver stamped on the accelerator just when the silly animal was in line with the exhaust outlet. The dog made off rapidly with no harm done.

One day I found a delightful black and white rabbit in a pet shop and took it home at the week end. Father soon arranged a hutch for it in the chicken runs he had built in the back garden and we named it Isabelle.

A FEARSOME SALVATION

Torquay was designated as an "open town" which I thought meant that it was of no military significance, was therefore not worth bombing, and so was not defended from air attack. This was my first introduction to political double speak. Torquay was full of trainee signallers for the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. If these were not good military targets I could not understand what could be. Anyway after I had been there for four long months a German aircraft dropped a bomb somewhere quite close to the billet.

I had complained at home, to the school authorities and to the police about the house I was in, the family I was billeted with, especially when they left my bike out in the rain to go rusty over Christmas, the lack of any facilities to do anything interesting like making things, and anything else I could think of to make my views known, but here was my real chance, I went home that week end and laid it on thick. Nervous I was, but not as scared as I made out. If I was to be killed anyway I argued, it might as well be in Plymouth. I have a rough copy of the letter my father sent to the education authority, he laid it on thick as well and soon I was back home.

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