大象传媒

Part 5
Return to Ewell (cont)
An influx of young fit American Soldiers and Air Force Personnel gradually entered our lives in London and Kingston and with them they brought new vocabulary, chewing gum and nylon stockings, something for everyone. Deprived of sweets and chocolates, ice cream and lollypops, which were no longer available in the shops, we lads would accost the American soldiers with a 鈥淕ot any Gum Chum鈥�. They were very forbearing and usually responded to our rude behaviour by handing us what they called candy and chewing gum. This would be accompanied with an enquiry as to whether or not we had an older sister who might be interested in meeting them. The Americans became very popular with our English young ladies. Silk stockings were no longer manufactured, as the silk was needed to make parachutes. Nylon was a good substitute, but unfortunately only manufactured in the USA. Nylon stockings were an expensive and rare commodity, and of course, every young lady鈥檚 dream. The seam of the stocking, which travelled up the back of the lady鈥檚 leg had become part of fashion and was considered very sexy. To defeat the lack of this fashion item many ladies would draw a black line up the back of their leg using Miner鈥檚 eye makeup. Thus imitating the sexy stocking seam. However, American soldiers always seemed to be able to acquire nylon stockings should their lady so desire and many a romance started with a pair of nylon stockings. It didn鈥檛 take long for another saying to enter our vocabulary. This probably reflected the feelings of the British Armed Forces Personnel who would described our American allies as 鈥淥verpaid, Oversexed, and Over here鈥�.
On acquiring my adult teeth I encountered my next visit to a London Hospital, unfortunately my teeth did not grow evenly and I required orthodontic treatment. I was one of the fortunate few as the need for orthodontic treatment was seldom recognised by parents. However, greater awareness has developed over the decades and orthodontic treatment during teenage years is now quite commonplace. So we began to make fairly regular trips up to London on the train to the Royal Dental Hospital, Leicester Square. This resulted in several teeth that were growing out of alignment being extracted, and then plastic plates with all sorts of chrome wire attached were fitted into my mouth. I had much in common with those of the older generation who wore dentures, often ill fitting, and lived permanently on a diet of soft food. I consoled myself knowing that I would eventually return to a normal diet once the treatment was completed, and this I did. My horror of wearing dentures probably stems from this time.
On one of these dental trips into London we took a diversion to the HMV shop in Oxford Street and bought some records of ballet music. The records were 12" diameter and very fragile cellulose discs. Our homeward journey took us via Waterloo Underground Station. We started up the escalator and were no more than a few treads up when someone near the top hit the disc that stops the stairs moving. Unfortunately the handrails stopped and the stairs continued for a short while. This had the effect of everyone toppling over backwards. It was quite a frightening experience, especially as we were near the lower end, and took the full weight of those further up the escalator as they cascaded towards us. We immediately became aware that we were the first casualties of the incident, but it was some time before we realised that the second casualties had been our newly acquired records, much prized, but never to be played.
In the autumn of 1943 my father came home on embarkation leave prior to taking up a posting in India. Apparently he had been selected for this due to his past experience as a wood worker in civilian life. A special group had been formed to go to India to service and rebuild crashed Mosquito fighter/bombers. The Mosquito fighter/bomber was an all-wood aeroplane. It was essential to keep as many intact as possible because the war in the east was a long way from home and getting replacements was costly in time and money. Whilst my father was on leave my mother had to go into hospital for a major operation, unfortunately, they were unable to say their goodbyes, as she had not come round from the anaesthetic by the time my father had to leave. This made things very difficult for all of us, as we had no idea of when we would be together again and wondered when, if ever, we would live like a family as before. I now realise the extremely traumatic and stressful experience it was for my mother, along with many other women with young families whose husbands were away overseas with the armed forces, left to raise their children not knowing whatever the future may bring and then, when it was all over the men came home to independent, confident, self assured wives, who were used to being in charge of the family unit, and the money. The process to reunite the family, readjust, and get to know each other again was yet another unpredicted hurdle. The men came home expecting to resume their place as head of the household as before, having the final word, and each being king of his own castle, only to find that not only they, but their wives, had changed as a result of their war experiences. The wives experiences in being sole parent, in charge of decisions, discipline and disposable income was not easily undone. They could not go back to being the young wives they had been before the war had taken over their lives. No one suggested counselling or readjustment therapy. Families were left to make their own way. Win or lose.
The sixth of June 1944 found me off school with rubella. Being at home I had gone out into the garden to feed my rabbits. It had become the custom for most families to keep chickens and some to keep rabbits. Both provided a source of extra food, the chickens by way of eggs as well as meat for the table. The chickens were my mothers and grandmothers, but the rabbits were mine. I had a buck and a doe and over a period of time several litters of baby rabbits. These as they matured were killed and were either eaten by the family or bartered for whatever we needed and could get hold of.
As I came out into the garden I became aware of a lot of noise from aircraft flying overhead that was louder than usual and there were so many different types of planes up there in large formations, I wondered whatever was going on. We were all used to groups of aircraft flying over, but not in such big formations. At that time the Americans were bombing Germany by day and our RAF was bombing by night, but in South East England this was not particularly noticeable as the flight path from their bases in the Midlands took them out over the North Sea and not over our corner of England. It was later that morning that I heard on the radio that the invasion of Europe by our armies had started and that it was to be known as D Day. I thought this was appropriate as it was my birthday and my name being David what else could such a day be called.
Following D-Day we scouts were enlisted as messengers to help out at Horton Hospital. The wounded form the Normandy beaches were being taken there. However, later when the Germans resumed the bombing the wounded were taken further north to be away from the targeted areas.
Again the family鈥檚 fortunes were soon to change. On 13th June we were bombed out. I had been to a scout meeting and on arriving home went straight to bed; in fact the entire household were in bed with the exception of my mother. I was awakened by the sound of what I took to be a very low flying aircraft, but it was in fact a flying bomb. I instinctively hid under the bedclothes. Then there was a loud explosion followed by a short period of intense quiet. Peering from my hiding place beneath the bedclothes I found that I was looking straight up through the ceiling of my bedroom, through the non-existent roof of the house, to where the stars twinkled down upon me from in the night sky. A lone scream emanated from a nearby house. I guessed that someone had been wounded. Gradually we began to stir ourselves and gather together, my Mother, Sister, Grandmother and Aunt. We made our way out of the house bare foot over a layer of debris which in daylight turned out to be mostly ceiling and broken glass. The strange thing was none of us felt any pain or suffered any cuts to our feet. Very soon after we were outside the house my Scouting friend Peter came along and said his mother and father had invited my family to stay with them. When daylight came I went back to gather what clothing I could so we might all dress. My Grandmother asked me to find her false teeth, as she felt quite distressed to be without them. On getting to the house I put together what clothes I could find and then took a look around. The house as a structure was still standing all right but it had no windows, no doors and certainly no roof tiles.
One thing that made an impression on me was that in the previous year I had persuaded my mother to get a Morrison shelter. This was a large table in the form of a cage made out of heavy pieces of steel, it had angle irons that formed the base square and upright corners. A sheet of 3 mm thick steel plate for the top and steel lathes attached to the base square woven together that made a sprung interior base. The sides were formed of 50mm wire mesh squares made from 8mm diameter wire, which would keep out debris. The idea being that you had shelter within the house that could double as the dining table. This shelter could be used for sleeping under in comfort and would afford protection from falling masonry. What the designer had over looked was that it gave no protection from flying glass. Fortunately, on that fateful night we had received no warning. Had we heard a siren we would have taken cover in the Morrison shelter, the very shelter, which was now filled with fragments of broken glass. About this time the Police and Civil Defence personnel arrived and started to cordon off the area. I just had time to look for Granny's teeth, which I found in the chicken run. I just happened to spot them as I was checking my rabbits. None had survived, and all the chickens had vanished. On my return I offered my grandmother her false teeth and before I could explain where I had found them she had popped them into her mouth delighted at being able to hide her toothless embarrassment. I made an executive decision never to tell her of their previous habitat, especially as she was quite fastidious by nature.
We all thought that an aeroplane had crashed at the end of our gardens with bombs on board. It had more or less demolished a pair of chalet bungalows in Riverholme Drive and severely damaged houses in Green Lanes and Sunnymede Avenue. However, the following day the media corrected our misapprehension by informing us that Hitler was now bombarding South East England with his V1 weapons called flying bombs. The Americans quickly named them Doodle Bugs. This term was soon absorbed into our vocabulary. A Doodle Bug was a bomb with wings propelled by a jet engine that when it ran out of fuel or the giro guidance system failed, it would fall to earth and explode on impact. In the late afternoon our little family along with the three neighbouring families were all moved into temporary accommodation in a flat on the other side of Epsom on the corner of Orchard Gardens with Dorking Road. It was quite unpleasant living on the first floor, especially at night when the Doodle Bugs could be heard, or even worse, when they could not be heard as their engines cut out. Then there would be that terrifying wait, counting the seconds, wondering where it would land, and finally that inevitable explosion.
During the day I would cycle to school at Danetree Road, having reclaimed my bicycle. There were not many children at school and those of us who did go spent most of the day playing about in the school shelters.
(contimued in Part 6)

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