´óÏó´«Ã½

Memorable Events as I grew up during the War

At last I’ve managed to find time to write the story of my experiences during WW2.

I was born on 7th December 1935 and lived with my parents at 1, Church Hill Road, Cheam, Surrey. At the beginning of the war my father (37 yrs old) was a civil servant working for the Ministry of Supply in the Adelphi building in John Adam Street, WC2.

My first memory of the war is a very vivid one. It was in September 1940. My mother and I were walking home having been shopping in Cheam Village. We were walking along the Sutton by-pass (A217) when the siren went. Our nearest shelter was the subway under the by-pass and we weren’t far away. There was a clear blue sky and looking up I could see a dog fight going on which I later learned was between two Hurricanes and two German bombers who had lost their formation. My mother suggested that we should put the shopping away and then go to the shelter. She was doing this and I was pulling out a record to put on the gramophone which was in the hall of the house. All of a sudden there was a huge explosion. The bombers had jettisoned their load and a land mine had hit the elm trees at the back of the house. I learned later that the trees had to some extent sheltered our house from the blast but the two houses in Tilehurst Road on the other side of the trees were flattened and their residents killed.

I was found by the ambulance men half-way up the stairs, bleeding profusely from my upper lip, a scar I carry to this day, but holding the undamaged 12 inch shellac gramophone record in my hand. My mother and I found ourselves in St. Anthony’s Hospital. My mother also suffered many cuts by flying glass but was soon to recover and leave the hospital. However, it was thought by the doctors that I had contracted scarlet fever and so was sent off to Cuddington Isolation Hospital. I obviously had no contact with my parents, though I imagine they had found somewhere to stay and saw to the house. I’m uncertain how long I stayed in the isolation hospital but I was declared safe and returned to my parents care. It later turned out that I had caught infantile paralysis (poliomyelitis) but somehow while I was in the hospital I was cured.

My father was posted to Shrewsbury as ministries were evacuated from London. His office was in the Lion Hotel, where he was also billeted, fairly luxurious at the time. He managed to find accommodation for my mother and myself in the village of Harlescott. So one afternoon my mother and I boarded the Birkenhead train at Paddington station. We had reached Birmingham but the train stopped in the tunnel outside Snow Hill station for several hours. It turned out that there was a heavy raid on Birmingham going on at the time. It was a good thing that that tunnel was strongly built. It was dark by the time the air raid was over and leaving Snow Hill station it was clear to see from several fires burning as we progressed along the line to Wolverhampton that significant damage had occurred. We arrived at Shrewsbury later that night and were taken to our accommodation. It was in a house on the main road almost opposite the Sentinel factory, owned by two spinster ladies, Phyllis and Grace Adams. Phyllis was the secretary to the Managing Director of the factory and Grace was secretary to the Works Manager. They were certainly unused to having a child around but were very kind at Christmas 1940. They found employment for my mother in the factory though of course I never knew whether she worked with munitions or tank and aircraft construction — a wartime secret. In January, since I was now five, I started at school. It was Featherbed Lane Infants School, a good mile from where we were living but several children in the neighbouring houses went and I accompanied them. We walked on our own, no adults with us but it was safe. I remember gathering cobwebs covered in dew from the hedgerows as we walked to school in the cold mornings and also gathering and eating the blackberries in the hedges as we walked home in the autumn.

When the bombing of London died down after 1941, my father was posted back to the Adelphi. He managed to find us a house in Upsdell Avenue, Palmers Green. We soon settled in there and I went to Tottenhall Road Junior School. At Christmas my parents managed to procure me a secondhand tricycle as a present. My mother’s aunt, Alice Tate, lived in 13, Terrick Road, Wood Green, only about a couple of miles away. I can remember riding from our house to hers all along the road, never on the pavement. There were very few cars about then. I met a boy living in Terrick Road and he showed me where we could go to watch the trains on the LNER main line. This started my great interest in railways and I remember beginning to catch the idea of collecting train numbers. Nowadays I pass that spot many times on a 225 going to and from London and only recently has the fence through which we could see all the lines been replaced by a more solid structure.

This idyll was not to last long, the V1s were about. Although my father stayed in London, my mother and I went off to Shrewsbury again but this time my mother took up the post of housekeeper/cook to Major and Mrs. Gateacre who lived in Lyth Hill House, a good couple of miles up the road from the village of Bayston Hill, the last mile gated. This was luxury indeed as far as I was concerned. We had very comfortable rooms above the stables and certainly benefited from the ‘contacts’ that the Major had. He was still in uniform working for the War Office and very often away from home. There were times when Mrs. Gateacre was alone, her only son was at the Front, when she would invite me into the ‘big house’, she would give me tea and some biscuits and I always left with some sweets. She let me take two of her pedigree cats to our rooms. They got used to staying with me and rarely went back to the ‘big house’ on their own accord. Ever since I have had to own a pet cat.

While there I went to the village school at Bayston Hill. It stood beside the church on the village green and it had only two classrooms, one for juniors, one for seniors. I remember the large open fire surrounded by a very large wire fireguard on which clothes were often hung to dry. To get there I had to walk down a steep hill path to the main road (A 49) and wait for the bus for Shrewsbury. I can remember being afraid of the cows in the fields beside the path, they were so big and those huge horns looked dangerous. I would walk past very quickly. There was no bus after school so I would walk up the road through the village, normally with other children, particularly the Medlecotts, who lived in the village but for the last mile from the gate I was on my own. There were some occasions when the snow was too deep to get through but normally I managed to get to school. These were precious times and I leant much about the countryside. Somehow the War was somewhere else, we listened to the six o’clock news every night but the adults seemed to be able to prevent their cares affecting the children.
Once the V2s were finished we went back to London. My father, while remaining in the Ministry of Supply had gone into partnership with a Mr P. Lemaitre buying a radio and electrical shop which was in York Road, just along from Waterloo station and opposite County Hall. We lived upstairs in this shop and my bedroom looked out onto the tracks from Waterloo station. What a place for a train spotter! But at the same time it was easy to go to all the other London Termini and so I saw a great variety of trains with my ABC book of each of LNER, LMS, GWR and SR full of underlinings of engines that I’d seen. I went to St. John’s school which was on the other side of Waterloo Road overlooking the East station. There were no problems walking to school in those days along York Road and across Waterloo Road. While living there VE day was declared. I remember mingling with the crowds that day in Trafalgar Square, everyone seemed happy and exhilarated, and then, that evening going with my parents to the roof of the Adelphi Building and watching the great firework display, an unforgettable day!

Soon we were able to return to Cheam, the war damage had been repaired and I settled back into life in the London suburbs. Initially I went to Cheam Secondary school in Chatsworth Road. While there the famous 1944 Education Act came to fruition and I was able to take an 11+ exam which led me to taking up a place in September 1947 as a pupil at Sutton County School for Boys.

The rest is another story though if you ever decide to obtain similar memories of the late 40s and 50s I’m happy to help.

Douglas C. Ambrose

© Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.