大象传媒

In 1938 when war seemed to be inevitable, the Government introduced conscription requiring all men aged 17 or over to register for National Service. I took Christianity very seriously at this time, trying to apply its principles to daily life and had become convinced that to take an active part in war was contrary to all I had understood about Christ鈥檚 teachings. So when I had to register in June 1939, I did so as a Conscientious Objector. Incidentally the clerk in the Ministry of Labour who dealt with my registration was a lad called Gibson who had been in the same form as me at school.

At the time I was working at the Halford Cycle Co.鈥檚 shop in Godwin Street in Bradford town centre, where one of the staff introduced me to the antiwar Peace Pledge Union 鈥� I attended some of the meetings and read their newspaper 鈥淧eace News鈥�. This re-enforced my conviction that war was wrong. Also my belief in honesty led me to object to the way that the prices of some basic necessities were soon raised quite unjustifiably.

The example that I remember best was the price of bulbs for hand torches 鈥� there had been a number of trial 鈥渂lackouts鈥� when all street and outdoor lighting had been turned off, so making it essential for people to carry torches. The shop manager saw an opportunity to make some extra profit (which would give him 鈥渂rownie points鈥� with his superiors) and ordered us to charge sixpence and a shilling for bulbs when the correct price was three pence and sixpence. If customers queried the increase we were to say that it was 鈥渄ue to the war鈥�. For a time I continued to sell the bulbs at the old price to any customers who came to me, until the manager threatened to take me off the counter and put me to work in the basement stockroom.

In September war was declared and the blackout became part of everyday life. Halfords obtained a supply of luminous discs about two inches in diameter and these proved popular 鈥� they could be pinned to the coat lapel and shone in the dark allowing others to see where you were 鈥� very useful when all around was pitch black. I wore one regularly and, when asked where they could be bought, offered to sell them mine, knowing that I could buy another one the next day at work. I made no profit on the deals and though that I was doing a favour to the individuals and to the firm but, for some reason, the manager did not like it and told me it must stop.

Whilst at school I sat the Civil Service entrance exam and in November 1939 I received a letter from the Commissioners to say that I had been appointed to the Ministry of Supply. On writing to them I was told that I had been allocated to work at the Royal Arsenal in Woolwich. My first reaction was to refuse the post as it would be against my principles to do the work directly supporting the war machine, but my parents were most distressed at this. They knew that I was against the war but not that I felt so strongly. On the other hand I realised that they had made sacrifices to enable me to stay on at school and I owed it to them to try to do well in life. So, after a lot of discussion and some tears I agreed to give it a try. The Ministry had indicated that they wanted me to take up the post as soon as possible, so I resigned from Halfords and arranged to start at Woolwich in mid December.

No one amongst our family or friends had any contacts in London, so there was no way that I could arrange any lodgings in Woolwich; when I left Bradford on a Sunday morning 鈥� with a 拢5 note from my father in my pocket 鈥� I had no idea where I would be staying that night. However the minister at the Methodist Chapel that I attended had been in touch with his colleague in Woolwich who ran a Soliders鈥� Home; although I was not really eligible for accommodation there, he had agreed that if I was not able to find lodgings, as a last resort, I could stay for a night or two.

I went by train to King鈥檚 Cross and remember being very surprised to see barrage balloons in the sky as we approached. Although I had heard about them I did not expect there to be so many or for them to be so low in the sky. I then went by underground to Waterloo and by electric train to Woolwich, arriving in the late afternoon. After walking around the town centre for a while I saw a notice in a shop window offering lodgings at a nearby address in Wellington Street.

The landlady confirmed that she had a room 鈥� it was off another bedroom which I would have to walk through, but I felt that I could not afford to be choosy so agreed to take it. The only other lodger, whose room I had to walk through was a man from Wakefield, an engineer of some sort I think. Looking back I realise that the set up was distinctly odd 鈥� apart form us lodgers there was the landlady and two men, one her husband and the other, called 鈥淣une鈥� whose relationship to the others was a mystery to me. However the bed was clean and comfortable and the food was good. My bedroom overlooked one of the many army barracks. I could not see over the high wall but could hear the bugle calls and the shouted commands.

The following day I went to the Arsenal; the entrance gate was most impressive, a massive stone edifice with a large archway in the centre and smaller entrances at either side. Only the right hand one was open and there were Ministry police on guard. As I approached I saw a small window so enquired there, showing the letter I had received. I was directed to an office further inside the Arsenal where a clerk took my particulars then sent me on to another office a short distance away which was the Engineering Department (out-stations) or EDO, which was concerned with the setting up and running of five or six new ordinance factories in various parts of the country.

Here I reported to the Chief Clerk, a middle aged man called Mr Taylor. After an introduction to some of the clerks I was allocated to the desk dealing with the post, where the clerk spent the first weeks showing me the routine for attaching in-coming letters to the appropriate files, distributing them to the architects dealing with those particular projects; also putting copies of out-going letters into the correct files and organising a system of brining the files forward if nothing had happened within a couple of weeks.

Once I was familiar with the routine, the other clerk moved onto another desk and other duties. Although the work was routine I found it interesting as it took me round the adjoining office where the architects worked and gave me an insight into the wide variety of firms involved with the office. I recall one firm had the wonderful title of The India Rubber and Gutta Percha Company; another had a letter heading listing all its factories around the world, some of which had a red star against their names; a footnote explained that these had been 鈥渟tolen from us by the Bolsheviks鈥�. When the Soviet Union entered the war the firm had to put a new heading on its letters pretty quickly! Many of the then world famous names have since disappeared from the engineering scene.

The working week was from 9am to 5pm, Monday to Friday and 9am to 12 noon on Saturday. At weekends I sometimes amused myself by going to the Woolwich free ferry and riding across to North Woolwich, doing some exploring then coming back on the ferry. At other times I walked on Woolwich Common, but my favourite day out was to take the No. 53 bus from Woolwich through Greenwich and Blackheath, over Westminster Bridge to Whitehall and Trafalgar Square. Then I would walk around the West End or the City, returning to Woolwich in the evening. I was thrilled to see the famous buildings and to walk in the royal parks.

A few weeks after I arrived there was a night-time air-raid warning, the first I had experienced apart from the test warnings that had been carried out in Bradford before the war started. I was in bed and woke to the sound of the alert 鈥� a wailing sound on the sirens 鈥� which I imagined would be followed soon by a bombing attack. In a state of mild panic I threw on my clothes and dashed out of the house and down the road to a public air-raid shelter about 100 yards away under the Town Hall. There I joined dozens of others from the locality and we sat on the seats or lay on the bunks, listening for the sounds of bombs exploding. There were no bombs in our immediate vicinity that night, nor during a number of subsequent alerts, so many people, including me, soon tired of the night-time trips to the shelters and decided to stay warm in our beds trusting to luck that any raids would not affect our part of London.

Although I enjoyed the work at the arsenal, I was still troubled by the conflict with my beliefs. The local Methodist church acted as a garrison church and I did not feel at ease there. After a while I found the meeting place of the Society of Friends (Quakers) and started to attend there, fining that their attitude to war and to serving others in line with my own. Also, in the arsenal, I volunteered for duty in the first aid post, which led to me taking a first aid course with the local St John Ambulance Brigade. Each time there was an air-raid warning I had to report to the post, where the squad stood by in case of any casualties within the arsenal. There were frequent warnings but no incidents; I can recall quite vividly standing in the doorway of the post and watching German bombers and fighters flying high in the sky on their way to central London with British fighter planes attacking them and anti-aircraft shells bursting all round. It was a fascinating picture 鈥� the dark outlines of the planes weaving about against the bright blue sky. It all seemed so unreal and made it difficult to realise that many of the men in those planes would be killed and that the bombers would soon be dropping their loads on people in London.

Once I got my first aid certificate I wished to take further training, but no Home Nursing courses were being organised for men as so many were away in the forces. The SJAB Superintendent put me in touch with the local hospital 鈥� St Nicholas in Plumstead 鈥� where it was suggested that I should go in on two evenings each week to help on the male wards and be available if there were any air-raid casualties.

In the summer of 1940 I went home on holiday for two weeks; whilst I was there, Bradford had on of its few air-raids and with my family I spent a night in next doors Anderson shelter. One of the bombs was a 鈥渨histler鈥� and we could hear it coming down 鈥� it seemed to take ages, but I suppose it was only a few seconds. It was very frightening, which of course was the intention. The lady from next door trembled so violently that her feet drummed on the floor. A few bombs fell around the town centre, but as far as I know no-one was killed and the damage was not very serious. After this, my father obtained a shelter which he erected in our garden, making a door through a bedroom wall to give direct access into the shelter. I鈥檓 not sure whether it was ever used, but it made the family feel safer.

On the overnight return journey the train stopped on the outskirts of London for some hours. No explanation was given, but when we eventually arrived at King鈥檚 Cross about 5am we found there had been a very heavy air-raid, which proved to be the beginning of the 鈥渂litz鈥�. From then on the raids became a nightly occurrence for many months. There were no trains running on the Waterloo and Woolwich line so I had to travel by tram, going via the Elephant and Castle and the Old Kent Road. There was debris and ruined buildings everywhere but luckily the tram track was still intact all the way to Woolwich. Although North Woolwich across the river had been badly bombed, the town on the south side of the Thames had escaped with little damage and my lodgings were ok.

I wrote home straight away to say I was safe 鈥� we had a telephone at home but all the lines out of London were reserved for official use. My letter was delayed and a couple of days later I got a telegram saying they had not heard from me and were very worried. I wrote back immediately and this time the letter got through promptly.

Once the air-raids became regular, I started to go into the hospital each evening, spending an hour or so on the wards then going down to the casualty department where I would sleep on one of the beds that were kept ready for any casualties. If any were admitted, I would get up and help. Surprisingly, since we were so near to the arsenal, which could have been expected to be a prime target, there was comparatively little bombing in the vicinity and the main target seemed to be the docks in the East End 鈥� there the damage and loss of life was terrible. In the morning I would go back to my lodgings, have breakfast and then go to work.

In January of 1940 a man of my own age, called Ron, had started in the same office. He came from South Shields and, like me, had no family or friends in the London area. We became friendly and after a while we moved into the same lodgings near Plumstead Common.

Early in 1941 I developed a skin condition, which was probably an allergic reaction and was admitted to the medical ward for a week and then was off sick for a further two weeks. Having time to think I felt that I wanted to opt out of the war machine and instead to do a job which would make some positive contribution to mankind 鈥� I decided to be a nurse. I wrote to Mr Taylor, my boss in the office giving a months notice of my intention of resigning from the Civil Service. Ron was in the office when Mr T opened the letter and he said it was quite amusing. Mr T jumped up and down in his chair 鈥� obviously extremely agitated, then phoned his superior to pass on the information and presumably to get instructions on how to deal with the situation. I learned later that I was the first established civil servant ever to resign during war time.

The Government at that time had the power to 鈥渄irect labour鈥�, in other words the power to force any individual to work in a specific job. For instance some men were directed to work in the coal mines instead of going into the forces 鈥� these were the so-called 鈥淏evin Boys鈥� after Ernest Bevin the Minister of Labour. The higher-ups did not let me know until the very last day of my notice whether or not they were going to release me. But of course, they did 鈥� after all it did not make sense to have a conscientious objector working in the arsenal 鈥� I might be a spy! Understandably there was an obsession about spies, but some of the actions taken were not very rational. For instance one of the architects in our office was frequently stopped and searched on his way in and out of the main gate of the arsenal; the only reason we could think of to explain this was that he had a beard and a vaguely German sounding name! I finished in the early months of 1941, having worked there for just over a year.

It was in my last couple of weeks at the arsenal that I had the one and only adverse reaction to being a CO, and that was from one of the architects in the drawing office who objected to me doing overtime one evening. However his comments were quite mild and did not cause me any worry.

To read about Eric鈥檚 nursing training and further wartime experiences, go to www.bbc.co.uk/dna/ww2/A5856681

This story was entered onto the People鈥檚 War website by Jenni Waugh, 大象传媒 Outreach Officer, on behalf of Eric鈥檚 widow, June Stephenson, who accepts the site鈥檚 terms and conditions. We have done this as a tribute to a modest, loving and courageous man who brought great joy and support to all he met throughout his long life. He is much missed.

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.