大象传媒

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I was born over my parents shop in 1929. At the start of the war I was living in Downs Road, Dunstable.

My father volunteered to become a special constable and carried out general police duties. He dealt with black market smuggling and was called out mainly at night to deal with various things. He was allowed a small amount of petrol for his car because when on duty his car became an official police car. In order to identify cars belonging to special constables, each car was issued with small white cardboard notice with the words POLICE written on it.

The police station was based on the corner of Friars Walk and High Street South in Dunstable. The air-raid siren was situated in the grounds at the back on a big wooden tower. My father told me that when they were on duty they were sometimes allowed go and have a nap. They would sleep in their cars underneath the siren and of course when the siren went off, it used to wake them all up! Opposite the police station was Montpelier House which became Montpelier Chambers. The basement of that building was used as either an air-raid shelter or a first aid post and that鈥檚 why the railings around it were not taken away during the war.

The Americans had a military police presence in Dunstable. I won鈥檛 say headquarters but it was in one of the shops, near Fred Moore鈥檚 (a small department store). I can remember the military policemen on their Harley Davidson motorbikes coming up High Street North, stopping and getting off in their white helmets, carrying their truncheons.

I went to Dunstable Grammar School where they built underground air-raid shelters behind the swimming pool. They had long wooden benches down the sides and we were sent there whenever there was an alert. I think you can still the outline of these shelters today. I can recall going to Totternhoe Road after they had dropped a string of bombs in the direction of the Met Office, which was based on top of Dunstable Downs. One of the bombs fell just between two bungalows. Many people thought the Germans were deliberately trying to bomb the Met Office but I think they were just jettisoning their load before flying home.

I was in Downs Road when a German plane came down and machine gunned High Street North. I remember hearing the rattle of machine gun fire although I didn鈥檛 actually see it. I also recall that it was a very bright sunny day when the Germans bombed Vauxhall (in Luton). I was at Dunstable Downs Golf Club. I could see the German planes high up in the sky like tiny silver spots and a great pool of smoke around the area of Vauxhall Motors. During the blitz I looked out of my window and saw the glow from the fires in London, and later on when our forces were bombing Germany I can recall seeing our bombers, the Lancasters, Halifaxes and Wellingtons flying over Dunstable.

The army built some temporary huts in First Avenue and other army and ATS personnel were billited in some of the still unsold houses in the road. One day my friend and I were treated to a ride in a Bren Gun carrier over the top of the Downs!

We were issued with an identify card and I can still remember my number today! Some people had a bracelet made with their identity card number printed on it; all our family had these made. I鈥檝e still got mine.

On one occasion I was given a banana. Now before the war I acquired a taste for them and I hadn鈥檛 seen one for several years. A friend of ours had a sailor billeted with them and this chap brought back a bunch and gave me one. I treasured it, eating it bit by bit. I kept the skin in my bedside table for months, just to be able to smell a banana!

I was a member of the cadet core for some time. I completed my certificate A and as a result of having served in the core I was one of first conscripts in the army to have, immediately after the war, two weeks off because I鈥檇 already completed the primary training!

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