大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by Dominic Penny of Link into Learning on behalf of Peter Ascott. It has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site鈥檚 Terms and Conditions.

Here is a rather murky tale of how some things got done during the war. Bert could be called a spiv or just an opportunist and he wore a bowler hat.

We were working in a rather amateurish paint factory in Tooting. It was a ramshackle series of sheds in two back gardens. The paint was mixed with the aid of paddles on shafts mounted on steel girders, now impossible to obtain because of the war and Bert wanted to expand production. Bert did try.

We went to a huge scrap iron depot called 鈥楥ohen鈥檚鈥� opposite Wembley Stadium in a fruitless search. Bert decided on what he called the 鈥榩roject鈥�: we went together to Wandsworth Town Hall (the council where he lived in Clapham) to the Air Raid Precaution Engineering department and told a marvellous sob story of how his dear old mother could not use the 鈥楢nderson鈥� because of her rheumatism! They suggested the 鈥楳orrison鈥�, an indoor sheet steel affair, usually under the table. This was no good, he said, because she suffered with claustrophobia! 鈥淲hat is your solution?鈥� they asked. He said that he had heard they shored up cellars with RSJ鈥檚 (rolled steel joists). They said they could. He gave them measurements of the required lengths; not for the cellar but the paint shop. The girders were duly delivered by lorry and council men partially erected it, but Bert magnanimously suggested he could finish off the work. They thanked him for his community spirit!

He had to hire a lorry and he and I took it to Tooting and dismantled what the council men had built. I had to go on a series of buses to Caledonian Road, North London and bring back three 鈥榩lumber鈥� bearing, blocks, with brass inserts for the steel shafts. They weighed about 50 lbs (20 kilos) each. I could just carry two but had to have another journey for the third; this required a certain amount of co-operation by the conductors and conductresses to hold the bus up while I went back to the pavement for the other block. I must have had the knack of looking pretty helpless.

Bert was not only artful in obtaining stuff, but clever at adapting machinery. In the factory, with the extra mixers and paddles, the load was too much for the old gas engine which blew up. He was a clever engineer if not a bit unscrupulous. He found an old, scrap 60 horsepower electric motor whose starting load would be far too great to put on domestic electricity supplies. His brilliant idea was to adapt the old starting handle on the gas engine to the shaft of the electric motor. So as they switched it on, there would not be that huge load suddenly put on the mains. The running load was much smaller, less than a quarter in fact. It was of course against all regulations.

Here is another example of Bert鈥檚 opportunism. One morning in an insurance office in the middle of London he said 鈥淕et me a shovel and a sack鈥�. I eventually found them down in the basement. Then off we went in his car. I had no idea what for. We stopped by the side of the road at Stockwell, there were no parking restrictions then! He pointed to a broken cement sack in between the tram tracks. Yours truly had to go and risk life and limb to shovel it into my sack. He sat in the car of course. He said he could get 拢1 for that. It was only worth 5 shillings but he never shared any profits!

When the bombing was at its height I would get to work in central London late, through damaged railways and replacement buses. I asked him if he would take me in his car from Clapham which would be much quicker. He said 鈥淵es鈥�, but he would charge me! I said 鈥淣o鈥� and continued to arrive late. In the end he relented and I rode free!

Contributor: Peter Ascott former Electrical Engineer now retired (81) and living in Tintagel

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