大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People's War website by Jacky Hayward of Hastings Community Learning Centre for 大象传媒 SCR on behalf of Mr Don Cole and has been added to the site with his permission. Mr Cole fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

I was 14 when war was declared in September 1939 and living in Croydon, evacuation of the children started. My mother said I was to big to be evacuated and I would have to leave school and start work.
I had always been interested in cooking, but to start with nothing was available. At the top of the road where I lived was a small grocery called 鈥淐rumps鈥� it was owned by Miss Crump and her elderly mother. I got a job there as a grocer鈥檚 boy, learning to do up three quarter bags to weigh up sugar, rice, lentils etc, bone sides of bacon and as rations had started, weighing up 2oz butter and cheese, I then delivered the small boxes of groceries to the various houses on my grocer鈥檚 bike. After six months I managed to get a job in a bakery as a junior, starting with cleaning the tins then greasing them for the bread, getting coke in for the oven fires and starting to learn about making good rolls, buns, doughnut frying and pastry making. After staying there for quite a while, I got a better job as a confectionery mixer, turning out all the recipes for cakes pastry and cooking doughnuts, this firm had contracts with the army and other establishments , so it was 400- 500 doughnuts to fry every morning.
I stayed there not believing the war would still be on and the next thing I would be 18, so in April 1943 I was called up, the day after my birthday. I had volunteered 3 months before as I wanted to join the Royal Navy. I was posted to Skegness a Butlin鈥檚 holiday camp known as HMS Royal Arthur. After kitting out and basic training, learning to lash up and stow hammock I was sent to Royal Navy barracks in Portsmouth to learn basic cookery and at the end of six months, with my catering certificate, I was posted to HMS Montclair. The ship was in Scotland, it turned out to be a depot ship which had been converted from a Canadian cruise ship.
We set sail to the south to fill up with stores and then set sail to a unknown destination. First stop was Gibralter 2nd stop Malta, 3rd stop Port Suez through the canal to Aden then on to Ceylon, across the Indian ocean to Freemantle in Australia, then Sydney and Brisbane. After 4 days leave, we were now in the Pacific Ocean, we passed the Solomon Island and Papua New Guinea, pass Indonesia into the South China Seas to eventually a place in the Admiralty Island, not all that far from Japan. We were a fleet of ships called 鈥淭he Fleet Train鈥� and the Montclair was the Mother ship carrying and admiral and our job was to supply the warships in the battle lane off Japan. This enabled the first fighting ship to come down to be refueled instead of going all the way back to Australia. Sometimes we would have five destroyers come down and when they sailed three days later, each one would require 500 pound loaves of bread.
Manus was on the equator and we were allowed a day鈥檚 leave per week. We would spend this on Manus and go swimming and have our allowance of one bottle of beer. We stayed there till the war ended and then sailed to Hong Kong.

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