大象传媒

This account was passed by Bill Clarkson to Denis Price of the 大象传媒 People's War Team at the 大象传媒 Open Centre, Hull.

As a 'Territorial' I was called up early to serve with The Royal Engineers at two first World War Forts, Haile and Bull, both positioned in the Estuary of the River Humber. Quite a bit of my time was also spent working on the Spurn Peninsula, a narrow strip of land jutting out into both the Humber and the North Sea which needed constant shoring up against erosion. As the Army occupied it for defence purposes it had to be kept operational and to this end we had our own single track railway line which travelled back and forth from Spurn to Kilnsea village. My job was stoker and driver of the train, which we called the 'Black Sapper' which I'd steam up to Kilnsea to collect sandbags for Spurn.
Kilnsea had two pubs, the Bluebell and the Tias which were well used by us to the extent that sometimes we were in there so long there was very little, and sometimes none at all , steam left to get us back so I had to light the fire all over again! On more than one occasion I was put on a charge for 'Being idle whilst steaming".
I remember my pal, Bill Grantham who was a corporal, having overall resonsibility for the engine which regularly came off the track so we would need assistance from the heavy artillery men, the 'gunbucklers' to get us back on the line.
The people I really admired at Spurn Point were the lifeboatmen who lived in the cottages at Spurn. I remember their coxswain, Sam Cross I think his name was, running down to the boat on a call out wearing only his longjohns. I believe he had the George Cross medal. They were real heroes as they had to deal with enemy action as well as the elements. One Sunday I remember seeing a ship being blown up in the Humber Bight, it had struck a mine and we could see the crew jumping overboard into a heavy and cold sea. The lifeboatmen were there to save them, real heroes!

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