大象传媒

Biscuits, even broken biscuits, were a luxury in wartime. Therefore, if any were acquired it was a great temptation to eat them immediately.
I'm just glad that I waited...
As a gas fitter in Bexhill-on-Sea I was in a Reserved Occupation. Membership of the Corporation Gas Department platoon of the Home Guard and "guarding" the invasion coast armed only with a pick-axe handle was the limit of my "military" experience.
But that didn't mean that life was quiet. After Dunkirk, Bexhill was a front-line town, subject to air-raids including tip-and-run raids for which the "Cuckoo" siren was introduced.
One day my apprentice, Roy, and I cleaned a water heater at a grocer's shop. The owner was so grateful he gave us a bag of broken biscuits.
Our next job was to fix a cooker at a council house.
When we arrived my apprentice was all for waiting in the van and eating the biscuits first. But I insisted that we fix the cooker.
No sooner had we got into the house than a raid developed. We hid in the safest available place, the cupboard under the stairs.
There was a tremendous bang. When the dust cleared we had shards of broken glass in our pockets. The front door had gone past us and was in the kitchen.
When we went out to look at the van it was peppered with shrapnel holes. One large bomb splinter had gone right through the driver's seat - where I would have been sitting.
A woman was trapped in the wreckage of the house next door. After we had helped the ARP wardens get her out we managed to get the van going.
We limped into our fitters' yard with this wreck to the cheers of our pals.
Roy and I often laughed afterwards about our argument over when to eat the biscuits.

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