大象传媒

In mid 1940 I joined the Local Defence Volunteers in Kettering; I was about 16 and a half at the time. One of our jobs was to guard the railway bridge on the outskirts of town. We worked in shifts of 2 hours on, 4 hours off in two man teams. I was always on with the Corporal. We had to stop all vehicles after dusk, and check both identity papers and contents of the vehicle.

I remember on one occasion we stopped a van. The corporal went forward to check the papers etc, while I stood and covered the driver with my rifle. As I moved round a bit, I still kept the weapon trained on him. He obviously found this unsettling as he asked the corporal if he could please get me to put the rifle down. The corporal replied 鈥淒on鈥檛 worry, it鈥檚 empty. I keep the bullets in my pocket!鈥�

We also had to guard the Cranleigh Reservoir. There was a dam across the middle, and again we operated in shifts. I remember one night I was on with another lad. It was bitterly cold with an icy wind. It was so cold that the reservoir had actually frozen. We were on duty with our rifles, heavy overcoats, boots and belts, and being young lads we decided to test the ice by walking across it. It was about 2 am and we were the only people around. I look back now and think, 鈥淗ow stupid!鈥� If that ice had broken, we would have been weighted down with all that equipment. It was so cold the ice would almost certainly have refrozen before anyone came to relieve us. We wouldn鈥檛 have been discovered until the thaw.

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