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Kenneth Reeves was born during World War One, in 1916. He was in his twenties during the Second World War. He lived at Hither Green, Catford in Lewisham. And so was in central London for the duration of the war. At present he lives at Horsmonden, he proudly tells me that he married and had a son, who went on to have two daughters who are married with two children.

He was originally a carpenter and joiner. During the war he worked in Heavy Rescue, recovering bodies and pulling down remains. He describes it as ‘pulling houses down, collecting up bodies and handing them straight to the vicar.’ He recognises that the work he did was vital to the war and managed to become a senior officer in Heavy Rescue, in charge of four wagons of five men. They never knew what they were being sent to or what was being dropped down on them.

I asked him about the rationing during the war, ‘if it wasn’t for the black-market I would have starved,’ he laughs. The American black market was the best; if you worked at an American camp you could get your hands on anything, you could even bring a pair of silk-stockings home for your wife. He had a deal with his wife, for the first week his wife would eat to her satisfaction and he would have anything left and for the second week he would have what he wanted and she would eat what was left. He thought that the rationing went on longer than it needed to.

He can remember being chased across a field by a rear gunner on a German bomber, at the time it was a joke, but in retrospect he realises that it was a massive gamble.

He tells me how he ‘almost organised’ VE Day, there were tea parties in the street.

Since the war he has worked for both the Ministry of Work and the Ministry of Defence. He remembers when he was being assigned a workplace the assistant scribbled down MOW (Ministry of Work) it looked like MI5, he didn’t think he was supposed to be working for the secret service.

He has worked on training facilities (for the Ministry of Defence), helping with the development of simulators. He told me that he has flown a hunter plane, done a parachute jump and sat in a submarine without leaving the ground, all in the simulators he worked on. He also worked on ship testing, in Middlesex, building the ships to scale. He also worked at Kew Gardens, moving the administration block away from the road.

Over the years he has worked in many different jobs, and worked on many inventions. He tried to retire at sixty, but knew all the work so well that his work called him back up and he went straight back to help.

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