大象传媒

An army of men went from Teesside to London, and worked. Along with them went some youths, and that was me. There were people in the construction company where we worked, there were other firms from Stockton and Thornaby, and when we got there they recruited men from the Irish republic and they all worked with it. A lot of people were running this. They did it all. The V1s came over regularly day and night, and dropped all over the south but mainly in London.
There were bombs coming all the time. The bombs, the V2s stopped in October 1944, then the rockets started coming over, and they did some damage! It was all over London, the bomb damage. One lot of windows would get put in, only to get blown out again. A lot of men from Stockton went down to work in London. I was one of the boys. I got made a joiner, and I served my time on the wood cutting machines. That was good money, I got 拢7 a week 鈥� I was going to buy Buckingham Palace, 鈥榗ause you鈥檇 only get about 拢2 round here. Then, when I was eighteen 鈥� ring ring 鈥� I was called up, and sent to India, Delhi to be precise. We went all over the Himalayas and to Afghanistan. Mountbatten took over as commander of India, and in Delhi, we had to keep the riots down. I was over there for three years.
It was the end of 1944 I was called up, and I had thought I was going up to Germany, but really we鈥檇 been trained to deal with the riots in India. I said to the Sergeant, 鈥淚s there a riot, are we going down?鈥� Eventually, the whole army was withdrawn from India.
I liked being in the army, and India was lovely. It was very hostile, the people were causing trouble all of the time.

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