大象传媒

Chapter One:
Civilian Life

For me the war started about a week before Sept. 3 1939. I was 17 years old and was apprentice plumber to a builder in Loughton, Essex when the instructions came to erect Anderson Shelters in an area of Epping Forest land between Forest road and Staples Road Loughton. All the company employees were put on to this, whatever their trade was they were to dig. That was hand digging in clay and it was hard work. We were still at it when the formal announcement of the start of the war came at 11 am on Sunday the third. The shelters were finished and it was only a short while later that the firm of Simonds builders ceased trading; we never did discover why but it did leave around 20 tradesmen unemployed.

Getting another job was easy for me, within hours I was working at Chigwell on a base for RAF balloon operators, that lasted until the end of December `39 then I changed employers and joined a company more engaged on heating and engineering, that was fine, it did entail working all over Britain, but it gave me experience away from Loughton, it did mean that my technical education, at Walthamstow Technical College, could not continue so in that respect I lost out

Between December 1939 and February 1942 I worked in many places between Hereford and Gretna, some contracts were very short but the one I finished on was near Reading on a large Ordnance Factory. I spent six months there.

One contract was at a place in Kent, Upnor, near Rochester, the project there was a large gun emplacement and the supporting barracks; a good site for that as it was on very high ground overlooking Chatham Dockyard on the other side of the Medway. Whilst I was there, during the winter of 1939/1940 two of my younger brothers joined The Royal Marines, they were 14yrs. old and went in as Boy Buglers, they were stationed at Chatham Barracks so it was only a short journey for me to visit them

One good thing about being away from home was living with other people and learning about other people鈥檚 way of life; also it was an introduction to some very nice people particularly the Police. When we got to a strange area the first move was to the local police office as they all kept a list of local lodgings; twice when we arrived late at night the police gave us a cosy cell to sleep in and gave us a first class breakfast the next morning; the lodgings the police suggested were always first class.

Working at Gretna was good and there was a lot of fun, in contrast with the rest of the country there was no enemy activity all the time we were there.
Despite the call for a special 鈥� War Effort鈥� the strong Presbyterian influence of the time dictated that only work essential for safety could be carried out on Sundays so we had a day off.

We worked extended hours during the week but Sunday made up for that. Pubs were not open on Sundays in Scotland so we walked to the first pub in England which was and still is 鈥淭he Metal Bridge鈥�; it is just yards south of the border, after a glass of beer it was a return walk to the lodgings for lunch. In the evenings we went further, getting the 鈥淏oozers Bus鈥� to a pub called 鈥淭he Highland Laddie鈥�, which is also still in operation. The Highland Laddie was a great place a very small pub with a very small bar and very little seating, the way to get a seat was to buy a crate of bottled beer and use the crate as a seat; there were three good seats these were for the entertainers, two senior NCOs in the Army, both over seven feet tall, and a tiny lady, one soldier played a banjo and they both sang, the lady played a concertina. They were good nights.

Another good entertainment at Gretna was a weekly visit to the cinema. The cinema was in fact a large village hall, mostly only cartoons were showing with the odd B film, the seating was loose so if you did`nt like where you were sitting it was possible to move the seat to a better spot.

There was one bad spell whilst I was working in London, at Wellington Barracks. The barracks had been bombed and the block containing the boiler house had been demolished, our job was to reinstate the boiler house, during that I had a fall which resulted in a split head requiring seventeen stitches to close the hole. That put me out of action for about three weeks. When I returned to work I found that my workmates were well organised, they had started regular visits to the Victoria Palace Theatre to see The Crazy Gang, I was happy to join in with that and had some very good evenings.
Getting cleaned up on site for an evening out was not easy; at that time there were no Health & Safety regulations and everyone made their own arrangements, most going home dirty, so we had to get a pail of hot water and do our best.

The Reading Ordinance Factory contract was my last civilian job; I was there for around six months during a very hard winter of 1941/42. The working hours were 12 hrs. per day for 7 days a week with one week end off every six weeks. At one point there was a panic too complete the main boiler house, to do that twelve of us worked 24hrs per day for just over a week, we took it in turns to have the odd hour sleep anywhere it was possible to lay down. We completed the job and it worked, we were then given special transport to Reading Station for a week at home. I think I slept all that week.

Whilst there I came under the protected occupation scheme which meant I could not be called for military service, each month I had to sign an exemption form, there was no problem until the company timekeeper swindled several of us out of bonus payments, the next time he produced the exemption sheet for signing I refused to sign, two week later I received a set of Call Up papers.

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by Becky Barugh of the 大象传媒 Radio Shropshire CSV Action Desk on behalf of John Gilbey and has been added to the site with his permission. Mr Gilbey fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

See more of John's stories:

• People鈥檚 War according to John Gilbey 鈥� Chapter Two
• People鈥檚 War according to John Gilbey 鈥� Chapter Three
• People鈥檚 War according to John Gilbey 鈥� Chapter Four

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