大象传媒

To return to Idris.Towards the end of the war he was stationed at LAD Kineton.LAD stands for Light Air Detachemnt.He was very near Leamington Spa,so when he had leave he used to cycle home.He palled up with an army cook at that camp.I don't know what his name was.Idris always referred to him as Jock.One weekend leave in the summer,Idris cycled home carrying some delicious beef dripping that Jock had given him on the quiet.He carried it in a valise strapped on his back, and what with the warm weather and his exertions on the bike,he found to to his dismay that the dripping had melted in the valise and soaked right through his uniform.
As you can imagine,the weekend leave was spent boiling and cleaning his uniform and valise, and getting them ready for parade Monday morning.
When that weekend leave is mentioned we say,"Ooh do you remember?Wasn't it awful?Wasn't he a mess?" and then proceed to fall about laughing.
Idris was demobbed in 1946, and he and Mollie had the back room on the first floor of our house as their own sitting room,so they could have some privacy.
That was usually my bedroom and so I moved up to one of the bedrooms on the top floor at the front of the house.
Mollie and Idris eventually bought a house in Lillingotn and moved there with their daughter Mary.

CHAPTER XIII BOB

Bob was born next.He is ten years older than me,so that made him seventeen year old when war was declared.
He is quite different from Frank in looks.Whereas Frank had black hair and brown eyes,Bob had auburn hair and freckles.When he grinned he looked really cheeky and a lot like Mickey Rooney.
As I have mentioned,he too worked at the Lockheed,in the Jig and Tool drawing office.
It was a reserved occupation and so in 1940
he joined the LDV (Local Defence Volunteers)
until eventually the 2nd Company Home Guard was formed.
They really did have to drill with broom stickes, and wore arm bands until rifles and unifroms were issued.The first uniforms were made of waxed denim to make them waterproof.Then they were eventually issued with standard army uniform.
Like everone else,Bob worked a twelve hour at the Lockheed then three nights a week he was at the drill hall with the Home Guard.
They did guard duty at night on a rota.
Six of them at a time,and it worked out to a duty every tenth night.They guarded the underground resevoir on the Campion Hills.Strangely enough it was never gusrded during the day.Perhaps the powers that be decided Gerry wouldn't poison the water or blow it up during broad daylight.
Rob used to be on guard at night,go home for breakfast and then go to another days work at the office,and just to keep him up to scratch,the office manager made him do physical jerks at ten o' clock in the morning.
One day a week,Bob went on day release to technical college.He did homework at night when he didn't go down to the drill hall.He turned out to be a first class draughtsman and was Head Draughtsman in later life at Dunlop in Coventry.
Bob followed the war on a map of the world that was hung on a wall in 'the room'.It was quite bid ,I should think a yard square.There were flags of all the countries fighting the war.The Umion flag for the British forces,the Swastika for the Germans,Rising Sun for the Japs and the Stars and Stripes for the Americans or to call it by its proper name,The Star Spangled Banner.
With these flags pinned on the map, you could follow the advaces and retreats of the different armies.It was wonderful to see our march across Europe as the war was coming to a close.
Bob also took the magazine'War Illustrated'.He kept them all and had them bound.They ran into several volomes, and they are all in his bookcase to this day.
I have seen photographs of Bob and his Home Guard Company.He became a sergeant, and his commanding officer was Captain Gates.Bob says he was exactly like Captain Mainwaring in Dad's Army.He had his manner and spoke like him.
There was also a spiv in the company who always had a bit of under the counter dealing going on.
When I looked at the man in the back row of the photograph I couldn't believe my eyes.There is a young man who could have easily been Ian Lavender,who played the part of Private Frank Pike.There was also a man who ,Bob says ,was always a bit late coming to attention-just like Corporal Jones.I can remember Bob cleaning his rifle,and he also had a sten gun that he kept in the cupboard of his bedroom.
He slept int the back bedroom on the top floor.It was three flights of stairs up from 'the room' and as he went up and down the stairs ,and around the house ,he always seemd to be singing.He had a good voice too.
He used to sing Mexicali Rose quite a bit.W ehad a record of that,and Begin the Beguine was on the reverse side.These were two of Hutch's songs.I heard him sing both at the Holidays at Home.
We played these reocrd on a wind up gramaphone that was enclosed in a mahoganey cabinet.It was about three feet high and just under the three feet square.It was a lovely piece of furniture.
You lifted the lid to use the turntable.There was a space beside that to store records, and there was also space for the tin of gramaphone needles and the handle that fitted into a round hole in the side, and with which you wound the gramophone.
At the front of the cabinet were two doors that opened to show the speaker, and that had carved mahogany to cover some of the mesh of the speaker.
After Mollie had been to the picturs to see Anton Walbrook in Dangerous Monnlight.we had strains of the W arsaw Concerto drifting through the house for hours on end.
During the war ,Bob was courting a girl called Barbara who lived at Cubbington ,just outside Leamington Spa.
I used to go over there with my parents.Our two families got on well together.W eused to sing songs in the evenin around the pianowhist Barbara played.
We were at Cubbington one summer evening when there wa a scare that a parachutist had been seen in the sky.It turned out to eb a barrage balloon that had broken free and got to a great height.
Bob was called out one night in a panic.
To call them out,the first ones who were on the 'phone were alerted.They called out the next lot, who in turn called out the others.
They were all assembeld at the drill hall.Bob says they were all loaded down with ammunition.Bandoliers over their shoulders.grenades humg on their belts and they were finally mustered at the bridge over the river Leam.
It was a false alarm of course, but Bob says he often wonders how they would have fared if the Germans really had landed.
Don't we all?
They had night time manoeuvers.One night they went to Chesford and had to pretend to take the bridge over the river.That went well,but they weren't too pleased when Captain Gates said "Right men,we have to go back across the river, but the bridge has been blown up".and they had to wade back through the water.
Apparently,they liaised with the regular army quite a bit.One evening a sergeant came to show them how to lecture men on warfare.
When he finished he picked on ome of the men and said"You =come and show us how to use a bayonet".He stepped back into the company , and the private started talking and prodding at the sandbags with the bayonet.and never looked up.When he had finished he found he was on his own,everyone had quietly moved away.A short sharp lesson to show you must look at people you are lecturing.
The company went to Dover to train with the regular army on the white cliffs.Bob says at one time he was riding at speed through Dover on a Bren gun carrier.He says he really felt like a proper soldier.
Bob eventually married a girl called Sylvia who was evacuated to Leamington Spa from Folkestone.They hae a son Paul and a daughter Janet.

CHAPTER XIV SOLDIERS AND EVACUEES

If you lived in a big house with lots of bedrooms-as we did-and there was room to spare,you had to have soldiers or evacuees billetted with you.We had both but at different times.
We had soldiers by the names of Ray and Eddie to start with, and Ray became a member of the family.He was in the Royal Signals,like Frank , and his headquarters were in one of the big houses along Kenilworth Road.
I can remember when he started courting a blonde girl called Ruth.My family used to tease him because he was so smitten he went off his food and couldn't sleep.He brought her home to meet us a few times ,but the romance ended.He then met another girl called Ruth, although she was always called Red because of the colour of her hair.
He married her after the war and I was one of the bridesmaids at their wedding.I wore a pale blue lace dress and carried a posy of sweet peas.
Ray was like a brother to me .One Christams while he was living with us he bought me a bicycle.A utility model,all black, not a bit of chrome anywhere.Who cared about chrome anyway,I had me heart's desire - a bike!!
I had that bike for years,until it was pinched one day because I had left its chain and padlock at home.
Not long after that Christmas,Ray was sent abroad and met up with Frank in Italy,not surprising I suppose as they were in the same regiment.
I can't remeber much about Eddie,He was very quiet and came and went without causing waves.
Not like Jock who came next.He was making a cigarette lighter from bits and pieces, and all he wanted in the end was awheel to ignite the flint.Everyone he met or who came to the house he asked if they had a 'wheel forra leeter' in his lovely scots axxent.It got so bad in the end that people used to joke that he would ask the smae question of the German High Command if he ever came face to face with them.
Another soldier was Dick.He was a dispatch rider, was unmarried and came from Kettering.

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