大象传媒

My wartime memories of Bedford as a schoolboy Part Three 鈥� The 鈥楬ome Front鈥�

Part three of an oral history interview with Mr. Peter Cook conducted by Jenny Ford on behalf of Bedford Museum.

鈥淥ur railings from the front garden wall went, we made all these sacrifices and I have since learnt it was pointless, there was no need for them, they were all dumped in the North Sea. I can remember, for example, walking along the pavement and there was a post sticking up and on the top there was a kind of sloping tray effect painted a certain kind of green. And we were told that this was to detect poison gas and that we had to watch these things very carefully, especially if there had been an air raid. I mean just walk along the road a little way and there would be one sticking out of the ground. But they would be placed periodically, just off of the edge of the pavement, fence high as far as I remember. Because if there was poison gas in the atmosphere these trays would change colour and this was very much part of my daily life. That was one thing that I do recall from a very early period.

But I know that life in Goldington was strange because up the hill towards Putnoe there were rumours of a place that was doing secret war work. It turned out to be I think some kind of R & D place for Pobjoys or something like that anyway, they were connected with war work and needless to say, because I used to roller skate up that hill out into the country. I used to roller skate for miles and when we went past there you know there was this building set right back in this spinney, it looked secretive.

That鈥檚 shared with another memory were again as a very impressionable young man I remember roller skating up the hill, or trying to and there was a field over to my left and there was this awful smell. And I looked across and there with tractors or whatever they were dragging carcasses of cows onto this pile. When I got to the top of the hill, entry to the field, 鈥楩orbidden鈥�, 鈥楩oot and Mouth鈥� notice, a very haunting experience for me as well. Because to me the open countryside was a place of release and calm that was all to change very dramatically a few years later because on the other side of Manor Road there was this big open area for Laxton鈥檚 Nurseries. Laxton, he became quite a well know name, the Laxton 鈥楽uperb鈥� was quite a well know apple. And it was a big wide open area and just beyond and just over the hill was Putnoe.

Now another vivid memory of mine is that one evening, late evening, the siren sounded, this was a bit later on in the war and when the siren sounded we just ducked under the stairs in the cupboard. But something prompted me to just step outside for a moment and I could hear this noise. And I say I was very keen on aircraft and we got used to different engine notes but this note was totally unmistakable, it was the continuous, steady, brrrr, brrrr, brrrr, of a flying bomb, and then silence! And we knew what to expect. A few moments later it landed and we heard this tremendous crummp and it had landed over by Putnoe and one of the casualties was Laxton himself.

It was uncanny, wasn鈥檛 it? One bomb and wide open countryside, but that was so typical of what happened in the war. My Aunt was moved to us, she lived in Wandsworth, London, my Uncle stayed on in London because he was head of a big stables of one of the big London breweries. He reported back how a bomb had landed and a whole parade of shop had their windows blown out but for one. One window remained intact it is uncanny, isn鈥檛 it? The effects of blast couldn鈥檛 be properly judged or allowed for of course so you just did what was necessary.

Whilst my father was at home he was quite an enterprising chap and one thing was with the chap across the road, they got together and because of the fear of incendiary bombs and the ARP, Air Raid Precautions people, he and this chap devised one or two things. First thing they realised was there鈥檇 be a need for quick access to lofts because that鈥檚 where a lot of the damage was being done. You see he and this chap got together and they devised a kind of ladder which made quick access up into the loft. His name was Sands and my father鈥檚 name was Cook so they put two together and invented the SandCo ladder. You won鈥檛 get it in the shops now-a-days but nevertheless I quote this because it was an example of his enterprise and also a reflection of the times.

As well as the SandCo ladder my father and this chap, Will Sands, devised a kind of blind because you put up the blackouts draping this cloth, it was so messy, so dusty, so ugly. So they did fitments, measured up the windows and then they had a solid board with handles that they could ease up, swing clips round and not only did that of course provide complete black out but good blast proofing of the window. We still had of course these criss cross strips but there were these blackout blinds effectively. But apart from that we didn鈥檛 really suffer too much in the way of bombing.

This is a wee bit of a diversion but the point is that father was a colliery agent, he worked for Cossall Colliery in Derbyshire but this was in the 1930s before the Act which took over the mines and all that kind of thing. But when he was lost the Colliery was for a while still quite good and I remember that in January or so of 1940 mother paid in a cheque for something like a 拢10 for one week. Now 拢10 a week in those days was jolly good going and father had shared some of his dreams with me. He used to tell me how when he鈥檇 come out he would buy a big country house, he had thoughts of buying a Rover car, as a boy of course these impressed me, and he was a very ambitious man. He had some kind of office in the WEA - he used to go over to Cambridge for meetings and that sort of thing. He was very friendly with a chap who 鈥� well there is a firm of solicitors in Bedford now 鈥� I just can鈥檛 for the moment remember what his name was but they were you know quite good friends. These people would turn up at the house during the late 1930s and that of course I was too young to be introduced or anything like that, I wasn鈥檛 too young to eavesdrop but I was too young to be introduced and I would form certain impressions. But you see then with the advent of war and what happened to father, responsibility devolved on me quite a lot because mother had a breakdown. So the Colliery must have been quite good because they sent, I can only imagine it was a token, bits of work to do, all paperwork of course nothing demanding so that went on. My Aunt I had who was living up towards the top of Midland Road, anyway her husband was in the Merchant Navy, he was torpedoed and that was another thing. He survived but it left him very ill and he subsequently died. I do remember, oh, I think it was Priory Street.

Now another remarkable thing happened, it was, I don鈥檛 know what it is like now because it鈥檚 been ages since I鈥檝e been in Bedford and certainly in that area, but Priory Street there was a kind of honeycomb of streets, you鈥檇 have a street going along and another street crossing there and another street, the next street running parallel and it was incredible how it happened but there was a young man, he was in the Air Force and he was flying an American fighter, a plane called an Airacobra I think it was, anyway he had just got his wings and he was flying over Bedford and he must have been showing off to his parents or something. Something went wrong and he just nose dived into the house. He was decapitated of course and another detail which would impress me very much and he brought an aura to that area you see. But it was the kind of thing that was going on.

Then for example, when I was living in Manor Road which was much more in the country, again I had a friend there he was a bit of a gruesome character. If he heard that there had been a plane crash out in the country he would cycle out to it. And there was this German bomber that had crashed in a field and obviously before the Police or the Army could get to it to fence it off he got up there. And he, well he was just kicking over something, you know how young lads do, just kick clods of earth, underneath was a hand with a wrist watch on it! So he brought the wrist watch home! And this was the sort of thing you see which was influencing my life. You would go to bed at night there was no guarantee at all that you would be around the next morning.

Mother used to send me out on errands on a Saturday morning and off the Goldington Road there was a small grocers and well it wasn鈥檛 a market garden but it was that type of thing. And I was walking along the road and I heard this noise and again, I thought I knew what it was and it was two, well it would be American Air Force Mustangs flying along side by side. I thought, that鈥檚 funny there鈥檚 two of them. What had happened was they had clipped wings and one just went straight into the ground. That was over Bedford.鈥�

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.