大象传媒

The weather was wonderfully warm and sunny and the forecast was for it to continue for at least another week, when I made the decision to go away for a few days. Since
it was a spontaneous idea I was free to make a choice of where I would go, why not I mused make a nostalgic journey to Torquay. I had passed through Torquay briefly during a Conference visit when my husband was alive, now I decided to retrace my steps to places I had visited many years ago way back over 50 years in 1945.

My thoughts have often returned to those war torn years and especially to that summer in 1945 when I was just twenty years old. Hitler had been defeated after six long years and on May 8th. Field Marshall Keitel, Chief of Staff of the German High Command scrawled his signature on the surrender document in a Berlin suburb and all Europe celebrated the Allied victory. Only one blot remained on our horizon; the enemy in the Far East- Japan. We anticipated a long drawn out struggle before we could demobilise our armed forces and rebuild Europe.

However with peace in England came freedom the like we hadn鈥檛 known in six long years - we were free once again to travel again anywhere; take a holiday, hotels and boarding houses were reopening, the barbed wire was slowly being removed along the coast and life was beginning to return to a little bit of normality. For instance I had been allowed to leave my wartime conscripted work at a large engineering firm in Birmingham and return to my peacetime position in a large departmental store.

Birmingham had been bombed early in the war very badly in 1940 and 1941 and still bore the scars of devastation especially in the city centre. The Service Mens Club in the Cathedral Square Colmore Row was still the haunt of Allied Service men on leave and the railway stations at New St. and Snow Hill were always packed with troops moving about the country. The entrance to the stations guarded by Military Police checking service men鈥檚 credentials when returning or going on leave etc.

Life was still very dull and dreary for the young with little if anything to buy in the shops. My sister and I both had holiday time due to us and we decided to go south to Torquay 鈥� we had obtained an address of a boarding house near Torquay station, charging full board for three pounds per week sharing a double room and paid our deposit.

Our minds were then greatly preoccupied with our holiday apparel - 26 clothing coupons per year did not go far especially when seven coupons were needed for a new dress, the same for shoes and every other item of clothing even including handkerchiefs was rationed,. However even if one did have coupons nylon and silk stockings, as well as leather shoes, were unobtainable. I therefore considered myself extremely fortunate to obtain a pair of wooden soled sandals for the beach and also a large red workman鈥檚 handkerchief which I managed to turn into a sun top. An apron provided the material for some shorts and with a little bit of make do and mend, some colouring to tan our bare legs, our clothing problems were solved.

In those days of G.W.R and L.M.S railways we often changed stations on long journeys and I remember the final stage of our journey very well. We sat in a compartment facing two well travelled young ladies who had visited Torquay often and they gave us glowing accounts of places to visit and evening entertainment.

The weather was spectacular; warm and sunny, hardly a cloud in the sky when we checked at our boarding house, convenient from the station, the Torre Gardens and the beach, we handed over our ration books to our landlady, washed and changed into our shorts and holiday gear and excitedly set off out to explore.

Yes we liked Torquay! It had a fairly long promenade, palm trees, nice hotels with glamorous names, a lovely harbour, a band stand and best of all a very large ballroom way out on the sea front with marvellous sea views from its windows.
Everywhere we went we were greeted with wolf whistles for the whole town was heaving with service men of all nationalities 鈥� during our stay however it seemed the majority were Royal Canadian Air Force personnel. Of course they congregated near the beaches and the pubs and bars; a popular area was near the Cider House called the Hole in the Wall, one of the oldest in Torquay.

Every day we visited places of interest, Anstys Cove, Babacombe, Cockington Forge and during the afternoons we mainly lay on the beach to top up our sun tans, at night we went dancing and walked round the harbour before going back to our lodgings. We experienced absolutely no difficulty finding willing escorts or dancing partners and enjoyed enormous fun at night in the queue for roast potatoes round the old fire engine in the harbour.

Frequently the bandstand would be broken into by service men, the instruments discovered and there would be boogie woogy down the promenade until the Military Police arrived to restore law and order. Of course we soon realised the reason for all this lawlessness was that most of the Canadians were going home - their war was over and they were just filling in time waiting for the boat. So as we retraced our steps back to our boarding house, the boat trains would be leaving the station to the strains of Robin Hood, Sentimental Journey and The Maple Leaf Forever played by the Royal Canadian Air force Band. Life was fun. Everyday we made new contacts, always an escort home after a twirl around the ballroom.

One night however my sister and I were picked up at the ballroom by two Canadian Air Force Officers, one a giant of a man called 鈥淗utch鈥�; he escorted me rather clumsily round the ballroom before announcing that he was hungry - would I care to join him for some supper? Already more than mildly interested in his looks and personality I agreed. Torquay is hilly and Hutch had obviously discovered a little restaurant called 鈥淭he Green Dragon鈥� way above the harbour and had become a regular, tipping the staff well from his generous pay to winkle out whatever goodies they had above war time rations. I remember we ate extremely well and finished off the meal with a dish of loganberries and Devonshire cream.

After the meal Hutch began to show more than a little interest in me and also I him, - he told me he was a pilot officer and was staying at the Grand Hotel awaiting passage home. 鈥淕oing back to your girlfriend 鈥淚 asked. 鈥淥h no鈥� he replied 鈥渢o my mother and sister in Canada 鈥� I鈥檒l walk you home, where are you staying鈥�? 鈥淣ear the Grand Hotel and station鈥� I replied.
We walked along and chatted when he suddenly stopped and pulling me to him said 鈥測ou are a very pretty girl鈥� and caught me up into his arms. By this time my emotions had become aroused and as he tenderly kissed me my response was overwhelming, - I had been out with men before often enough and played around, but being kissed had never before been like this. I had been charmed and wined and dined. Hutch had impressed me with his personality and in one short evening in his company I had fallen for him. Hutch must have realised his conquest because his hand was on my knee and with every movement my sense of resistance was hard to battle with.

Suddenly I heard myself say 鈥淣o! Please stop鈥� and realised the enfolding arms had released me. 鈥淚鈥檓 sorry,鈥� he said 鈥減lease forgive me, I do respect you鈥�. 鈥淚 won鈥檛 forget you Hutch鈥� were the words I remember saying - 鈥渋f you see the film Forty Ninth Parallel with Eric Portman perhaps you will think of me鈥� he replied. 鈥淭hey used our Flying Fortress for the film and our crew flew it. We chatted and walked hand in hand to my boarding house and with a peck on my cheek, he disappeared, leaving me still reeling from my unfulfilled emotions and wondering why I had said no so resolutely. Where had I found the courage when I had been so sorely tempted?

Today looking back I realise what a different world it is, no doubt my instinct had been to obey the structures of the society I had been brought up in, which prevented girls from indulging in the pleasure of sex before marriage. The morals of fifty years ago, family life and customs seem puritanical when judged by today鈥檚 liberations. Recently our government expressed its concern about the increasing numbers of unmarried mothers and is preaching to them that virginity is virtuous. Fifty years ago there was no welfare state to cushion the mistakes of sexual pleasure so it was important not to make one.

Here again in Torquay fifty and more years after that wartime holiday I had settled in at my hotel and was soon to discover the changes that had overtaken Torquay. The old magnificent view over the harbour was clouded by high rise flats. The Imperial Hotel majestically situated to the left hand side of Torquay鈥檚 quaint harbour was now approached by passing some strange abandoned modern development, a site where I remembered we had enjoyed sunbathing on harbour rocks with our Canadian escorts鈥� years before. The harbour itself now lined by tourist kiosks advertising boat trips and excursions was spoilt by pavements marked by chewing gum and litter. Worse still was the discovery that the lovely ballroom was now a shopping arcade and I couldn鈥檛 locate the bandstand. Indeed there was little to remind me of the Torquay of 50 years ago.

Sadly I wended my way back to my hotel when I suddenly found one building that remained the same, although all around was development 鈥� The Hole in the Wall Cider House. Entering for a rest and a glimpse of the old haunt I chatted to the barman about old times over a glass of cider. Looking at me as though I was some kind of prehistoric being he asked me if I would care to record my visit by signing the ceiling. Glancing up at the hundreds of names that seemed to cover every square inch, I willingly complied 鈥� Margaret Jewkes 1945. It was of course a different surname to the one I had at that time and I emerged into the sunshine wondering why I had bothered to tell anyone about my wartime memories.

No one today, especially the young, can possibly have any conception of what our young lives were like. As I look around at the sheer affluence that exists today, the volume of goods and the variety on offer how can they possibly understand what life was like during six years of war and those hard pressed utility years that followed it? How can they comprehend years of blacked out windows, rationing, bombing or what it was like to be called up at eighteen to serve ones country.

Neither I reasoned would they understand why a sentimental old lady was now dreaming of the few happy days holiday she spent flirting with Royal Canadian Air Force Service personnel. Here I was capturing, for possibly the last time, memories of those glorious ten days of sunshine, the beginnings of peace in Europe after six long years of war and remembering in particular with great pleasure one Flying Fortress pilot that had touched her heart one warm summer evening before catching his boat home to Canada.

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