大象传媒

Boyhood wartime memories of the 鈥楤lack Tom鈥� area of Bedford

An edited oral history interview with Mr. Jim Pearson conducted by Ann Hagen on behalf of Bedford Museum.

鈥淚 was born in 1934 and I went to Clapham Road School. I started there in 1939. It was OK for the first couple of years that was OK - full time but then of course Owen School came up, I believe they came from Walthamstow, London. Because they used to take over so many of the classrooms so many half days a week. So if we weren鈥檛 in the shelters and you were having a morning off because Owen School were coming, so you鈥檇 forget to go back so you鈥檇 have half a days wag as well. At the end of the day I don鈥檛 suspect we had a lot of school. Although when I think of the standard of education, it was pretty good because I think I was learning algebra when I was about nine and when you talk to lads that were coming in as apprentices they were quite thick on mathematics. I don鈥檛 think education is as good these days as it was then although there was a shortage of teachers because half of them were in the Army or Air Force.

I remember the 大象传媒 Orchestra, they came to Bedford. Every week one of them would come into the hall at Clapham Road and demonstrate one of their instruments so we always had a demonstration with one of the instruments. And then they鈥檇 be another afternoon were we鈥檇 be doing camouflage for vehicles, you know the big nets with the pieces of hessian, us kids would be in there weaving the hessian into the nets, that was at school.

When I was 11, that was in 1945 I went to Harpur Central School, Bedford. That鈥檚 where I was and I look at Argos now and I think this was the Boy鈥檚 Hall. Because on the other side of the road used to be the Police Station in Horne Lane and Charles Well鈥檚 Brewery. Peacock鈥檚 sale yard next to the school, next to the Girl鈥檚 Hall.

Robinson Pool - that used to be an air raid shelter during the war. Nobody could ever have gone in there because it was always flooded. It was a big shelter but as the slope went down the water came half way up the slatted doors, so if you had gone in there you would have drowned.

I always remember as well, thinking back, as I say we us kids, we used to walk up to Thurleigh airfield and where the Americans were re-loading the bombers, the B17s, ammunition they used just throw in the hedge. They used to park them alongside the hedge, we used to walk over and come back with ammunition out of the guns, you know. And there was always a pine tree at the top of Bedford Park got a hole in it we used to put a tin plate in there with candles and let this ammunition off. We were mad weren鈥檛 we?

Of course on the corner of Kimbolton Road and Park Avenue, opposite Park Hotel there was an Army camp there then, there were no houses at all. And all Park Avenue there were Bren gun carriers all under the trees and trucks so we used to go down us kids and we鈥檇 be down there and we used to be peeling spuds and shelling peas just to get a ride in the Bren gun carrier. We used to go trundling up the road. Happy days, happy days!

Where the football field is, or the pitch is above the lake in Bedford Park, that big patch of grass, there were glider traps all over there. Where they鈥檇 dug deep pits and in between the pits there was a heap of soil so you鈥檇 got a pit, heap, to stop gliders from landing there. Us kids, we used to fight in those because they were always full of water.

The (Bedford) Park lake was half full of debris, that where the grass snakes used to hatch out in there, there was always reeds at the far end, we used to take these grass snakes back to school with us. We used to put them sauces bottles, these grass snakes. At the bottom of this road, Brickhill Drive and Larkway, there used to be a big newt pond there, because it鈥檚 all filled. Where the Pilgrim School is, or what was, that was all cornfields. These used to be all grassy fields we used to play up here we played up here as kids. But the newt pond and there always used to be two hay stacks, always two hay stacks just as you came out, there used to be a stile from the park. Us kids used to bore holes right through these hay stacks and the number of times they got burnt to the ground, I don鈥檛 think they ever survived as hay stacks because somebody would set fire to them. They would go in there with candles, kids would. Brightman, he used to live up in the farm by the pond.

Most of Manton Lane at that time was just a cinder track and the Home Guard had got an outpost at the back, behind the water filtration plant because that鈥檚 where all the water filtration plant was then. Us kids used to use that as our camp, the Home Guard hut. I suspect the Home Guard used to go in there and think whatever is all this. Oh, yes.

I remember as well, we were up a playing field where Sainsbury鈥檚 is now, that used to be the playing field for Clapham Road School and also for Harpur Central School. We were up there and we saw a plane going into the hillside opposite the Angler鈥檚 Rest, crashed into there. So, us kids thought, oh, get some perspex, we used to make rings out of perspex, hot poker you can make a hole with it. So we went over the hill went down the other side, I believe it was something like a Wellington had got in there. There was all this wreckage and right down on the main road, the RAF Rescue gang had got their big Queen Mary, that鈥檚 a big recovery wagon, they saw us kids in the wreck so they started shouting at us. I remember we got one of the big wheels, one of the wheels was laying there and we trundled it down the hill at them. I can see the wheel bounding down the hill, all these RAF blokes scattering left, right and centre. All we did was pinch this metal seat frame. I think from what they used to have in their parachute, that used to be like their cushion sort of thing so it was just this metal frame. Of course we couldn鈥檛 carry it so we threw it over the hedge. I know for years and years after that frame still laid in the hedge at the top there.

But we used to go all over the place where bombs had dropped to get shrapnel. When the landmines dropped over Queens Park down Honey Hill Road, got loads of shrapnel there. I always remember my mum as well, she got me out of bed one night, she said, 鈥淵ou look at this, you鈥檒l always remember it.鈥� Which I have done. It was an incendiary bomb going off over Russell Park and they used to call them 鈥榖read baskets鈥� and it was just coming down on a parachute and it all sprung off and I can see that as if it was yesterday, strange isn鈥檛 it? She said, 鈥淵ou鈥檒l always remember that.鈥� It was just sparking out, all these incendiaries where coming out the main canister, yes, that鈥檚 how incendiary bombs used to go, they came down on a parachute from what I remember. Because the incendiaries used to be about this length and one inch and a half diameter.

Just down the road next to the driveway that went up to the big house in Clapham there were eaves down there that had always got young owls in it. We used to go there every year and have these young owls and play about with them and put them back, there was always owls about when we first moved up here.

During the battle, when the war was on, we had an allotment where Texas (on Manton Lane) is now, we had big allotments up there. And we used to go up there and look towards London, you could see all the searchlights and all the bombs going off, you could see the flashes. All during the 鈥楤litz鈥�, my dad, he was ARP and he was up in the docks in London for weeks on end up there.

The night (on 29/30th July 1942) that Laxton鈥檚 house at the bottom of Putnoe Lane got blown up, he was back here at that time, but he was working on that bomb. Myself, my mum and my sister and an evacuee girl from Hastings, we were standing in the street and we were looking down Gladstone Street and we saw the fires, the incendiaries. But we thought they were the other side of St. Paul鈥檚 Church, because as you look straight down you can see St. Paul鈥檚 spire but in actual fact it was down Peel Street and Tavistock Street where the fire was but to us it looked like was behind. But the bomber that dropped that bomb there, came over the Modern School playing field the other side of Gladstone Street and we saw it go straight over the house. And when he dropped the bomb the blast hit the other side of the street and it blew us all up the hallway in the house. I remember that. We were fortunate in a way because we didn鈥檛 have any electricity in the house, there was no electricity, only next door had got electricity we were all gas, nearly everybody was gas, gas lighting. So when there was a power cut we were OK, we could turn the mantle down. Oh, yes the blast blew us all up the stairs, I remember that. Peel Street, I remember when they got bombed and Tavistock Street. I remember kids coming in next day with the spent shells, incendiary bombs, bring them into school.

We didn鈥檛 see any fear of the war, it was a big game to us kids. I don鈥檛 think I ever went hungry one day in the war. I mean there was always food. My granddad he lived out in the country, my uncles lived out there, there was always a rabbit, there was always a hare and there were always eggs. As I say my dad, he had this allotment so we never went hungry as far as food was concerned, I think most other kids were the same as well.

Then there was a family who used to live in Adelaide Square. One of them, his brother was in the Merchant Navy and I remember he鈥檇 come home on a ship and he鈥檇 brought some bananas. He brought these bananas into school and the whole school, to show us what a banana was! Yes. When you think, so what! What鈥檚 a banana but we hadn鈥檛 seen a banana. Strange!

Oh, there was a street party. There were parties down Russell Park because my sister, she was five years older than me, she lives in Dorset now, yes she took me down to Russell Park. We had a great time, super.鈥�

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