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Mr Donald Board interviewed by Margaret le Cras.
Edited transcript of tape recording of the interview

Mr Board. Oh yes, I was in the St John Ambulance brigade, and actually I was on duty, and I’ve got a photo of that, on duty with another ambulance man, at the opening of the airport on May 5th 1939. We had our photo taken by the Happy Snaps as we were coming down, and on the strength of that I had an invite with about twenty four other people to the opening of the new airport. Anyhow that’s really another story because I was sent to the White Rock Immediately after the air raid when the lorries were still burning to pick up the casualties, and we had to get a man out from under where the second roll-on roll-off is, there’s little beach, and there was a man under there, and as we drove along the White Rock the late Doctor Arden-Wilson from the Gravées came out, stopped us and told us there was a casualty.
I………. But my father was down there with his brothers, and he couldn’t swim, but he jumped into the harbour, he thought he’d be better in the water than out
Mr Board. Well, one of our chaps, he recently died, Priaulx, he had a stall in the fish market, he was in the Brigade, and he was on duty helping down there, and he ran out of supplies, and he dived over and swum to the Royal Hotel and got back to the Station for more supplies. But anyhow…
I………. It must have been a terrible experience
Mr Board. I saw the planes pass over, I was living — this was before I was married, of course, - saw the planes pass over, and heard the bangs, and explosions, down there, so I immediately put my helmet on, and my uniform, which was what to do in a case like that, and cycled to the Town Arsenal, where the St John Ambulance was, there was the ARP headquarters, and that’s when I was sent as an ambulance driver and the ambulance, down to the White Rock, and go … anyhow, that’s quite a long story, really. We were helping at the Hospital, helping the nurses, for two or three days…
I………. And that would have been the Câtel hospital that now is, eh?
Mr Board. Called the Emergency Hospital. And there were a lot of casualties out there, and we were asked to help them, there were some unpleasant jobs we had to do, but anyhow…
I………. So were you kept busy during the war with the Ambulance? Did you have to go out many times?
Mr Board. No, I wasn’t in the brigade after, I left about the end of nineteen-forty, actually it comes into my mind, I was out cycling with another Brigade member who was my pal, we used to play table-tennis, we were cycling out one Sunday night, we were cycling down the Cobo road, and the air-raid siren at the Guet went, and we went into a house, I don’t know how we heard, whether it was by phone or what, that the Germans had landed, and we were dead scared because we didn’t know if we were going to be shot on the cross roads or what, anyhow we cycled back home. But I left in 1940, because this was when I started with Billy Sheppard and his harmonica band.

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