大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by Eileen Bostle of the Community Service Volunteers on behalf of Bill Williams and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

At the start of the war I was in the Boy Scouts, and they became messengers between ARP posts scattered throughout the area, taking messages as required on bikes.They were told they must always carry their axes while in uniform so they could use them to smash the back wheels of their bikes to render them useless if an invasion took place. Later on the messengers' role was taken on by other forms of communication.
When I was about sixteen I got involved with the local fire-watching team. We gathered at the local doctor's surgery and went out on patrol during air-raids, and if there were any incidents we could deal with ourselves, such as putting out small fires, we did so. For anything bigger we would call the fire or other authorities, but if they were too busy to come we would do what we could. I remember an incident in Wickham Lane, in a shop just by the railway bridge with a flat above. An incendiary bomb had gone into the flat, and as we climbed in it exploded and blew a friend who was with me out onto the pavement. Fortunately he was uninjured, and the Fire Service dealt with the situation.
I went into the Army and and enlisted in the Black Watch. After basic training I joined the battalion based at Winchester. They asked for volunteers for air gunnery or the Parachute Regiment; I chose the Parachute Regiment and was lucky enough to get in. I was on the operation at Arnhem, where I was the youngest man in our company to jump, so I was called "Babe". I went in on the first day, and was captured on the last day trying to get across the river. After the war ended in Europe I rejoined my battalion and was due to go to the Far East with all the jungle equipment. The advance party was in fact in India when the bombs dropped in Japan. They put the rest of us off in Palestine, where we stayed for three years after the war, and the advance party joined us there on Christmas Eve 1945. I left the Army in 1954 and had a short spell of work with the Ford Motor Company, which I thought was a very good company. The man I worked with there had been in the RAF during the war, and he said he wished he could join the London Fire Brigade because he'd been in the Fire Service in the RAF, but he wore glasses and couldn't get in. Just after that there was an advert for the London Fire Brigade in the local paper; I applied and was lucky enough to get in, and I served with the LFB for thirty years and enjoyed every minute. I'd do it all again if I had another opportunity.

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