大象传媒

Being three years old at the outbreak of the war I don't remember the title sequences but I do have a variety of memories, rather like film clips, of personal events.
The first of these involves the RAF and took place in the summer of 1940. My family lived in a pleasant neighbourhood adjacent to a prestigious golf club, or rather 'Golf Links' as they are known at the seaside. I now know that a fear of invasion, following Dunkirk, was great even in the North West. One of the most feared scenarios was of airborne assaults and with this in mind a decision was taken to make any suitable landing site inhospitable. This is where the RAF came in. A substantial number of RAF personnel were brought in to work on the Golf Links. A light fence was erected across the centre of the of the site and the landward side was designated temporary arable farmland. In due course it was ploughed up and planted with wheat. The seaward half was criss-crossed with trenches intended to obstruct 'planes or gliders that might attempt to land.
It was a very hot summer, as I remember it, in 1940 and my enduring memory is of my sister, twelve years older than I, and her girlfriend doing a profitable trade supplying the RAF'diggers' with soft drinks from the local shop. The profit came from returning the empties, that had been discarded by the lads. In those days you got 1/2d ( 0.208 of 1p ) for each bottle returned.
Blackpool had the accommodation to handle a vast number of service personnel and evacuees. Not all evacuees were children. A great many civil servants were moved away from the areas of mass destruction and Blackpool's major hotels became home to temporary ministries for the duration. Aircraft manufacture was another major occupation here. Various large buildings, such as a tram depot, an indoor market, a multi-storey car park and similar places, were given over to become workshops that were subsidiary to the aircraft factory at Squires Gate. When they became old enough both my brother and sister were employed in the building of Wellington bombers.
Air raid warnings were a regular event but we suffered very little in the way of bombings. I have a vivid recollection of being taken up to the cliffs where we could see the dark shapes that were German bombers crossing the sea between Liverpool and Barrow-in-Furness. Both these places could be seen as orange glows. My father used to go 'fire watching' at night. He had an official arm band with the words 'Fire Guard' in yellow. I was confused by this, I remember, as we had a fire guard in the lounge, to prevent hot coals falling on the carpet.
Another diversionery tactic employed in the early days of the war was the removal of directional signposts and the obliteration of place names. I well remember seeing the word 'Blackpool' painted out on signs in the town. It seems that the idea behind this sceme was to confuse the enemy should they come ashore. They would, presumsbly, have stood around in groups within site of the Tower, wondering where they were.
My mother used to take me to the town centre, from time to time, and I have a number of lasting impressions from these visits. One was a Messerschmitt 109 fighter ( captured intact ) that was on display in the open market. Another is of the large diagonal metal braces that were fitted to plate glass windows by many shop owners and, by 1944, acres of American sevicemen.
Back at the Golf Links the westward section ( with trenches ) was now used as a sheep farm and Mr. Woodward who operated it was very accommodating to this 6/7 year old child who was allowed to join in the 'round ups' - 'sheep sheering' ( all done with hand sheers - no mechanism involved ) and the 'sheep dippings'.
Following 'D' day the fear of invasion had diminished to such an extent that it was decided by the powerful ones to restore the Golf Links to it's former glory. This was achieved with the assistance of Italian prisoners of war. I spent many happy hours with these pleasant, easy going young men who seemed perfectly happy to be doing the work. They were brought each weekday by bus and left, unsupervised, to get on with the job. They had their own catering crew that travelled with them and I, on occasion, took a small group of them to the local shops. Much to the alarm of the lady who ran the newsagents. I remember asking a few of them, with that directness peculiar to children, why they didn't try to escape? Their answer of 'Where to' was as mystifying to me as my question was to them.

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