大象传媒

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On the first day of war, just after the Prime Minister made the announcement, the air-raid siren went. One of the first things I said was, 鈥淲here鈥檚 my gas mask?鈥� After a while, nothing seemed to happen and everyone began opening their front doors to see what was going on. Just along Edward Street was an air raid warden post and after a few minutes these apparitions in yellow capes, trousers, Wellington boots, service gas masks and big rattles appeared walking up and down the street. The only other time I saw them wearing all that gear was when they had safety demonstrations on the Square outside the Methodist Church. It was quite an eye opener for a six year old.

We had a school billeted with us at Burr Street and soon settled down to attending mornings one week and afternoons the next. Two Polish boys were billeted near us; they could speak German and used to do imitations of Hitler. They put one finger under their nose, held their right hand in a Nazi salute and jabbered away in German. It was all very amusing. Some children went back to London but others billeted in Victoria Street stayed all through the war.

There were various places that we liked to play, Grove House Gardens with the swings, slide and roundabout or Bennett鈥檚 Rec. One of our favourite places was the old car park, a walled garden all overgrown with apple trees, hawthorn bushes and wild roses.

The fire station was built near the A5 past Anderson鈥檚, where they sold uniforms for the Grammar school. There was a large hard standing outside the station with a huge static water tank. It seemed to be like a big swimming pool, covered with wire netting around the edges. They also built a tower out of steel tubing where they鈥檇 hang the hoses to dry. Every day during the blitz you could see the hoses because the AFS, later the National Fire Service, were sent to London from Dunstable to fight fires. My uncle was in a kind of fire brigade at Waterlows and was drafted into the AFS/NFS and stayed there throughout the war.

My father was Sergeant Major of D Company and when they moved on, all the flags, bunting and some of the office furniture was distributed. We had a chair and a big chest full of flags and bunting. D Company were moved from the 5th Battalion to form the nucleus of the newly formed 6th Battalion Beds and Herts. My father went with two of his half-brothers, one of whom was the commanding officer鈥檚 batman, and the other a squadron/platoon runner. They were moved to guard the radar station at Bawdsley, Woodbridge. They were then moved to Almouth in Northumberland to guard RAF Bulmer on the cliffs. My mother laughed 鈥� she had a postcard from my father saying, 鈥淚 can鈥檛 tell you where we鈥檝e been sent to.鈥� But it was post marked Almouth! A day or two later Lord Haw Haw announced on the German radio that the 6th Battalion had been moved to Almouth. So much for security.

After this my father was moved to the Royal Fusiliers. He was in several battalions, carrying out office work to set up a new battalion. He was acting RSM but paid as a WOII. He did this for a couple of years before going to the officer cadet-training unit. When he鈥檇 completed the course, he was commissioned into the Pioneer Corps. He was involved in looking after troop movements and was second in command of a POW camp on the Welsh border in Herefordshire. He used to come home whenever possible, about every 6-8 weeks for a weekend or a few days, but it all depended on what was going on. The army came first.

My Grandparents moved to Black Notley in Essex when my Grandfather retired, moving back to London in 1941. One day, probably in 1940, we had this suitcase delivered. It had come all the way from Essex by train and was full of damsons. They were a little bit ripe but there was some sugar available, so damson jam was made. Toys weren鈥檛 that easy to come by, so we made our own, perhaps had a stick and a rim of a bicycle wheel. One lad had a steel hoop and a hook and we had whips and tops. We made little tanks out of cotton reels, an elastic band, a slice cut from a candle and a matchstick; we had races with those. It was all good fun.

At the beginning we weren鈥檛 all that aware of what was going on. Then came the blitz. It was possible to stand in the middle of the road in Victoria or Edward Street and see a red glow and flashes in the sky over London. Black-out boards were put up against the windows. We tended only to use the living room at the back of the house and the kitchen. It was easier to use one room.

When my sister was old enough she joined the ATS. Both the ATS and the Army didn鈥檛 provide rations for weekend leave (they did for proper leave). If Dad was told a day or two before, he could usually wangle something from the cookhouse. My sister was stationed at Gower Street in London and she could usually bring a little extra home in her gas mask case.

They used to test parachute flares on the Downs, and if we saw these bright lights when we had an afternoon off, we would dash off, get downwind, and hope to find one. The ones that came out of small mortar bombs were about 2ft in diameter, made of pure silk with a round block of wood at the end of the flare. They would perhaps be firing them off all day and I remember wandering to Kensworth once and there was a great crowd of children in the field. The big boys used to run underneath the parachutes as they floated in and they could jump higher than us and grab them.

One day there were two boys who were jumping up and on this occasion the parachutes were nearly 4ft in diameter, coming from the bigger mortar bombs. They were grabbing them with gloves on, and although they were smouldering, they could avoid getting burned. They ran across to a man and woman who cut off all the strings and stuffed the silk into carrier bags. A piece of silk that big could be used to make many things. They were firing them from mortars roughly opposite the golf club entrance over the slope of the Downs. Soldiers were stopping people from walking along the Downs or past the mortars while they were firing. The soldiers at the bottom of the Downs picked up the empty cases. The ones they missed, I collected. They were testing flares about twice a week.

My father used to buy aircraft recognition books. They were about as big as a notepad with about 20 or 30 aircraft in them. British aircraft were covered in about 4 or 5 books, German, similarly I think. Sometimes we鈥檇 see aircraft that we didn鈥檛 know. We were in Grove House Gardens one day and some planes flew very low towards Leighton Buzzard; I found out later they were Westland Whirlwinds. I only saw them once but they were a striking aircraft. They had a Spitfire week where everyone was encouraged to buy savings stamps. In Grove House Gardens, in a marquee, was a ME 109. You could pay to go in and if you bought a savings stamp, you could sit in it.

Later in the war, the ARP carried out demonstrations. They鈥檇 have a building filled with straw and probably laced with petrol and a plane would fly down the high street from the direction of London; one night it was a Swordfish. They flew very low, about 3 or 400 ft and you could wave to the pilot and he鈥檇 wave back, and as it went past this hut, it would burst into flames. The wardens would dash forward, start on it with the stirrup pumps and then you鈥檇 hear the ding, ding, ding, bell of the fire engines. One of the auxiliaries or one of the main engines would dash round the corner into the Square.

There were posters around the town and in the school about butterfly bombs. These were anti-personnel bombs that the Germans dropped. A policeman brought the only one I ever saw into school. He was very worried about children collecting live bombs from the Downs, so he brought one in to warn us but he accidentally dropped it on the table and it fell onto the floor. It made such a clatter. Nobody thought there was anything in it. We knew he wouldn鈥檛 bring a live bomb into school!

There were live AG Mortars fired at the back of Ivinghoe Beacon. After the war a few boys from Eaton Bray collected some. They were waiting at the bus stop and one went off. I worked with one of the lads who survived, I think 3 were killed and 2 survived. The bus was coming, they put the boys on and it went non-stop to the hospital. With my father being in the army he鈥檇 always said, 鈥淒on鈥檛 pick anything up, always look to see if it鈥檚 empty.鈥� We鈥檇 seen the empty ones with the nose-cap off and I don鈥檛 think I ever saw one with the cap on.

After VE day, what was called the Women鈥檚 Tea Committee from the Congregational Church in Edward Street, decided to have a street party. My mother, my Auntie Maggie and the lady next door went round asking people if they could spare a little margarine, butter, or a few points, because Miss R at the shop had said, 鈥淚f you bring the points, you can have food for the party.鈥� At one house they struck gold, there were 2 young ladies there and they gave them tins of corned beef, a wooden keg of butter and some large tins of fruit cocktail and these were duly taken back to the Congregation. When a couple of maiden ladies saw them they said, 鈥淲e can鈥檛 possibly have those! They are the wages of sin!鈥� They were all marked U.S Army. Maggie and my Mum said, 鈥淭he children don鈥檛 know about that sort of thing, they鈥檒l enjoy it.鈥� Of course it was a marvellous spread. It was a fine day and trestle tables and chairs from the church were put outside. Red, white and blue bunting was laid down the middle of the tables, all the church crockery was used, the Reverend officiated, said Grace, gave thanks for the end of the war and then we all tucked in.

The camp at the gliding club housed the POWs. Towards the end of the war the Italian POWs were allowed to come up into Dunstable. It was after the Armistice when Italy capitulated. However, there were Polish soldiers at the camp behind Grove House and fights broke out in the town. As a result the Italians were moved and replaced with Germans. They weren鈥檛 allowed out until after the war and were used to build houses on the Beecroft estate. At the end of what is now Maidendale Avenue and Victoria Street there was a hut and on the door was a sign in German, which meant Works Manager.

Pat Morgan - The Italians were working on the fields at the bottom of Blows Downs and we used to spit at them. They used to get very upset, cry and say 鈥淥h, the bambinos!鈥� We were 5 or 6 years old and horrid. The evacuees were worse than us. I started school in 鈥�43, and they were amalgamated with us. We did 3 days one week and 4 the next. The Londoners didn鈥檛 like the Germans or the Italians and encouraged us to do these awful spitting things, but we did like the American convoys coming through. If you put your ear to the ground as you walked down Priory Road, you could hear them coming from a long way off, and if you walked slowly with a bit of luck they were coming through before you got to Ashton school. You could sit on the high kerb on the church side of the road and wave and the Americans would throw sweeties.

By 鈥�43 or 鈥�44 there were an awful lot of troop movements. The Americans were billeted in Dunstable. The lady next door took in coloured Americans because not everyone would. She had 2 billeted on her and they were very nice fellows. I鈥檇 never seen a black man before, I was totally fascinated, Robert and Lloyd they were called. We were always told that if the Americans asked us if we needed anything, we were always to say toilet paper, not sweets. They did give us toilet paper, and sweets. They were stationed at the back of Moores, through the arch in what became the Index Publishers. There weren鈥檛 that many of them but they were very nice.

It was Thursday September 12th and Mother was walking up the high street, heavily pregnant with my sister. She met a friend outside what is now the little theatre and was having a bit of a rest when an aircraft came down the road - bang, bang, bang! There was so much tree cover she was lucky. When she went into labour that night, she was certain that鈥檚 what brought it on.

My Dad was at Vauxhall in a reserved occupation and was at work the night they were bombed. They hit the canteen and my Dad was so angry that he hadn鈥檛 had a cup of tea. They had gone all night without a cup of tea because these ***Germans had dropped these **** bombs on the canteen, and he made a huge pot of tea, saying he didn鈥檛 care how much he was using. After drinking his tea he went to bed, and then complained that he had to get up several times during the day, and our loo was out the back.

He was working in the experimental section at Vauxhall. They were producing Churchill鈥檚 at the time when they were trying to stop sand affecting the engines. He was a machine setter but he was involved in technical stuff. He was also in the Home Guard and we used to try and get his Bren gun so he had it chained into the wardrobe.

I remember the fun. I lived in Great Northern Road and we used to go up on Blows Downs and play, we were away all day. Mum gave us sandwiches and a box of Ministry of Food orange juice. If the Home Guard were on manoeuvres we had to go home. To us, the war was quite good fun because we had no restrictions.

We went to the VE party in Great Northern Road and we also went to the VE party in Garden Road because we had 2 aunts living there who had no children. Park Road, Grove Road and Downs Road all had their own VE Day parties.

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