大象传媒

1939-1945 SOME MEMORIES OF A TEENAGE SCHOOLBOY

I have put down some of my prime memories of the 1939-1945 war and it is clearly not a memory of fear, hardship, bravery loss or momentous times. It was obviously different for adults with responsibilities and those whose families lost loved ones and relatives. I wonder how many people have essentially happy memories of growing up as teenagers at this time albeit it was war time.

I was twelve years old in 1939 when war broke out (my birthday was in August) out and living in Hendon, North West London.

My Prep School evacuated to Cockermouth in Cumberland and what I mainly remember, other than normal school work, is spending a lot of time cycling round the Lake District, largely unsupervised, in fine weather and for whole days at a time.

In the January I transferred early to Aldenham School near Radlett and was for a time the youngest boy in the school.

As is perhaps typical of teenage boys I don鈥檛 remember the war years as being particularly significant or momentous. My father who had served in the 1914-1918 war had died in 1932 so apart form my Uncle who was called up and spent the war in Shropshire I had no relatives actively involved in the war. My family had evacuated to a village near Didcot but within 6 months they were back home in Hendon. We had an Air Raid shelter built inside the garage which you can imagine was not very big. When there was an air raid we all slept on bunks in this shelter. I do admit that the sound of an air raid siren sounding the warning still produces a funny feeling in my stomach. There was anything between 3 and 5 of us. Sometimes we had an aunt staying with us who snored all night and she swore she had never slept a wink! I hated it and pleaded to be allowed to stay in bed upstairs, to no avail. We never had any bombs very near us although we sometimes heard them and the anti-aircraft guns firing from the railway line past Hendon Aerodrome. One night we had a cluster of incendiary bombs near us and in the morning found some of the cases in the garden. As far as I know they didn鈥檛 cause any fires. This all occurred during the school holidays.

In term time I was a boarder at Aldenham School. My time at school was mainly like any other time a boarding school but looking back on it things were obviously not the same as peace time. The teachers were by any standards an odd lot, all the able bodied men had been called up, and we had the unfit, those called out of retirement and presumably conscientious objectors. That鈥檚 not to say they were bad teachers; in fact they were in the main very good and full of enthusiasm for their subjects, which got through to us.

The food was plain and not very varied and I remember particularly dried bananas and dried eggs both of which I thoroughly enjoyed. Another speciality was green custard which was very sweet and we all enjoyed it. We had to help with the kitchen chores as staff was unavailable. One of my hates was drying 50 dinner plates with a drying up cloth so wet you could wring the water out of it. We also peeled potatoes by putting them in a serrated drum with water and turning the handle which left semi skinless potatoes with extremely rough surfaces.

When there was an air raid warning we had to come down from the second floor to the ground floor and sleep on paliasses, like a cotton duvet filled with a minimum amount of straw, under the tables.

The school had its own platoons of OTC (Officer Training Corps) and eventually the ATC (Air Training Corps) I was in the OTC and transferred to the ATC. My main memories are polishing brass and blancoeing webbing and, particularly wearing Puttees. Strips of material wound round your legs beneath trousers which were essentially Plus-Fours. The trick to make them fit was to put them on tightly and then stand in a ditch full of water and let them dry on your legs. Having marked left and right they fitted perfectly after that. In the ATC I rose to Sergeant and could recognise all the constellations, silhouettes of British and German aircraft and do Morse Code.

Because it was war time the school did its bit for the war effort by helping the local farmers. This produced some of my best times and some of the worst times. Potato picking was one of the worst. It meant following a tractor which towed a flail which lifted the potatoes. We each had a wicker work trugg or basket which you dragged along the wet ground, getting heavier and heavier with mud, and filling it with potatoes. It was nearly impossible to distinguish stones from potatoes. We prayed for the tractor to break down and hatched plans to sabotage it. It did break down sometimes.

One day we planted spring onions in a field. We had to 鈥渄ib鈥� a hole with a pointed piece of wood, insert the onion and then consolidate the hole. Not only was it back breaking but produced a huge blister on the palm of your hand. One of the bonuses was swimming in a bomb crater at the top of the field filled with yellow stagnant water. At least it was warm! When we went back the next day to finish the field all the onions had been washed into the ditch at the bottom of the field by a heavy storm in the night so we never finished the job.

The best job was bringing the hay wagon back to the farm. We could sit on top and let the horse take us back because he knew the way. Another good job was herding the cows back for milking. We had a great sense of power because we could hold up what few cars there were quite legitimately.

In September 1944 I left school and joined de Havilland鈥檚 Technical School as a student. The first year was spent at Salisbury Hall near London Colney before we went on to do our training in the factory and offices and at night school. When we heard a V1 Doodlebug approaching (some of the long distance ones got this far) we all rushed out to watch it and saw it cut out and eventually land with an explosion. It was pure technical interest without any thought of danger. Early in 1945 a friend and I were working on his car in Hendon and we heard the supersonic bang of a V2 rocket followed by an enormous explosion followed shortly afterwards by several hot pieces of shrapnel landing in the snow beside us and sizzling. Again there was no thought of fear only technical interest.

Since aircraft production was a reserved occupation I was never called up and so never served any time in the armed forces. Also, when I eventually got a car, I had an extra petrol ration to travel to and from work.

In my time in the factory I worked on Mosquitos and Hornets. These were made of sandwich construction of plywood and balsa wood. The fuselages were made in two halves and stuck together just like an airfix model. I remember conducting a group of RAF pilots round the factory and this sight nearly destroyed their faith in the aircraft.

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