大象传媒

'This story was submitted to the People's War site by Rick Allden of the CSV 大象传媒 Coventry and Warwickshire Action Desk on behalf of M. R. Spurgeon and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions'.

In l937 my parents bought their first house, a new semi-detached on the outskirts of Old Bexley in Kent. Surrounded by fields, woods and orchards, the road we were in was a typical, middle-class cluster of about 40 houses. Most neighbours knew each other, and those nextdoor to us often invited others to join them for tennis as they had a court at the bottom of their garden.

The fact that their name was Schmidt and they were German caused no concern for, after all, everyone knew them well and respected them. My parents from time to time enjoyed the hospitality of their tennis court and got on well with them. Besides, everyone knew that Mr. Heffler worked locally at The Old Mill, in Bexley.

In l938 or early l939 the parents of Mr. Heffler visited them with another son aged about l8. His name was Eberhardt and he did impressive handstands and headstands on the lawn. My attempts to copy him were very unsuccessful, which is not surprising as I was only five. We went for country walks with the visitors, when old Mr. Schmidt showed me how to make a whistle from wild parsley. Although it meant nothing to me at the time I overheard them telling my parents that the German government would allow the visit to last only for a week or so, and they were allowed to bring hardly any spending money out of Germany. They were unhappy about returning, particularly Eberhardt, because he knew he would be called up to serve in the German forces very soon. They had little to say of Hitler.

It was a surprise to all the neighbours when they heard that Mr. and Mrs. Heffler had been arrested as spies. It subsequently came to light that The Old Mill in Bexley was a British secret munitions factory and Mr. Heffler had been employed in top- secret work. We had never imagined that these secrets had been passed to Germany over a considerable period of time by using a radio transmitter hidden in the sitting-room fireplace next door, which was back-to-back with our fireplace.

It was then my parents, with embarrassment, understood the source of the odd sounds they had sometimes heard late at night. Their guess, that the noises had been produced by a gramophone, wireless or typewriter, had been incorrect!

By poetic justice, later in the war a German bomber crashed onto the tennis court, completely ruining it and blowing most of the tiles off the roof of the house. Fortunately I was not living there at the time.

This story was donated to the People鈥檚 War website by M. R. Spurgeon, of the Leam Writers. If you would like to find out more about Leam Writers call 0845 900 5 300.

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