大象传媒

HITLER V. A BRIGHTON SCHOOLBOY

oldbrightonboy

1. Declaration of war

2. Home Front

3. Schoolboy鈥檚 war

4. Scouting

5. War鈥檚 end

Part 2B

My first close encounter with the enemy was my dive for the gutter at the edge of the road in Stanmer Park Road one summer evening at about 7pm when I was cycling to the top of Preston Drove to buy fish and chips. I heard the loud engine noise and looking over my shoulder saw German crosses on the wings of an aircraft flying low and south immediately above SPR in the same direction as I. 鈥淢esserschmitt 109E鈥� I shouted out to myself. It was in fact overtaking me when I slid off my bike in a single movement and sought shelter behind the 4鈥� high curb. All in less than a second. Then, back on my bike with my shoulder bag and pedal for the fish and chip shop for my supper before the fish ran out. A fourpenny piece of fish and pennoth of chips made a good supper. The Messerschmitt went on to drop its light bombs somewhere in the centre of town. There was lengthy, learned debate at school the following day on whether it was Mark 鈥楨鈥� or 鈥楩鈥�.

Bombs were dropped on Brighton, generally speaking, by mistake, particularly if they were dropped at night. We had precious little industry, apart from Alan West which was making electrical components for military use, so we were hardly worth the bother. Just occasionally the sirens would sound in the night and the decision which had to be made was shall we get up in the cold and traipse downstairs or shall we stay put in a warm bed? At 90 we had no shelter but one was safer downstairs. Even safer under the table or under the stairs themselves. Alf had never accepted World War Two so he refused to submit to recommendations about shelters. We all adopted the philosophy that only if the bomb had your number on it would it get you.
We seldom seemed to be out of an 鈥榓lert鈥� period and we were never sure if 鈥楢ll Clear鈥� had been sounded. On a handful of occasions I woke to hear overhead an alien heavy engine noise. It got louder and there was the whistle of bombs falling followed by a pause and crumps. When I heard enemy aircraft I listened hoping the engine noise would decrease and disappear and generally it did, without the whistle and crump. On one occasion the crumps were just three streets away. A stick of bombs fell on Dover Road, one second from Stanmer Villas as the bomber flew. The pilot may well have been off-course or going home having failed to find his target. Understandably, he did not wish to take bombs home; certainly not to land with them. Tricky things bombs.
Our worst raid occurred on a Saturday afternoon, 14th September 1940 when the Odeon Cinema, Kemp Town, was a full of children and young parents and a bomb went through the flimsy roof. Fifty-five people lost their lives in the cinema and adjoining houses during that Saturday afternoon. Alf was called to help with casualties and the emergency generally. Gentle soul that he was, he was shattered by the carnage, particularly among the children. Glass had caused nasty injuries. There was no obvious reason for the bombs. Some suggested they were trying for Kemp Town railway station which was quite near the Cinema. Who knows?
Then there were the daylight hit-and-run raids, usually, on lines of communication. Two bays of viaduct near the bottom of Beaconsfield Road/Preston Road were destroyed by light bombers. Real low-level precision stuff. What was remarkable was the speed with which the high arches were repaired. Many thousands of bricks laid in just a day or two. So well laid that one wouldn't know they had been destroyed. In no time the line was running again. Very much part of the Britain (or in this case Brighton) can take it philosophy of which we were so proud. Forty-five photographs in a booklet titled Brighton and Hove under fire 1940-4, published in 1946, show broken buildings, mostly houses, which were hit by bombs. The Odeon Cinema is described as the worst hit.

War-time radio. The name 'wireless' became obsolete in the late 30s to be replaced by 鈥榬adio'. The Radio Times, published by the 大象传媒, became the magazine with the world's widest circulation. We relied on the radio for all-important news and for entertainment. Much has been written about the role of the 大象传媒 and its wartime relationship with the government. With Lord Reith at the helm of the 大象传媒 we no doubt had a reasonable balance of truth with national priorities. Who was it that said 'truth is the first casualty of war鈥�?
Newsreaders, we are told, wore dinner jackets in the evenings. The Nine O'Clock News found us listening to whatever the war dished out. The announcers gave their names at the beginning of each news programme. "This is the 大象传媒 Home Service; here is the Nine O'Clock News and this is Alvar Lidell reading it". The idea, we were told, was that we should recognise the voices of the announcers and know that we were hearing genuine news. It was some years into the war that this practice was adopted. The early announcers of news, and most other people on radio, were men. Lord Reith was a Scot and a man of great rectitude. There is a story of him seeing an announcer kissing a female member of staff in the corridor. His initial reaction was to dismiss them both on the spot but he was urged to be forgiving. He forgave but insisted that the announcer should never again read the Epilogue.
The comic programmes provided a great boost to morale . ITMA, Its That Man Again was the programme everyone listened to and remembers. Acronyms were not much used before the war and ITMA bucked the trend. Tommy Handley鈥檚 charlady鈥檚 parting words "Tat-ta for now, sir鈥� was shortened to TTFN and Handley revelled in reducing his other catchphrases to strings of letters. His sketches provided us with chuckles for days after transmission and "Can I do you now sir?", the charlady鈥檚 enquiry to discover if it was convenient to clean her boss鈥檚 room, was considered risqu茅 and repeated by young and old with a smirk. Tommy Handley and his team led the way.
Garrison Theatre was another light programme which amused us all. It and ITMA were early soaps in that the characters and superficial plots went from programme to programme. The anchorman at Garrison Theatre was Jack Warner who later became the policeman in television鈥檚 Dixon of Dock Green which ran and ran. All the light programmes relied on catchphrases which provided us with a common language and united us against the common enemy. We were indominable.
Sunday evenings we welcomed our allies. Light music with conductor Tom Jenkins 鈥渆t son orchestre鈥� came from the Palm Court of Grand Hotel. Some announcements were made in French. 鈥淚ci nous terminee notre program de music lagere鈥�..鈥� The national anthems of all the 鈥榓llies鈥� were played before the 9 o鈥檆lock News for perhaps 30 minutes. As years went by the recital grew longer to match the increasing number of allies. I think the Polish anthem was the most jolly, certainly it had some distinguishing features. Many were drear, some were quirky.

My Boy Scouts Pocket Diary provides a 13-14 year-old boy鈥檚 view of his priorities at a time when Britain was fighting alone in North Africa, the Blitz on London was at its peak and St. Paul鈥檚 Cathedral had a near miss, the Germans invaded Russia and got to the gates of Moscow and the Japanese Air-force bombed Pearl Harbour. Of great concern to us was the rate at which German submarines were sinking our merchant ships. Our food supply depended on those ships.
Once or twice a month Nellie took me to the cinema and we boys went on our own to see films such as The return of Frank James and The Great Dictator, which was a satire cum lampoon by Charlie Chaplin on Adolf Hitler. It received great publicity and might be described as a propaganda film. My diary records that I was making a model aircraft at home, a sledge at school and reading the book The first hundred-thousand which described trench life in France during the First World War. Alf was making a wheel-barrow. There are numerous mentions of rain and snow, some 鈥榟eavy鈥�. Roy Brookes鈥� older brother Birt in the RAF, another old Varndeanian, had been shot down and killed. The spring months saw me making occasional visits to the allotment where on one day I 鈥樷��.put in 14lbs. spuds, peas, carrots, beetroot and lettuce鈥�. Early in March there had been talk of the school being evacuated to Yorkshire and there was some debate as to the wisdom. In the event none of our group went but a significant contingent disappeared to Skipton. Many drifted back as time went by and there was little or no bombing in the Brighton area..

Feeding the family was a constant problem and worry for the womenfolk but although there may not have been great variety we never went hungry. Despite the Germans successful, almost fatal, blockade of the food convoys into Britain there was bread for all and some meat, fish, cheese, eggs and other tasty items to produce a balanced diet although they were rationed and in short supply. There was work for all and the official Ministry of Information line was that the working man and his family were better fed and fitter than they had been before the war. And it was true.
Nellie coped very well and Alf鈥檚 allotment provided a variety of vegetables. For the first time the British public tasted whale meat and fish with names which seemed to have been invented by the MOI. 'Snoek' was one such. I haven't heard of it since the war but COD tells us it is Afrikaan from Middle Low German for barracouta.
When the convoy sinkings were at their peak there was a period when even whale and snoek were unobtainable. Nellie then turned to nourishing meals using Alf鈥檚 large potatoes baked in their skins and filled with baked beans or similar delicacies. Decades later pub-grub invented filled baked potatoes as 'jacket potatoes鈥�, essential items on their menus. A Nellie variation was Alf鈥檚 very large onions with savoury fillings of baked beans or whatever was available. Powdered potatoes, powdered milk, apple rings, dried almost everything, corned beef and later - Spam, a particular delicacy. Spam cold, sliced, spiced, casseroled, fried in batter, fried with鈥� . Spam went well with baked beans. We didn鈥檛 starve but it helped to like baked beans.
At one time we, by which I mean Britain not No.90, were short of fuel. Probably transport problems because it was a short span emergency. I got out the sledge, (we seemed to have much more snow in those days 鈥� particularly during the war years), and armed with a hand axe and saw slunk up to the Sycamore Woods to cut down two of the tree trunks next to the nursery wall. Like the page summoned by Good King Wenceslas I brought logs thither. It was down hill going home and the saw and axe kept slipping from the sledge. That was the relatively easy part; having arrived with the logs I had chopped down I had to saw them up. But I was filled with a certain self-righteousness as I ate my baked potato stuffed with onions.

There were two fish and chip shops within a 5-10 minute cycle ride of No.90; one near the Stanmer Park Hotel in Preston Drove and the other in Hollingdean Road. They provided occasional supplements as and when the shops had fish throughout the war although Alf was reluctant to eat food not prepared at home. Later in the war, after Nellie died, and there was no woman in the house these shops were a boon. But they were open, at most, two or three evenings a week. Nevertheless, sometimes after scouts if the pocket money ran to it, and if the fishermen had been out or the Min of Ag and Fish had found a stock of peculiar named fish somewhere I would find myself in the queue. At first, the queue would be from outside the shop, winding its way down Preston Drove. Then, with time and patience the queuers would be in the warm shop with the frying-smell. In the winter outside would be cold and dark and the shop welcoming but in the summer, outside, one could watch and talk to passers-by in the street as one moved up the queue and the apron-ed man came out of the side-gate with a large container of raw fish or chips to take into the shop for frying. One could buy a pennoth or tuppence-worth of chips, inclusive of salt and vinegar, and fish was 4d or 6d. As we moved towards D-Day in 1944 we shared the queue with Canadian soldiers and their occasional, locally recruited girlfriends. All the time one was queuing one hoped the fish supply would not run out before one reached the counter. Sometimes it did.

Alf never really joined in the war. Later, he did what he was required to do but he was a reluctant fire-watcher and unwilling participant. He was obliged to take turns fire-watching at the Royal York Buildings, his office, but he grumbled about it and disapproved of some of the 'goings on' between members of opposite sex while fire watching. I heard about this indirectly, through Aunt Nellie. As someone remarked, "those camp beds weren't designed for two people".

The Home Front was sometimes in the front line.

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