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David Hall’s recollections of WWII for the ´óÏó´«Ã½ Website.

David Hall was born in 1934 and lived at Walton on the Hill.

When war was declared we had no shelters and the instruction was to crouch under the stairs which we did whilst listening to the bombers going overhead. Later in the war my father obtained a Morrison shelter that was the indoor shelter that looked like a table with wire mesh down the side so that we could breathe whilst sheltering underneath. I can well remember the view from Walton on the Hill looking at the blazes of London during the Blitz which would have been in 1941.

My father was in the Royal Flying Corps in WWI and when WWII was declared he was asked would he be prepared to re-enlist even though he was over age at the time but he declined to do so. He had been on aircraft recovery in WWI salvaging aircraft from no-man’s-land and felt that he had seen enough death and destruction.

He subsequently served in the Auxiliary Fire Service and was at Banstead Fire Station through the rest of the war. During the Blitz, the crews at Banstead were asked if they were prepared to volunteer to help out in London but having something of a premonition, my father declined to go and his crew was unfortunate enough to suffer a direct hit and did not survive.

The one bomb we had a Walton on the Hill fell into the Mere Pond and did no damage whatsoever, but I do not recall the pond ever filling up again with water.

Attending school at Walton Infants’ School was an interesting especially the time we took gas masks as we all wanted the Mickey Mouse version where the tongue waggled when you breathed in and out. All parents were asked to send their children to school with a packet of biscuits with their names on in case they were kept at school because of an air raid. In 1945 the biscuits were still in the cupboard, unused!!

I well remember the shanty town up on Headley Heath for those people who were bombed out and left London. The shelter consisted of tents, sheds and even buses and I helped Betty the Milk-girl in her deliveries.

We had Canadian troops and Irish Guards stationed at Pebblecoombe Hill and they used to water-proof their vehicles and drive them through the ponds to test the effectiveness of the waterproofing. A number of French-Canadian troops used Lord Riddle Memorial Hall as a cookhouse and entertainment centre and we used to hope the troops would give us chocolates. I remember going there hopefully one day to find the place deserted apart from the cooks who told us that the lads had gone on exercise and would be back soon. It was only later that we learned that they had gone on the ill-fated Dieppe Raid and very few were to return.

I only recall seeing one V1 Doodlebug which hit a house near the Blue Anchor pub. Fortunately the house was empty at the time and very little damage was done. It was with great relief that VE day celebrations arrived and I clearly remember Nibbs the newsagent giving away free fireworks. You can imagine the joy of all the other lads in the area when this news got around.

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