大象传媒

Entered on behalf of Francis Stephen Bannan

I was aged 12 in 1939 and attended the Oratory School, in South Kensington and in September 1939 I was evacuated to Bassingbourne, Hertfordshire.

We were marched to Sloane Square underground station to the Main Line to Royston and coached to the village hall in Bassingbourne. We were all lined up and myself and a friend selected by a Mr Ford, who was a farmer as he thought we were two healthy-looking lads. We were well-fed and looked after. Work on the farm was more important to the farmer than our going to school, which did not please our teacher.

I went returned home for Christmas and did not return to Bassingbourne.

Pressure was put on my parents to evacuate me again and so I was sent to 6 Chapel Street, Penzance. There were about eight of us in a large room, dormitory style, which was above a jewellery shop. We were left to run wild. My parents took me home after visiting me as they were not happy with the conditions.

The Blitz commenced.

I went back to the Oratory School at the beginning of 1940, there was only 12 of us at the school. I left at 14 and became a Bank Messenger for Banque Belge in Bishopsgate. People went to work every day in London and no one was ever late in spite of the bombs.

One day my friend and I followed the fire engines from Hammersmith to London Bridge were we watched the docks burning (Hays Wharf). The docks were burnt to the ground and there was the biggest firework display I had ever seen.

One day an incendiary bomb came through the roof, through the ceiling of my sister鈥檚 bedroom. Fortunately my sister was sleeping under the kitchen table.

The church at the end of the road, and the corner of Fulham Palace Road, St Ethelreda鈥檚, was burnt to the ground.

I volunteered for the Merchant Navy. The bank was not happy about this so I left and went to work at Paramount dance hall as an assistant electrician. The dance hall was very popular with American and Canadian servicemen with their girlfriends doing the Jitterbug. I remember the Ivor Kirchen Band with his son Basil on the drums. I enjoyed myself there and had a very good time.

After about 8 鈥� 9 months I received a letter to report to the Merchant Navy on the training ship 鈥淰indicatrix鈥�, at Sharpness, Gloucestershire, where I remained for six weeks doing a catering course. My first ship was the Empire Viscount which was a Tanker where I was a cabin boy. We left London, West India Dock, and joined the convoy heading for New York where we arrived after 17 days. Me and the galley boy were very well looked after.

I spent six weeks in New York. After the engines were repaired we sailed to Cuba for a cargo of molasses, then back to New York to join the next convoy to Hull.

The next ship I sailed in was a Coaster and spent VE day in Antwerp. After that I served on various ships.

We youngsters didn鈥檛 realise the danger we were in and mostly enjoyed the war years. Our parents didn鈥檛 enjoy the war as they could remember the First World War 1914 -1918.

The most frightening thing I remember were the Doodlebugs and V2 Rockets towards the end of the war.

My sister Mary was six years older than me; she joined the WRNS when she was 20. I also had an older brother, Joe, who was three years older than me. He left college, where he was learning to be a priest, at 19 to join the Royal Navy.

My Father was a Circuit Carpenter/Joiner with Gaumont British Cinemas, based at the Dominion Theatre at Tottenham Court Road, he also was a Fire Warden. My Mother was a housewife.

Francis Stephen Bannan
15 May 2004

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