大象传媒

Maybe I was lucky to see things, other people did not have the chance to see. My father was the carrier for what was then the LMS Railway Company and I have memories of him delivering the Anderson air raid shelters which came by rail, that was even before war had been declared!!
And as was the practise at that time, a lot of product was carried by rail.
As a young boy of 9 鈥� 10 every chance I got to go with him as you might guess I was there.
This chance increased, as one night during an air raid a bomb hit my school, which was Landsdown Road School.
This completely destroyed the senior section, so for some considerable time I had no school to go to.
The authorities did come up with the idea of the teachers coming round to the homes of some of the children, where it was possible. My mother agreed, but this was only one afternoon a week, when about six or eight other children who lived close by came for about two or three hours, so my education was almost nil at the time. After quite some time we did go back to school and were accommodated within the infant section but as you may guess they were very large classes.
But as I stated earlier this gave me the chance to go with my father and in that respect I got what is now called work experience.
At one time we were carting ammunition into Tilbury fort and what is now known as the parade ground in the centre was full of brick built storage sheds where this was stored. I was told that this ammunition could have been antiaircraft shells of 3.7. This was not primed as the shells were separate from the brass carterage cases, but I thought it was good that I could carry these shells ECT.
Also we were taking Bailey Bridge sections into the fort and storing them on the surround land as these were quite large we used a very old hand crane (I say we, I was told to keep well away) this crane was fixed onto a railway truck and had a wooden jib about eighteen inches square about fifteen to eighteen feet ling it was cranked by hand with a ratchet and a brake for lowering. It would pivot round, once again by hand this meant the railway truck to be unloaded had to be moved to the crane by hand again whatever had to be lifted was cranked up the crane then swung round. The vehicle then manoeuvred under the load and when ready the ratchet was lifted off and the loud lowered onto the vehicle controlled solely by the brake. I believe that the maximum weight that it could lift was about one and a half tons.
Unloading had to be done with crowbars and rollers; there was no health and safety in those days.
I remember one day we tried to take a load to Coalhouse fort, which is a few miles further down the road, but it only had a small gateway (and still does) it was not possible to get in with a loaded lorry so we had to return to Tilbury
A bomb, which hit Tilbury fort, damaged the wall and barrack block but the wall was repaired and the barrack block had to be demolished and only the foundations remain.
One day while making a delivery at the fort there was an air raid and bombs were falling in the river so some of the men including my father took shelter in one of the underground magazines in the wall until they realised there was only one way in and out. So with great hast they took their chance with the bombs and found alternative shelter.
It would have been later in the war when we were carrying ready-drilled steel plates for building an oil storage tank. This was built at the top of a small hill called the Rookery about a mile or so from Tilbury dock, this hill was covered with tall possibly Elm trees, so you can see why it had that name, but after the tank was built it was well camouflaged.
Once again all of the steel was man handled from railway tracks with crowbars and rollers ECT. I felt I did my little bit with a hook on a piece of rope, I stood on the ground in front of the lorry trying to help guide them onto the bolsters over the vehicle cab.
When we arrived at the site the plates were winched to the top of the hill with the tyre of winch you see at the coast to haul fishing smacks up the beach. Then the pipeline was laid in a trench alongside the road into the dock.
I had no idea what it was for at the time but later found out it was the fuel used for the building of the PLUTO LINE, which was the lifeline of fuel across the channel.
The PLUTO LINE structure was like a gigantic cotton reel, which the steel pipes, was wound round. As a young boy at the time I was not allowed into the docks but these structures was easily visible from outside they must have been taller than some ships. The vehicles and equipment parked in every road are memories which can be shared by many people very vivid was the fact if a German plane flew over the boffor guns parked only a few yards from the front doors of many peoples houses would often fire at them.
Tented encampments were on almost every piece of ground and after they were gone, there were all these rings left, where they had dug trenches round the bell tents to try and stop the water getting in, as the weather was very bad with quite a lot of rain.
As with most people small things that happen sticks in ones memory I was one of the choirboys in ST. Johns church Tilbury whether this was for the choir or the choirgirls I cant really say. Friday night was choir practise and after we would go into the church hall which was open to the soldiers with tea and possibly home made cakes. There was table tennis and a darts ECT, the thing that I will always remember was one of the soldiers sketched one of the girls in pencil which we all thought was very good then he added a few more lines and transferred the face into what he thought she would look like when she was much older. Obviously we never knew what happened to that soldier but I sometimes wondered if that young girl kept that sketch and how close to her it turned out to be.
AS I expect with many people as you remember more memories come back to you so to bring these memories to a close I would like to come to about mid 1990 my eldest grandaughter Samantha who like all my grandchildren can twist me round their little fingers. She came to me one day and in the appealing voice she has 鈥済randad we are doing a project at school on World war two have you got anything I could take to school?鈥� so I said 鈥渃ome with me鈥� and we went out into my garage where I said 鈥渉ere you are鈥� and laid in her hands what I had got. She said to me 鈥渨hat is it?鈥� so I said, 鈥渋t鈥檚 a bomb!!鈥� It was an incendiary bomb, I must say it had been cleaned out and made safe. Her face was a picture as she stretched her arms out as if to get further away from it, her eyes popping out of her head. But soon she settled down after I told her it was safe and took it to pieces and showed her the inside. You can imagine arriving at school the next day the other children saying what have you got and she very proudly said 鈥淎 BOMB!!鈥�
The next day I saw her again and in the same voice say 鈥済randad my teacher said would you come and talk to the class about the war. With trepidation I arranged to go on meeting the teacher and the class of nine-year-old boys and girls. I said to the teacher what she thought was the best way to go about it, she suggested to let them ask questions well the half an hour we expected went on until lunch time which showed how interested these young people were and I must say all the questions were very much to the point. This was at the Manorway School Tilbury and I really enjoyed it as well.

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