大象传媒

I was working in a factory, an engineering factory in Dursley and I was called up. I was about 17 or 18. I was sent to Weston Super Mare, to an aeroplane base there. I can鈥檛 remember the name of it now- it had a name. Eventually I applied to be trained as a fitter, and they sent me to Henderson then. I was there for 3 months, on a course. And then the second course I went on was in Blackpool for another 3 months of further training. It was very boring! I was in the air-force as a fitter for 5 years. I went to India in about 1947.I was in India when the war ended. All I remember about the day the war ended is excitement, and thinking about home. That鈥檚 all anyone was thinking. Eventually we went to Bombay and got the boat, which took nearly 3 weeks to get back. On the way out we joined the boat at Southampton, and then went to Liverpool and joined a convoy for India and it took about a fortnight. We stopped off at Durban, and had a couple of days there. There was a lady singing on the docks, who met every ship that came in, apparently. There was a bit on TV about it one day. I can鈥檛 remember her name though. The ship I went in was called the HMS Maloja, and my Aunt went on the same ship 30 years ago! In India I stayed in Karashi and Pakistan. The only real danger there were the snakes- you had to check your bed every night for snakes, in case one had crawled in! I made friends with a chap from Swansea, who I didn鈥檛 know before I went out, though I did have one friend who went with me- a pal from school, and when I woke up one morning in the villa, he was in the next bed! It was amazing- hardly believable. He had to come home early because he had Dysentery very badly. He鈥檇 been my mate since the day we started school, and we were friends until he died. When I was out there I鈥檇 write home every week, and when me and my friend got letters, we would exchange the information. My wife- he used to go out with her, and used to tease me about it! The atmosphere when we got back after the war was very strange- different altogether. The place seemed different, and there were gaps. I鈥檇 ask about someone and be told that they hadn鈥檛 made it back. One of our friends was in a Japanese prisoner camp and had a very rough time, but he got home, though he wasn鈥檛 the same for a very long time afterwards. The rest of us adjusted to home life immediately. I came home, on my train from Southampton, and I met my wife outside the station, and we went to her house. I remember that. It was quite difficult to keep up our relationship when I was away, and hadn鈥檛 seen her for nearly 5 years, but I wrote to her every week. I asked her to marry me by letter, though we didn鈥檛 get married until several years after, in 1947, 58 years ago. We鈥檝e been married 58 years! And she still comes in to see me.

This story was submitted to the People's War site by Jessie Atkinson of the 大象传媒 Radio Shropshire CSV Action Desk on Behalf of Glyn Smith and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

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