大象传媒

"This story was submitted to the People's War website by Philip Schofield of KCC Education and Libraries on behalf on Dennis Barmby, and has been added with his permission. The authors understands the site's Terms and Conditions"

I worked for Tunbridge Wells Borough Council from the age of 14. My first contacts with impending war were in 1937, when Basque refugees from the Spanish Civil War were billetted in Tunbridge Wells, following by Austrian Jewish refugess in 1938. In 1939, evacuees from the East End of London came down, and had to be inspected by the medical officer before being placed the local families.

I remember one day in 1940, standing outside the pillar box in Mount Pleasant Rd, I looked up and saw the clock on Trinity Church reading 17:05, and noticed a German bomber overhead. Bombs fell on the town, causing particular damage to the Kent and Sussex hospital and the wholesale grocer Wallis and Lee, in which some 15 people were killed.

In 1941 I was called up as an RAF ground wireless operator. After servive in the UK, I was posted overseas, which took 174 days to reach the Gulf, going via Brazil, South Sfrica, India and up the Persian Gulf. I was based at Muharraq in Bahrain, where I spent one year in 1943.

While there I fell ill with amoebic dysentary, and went on a long journey to convalesce in Tel Aviv. When discharged, I had to travel by bus to Tel Aviv, then bus to Haifa, train to Damascus, desert bus to Habbanya, and the final leg by Beaufort plane to Bahrain.

In 1944, I was based at Air Hq PAIFORCE at Habbanya, where i worked for signals, including meterological signals, which involved me being in contact with operators in Moscow, Cairo and Khartoum. Later I was seconded to BOAC, to carry out direction finding ,"point to point" and communicating with BOAC aircraft, including C Class flying boats.

I was in Algiers when VE Day was declared in 1945. The Algierians took this as an opportunity to rise up against French colonial rule. I voted by post in the General election of that year, and was surprised and disappointed that winston Churcill was not elected.

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