大象传媒

This story is submitted by a volunteer on behalf of Radio Bristol Action Desk at City of Bristol College.

Peter was a Scout Messenger at Norton House on the end of Norton Road on the Wells Road at the start of the war. Recently Peter has learned that, instead of being a reserved occupation as he thought at the time, he had been kept back from being called up into the Army in order to gain the maximum experience of his trade, which was lithographic printer. This was to prove valuable for map printing.

Peter was eventually in a small unit, about 38 members. We thought there were to be 8 printers but there were only 4 who could print the maps, as 1 was colour blind, one was a musician for the band, one became a national artist (Antony Speed). This meant they did 12 hour shifts 7 days a week, which meant there was no spare shift to change shifts. This went on for 6 months.

At this time Peter was in India including on VE day, and then went on to Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) where he was for VJ day. There were more people here - enough to have 3 shifts in a day and one day off a week. Peter was a corporal by then and moved on to Rangoon after a spell of home leave to make up the numbers of men after others had been demobbed.

Whilst in Ceylon, Peter went to a fortune teller,who told him the initials of the girl he was going to marry. And he was right, and Peter and Mildred have now been married for 58 years.

Peter had dermititis, which the heat in India made worse but Peter did not want to complain about it as it could mean someone else having to come out to the Far East on the 5 week journey from Liverpool. It took 10 days just to get to Gibraltar and Peter remembers being dive-bombed at this point and they were battened down below decks 5 decks down and separated from their rifles, which was a lot worse.

Peter learned to enjoy Indian food and was even in charge of camp catering for a week or so.

For Mildred's 21st birthday, Peter was miles from anywhere where he could buy anything. Sometimes they printed their own cards. Someone did a drawing on an airgraph. This was then reduced to a tiny size, posted, and then enlarged to normal size. For Mildred's 21st, Peter did one with a heart and '21' on it.

Dos Mohammet,an Indian in the army in Rangoon, used to have his rifle chained to his wrist. He looked fierce but did lovely embroidery. When Peter admired his work, he gave it (a tablecloth) to him and Peter and Mildred still have it. At this time most people were using bleached flour sacks for tablecloths, so this was something very special.

At the end of the war Dos Mohammet was going home to meet his wife-to-be, who he had never met (this was his second wife and an arranged marriage according to Muslim custom). He was looking forward to the marriage but the journey time would take several weeks including two weeks walking.

One of the British soldiers from the Midlands in Peter's company wanted to send a present home. A lot of the paper used was DEMY in size and double DEMY was too small to get 2 sheets from. Therefore, there were 'spare' bits, which he took by taxi into Kandy (Ceylon)because it was too heavy to carry. From the money he got from selling the paper, he bought jewelery. He cut green coconuts part way in half, hid the jewels inside and let the coconut grow together again. He then took it to the post office having written his customs declaration and his wife's address on it and tossed it to the clerk for posting.

In India, Peter went swimming with Tony Speed between Dehradun and Mussouri in a mountain pool. There was a sheer drop of 500ft or more. Their clothes had been left on the edge of the rocks near the drop. After the swim they lay out in the sunshine on the other side of the rocks. Some monkeys were picking up the clothes and they were afraid they would drop them over the edge meaning a naked walk back to the village. So, they threw some stones at the monkeys but the monkeys threw them back! When the Unit's dog Tiger came down, barking, the monkeys ran away.

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