大象传媒

As I said earlier, I had registered as a conscientious objector in 1939. [In December 1939, Eric was admitted to the Civil Service and, after much heartsearching, took up a clerical position at the Woolwich Arsenal in London. To read about his time as a Conscientious Objector at Woolwich Arsenal, go to www.bbc.co.uk/dna/ww2/A5856591]

While at the arsenal, I volunteered for duty in the first aid post, which led to me taking a first aid course with the local St John Ambulance Brigade. We only turned out in our ambulance on one occasion and that was when we heard that a German airman was thought to have parachuted into the area within the arsenal. We found nothing but I remember how uncomfortable it was riding in the back of the ambulance; when we drove over the railway lines we were glad to be wearing steel helmets as they protected our heads from contact with the roof! I thought then that any injured person conveyed in these vehicles was just as likely to die from the rough ride as from his injuries.

Once I got my first aid certificate I wished to take further training, but no Home Nursing courses were being organised for men as so many were away in the forces. The SJAB Superintendent put me in touch with the local hospital 鈥� St Nicholas in Plumstead 鈥� where it was suggested that I should go in on two evenings each week to help on the male wards and be available if there were any air-raid casualties.

In January of 1940 a man of my own age, called Ron, had started in the same office. He came from South Shields and, like me, had no family or friends in the London area. We became friendly and after a while we moved into the same lodgings near Plumstead Common. There was a battery of anti-aircraft rockets on the common and we were often woken at night by the sound of the rockets being fired 鈥� they made a loud swishing sound very like that made by bombs on their way down! So we could not tell if we were about to be blown up and had to wait to see whether there was an explosion nearby; if not, the noise had been made by the rockets. By this time we had become so used to the air-raids that we did not bother to get out of bed during a raid as they were happening pretty well every night.

A few months later, Ron decided to volunteer at the hospital, so joined me on the nightly vigil in the Casualty Department. I had already seen a few gruesome sights amongst the casualties who had been brought in. When the first ones arrived when Ron was there he was a bit apprehensive and tended to keep in the background. On one occasion he asked me if he could see one of the men who was injured, so I lifted the blanket covering the casualty and showed him the deep wound which had removed a portion of the man鈥檚 chest. He went a bit green, but as time went on, he too became used to dealing with such injuries.

Early in 1941 I developed a skin condition, which was probably an allergic reaction and was admitted to the medical ward for a week and then was off sick for a further two weeks. Having time to think I felt that I wanted to opt out of the war machine and instead to do a job which would make some positive contribution to mankind 鈥� I decided to be a nurse. I wrote to Mr Taylor, my boss in the office giving a months notice of my intention of resigning from the Civil Service. Ron was in the office when Mr T opened the letter and he said it was quite amusing. Mr T jumped up and down in his chair 鈥� obviously extremely agitated, then phoned his superior to pass on the information and presumably to get instructions on how to deal with the situation. I learned later that I was the first established civil servant ever to resign during war time.

I heard nothing more until 1941 when I became eligible for National Service. Then I had to submit an application to the Local Tribunal outlining my response for refusing to enlist in the armed forces. On 23 September 1941 I was called to appear before a Tribunal at Great Tichfield Street, near Euston Station 鈥� it was rather like a Magistrates鈥� court but there were no lawyers involved in the proceedings. The members of the tribunal considered my written statement, then asked a few questions, the only one that I can recall was 鈥淒id you write this yourself?鈥�, to which I replied truthfully that I had. After a short discussion amongst themselves the Chairman told me that they had agreed to register me as a CO, provided that I continued to work in nursing or took up full time work in Civil Defence. The latter covered such duties as first aid, rescue and firefighting.

It all seemed a bit of an anti-climax, much easier than I had feared. I had heard stories of men who had a very difficult time at their tribunal and had been refused exemption from service in the forces. Perhaps the fact that I had given up my job in the Civil Service impressed them. A few days later I got written confirmation of the decision 鈥� a document that I still have in my files.

To go back a bit in time, when I left the arsenal I had assumed that I would easily be able to get a job at the hospital, but the Matron was not well disposed towards COs and although she had been happy for me to go as a volunteer, she was unwilling to take me on as a full time paid member of staff. So I found myself without a job, which did not bother me too much but caused a lot of anxiety for my parents. I lived on my savings, never thinking that I might be eligible for unemployment benefit.

The Medical Superintendent at the hospital was a Dr Powell, an Irishman who must have served in the RAMC, and who was now a major in the Home Guard. He was quite authoritarian but I had always got on with him on the occasions that we met, usually when he was doing his ward rounds. The Home Guard Sergeant was a Tom King, one of the three ward orderlies at the hospital and apparently he felt some sympathy for me, thinking that I had had a raw deal from the Matron. He had a word with Dr Powell who had a word with the Matron. The Medical Superintendent of a hospital in those days was looked on as God, so a few days later I was called to the Matron鈥檚 office and told that she had found a vacancy and I could start as an orderly.

In addition to my nursing duties I, like all the male staff, had to take my turn on fire watch. This involved being on duty throughout the night in case of an air-raid. If there was no raid we slept on a bed on one of the unused top floor wards. If there was a raid we had to patrol the top floor and the grounds, watching for any signs of incendiary bombs. Should we find any we had to blow the whistle issued to us, which would alert the team of fire-fighters who were on duty.

There were one or two incendiary raids when I was on duty and I can recall one where a number of the bombs landed on the hospital and the adjoining nurses鈥� home. Luckily the fire-fighters were able to extinguish them without much damage being done. However an hour or so later, when I was patrolling inside the hospital I saw that there was a small fire in the loft space above one of the top floor wards. I phoned down to the porters鈥� office 鈥� the fire fighting team were quickly on the spot and soon put out the blaze. I was not on duty on the night that the hospital was hit by a bomb and knew nothing about it until I went into work the next morning 鈥� surprising, since my lodgings were only a few hundred yards away. Ron however was there and had an extremely busy night. By that time we had moved to a house in Plumstead, near to the common and the hospital. It was kept by and elderly widow and we were the only lodgers. I continued to live there when I started my training and had to attend the preliminary training school at New Cross hospital which was an easy bus ride from Woolwich.

When I moved to New End, I was again involved in the fire-watching rota, but Hampstead seemed to be outside the target area for the bombers and we had very little enemy activity in the vicinity. The hospital is at the top of a hill and when we were looking out from the top floor, we could see over London towards the City so could see signs of enemy activity in the distance.

Some bombs did fall on the area on one occasion when I was on night duty on C3 ward 鈥� most of the casualties went on to the surgical ward but one was brought onto C3 and the Medical Superintendent himself came and spent a lot of time with the man, who was severely injured. There seemed to be a number of important looking people standing around near the ward entrance and I鈥檝e often wondered who the casualty was 鈥� I never knew his name. There were a number of French dignitaries and also artists, poets and musicians living in Hampstead, perhaps he was one of them.

Another incident connected with the air-raids comes to mind; the mortuary at New End was across a yard and there was no way to get a wheeled trolley to it, so any bodies had to be carried across on a stretcher which had slings at each end to help to take the weight. During the day time this was done by the porters, but at night there was only one porter on duty so, if a body had to be moved, one of the male nurses had to help. There was a number of stone steps steps to be negotiated down into the yard and there was a strict blackout at night, of course, so it wasn鈥檛 an easy or pleasant job. An additional difficulty came from having to navigate around a large pile of coal which was stacked in the yard between the steps and the mortuary. This particular night I was the one who had to help take the body across; it was very dark and to make things worse, it was raining heavily. We had made our way almost to the mortuary when there was a noise behind us 鈥� it sounded like hundreds of little feet running! After a second or two we recovered our composure and realised that the rain had caused the coal to shift and the 鈥渓ittle feet鈥� we had heard was the sound of coals falling down the heap.

It was about his time that the nature of the attacks on London changed and the Germans started to use 鈥渄oodle bugs鈥� or 鈥渇lying bombs鈥� as the pilot less, jet-engined bombs were called. They made a sound that was completely different to that made by conventional bombers and, as they flew much lower, the noise was much louder, so there was no mistaking their approach. When they reached their target area the engine cut out and they nose-dived to the ground. I was in bed in the flat in Agincourt Road when I first heard one which I think was only the second to reach London. I looked out of the window to see what was making the peculiar sound just as the noise stopped abruptly and a few seconds later there was a loud explosion not very far away. I thought that it had been an enemy plane in difficulty and that it had been shot down by anti-aircraft fire. It was only later I learnt what had actually happened and for the next year or so all the attacks on London came from these flying bombs which were launched from sites in France, Belgium and Holland, which at that time were occupied by the Germans. As with previous kinds of bombing everyone soon became accustomed to them and life went on more or less normally.

A year or so later the method of attack changed again and rockets with high explosive heads were used. These gave no warning at all of their approach, so often there were no air-raid warnings and this produced a lot of fear and anxiety. I do recall being in the centre of Camden Town on one occasion soon after the rocket attacks first started. The siren sounded and everyone in the vicinity ran into the Underground station to take shelter 鈥� it was just as if a giant vacuum cleaner had been switched on in the entrance and everyone was being sucked in.

In 1944 the Allied Forces started to invade occupied France and as they moved further inland and also into Belgium and Holland the launching sites were gradually overrun so there were no more rocket attacks. After so many years of air-raids it seemed very strange to think that they were really all over and that we need not worry about the possibility of being killed or injured by bombs. But just as we had quickly adjusted to the air-raids in the early days of the war so we soon got used to being free from them.

Then came the German surrender, soon followed VE day and, although everyone knew that the fighting in the Far East was still going on, for the civilian population the war was as good as over. Thousands of people congregated in central London, especially in Trafalgar Square, singing and dancing. I recall going down to Westminster and standing on the bridge to watch a firework display in celebration of the ending of the fighting in Europe 鈥� there were thousands of people there, so many on the bridge that you could scarcely move and everyone was happy, relieved that the end of the war was at last in sight.

This story was entered onto the People鈥檚 War website by Jenni Waugh, 大象传媒 Outreach Officer, on behalf of Eric鈥檚 widow, June Stephenson, who accepts the site鈥檚 terms and conditions. We have done this as a tribute to a modest, loving and courageous man who brought great joy and support to all he met throughout his long life. He is much missed.

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