大象传媒

I was a school boy aged 7 on the 3rd of September, 1939; we had moved into 6, Boscombe Spa Road on the previous day and remained there throughout the War. The house was adjacent to the Boscombe Gardens which are situated in a chine leading to the sea and Boscombe Pier. Despite the threat of invasion and consequent fortification of the coast we children had a life of complete freedom from adult interference. The park-keepers were withdrawn, the gardens went back to nature and became a playground where we could make dens, explore the gun emplacements and play endless war games. The firing range was very popular, as it was rich in spent ammunition; shining brass cartridge cases were a great favourite.

My friend Richard accompanied me on these foraging expeditions and picked up some live ammunition which he took to his house. He removed the bullets with the aid of a toy vice, then emptied the contents of the cases very unwisely into the open fire; we were very fortunate not to be injured in the ensuing explosion.

Richard was best described as a scamp and was always in trouble at school and at home; as I was the elder I had the authority to curb his antics but we still got into hot water. One of our games early in the War was to climb the lime tree overhanging the pavement and scare passing pedestrians with a very realistic air-raid warning followed closely by the whistling of falling bombs and yells to take cover. Needless to say this brought complainants to his mother's door.

At the time of Dunkirk, my father arranged for several French soldiers to be billeted with us and my school boy French came in useful.

On the 5th of July, 1940, the piers at Boscombe and Bournemouth were blown apart, although when the invasion scare subsided we resumed fishing off the rickety pier head, climbing over the barricades. One day during the air battles over the Bay we had to take refuge under the arches and had a great view of the fighter pilots tackling the convoy raiders. Poole was sealed off and there was to be no more evacuation of the civilian population from the Bournemouth area now invasion was imminent.

School was unaffected but rumours were rife, one I remember was that all Nordic type children were to be taken to Germany and re-educated for eventual recruitment into the S.S.; as I fell into that category I was really worried and planned to hide out in the roof. I was at school 15 miles from home at Highcliffe; the Hants & Dorset 'bus went via Christchurch and past the Airspeed Factory which was a prime target; so my mother transferred me to the school in Spa Road in 1941 following the first major air-raid in Bournemouth in November 1940 when 53 people were killed. The factory itself was first bombed on the 10th of May, 1941.

We retreated to a home-made shelter under the back staircase but later acquired a table shelter which was placed at the foot of the main staircase; it was in effect a large metal container with steel mesh sides in which a mattress could fit and you crawled in and went to sleep or listened to the bombs passing over on their way north-westward. After a week or so of this discomfort we stayed upstairs till the alert sounded and if I was asleep when the "all clear" came they left me and went back to bed, or at least my mother did as father was on duty most nights guiding the fire appliances to Southampton and Portsmouth. We were motor cycle dealers in Boscombe and I enjoyed helping in the shop although from 1941 onwards supplies dried up and apart from items essential to the war effort, it was a case of make do and mend.

The same applied to food and clothing and for children sweets and toys; we children did appreciate the arrival of the Americans as they were very generous and had an extremely well organised Commissariat; they took over the local hotels and from 1943 until after D-Day were in training all along the South coast.

The "Wharncliffe Hotel" they occupied - next to Richard's house - had a trench in the front garden for use as a shelter; this was our front line in our battles with the evacuees; they had arrived at the time of the Blitz and who being used to East End tactics threw half-bricks in response to our clods of earth. When forced to retreat we brought the garden hose into play to even the odds. Later we ended up in the same Army Cadet Force and peace reigned.

The Americans were shocked by our behaviour hence more complaints to Richard's mother.

One of them gave me an Italian bayonet which he had brought back from North Africa, my mother made no demur to my using it as a sword.

On Sunday the 23rd of May 1943 we had our worst air-raid. I was cleaning out the gold fish bowl when the first of 16 Focke-Wulf fighter bombers came over the roof tops towards the house, my mother dived under the kitchen table and I jettisoned the bowl and joined her. The adjoining streets and the town centre were badly damaged, the largest department store "Beales" was totally destroyed and 77 civilians killed and 196 injured.

On the 1st of November 1943, another raid affected the school as the playing field was covered in shrapnel which we had to clear before we could resume play, there was a lot of swopping of the choicer pieces. (By a strange coincidence my daughter bought a flat adjacent to the field and when the surveyor found subsidence I told them it was from the same bombs 50 years ago.)

Throughout 1941 to 1945 we played on the cliff tops catching sand lizards, grasshopper and butterflies, sailing our boats on the pond and riding our bicycles round Boscombe and over to Queen's Park where the specialities were common lizards that settled well into the rock gardens at home. Fishing always occupied a lot of our time and with home-made tackle we kept the the families (and my cat, Trotters) well supplied with whiting and sole. I also had a huge Belgian hare called Benjy who dug up lettuces and escaped down the hill landing up at the Linden Hall Hydro.

Because there was so little traffic the school organised cycle rides into Dorset at weekends, taking the whole day to explore villages and churches which were virtually unchanged by time and straight out of the novels of Thomas Hardy.

During the build-up to D-Day we children spent a lot of time watching the troops embarking and disembarking and manoeuvring the tanks; amazingly we were not warned off. The Bay was packed with ships of all kinds and on the 6th of June 1944 the sky was full of aircraft and there was a great excitement at school as our lives had been dominated by the War for 5 years.

In the summer holidays I went to stay with my aunt in Woking which by then was on the V1 flight path; she had been bombed out in Portsmouth and soon after went back. I heard them coming over but none came down.

Our one and only school outing was to Weymouth to see the Fleet; we went aboard the aircraft carrier "Victorious" and were impressed how the ship had withstood the Kamikaze attacks, the flight deck had a huge dent, if it had been wooden like the American carriers the fires would have been uncontrollable.

Thus the War ground to a close by which time I was 14.

Story: This story has been submitted to the People's War site by Muriel Palmer (volunteer) of Age Concern Shropshire Telford & Wrekin on behalf of Nigel Randolph CRAZE (author) and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

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