大象传媒

This is the story of the life of an ordinary little boy living during the second world war.
Part 2.
The buses were owned and run by the local post office man, who had the most wonderful name of Mr Dingle. Driving to anywhere in that part of the world meant
lots of gear changes to negotiate the hills and bends. I liked to stand next to Mr Dingle as he drove, watching how hard he had to work to get his passengers into town and back home again after a hard day鈥檚 shopping. Mr Dingle smoked a pipe, and he held it in his mouth with the bowl upside-down. It drew better that way he would tell me.
Very infrequently, a bus would run to Cheltenham and Swindon. I loved those trips because it meant a nice long ride, and the shops, especially in Swindon, were so interesting to a little chap like me.
If we ever needed to go to the station to meet daddy, we had to take a taxi. The taxi owner was a Mr Kiddle. He must have loved children, for he seemed to enjoy the company of my mum and me - perhaps he fancied mum! Ian wasn鈥檛 so keen on cars as me, so he would stay at home and greet dad there - but not always.
On one occasion, mum had to go to one of the towns on a day when the bus didn鈥檛 run. In the local shop, that used to smell so delicious, she enquired if there was any one going there on that day, and sure enough, the blacksmith was. 鈥淣ow no sniffing Bryan,鈥� my mum warned me. I suppose I had a cold! The blacksmiths car was an old - even then it was old - Austin seven. Mum sat in the front, and I was in the back. Not very comfortable, because I had to sit on his tools that were spread out where the seat squab should have been. It was kind of the blacksmith though.
Most people in the village would grow their own vegetables and fruit. We were hardly ever, if ever, short of fresh produce even if meat was scarce. Of course, there were plenty of rabbits and pigeons. The local dairy farm kept us supplied with butter and milk, and eggs were plentiful because so many people kept chickens. We did very well compared with or friends back home.
The milk was brought around the houses by a pony and trap. The milkman had a set of measuring ladles and a churn of milk. We left jugs outside the back door with a note of how much we wanted. No one had a refrigerator, so milk often went off, and was sometimes processed into delicious cream cheese.
I always seemed to be in trouble with Miss Knapp. Like most little boys, I loved playing in the dirt, or down by the river, so invariably by the end of the day, I was rather dirty. I think she found that difficult to handle. She had never married, so she was un-used to children in that way. Mum tried her best to protect me from her, but sometimes I could tell, it was quite difficult!

Because of these pressures on my mum, and probably because of some persuasion from Miss Knapp, at one bedtime just after Easter 1941, as mum readied me for bed, she said she had a nice surprise for me in the morning. Well, children will be children, so I wouldn鈥檛 go to bed until mum had told me what the surprise was. 鈥淵ou are going to start school tomorrow!鈥�
My little life was shattered. I cried myself to sleep and I cried over breakfast, and I cried in class. I was just allowed to get on with it, and I suppose, when I realised that crying would not get me anywhere, I gave up crying and started to accept that I was now a school boy, that endless days of playing were over, that freedom was gone for ever.
Although I was an evacuee, I was not put in the class where the other evacuees were, but I found myself under the strict eye of Miss Knapp. This meant that I was in a class with all the local children, but they knew I didn鈥檛 belong to their village and treated me accordingly. They weren鈥檛 horrible, but I was different 鈥� and was treated accordingly by the children. Likewise, the evacuees didn鈥檛 understand why I was treated differently from them, and so I didn鈥檛 form any friendships there either. Because of this treatment, I thought of myself as different, and to some extent, and because of other events in my life, I still have that feeling that I am different from everybody else, even though common sense tells me that I am not. It鈥檚 a bit like the feeling that every body has of accidents always happen to other people.
The good aspect of going to school was that so did my friend Peter-William the vicar鈥檚 son. So he became even more of a friend, and we played together at morning and afternoon break. Lunchtime, I went around the side of the school to the house and ate with my mum. Peter-William also went to his home across the lane.
After school it was home to tea. It was teatime when I was introduced to my most hated food - brawn! I hated brawn so much! In wartime, wasting food was a serious sin, and because meat was so difficult to buy, and when there were no rabbits or pigeons to be shot, we often could only get brawn. I expect all kids have their favourite hate in the way of food, so everyone will know the tricks children try to avoid eating what they don鈥檛 like. Suffice to say, my hate for brawn lingers to this day.
Then there was the homework of reading and writing. I wasn鈥檛 too keen on that either!
If the weather was nice, on those long spring and summer evenings, mum would take us for a walk for an hour or so. Ian was the proud owner of a watch. The only watch between the three of us. Ian didn鈥檛 like walking. 鈥淲e鈥檒l keep walking until six o鈥檆lock then turn around and go home.鈥� Said mum. All agreed on this we would set off. Ian would lag behind and push his watch on by a few minutes. When mum asked the time, she would be surprised at how quickly the time had gone, and say she expected us to have gone further in the time we had been walking. At first, I didn鈥檛 dare tell mum what Ian had done. Ian lagged behind and put his watch on a little more, and so on until the watch showed six o鈥檆lock and we would turn around to head for home. Now Ian lagged behind to push the watch back by a few minutes, so that by the time we reached home, it was correct again. I don鈥檛 know whether mum realised what was going on. She knew I loved walking and Ian hated it, so I suspect she was well aware. Eventually, I did get around to telling mum, and she just laughed and told Ian he was very naughty.
Mum and Miss Knapp had noticed that I had a bit of a squint when I was reading. So one day I was sat in front of a sight testing board, something quite new to me, and my eyesight was tested. I wasn鈥檛 too keen on this strange man that was being so invasive in my life, and was very glad when it was all over. A few days later, I was presented with a pair of wire spectacles. These were fitted on to my face and I was told to be careful, especially going down stairs, until I was used to wearing them.
At school the next day, the little girls sitting near me noticed that I had glasses on and made various comments about the fact. As I grew up, it was painfully obvious that when ever a filmmaker wanted to portray someone that was a bit simple, that person always had glasses on. I hated wearing glasses! They were always in the way of a little boy鈥檚 life, and looking at pictures of myself as a boy, they certainly were not flattering. Oddly, today, those wire spectacles are very fashionable!
As us Miss Knapp鈥檚 pupils grew older, so we would move along to our left, the flat 鈥榰鈥� shaped row of desks. The eight year olds were at the far end of the class from the five year olds. As I progressed along to my left, over the months, so our lessons became harder. Exercise books were in very short supply, and we had to write on both sides of the paper, and ignore the margin lines that were printed on each page. We even had to use the inside of the covers. A lot of the maths exercises were completed in the specially made textbooks that had lessons, worked examples and exercise questions with spaces for our answers. These we filled in in pencil, and after our efforts had been scrutinised by Miss Knapp, all the answers were rubbed out ready for the next pupils.
Every morning, if it wasn鈥檛 raining, the whole school was paraded in the playground for our hands to be inspected for cleanliness. Whoa betide the pupil with dirty hands or fingernails. We also had to take our hankies out and hold them up to prove that we had one and that it was clean.
One little chap, he was a bit of a scruffy ruffian, always picking fights and making a nuisance of himself to most of the rest of us, was really a bit of a character. Miss Knapp more or less accepted his rather outlandish ways. He used to amuse us all whenever it rained. He would come into the class and exclaim 鈥渆r be yaining Miss Knapp鈥� A daft thing to remember, but I suspect that most of my contemporaries remember it too.
Miss Knapp kept a stick by her desk. She would often pick it up when one of her charges was naughty. She would waggle it at the child and threaten to use it on her or him, saying 鈥淭his will tickle a bit鈥�. I never saw her use it though. Miss Knapp鈥檚 bark was certainly worse than her bite.
One day, we all had to write a letter to some one. I chose to write to my grandma. We were guided through how to layout the letter and then told to write what we liked, but not to sign off. Signing off would be demonstrated to us. When I had filled the page, I decided that I knew full well how to sign off a letter to my grandma, and so I didn鈥檛 wait as instructed. I signed the letter, 鈥榝rom your loving son Bryan鈥�. I was told I was a naughty boy for disobeying instructions, and that if I had waited, I would have got it right.
During our time in the Cotswolds, one of the many air raids back at home, resulted in a bomb landing in the alley way at the end of our garden. The family still at home, that was my Dad and grandma, were just making their way to the Anderson shelter, when the sound of the bomb made them put a spurt on to get into the shelter. Dad was almost in, just his head was above the parapet when the bomb struck and detonated. All dad got was a mouthful of earth, and inside the shelter, grandma was pulling him down not knowing what to expect. For all she knew, dad鈥檚 head may have been blown off. When she saw his face in the light of the candle, she just laughed at the sight of him- probably shock. Damage was restricted to garages and fences, though our roof was damaged. The scar is still there to this day.
Somewhere at the beginning of 1943, dad decided it was safe for us to go home back to Beckenham. So we left the Cotswolds and took the train from Fairford to London where we changed to catch the Beckenham train from Charing Cross. It was so good to be home! I went back to Marian Vian School and settled into life back home.
Safe was a relative word in those war days. One evening, after my bedtime, Ian and I were in bed in the Morrison shelter - a metal box that doubled as a dining table - when the sirens went and we were joined by grandma, mum and dad. It was more than a little crowded, but it was safer than sitting around the house. Once the all clear sounded, the grown-ups clambered out, and dad said he was off to see whether anyone needed help. As he opened the front door, he was greeted by the local fire warden. 鈥淲here are you off to George?鈥� he asked dad. Dad told him. 鈥淲ell鈥�, said the warden, 鈥淗aven鈥檛 you noticed that your house is on fire?鈥� Dad turned around to see flames licking out of the bedroom used by grandma when she stayed with us.
Upstairs dad and the warden went, the latter carrying his trusty stirrup pump. Mum was ordered to bring up some buckets, which were filled with water from the bathroom, and the warden with his pump went into action. Us kids, downstairs could hear all this commotion with the warden shouting 鈥� more water, more water鈥� at the top of his voice. He did get the fire out, with the loss of the bedding and mattress and other soft furnishings. Grandma was found sitting white faced in the dining room. 鈥淚 only just got out of that bed鈥�, she said.
The next morning as I went off to school, there were lines of holes in the roads where the incendiary bombs had hit. A large number of them didn鈥檛 detonate. These had been collected together and piled up on the lawns in front of our school. Us kids just walked past them excitedly discussing last nights raid. It all seemed so normal at the time. Now, it seems unbelievable.
On another occasion, mum, Ian and I were standing at the front door. It was broad daylight, but I can鈥檛 remember what time of the day it was. The 鈥榓ll clear鈥� had sounded, the sun was shining, and it was lovely to get out from under the Morrison shelter and breath fresh air. Suddenly, over the roofs of the houses opposite, came an ME110, flying low, and appearing to heading exactly in our direction. 鈥淨uick, under the shelter鈥� yelled mum as she pushed us in front of her toward the dining room. Of course, the plane was past and away before we had turned round. What a dreadful fright that must have been for mum.
Every Sunday we had to attend Sunday school. Although under age, I seem to remember going to cub meetings too. This meant a meeting every week and a church parade once a month. There was not a lot in the way of outings during the war years, but we were promised that would change once the hostilities were out of the way. We did manage a Christmas party in 1943. The Congregational church I attended was where mum and dad had married.
Every year, a pocket diary was produced for sale amongst the congregation and their friends, and the one for 1944 had a V sign on the front with the message, 鈥淧eace in 1944鈥�. Well I thought that that meant what it said and was most disappointed when dad explained it was a hope for the future rather than a prediction.
Most children had school dinners in those days. It was a way for parents to have their children fed without it costing ration coupons. I was no exception. Like all kids, I didn鈥檛 like the meals that were served up to us. All my friends would complain - and so would I. After every meal, the teacher in charge would ask something like, 鈥楧id you all enjoy your dinner?鈥�, and all us children, in unison would chant 鈥榊es thank you miss鈥�. Well, one day I was feeling a bit cheeky - or was it brave? - and decided that I would not join in the chant, and that instead, I would do what my mum and dad had always taught me to do, and that was tell the truth and say no, I didn鈥檛 enjoy the meal.
I must have said it quiet loudly, because the head teacher, a Miss Simms, was on duty that day and she heard me.
鈥淲ho said they didn鈥檛 enjoy their dinner鈥� she asked looking in my general direction.
I knew perfectly well that if I didn鈥檛 own up, one of the children around me would volunteer the information, so I stood up and owned up.
鈥淐ome out here鈥� came the stern voice of Miss Simms.
This was in front of the whole school, and I felt terrible, but off I set between the tables and chairs and the whole school full of children watching me.
When I reached the head mistress, I didn鈥檛 know what to expect. After all, I could have been complimented for being so honest, but in my heart, I knew that Miss Simms was very cross with me. She told me what an ungrateful little boy I was and said she was going to speak with my parents about the incident, and have me banned from school dinners.

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