大象传媒

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For holidays we had got in the habit, my grandmother, mother and I, of going to Llandudno each summer, staying at a guest house alongside the cable tramway which trundles up the Great Orme. We went first in 1938 and liked the place so much we went again towards the end of August 1939. News of events in Europe was bad, and when Germany invaded Poland, we cut short our holiday and returned home to Rochdale, in south-east Lancashire.
On Sunday September 3, 1939, one week before my eighth birthday, I stood in the front room with my grandmother and listened to the announcement by Neville Chamberlain of the declaration of war with Germany. I thought the prospect of war very exciting but my grandmother, with memories of World War One, was very depressed.
We still took our annual holidays, however, and in both 1940 and 1941 the three of us went again to that same guest house in Llandudno. The family who ran the guest house comprised husband, wife and one son, who was a year older than me. He and I got on well together, so much so that in 1941 I stayed on for an extra week by myself, eating with the family.
The father was a member of the Royal Observer Corps and his son had picked up his enthusiasm for aeroplane spotting, an interest which quickly also infected me. We kept a note of the type, height and direction of every aeroplane we could see throughout the day. To his mother's dismay, we would even rush outside in the middle of a meal if either of us heard a plane, so as not to miss it from our records. The father was very proud of his son鈥檚 comprehensive set of notes
Late one fateful summer evening that year, when it was still daylight, we saw line after line of German bombers 鈥� Heinkels, I think they were. There were about 40 of them and they were flying in tight formation over the Great Orme, heading east. They had apparently flown up from northern France over the Irish Sea to Anglesey, then turned right. That night Liverpool was heavily bombed.
I am not sure what happened to our visits to that guest house, but we never went there again. I think perhaps the husband had been called up for active service and the mother found it too much to keep going on her own. Whatever the reason, the next year, 1942, we went for a week to Aberystwyth and stayed in 鈥淭he Richmond鈥� guest house/hotel, right on the front. The town seemed full of new recruits to the RAF undergoing basic training, and we were woken up every morning by squads of airman marching up and down the promenade under the command of loud-voiced NCOs. I still have the bill for that holiday hotel. Dated August 1, 1942, it reads

To Board Residence
2 Adults, 7days at 11/6 each per day 拢 8 鈥� 1 鈥� 0
Antony 鈪� rate 拢 2 鈥� 13 - 6
拢10 鈥� 14 鈥� 6
Received with thanks

The Richmond is still there鈥�.I bet it costs more than 58p a day to stay there now!

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