大象传媒

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I was in church attending the Sunday morning service when the verger went to speak to the Reverend. The Reverend climbed into the pulpit and explained to us what had happened. The National Anthem was played on the organ and we all came home. That was how the war started for me. I was a choirboy.

I was 9 years old and living at 6 Albert Street in Dunstable. I went to Ashton Junior School in Church Street and then onto Britain Street School leaving at 14, as you did in those days. Things changed. Schools were evacuated and very often we went into the parish church hall for lessons, and when there weren鈥檛 enough teachers, we used to watch films. Towards the end of the war we only had two male teachers, all the rest were ladies. Many teachers were brought out of retirement to educate us.

My father worked at the Empire Rubber Company and the only thing I noticed was that he worked longer hours. My mother had a part-time job with the same company and they used to bring work back to the home. Mother had terrible problems with her fingers, after using scissors to cut out pieces of rubber to fit inside tin helmets.

We always used to laugh, my mother and myself. There was a saying about 鈥渆nemy raids last night and they dropped their bombs at random.鈥� One day the news was on and they said it again. I said to my mother, 鈥淭here can鈥檛 be anything left of that place.鈥� She said, 鈥淲here?鈥� I replied, 鈥淩andom.鈥� I thought it was a place.

We used to hear the planes. The night they bombed Coventry, we heard it all night long. They must have followed the A5. The lion on the side of the Downs was camouflaged during the war to try and stop the Germans knowing where they were. I only saw one enemy aircraft and that was the one that came up the high street. It must have been a Monday because Eric and I were taking the school milk money up to the bank. The only other one was in Grove House Gardens. They had a Messerschmitt 109 fighter in a tent, and you paid so much money to go in plus extra to have a sit down. We couldn鈥檛 work out why, when you got into it, you dropped right down into the aircraft. Then we worked out that the Germans didn鈥檛 have seats, they put their parachutes in the hole and that acted as a seat for them. I looked at the Messerschmitt and saw it had Dunlop tyres. Apparently the company made them for both sides under contract.

Although we weren鈥檛 bombed in Dunstable, we had plenty to do with the war 鈥� like the Met Station. We thought the main one was at Dagnall but that was the relay station where messages were sent around the world. I knew quite a few people at the Met Station through sport. I used to watch and sometimes do the scoring for the cricket matches. The Met Station played their home games at Waterlow鈥檚. Most of the people based at the Met Station were civilians although there were a number of Air Force people. They made the Station look like a hill with all different coloured cloths, but we didn鈥檛 really know what was going on.

One of the places we couldn鈥檛 go was the gas works, but why, I don鈥檛 know. I鈥檝e still got some ration books. Certain people seemed to get extra if they had bigger families but we always managed. I can never remember feeling hungry; my father had an allotment and chickens - everybody did. Once a ship got through and we were told that children could have a pomegranate. I鈥檝e never been so disappointed in all my life; all you got were seeds! I remember when we first had bananas. Some of the children had never seen them before and didn鈥檛 know what to do with them.

Dunstable used to have weapons week or wings for victory week, where everyone tried to save as much as they could to buy Spitfires; I remember Dunstable bought 5. I used to take two shillings and sixpence to school every week. It used to mount up and when we鈥檇 saved fifteen shillings we were given a certificate.

I was 14 when I had my first pair of long trousers. We had caps at school but no uniform as such. Acklands (London School evacuated to Dunstable), colours were the same as ours so when the two football teams went out there wasn鈥檛 much to choose between them. I still see some of the people that were evacuated from London.

We weren鈥檛 allowed any petrol for travelling to football matches so Britain Street School played Ackland School nearly every other week. We lost one of our football pitches at school because it was dug up for the school to grow vegetables. A lot of people went potato picking and we went round the hedgerows picking rosehips before it was discovered that they rotted our teeth. One day I went for the impossible, a pound of poppy petals. They made some medicines from them. We used to take them to Flemons and Marchants, on the other side of the White Hart in Nicholas Lane. Some people used to put stones into their bags of flowers and herbs to make them weigh heavier. We also used to collect elderberries. I spent my money on the Picture Post and War Illustrated.

We had a girl evacuee billeted on us in our 2 bedroom cottage. My mother said, 鈥淚鈥檝e got a boy,鈥� they said, 鈥淭hat鈥檚 easy,鈥� and they put a curtain up in the middle of the room. The girl slept one side and I slept on the other. She was Ethel from Tower Bridge Road, Bermondsey and was about 2 years older than me. We also had 2 lorry drivers billeted with us from Smithfield Market. They used to get up very early in the morning and drive off. I believe Smithfield got hit so the cattle market in Dunstable became the main collection centre.

I went to watch Luton Town Football. They kept going through the war. I used to go to football with a chap called Bill, a butcher by trade, who鈥檇 had to go into factories to carry out essential war work. He used to take me to London for ever such a lot of matches. There was a team called Clapton Orient. Their ground was bombed so they played all their home games at Wembley. I still have a lot of football programmes, the first is for Saturday 6th June 1942, the Football Assn XI versus the RAF XI at Luton Town Ground. All these players were internationals although the referee was a local man who refereed a cup final after the war. The second one is Luton Town versus the South of England Anti-Aircraft XI. That was Luton playing the Army XI. All the Army players were professionals from some of the big clubs. Then there was Eastern Command versus South Eastern Command at Luton.

I never missed a game from 1940 until the end of the war. Mostly it was The Football Association versus the Civil Defence XI, or the National Fire Service, Met or Lancs Police. On 15th April 1944 a cup final; Chelsea v Charlton. I went just to see Joe Payne, he used to play for Luton before playing for Chelsea. Another cup final, the Football League South, April 7th 1945, Chelsea v Millwall. When you went to Wembley during the war, you鈥檇 see people standing on top of the stands with machine guns. One particular programme is my pride and joy. It鈥檚 for the Victory International, England v France at Wembley 18th May 1945. The war didn鈥檛 finish until May 8th, so this was arranged in a few days. They drew one each. It was the only time I saw Montgomery, Eisenhower and De Gaulle, they all came, and they all sat on the back in an open car and drove around. Bands from the Irish Guards, the U.S. Army and the First French Army were all there. It was one of those days when history was made. I鈥檇 never seen the three leaders before.

I left school in 1944 and went to work just before D-Day for a firm called Grison and Young. I worked in Nicholas Lane in the assembly shop. There was a small factory around the corner called the Boat House and that鈥檚 where they made wooden 4 seater dinghies with oars for the Royal Navy. I was on assembly first, working on the undercarriage for Percival Proctors and then on the tail towing bars which fitted on the back of tractors and the front of the aeroplane; that鈥檚 how you towed it along on the airfield.

I was an apprentice and had the job of going round and collecting people鈥檚 lists of what they wanted from the shops 鈥� cigarettes and things. A new factory had been built opposite Albert Street on Kent鈥檚 Meadow and my job was to go there. One day I pedalled up to the factory and no one was working, they were all sitting and laughing. I walked in to the canteen and a lady there called Doll said, 鈥淲hat are you doing here? Don鈥檛 you know the war鈥檚 over?鈥� They forgot to tell our part of the factory. I pedalled back down and rushed in and told everyone. I bet nobody鈥檚 pedalled down there faster than I did. One lady bawled her eyes out because her husband was away in the forces. I couldn鈥檛 understand that at my age.

That evening I went to the youth club at Chews House. Nothing was arranged but then we started to see people walking down to the town. A man came onto the front of the town hall playing a trumpet and everybody sang along to it. They switched all the lights on and opened up the gardens. Everybody was dancing; Dunstable was more relaxed that day than any other that I can remember. I got told off because I was late coming home, but it was a fantastic feeling. The Union cinema switched all the coloured lights on and it was beautiful. The next day we went to Luton and stood outside the town hall where they put loudspeakers outside for us to listen to Churchill鈥檚 speech. Afterwards we went to the pictures. It was a fantastic feeling.

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