大象传媒

When war was declared in 1939 I was still at school. The school was evacuated and the majority of the boys went with it. First we went to the Wedmore district in Somerset and I and some others were billeted with the village schoolmaster. It was then a very rural area and I found it all fascinating. We made friends with local boys and girls, generally had a very pleasant time because there was nowhere big enough for our school to get going. I remember playing tennis in the big garden of the Doctor in Wedmore in lovely weather. Another memory is of going with our teacher host when he asked if I would like to go with him to Wellington. He was a rather taciturn man, not ideal company, but I jumped at the chance to see more of that area. On the way back he asked if I would like to see where the Battle of Sedgemoor had been fought, so, keen to pretend to show an intelligent interest in history, I said, 鈥淵es, rather!!鈥�

We arrived and looked at the fields and then he shot a question at me! 鈥淲hat was the date of the Battle of Sedgemoor?鈥� It felt like a test of whether I was genuine or not. It was years since I鈥檇 had a history lesson and I felt I had no idea! But then from somewhere in my head came 鈥�1685鈥� and I was saved and he was able to believe he hadn鈥檛 been wasting his time on an ignoramus.

In due course we were moved to Minehead where bigger school premises were available part-time. Another boy and I were billeted with a farmer and his wife a few miles out of town on the road to Porlock. He was semi-retired and his wife had been a Methodist missionary in China. They were very kind, the house was very comfortable and the food was good. My bicycle was sent down from London and I loved exploring the lanes and learning about birds and plants I鈥檇 never seen before. The house looked out at the edge of Exmoor and one saw red deer from time to time. I helped with the poultry, not always a pleasant job on freezing mornings, and I once helped take a big flock of sheep miles along the road to the marshes on the other side of Minehead. I loved being in the country and around the farm and town boy as I had been, my ambition then was to be a farmer.

I had been in the Army Cadet Force at school so when volunteers were asked for the LDV (Local Defence Volunteers, it later became the Home Guard) was in at the beginning. One duty was to be stationed in a tent on the top of North Hill, then a remote and wild place, though just outside Minehead, where all you could hear was the wind, the sea and the occasional drone of a plane. Since our job was to be on the lookout for German parachutists when we heard the plane we gripped our hockey sticks, for that was all we had as weapons!

But the time came to leave school and return to London and shortly after that the air raids started. I saw planes fighting in beautiful clear blue skies, some breaking up and a wing fluttering to earth like a leaf. On one cloudy day I heard a plane overhead and looked up to see a German plane appear in a gap in the clouds and saw the bombs falling from it, though the air raid siren had not yet sounded.

The night raids started. I joined the ARP (Air Raid Precautions) as a full-time messenger, and each morning on my way to work I would see more houses had been bombed in the night, like fresh raw wounds. Amy, the very nice girl next door whom I鈥檇 known for years, was killed. We had no Anderson shelter in the garden and although there was a fairly big public shelter nearby, we usually stayed in our house when the sirens went, staying by the staircase which was said to be the safest place to be. One night, I cannot describe it except as an enormous, all-enveloping rushing sound and sensation, hit us, the front door was blown off its hinges in among us, and we were all over the place on the floor, and the air was full of dust. I got up and went into the back room to find my torch but when I turned it on I was amazed to hear an air raid warden on the street in front of the house shout 鈥淧ut out that light!鈥� Not only had all the blackouts been blown away but the inner wall had a huge hole in it. It hadn鈥檛 been a bomb but a mine on a parachute which had landed nearby, killing three men.

We couldn鈥檛 live in the house after that and went to live in an air raid shelter at my father鈥檚 business in Fleet Street. So we were there when the Luftwaffe targeted the City on 29th December 1940 with incendiary bombs. I remember going outside to look up Ludgate Hill and seeing St Paul鈥檚 surrounded by flames and clouds of smoke. There were flames everywhere. It was an awe inspiring sight and I stood there until a warden came along and said that the spire of St. Bride鈥檚 Church could crash down along Bride Lane and onto me.

After that I decided that I should take my Grandmother to stay with her sister in the safety of Windermere. When I got there I volunteered for the RAF but my eyesight was not good enough for air crew and I didn鈥檛 want to be a penguin. So I thought I might as well stay in Windermere a few weeks until I went into the army. Meanwhile I joined the Home Guard and went on guard duty, including patrols to guard the Aqueduct at Troutbeck, carrying Manchester鈥檚 water supply. I would come off all night duty and take the platoon commander鈥檚 dog out. I remember going up Orrest Head and seeing the sun rise, turning the snow covered fells pink. It was beautiful. Sometimes, if I was lucky, though not of course in the mornings, I was able to take the platoon commander鈥檚 daughter out.

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