大象传媒

This is the fifth of Brian Cable鈥檚 鈥楥HILDHOOD MEMORIES FROM RAYLEIGH IN ESSEX鈥�.

These memories were written by Brian, edited by Jo Taylor of the Holmewood and Heath CAP team, and added to the site with the author鈥檚 permission.

CHILDHOOD SPIES AND SECRETS!

As young lads we always craved excitement, and hunting for spies was just up our street! Certain strange people, (or those whom we regarded as strange) were kept under careful scrutiny. We were convinced that there were spies and agents in our locality and looked out for flashing torches at night, especially during air raids, and even if we noticed smoke coming out of a chimney in a sporadic fashion we were certain signalling was going on!
We noticed there were a set of windows in a large house down an unmade section of road where the blinds appeared to change colour. Sometimes they appeared red, other times green, blue and yellow. An elderly couple lived there and we used to watch them like hawks! We would creep up and watch them from the cover of some scrub, and we were certain that a wire which ran from the house to a shed in the garden was an aerial and they had transmitting equipment in the shed.
Actually the blinds in the window changed colour with the position of the sun, and the 鈥榓erial鈥� was a washing line. There was, however, an event that caused suspicion not only amongst us lads, but with a number of grown ups as well.
A couple came to live in a bungalow down a road just below us. The woman was in a wheel chair, her legs stretched out in front and her hands twisted as if paralysed always in white gloves. On her head she always wore a large wide brimmed straw hat pulled down over her eyes on which she wore dark glasses.
Her husband (whom we presumed he was), was tall grey haired and distinguished looking, and pushed her around everywhere. At all events such as parades, open-air services and displays etc, they were there right in the forefront. At church he would park her at a space by the pulpit, and find all the hymns and places in the service for her. Everyone remarked what a kind attentive husband he was, and he told people she was paralysed and partly blind.
All of this would have been generally accepted until one day, one of our 鈥榞ang鈥�, who delivered groceries for a local shop, was taking an order to their bungalow. He swore that as he was going down a path at the side he heard a piano playing, and peering through a gap in the curtain saw the woman sitting there, no dark glasses, and playing a piece of classical music.
Naturally we now kept an even closer watch on them, and to justify our suspicions a local spinster, and prime gossip, who lived in the same road, told my parents she thought that they were spies!
The whole thing, however, came to an abrupt end, when suddenly one day, not long after, the bungalow was empty, and they were gone! No one seems to have seen them leave, not even our prime gossip, they just vanished and were heard of no more.
I have often thought back and wondered just exactly who they were, where did they come from? and what they were doing in our town for such a short time at the height of the war?

One thing that was constantly drilled into us was not to speak to strangers. We were told this because they knew we found out things and sneaked into places where we shouldn鈥檛 鈥� like the Lodge, for instance! Things that might be useful to an enemy agent.
We used to go up to Rochford Aerodrome, (now Southend Airport) and watch the Spitfires and Hurricanes taking off and landing. We watched from a railway bridge which was guarded by the military. A soldier would periodically patrol the bridge, so we had to hide till he had gone, then sneak out and watch the comings and goings, sneaking back again to our hideaway when we heard his marching boots approaching.
We also used to visit gun emplacements and searchlight stations and we also found out ammunition dumps and radar equipment stations. So it was understandable that we keep our mouths shut to strangers!
One day my friend Charley and I were walking home from school when a large military convoy was slowly passing us. An open staff car came alongside with driver in front and two high-ranking officers in the back.
One of them called to us and asked,
鈥淗ey lads, what do you call this place?鈥�, for of course all signs telling the name of a place had been removed.
鈥淲e are not allowed to tell you!鈥� we replied, and no matter how they tried to get it out us we were determined to say nothing. It just showed the power of the brain washing we had received. In front was an open back lorry full of troops and they were laughing like anything. It did not matter to us one bit that they were high ranking British officers with all the gold braid etc, we were saying nothing!

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