大象传媒

This is the fourth of Brian Cable鈥檚 鈥楥HILDHOOD MEMORIES FROM RAYLEIGH IN ESSEX鈥�.

These memories were written by Brian, edited by Jo Taylor of the Holmewood and Heath CAP team, and added to the site with the author鈥檚 permission.

SCHOOL LIFE

Schools were temporarily closed the day after war broke out, and when they did open, we went mornings one week, and afternoons the next, due to the shortage of teachers. In the early days, when the so-called 鈥楶honey War鈥� was on, the authorities would sound 鈥榯est鈥� siren warnings. These were announced beforehand and at school we would use these as drills to see how fast we could get out of our classrooms and into the shelters.
The shelters were built around the edge of the playing field, long narrow structures partly underground and partly above. Inside they were dark, damp and murky, with long wooden slatted seats running down each side. Steps led down in at the main entrance, but at the other end was an emergency exit through which we had to practise going out occasionally.
Everywhere we had to carry our gas masks, the flimsy cardboard boxes they first gave you soon fell to pieces. Round metal ones became available in the shops and my parents bought me one.
One very cold icy morning however, I slipped down in the playground and fell on mine, crushing it and breaking the gas mask. They sent me up to the main Warden鈥檚 Post in the High Street to get a new one.
Now, most Air Raid Wardens were all right, but like a few of the Home Guard, some of them regarded themselves as right little Hitler鈥檚! The chief Warden in our town was one of these and I had the bad luck to find him on duty.
I had to sit at a large trestle table while he paced up and down ranting and raving like the Fuhrer himself.
鈥淒o you realise that if there had been a gas attack on the way here you would be dead? These things cost money, they are not for you to treat as you like, you should be made to pay for this....!鈥� And so it went on, and I am sitting there thinking,
鈥楩or goodness sake shut up, give me a new mask and let me get back to school!鈥�

After a very heavy raid one night, I was walking to school next morning and noticed a lot of mud on the road. As I walked on I noticed this mud got thicker and thicker till it was practically level with the kerbs. Approaching a parade of shops I came upon a scene of devastation.
A land mine had landed just across the road and the pavements were covered in glass and slates, pictures that I had seen in the newspapers were now coming very close to home.
On arrival at school we found windows blown out and ceilings down. On the sports field at the back we could see a dome like object lying in the centre of the football pitch. The headmaster and caretaker went down and carried it back between them; it proved to be the nose cone of a landmine. We lads hoped that we could keep it, but later in the day an RAF unit came and took it away.
The playing fields got so covered in bits of bomb, land mine and shrapnel, that it became impossible to mow them. One afternoon the whole school lined up along one side, and slowly we went forward examining every inch of ground. Teachers went back and forth behind us with buckets collecting all that we had picked up.
At the end of the exercise several buckets full had been collected, and this despite the odd 鈥榥ice鈥� pieces some of us had put in our pockets for our own collections.

We collected souvenirs of every description, pieces of British and German aircraft, German being the most highly prized, shrapnel, bullets, badges etc. Occasionally we would hold exhibitions at school, they would let us use an empty classroom to display our treasures and we would charge a 1p entrance, the proceeds going to the Spitfire Fund or some other worthy cause.

A great deal of our time at school was spent down the shelters, and being as most our teachers were elderly; I think it is a tribute to them that we learned anything at all! Often we would sit in class trying to work with planes and guns roaring away overhead. The theory was that if the siren hadn鈥檛 sounded there was no raid, and when it was beginning to die down, the siren would sound and we would go to the shelters.
One day they sounded and the raid was well under way and as we ran across the tennis courts to the shelters a German fighter opened fire on us with canon fire. It was a short sharp burst, and the large front fa莽ade of the school saved us, the canon shell holes can still be seen there to this day.
The shelters were dim and damp, and teachers read us stories and we would sing songs and hymns and play various guessing games. We hated it when a raid went on through the dinner hour; the fact that there were German planes up there trying to kill us was of no concern. We were healthy growing lads and we were missing our dinner!
Every morning we would take 鈥榚mergency rations鈥� to school, mine consisted of a tin, with inside a small bottle of water and some fizzy lemonade tablets, some biscuits and a sandwich.
Seldom did we have our own teacher with us in the shelter, so they never knew where we lived, which for a time was very useful. Sometimes parents would come to the school and take their offspring home, along with any others who lived close by them. Now my friend Charley and I used to put up our hands wherever they lived, and once out of the school gates we were home like rockets!
After trying this successfully once or twice we pushed our luck, and instead of going the longer safer way home, we went the quicker way past the police station. Our luck had run out, a policeman was just emerging and he caught us, and made us stay in the station till the all clear had sounded. Of course he reported this to the school and that was the end of our little escapade.

During the war repertory companies toured the country performing well known plays in theatres, church and school halls. On a couple of occasions they visited our school in the evening, and us older ones would be allowed to attend if we had behaved ourselves during the week. The main snag was that we had to write an essay on what we had seen, and what we thought of it the next day.
One evening a friend and I were allowed to go and see a performance of 鈥楪aslight鈥�, and the boxer Tommy Farr (I heard) was in the cast. It was very good, but on the way home I experienced a terrific air raid.
The whole of the sky was lit up along the Thames estuary, hundreds of searchlights criss - crossed the sky, interspersed with bursts of shellfire and tracer shells streaking up into the night. To back up this amazing sight was the roar of the guns, the drone of the planes and the wail of sirens from all around the area.
By the time I arrived home my parents were a little anxious, but the raid had now died down and the drone of the planes and the gun fore could only be heard in the distance.
The next morning I settled down to writing my essay, it began,
鈥� The play last night was very good, but on the way home鈥︹�︹�� I then proceeded to give a graphic account of the air raid I had witnessed. I was very proud of my effort and thought it a highly commendable piece of work, and I was certain I would be highly commended for it.
Alas I was to be disappointed, it was returned to me with red ink scrawled all over it, and underneath, also written in red ink,
鈥淵ou were supposed to write your impressions of the play, not the air raid you witnessed in the way home!鈥�
I was mortified, after spending all that time and effort on what I considered a masterpiece.

School days during the war could be quite rewarding, when you forget the raids, sleepless nights and disrupted lessons. Next to our school was a large field and this was divided up into allotments. A local gardener was employed to teach us and we were soon 鈥楧igging for Victory鈥� and growing our own vegetables. The seeds cost us about a 1d a packet, but we could take home everything that we grew.
The first year we had some fine crops, but the second year everything was going well when the land mine came down at the bottom of the field, which I have described earlier. A lot of our crops were destroyed by the blast and our allotments were covered in pieces of metal. We cleared up the mess and salvaged what we could and prepared the ground for next year.
Amongst other 鈥榩atriotic鈥� activities we enjoyed was collecting waste paper for the war effort. Each class tried to collect more that the others, because those who had collected the most by a certain date, all that class would receive free cinema tickets for the local Regal. Each class would have their own 鈥榯hermometer鈥� indicating how much they had collected, and every morning before lessons began we would nip around to each one to see how they were doing.
As we got near the time we realised that our class was not doing very well, and it looked very likely that we would not be going to the cinema. However, our luck changed, one of my friends came round to me one dinner time and said that his father, who was a bank manager, said we could have all the old papers, books and ledgers that they were throwing out at his bank.
We heaved several sacks of waste paper onto our bicycles and walked them all the way to school. We were late for afternoon lessons but as we trundled our bikes through the gates all our class was at the upper windows cheering us in. We felt highly elated and our class won easily, much to the chagrin of a class who thought they had got it in the bag.
What with this, our allotments, collecting money at our exhibitions, putting up with sweet rationing and hunting for 鈥榮pies鈥�, we really felt that we were doing our bit for the war effort.

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