大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War website by Pat Hayward from CSV Action Desk on behalf of J. Goodchild and has been added to the site with his permission. Mr Goodchild fully understands the sites terms and conditions.

I鈥檓 78 and I went to school in Handsworth I was evacuated with the school in late 1939 to Stourport. I couldn鈥檛 settle so my mom fetched me back and I was taken to Evesham where I stayed with people who had one son my age but I felt I was being used. I was doing things, working basically in the house and garden, things I鈥檇 never done at home. People said the war would be over by Christmas but my Dad who鈥檇 been in World War One said it could be 4-5 years and I was frightened that I could be there that long. I stayed at Evesham about 2 years and after a while I settled down. Nearby was a slaughter house and I used to spend a lot of time watching things going on. Mainly cows and sheep were slaughtered. In those days they were using the old pole axe to kill them. They put their heads sideways on to a black and stunned them and death was instant. They were very experienced people. We, as a school were spread out over 4-5 village schools so as we鈥檇 settled down with the village children we saw little of the children from our Handsworth school.

I started work at 14 in Birmingham as an Engineering Apprentice. There were 2-3 of us in the tool room. The tone man was a bit of a lad. He was nice but had ways of telling you what to do but not being nasty. We were all put in the charge of a senior tool maker each, I was with a man from Manchester. He was clever he taught me a lot, I was with him about 2 years. We went once a week, a full day to Handsworth Technical College.

I had a break from being apprenticed and joined the RAF- I was conscripted- I wanted to go before but I couldn鈥檛, because I was in a reserved occupation. I wanted to go into air crew but had trouble with my nose-breaking problems. They said if I had an operation it would be OK but then they raised the standards so I couldn鈥檛 go into air crew. So instead I went on to the medical staff at Teddington near London. We had a 14 week course then went to Cosford issuing medicines etc. I stayed there for the rest of my time, then I went back to the same company I had started with and I did the last 2 years of my apprenticeship.

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