大象传媒

I was born in 1929 in Trinity Street Weymouth, just off Hope Square. After four years we moved house to Hope Street opposite the Red Lion pub in Hope Square. When war broke out in 1939, nearly all the children in the area attended Holy Trinity School on Chapelhay. One morning, while waiting to go into school, a large number of planes flew over very low which we thought were "ours". All of a sudden though the air raid siren sounded and we were rushed into school by our teachers and made to hide under our desks. When the all clear was heard we were sent home and I was then told about the attack and sinking of HMS Foylebank in Portland Harbour, the planes being German dive bombers. .
One Sunday in 1940, at about 11 a.m. other German aircraft dropped a stick of six bombs, four upon Hope Square and two in St. Leonards Road. Being a Sunday morning many of the local residents were in the Brewery Malthouse, which was serving as an air raid shelter. Thankfully no one was killed. My parents were in our house at the time and all windows, doors and slates were blown off together with damage to the ceilings. We continued to live in this mess for a further four days before moving to other accommodation. Later we moved back to Trinity Street, sharing a house with my aunt and her two daughters who were bombed out on Scribbidge Hill off Hope Square. Not long after Holy Trinity School was bombed on a Sunday night (about 9 p.m.). A land mine also hit Chapelhay destroying most of the area and killing very many people. We; children were very pleased that we had lost our school for a while, later we attended for one and a half hours in the morning one week and one and a quarter hours in the afternoon the following week. This continued until alternative arrangements were introduced sometime later at the old Art Centre in Commercial Road. Here three classes operated in one big room, being divided off by means of a curtain!
I left school in 1943 at 14 years of age and went to work at the Whitehead Torpedo Works at Wyke Regis. While there we watched the build up to D-Day that was centered on Portland Harbour.
After the war I served my period of national service in the RAF being based almost throughout in Berlin having first hand knowledge of the air lift. Later I joined the Dockyard Marine Service spending 45 years on board ship, the last 25 of them as Master of the same vessel.

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