大象传媒

I was evacuated from Camden Town. We assembled at our school then we went to Kings Cross, not St Pancras. When we got to Bedford, we waited in the open area in front of the station and then we were taken by bus down the various streets. I went to a couple in Dudley Street. The man was too old for Service, and was a van driver for Gammans, the furniture shop. Gammans was given petrol for the whole week, but on one day they had to take supplies of food to the various camps, particularly American camps, out towards Cambridge. I sometimes went with him.
It must have been hard for the couple, because they didn't have children. There was no television and they didn't even have a radio. They didn't have cards, dominoes or any games. The man used to bike to a club in Kempston once a week. I used to get books out from the library. The lady taught me to knit and sew. I knitted -and wore- a scarf I knitted out of seven or eight different coloured wools. The wools were different thicknesses, so the edge went in and out. Later I knitted mittens for my own children. A couple of times when the air raid sirens went we took cover in the pantry under the stairs.
I remember the sausages were horrible. You would end up with a pile of little black gritty bits from them. They grew tomatoes in the garden, but as the man used to drive out in the country we tried to stop by an orchard and get apples. We got blackberries too, to make blackberry and apple pies. The lady was a good cook; she used to make me individual blackberry and apple pies.
I went to school in St Cuthbert's Hall. The room was like a small lecture theatre, so we were on chairs on tiers. There were no materials: no paper, pens, books or even chalk and a blackboard. So the teacher asked us spellings. I was good at spelling, so I always put up my hand, but the teacher got so he didn't ask me, because it took longer asking the other boys who got it wrong.
After a few weeks we went to Golington Road school and we were there several weeks before we moved again to three classrooms at the back of what is now The Mission nightclub in Mill Street. We had materials by then. We had to cart all our own books in satchels. For the first few weeks we carried our gas masks in cardboard boxes as well,
I remember that in the end I swore at two girls who had been teasing me for weeks because I had a hole in my jacket. I only had the one jacket.
I sat the eleven plus in Harpur Central School and when I passed I went to Owen's School. They shared buildinsg with the Bedford Modern School. One morning a week we went to the Meltis soccer pitch; we played matches there on Saturdays.
We went somewhere in Luton to play soccer. The pitch was a sloping one, and we were hopeless. The home side was used to it and won 12 or 13 nil. We caught the train back, and there were two teachers with us, bother called Philips. One Mr Philips taught Maths and wore pince nez. He was a bit cross-eyed, so you couldn't see where he was looking. We were laughing about the match, but he couldn't understand why we were laughing and his expression didn't change.
We didn't have a school uniform, but we had to wear a black cap with the Owen's School badge. This had three barrels on it because it was helped by the Worshipful Company of Brewers. At the end of each year we were given what we called 'beer money'. The head boy got a guinea, and the deputy head boy 10/6. I got about sixpence or a shilling. We queued up, and it was the only time we were allowed to go through the main arch at the front of Bedford Modern School.
The other four mornings we went to the Co-op, the Liberal Club in Midland Road, and a pub in the Meltis area which had a function room upstairs. We didn't have desks at these places.
I played in Russell Park with a few friends. I made new friends: some came from London. On Saturday mornings we used to go to the Granada. We saw Flash Gordon and Roy Rogers and Trigger. I remember the sweet rationing. I used to spend my coupons at a shop near Luddington's in the High Street.
One morning I was walking to school along Castle Road and I saw a plane come out of the clouds. It dropped two black things and my thought was that they were bags of soot, because we thought that was what was used for target practice. Then there were two loud bangs and I saw a piece of rail go up in the air. One landmine dropped on the hotel near the theatre and the other on the railway yards. When I got to school in Mill Street we were sent home. I wasn't frightened; no-one was very concerned. We thought the pilot must have lost his way during the night. It was unusual for bombers to be out in the daylight.
We didn't have a real problem with the blackout. we have to be careful pulling the curtains. Gas was more of a concern before the war. I went with my mother to a depot in Camdeb High Street to get my gas mask.
I kept in touch with the couple I stayed with and when i came back to live in Bedford, I invited them to my house and they were flabbergasted that I had a car and a mortgage.

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