大象传媒

SOME OF MY WAR-TIME MEMORIES
It was while we were visiting my maternal grandparents who lived in Chadwell Heath, Essex in the summer of 鈥�39 that I heard my first air-raid warning. It was an eerie sound, rising and falling, getting louder and louder. The grown-ups were all standing looking skywards and talking about getting a shelter erected in the garden. My granddad wasn鈥檛 happy about digging up his garden. He was very proud of his small orchard, lawn and flowerbeds.

I remember in London after an air-raid, dashing out when the all-clear siren had sounded to look for pieces of shrapnel. It was easy to find the twisted bits of metal. Sometimes you could even find a piece that was still warm. Often I would get into trouble because I would leave the shelter to watch the white contra trails left by the fighters engaged in dog fights high above us in the sky.

And then came evacuation. Mum and dad took my sister and me to the departure point 鈥� a school playground 鈥� with our suitcases, a small brown cardboard box containing our gas mask and a label with our names on tied to our coat lapels. With a tearful goodbye we went by bus to Paddington station and caught a train to Devonshire.

From the start I didn鈥檛 like being evacuated. We arrived in a small village called Withycombe 鈥� just outside Exmouth. At first no-one seemed to want TWO children. But eventually, we were taken by a couple who already had their own daughter and another evacuee 鈥� a boy older than me - from London.

Mr L worked for the railway. He drove a large, flat-nosed lorry he called Aubrey, delivering parcels sent by rail. Occasionally he would take me out with him on his delivery rounds. I would stand in the back of the lorry holding on to a thick rope with a knot on the end. In the village a large fig tree grew in one of the gardens. When the figs were ripe I would lean out of the lorry, holding tight to the rope, and pick a few as we passed slowly by.

Mr L鈥檚 brother was a mackerel fisherman. Sometimes he would invite me to go out with him in his small boat. There were lines hanging over the side of the boat and each one had several hooks attached. I would help him bait the hooks. By the time we reached the last line, we would haul in the first one and remove the mackerel.

The first time our parents visited us in Devon, we took Dad on a long walk along the promenade at Exmouth. He couldn鈥檛 understand why we wanted to walk to the very end until he spotted the ice-cream parlour!

Dad was a bit of a betting man and enjoyed going to the dogs 鈥� grey-hound racing 鈥� and he and Mr L went to a local meeting one evening. When they arrived back Dad came in with a big grin on his face and a large bundle of white five pound notes in his hand. He鈥檇 won 鈥� as he would say 鈥� 鈥渁 packet!鈥� Next day Dad phoned his boss and said he wasn鈥檛 feeling well and would be staying another week. My sister and I were delighted by the news.

We attended a small village school soon after we arrived. It consisted of one large hall divided by a partition to make two classrooms. There were five boys also evacuated from London in my class and we always sat together. We would go to school armed with our metal peashooters and a supply of split peas. Our teacher was a bald-headed elderly man who seemed very forgetful. We soon were able to shoot peas high up onto the partition and watch to see if they would drop onto our teacher鈥檚 head! If ever one of us were caught out by the teacher, another of our gang would start picking up bits of paper around the classroom. This distracted the teacher long enough for him to forget why he鈥檇 called the guilty boy out in the first place! He would ask the lad what he was doing. 鈥淛ust picking up bits of paper, Sir.鈥� 鈥淲ell put them in the fire and go and sit down.鈥� He would then tell the boy next to him to go back to his desk!

We had to catch a bus to school. They weren鈥檛 like the coaches of today. This particular one had a double door at the rear of the coach for luggage and a protruding step. We boys used to take it in turns to ride on the back without the driver knowing. We did this by standing on the step and holding onto the luggage compartment door handles. This went on for a while until the day I fell off just as the bus was arriving at the school. I was a bit cut and bruised, but managed to make up an excuse about falling down some stone steps. After that it was back to riding inside!

One day at school I was sent to get books out of a cupboard. As I looked for the books I noticed a box a chocolates. I couldn鈥檛 believe my eyes 鈥� CHOCOLATES in wartime! I looked round to see if anyone could see me, opened the box and popped one into my mouth. Ughhhhh! It was a box of imitation chocolates used for window display! But they looked so real.

Just opposite the school was a baker鈥檚 shop. Our small gang loved going to the shop and buying a small loaf of bread. They were always lovely and warm and we would scoop out the soft centre of the bread and save the crust till last.

We didn鈥檛 really escape the war in Devonshire. We often heard German bombers flying overhead to their targets. One day a couple of Messerschmitt fighters flew by low enough for us to see the pilots. They were chasing a lone Royal Air Force Lysander. Despite the bravery of the Lysander crew, they were eventually shot down in flames. We went dashing over to the wreckage, but we were held back by the police because of the danger caused by exploding ammunition. I got a terrible telling of by Mrs L one night. We鈥檇 arrived back home just after the air-raid warning had sounded. I dashed in the back door and switched on the light. 鈥淭URN THAT LIGHT OFF!鈥� she screamed at me. 鈥淒o you want those German bombers to see where we are 鈥� they鈥檒l drop a bomb right on us!鈥�

I did have some good times in Devon. I remember when I went with my pal 鈥� a farmer鈥檚 son 鈥� to collect a horse from the coal yard his dad owned and we rode it back to the farm. I was at the back 鈥� never having ridden a horse before 鈥� and pretending I wasn鈥檛 frightened! As we neared the centre of the village my pal made the horse rear up on its hind legs. I just about managed to cling to him and stay on the horse, but it was fun. Another time I went with him into a field where they were harvesting the wheat crop. We walked behind the reaping machine collecting small mammals that had been killed. It was hot work walking round and round that field. Every now and again he鈥檇 take me to a hedge, push away some straw and pull out a flagon of cider. I didn鈥檛 feel very well by the end of the day!

A terrible thing happened in the village one day. Two boys had found an egg-shaped metal object. When they got it home they took it into a shed and tried to force it open by hitting it with a hammer. They鈥檇 only hit it a few times when it exploded. It was a hand grenade! One lad was killed, the other seriously injured.

I鈥檒l never forget the time we had rabbit stew for dinner. It was the first time I鈥檇 ever had rabbit. When my plate was put in front of me it had the head of the rabbit on it. I just couldn鈥檛 eat it. And because of that I was sent to bed early. It was a lovely sunny evening and I could hear other children laughing and playing outside in the street. I felt more homesick than ever.

The next day I decided my sister and I were going home. I had a bar of Palm toffee in my satchel that I thought would be enough to keep us going when we felt hungry. I remembered coming to Withycombe by train and figured if we walked along the railway line we would get back to London. So hand-in-hand, we started walking along the railway line until we were stopped by a policeman and taken back to our home in the village.

After that incident our parents decided they鈥檇 rather have the whole family together despite the blitz and my sister and I moved back to London.

It was totally different to how I remembered it. The routine was different for a start. Each night as soon as the air-raid warning sounded, we would rush down to the shelter in our small garden. When we stayed over at my paternal grandmother鈥檚 flat in the East End of London, we would go into the large communal shelter where people would sing and families shared beds 鈥� an aunt of mine who was in the Land Army would let me snuggle up to her when she was home on leave. I remember going with my dad to Aldgate to see an uncle the day after a heavy raid and having to cross over Commercial Road that was completely covered with firemen鈥檚 hoses and seeing all the bombed out shops and houses.

One night, during a raid, we didn鈥檛 got to the shelter, but stayed in our flat and my father sat by the window watching the searchlights picking out German bombers and seeing if he could see where the bombs were dropping. Several times my mother told him to move away from the window. He kept on ignoring her pleas until finally he stood up from the chair and as he moved towards the bed, a bomb exploded nearby and the blast blew the window in. if he hadn鈥檛 moved he could have been cut to pieces!

One June morning in 1944, after another sleepless night, a rumour flew around our street that a German plane had crashed onto my school, but they couldn鈥檛 find the pilot. It was our first experience of the German secret weapon, the V1s or flying bombs, nicknamed 鈥榙oodle-bugs鈥�. Everyone rushed down there, but police stopped us going too close. I was furious with the Germans because I鈥檇 left my favourite book, Black Beauty, in school on the Friday and I never got it back! I thought I wouldn鈥檛 have to go to school again, but I was transferred to another school a bit further away.

Just after one particular raid, we were anxiously waiting for Dad to arrive home. He was late. Suddenly we spotted a very grey, grimy man walking towards our house. It was Dad. He was covered from head to toe in grey dust. He told us a cinema near where he worked had been hit by a doodle-bug and as he walked past on his way home he heard a cry for help and looking down through all the debris he saw a large crater and a man who had fallen into it. So Dad helped the man out and they went for a drink.

I鈥檇 always been fascinated by aircraft 鈥� they were one of the things I used to draw in my exercise book. As I was too young to join the RAF, instead I joined the Air Training Corps 鈥� 338 West Ham Squadron. I had a great time as a cadet. I joined the band and being tall I was given the task of playing the Bass Drum.

We used to have training weekends at various Air Force bases. My first flight was in a Tiger Moth. A lovely old, yellow painted, aircraft. Then we had another week-long stay at another RAF camp near the South Coast. We went gliding nearly every day. I was in my element soaring round the sky. The only sound 鈥� apart from the instructor telling you what to do and what NOT to do 鈥� was the whistling of the wind.

My parents were very proud of me when I won a scholarship to the Stratford College of Art. Near the college was a small cluster of wooden huts with barbed wire surrounding them. We found out that Italian prisoners of war were being housed there. Opposite was an old building that had been left empty for sometime. That winter a few of us went onto the roof, made a pile of snowballs and threw them at the POWs! We thought we were doing our bit towards the war effort until we were caught by one of our tutors and given a really hard telling off!

Then eventually the end of the war arrived. I went with a friend of mine to the West End and joined in the celebrations.

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