大象传媒

Mr Douglas Humphries Date of Birth 1.8.1918

A member of the middle class of Bridport people, son of an old established business. Mr Humphries, having been away throughout the war, had a fresh outlook on the appearance of the people and town at the end of hostilities and wanted to help resuscitate the town . His story begins:

I and several young people - there was Tony Palmer, who was a son of the brewery in Bridport, , myself, Larry Whitehead whose father was connected with farming in the area, and we joined the Territorials. It was called then the Royal Engineers, at Weymouth. And we used to go to Weymouth, supposedly to have some training, once a week, on a Thursday evening. Well, it wasn't very long after that that war was declared, but we were called up into the Army before the actual declaration of war. Well, it was called the Royal Engineers, but basically it wasn't very engineering, not at that time. It was anti-aircraft. We had searchlights. That was what we started out the war with. And from that time onwards I only got back to Bridport for leave purposes for, what was it - I think it was eight years. Yes, I used to come back when I had leave and could see the difference then

I was based in England the whole time, although I personally volunteered for other jobs, I wasn't allowed ... well I suppose I became a bit of a specialist in anti-aircraft work and I was kept in that right throughout the active war. We kept moving about. In the first place, I suppose for six months after the war (started) we were sent down into the Plymouth area and we were there when the Plymouth blitz was on, actually in Plymouth - when one night they had the major blitz. It was very frightening. You see we didn't have any modern equipment when the war started. And I mean when it came to all the big cities that were bombed during the night we had hardly any defence. We HAD anti-aircraft guns but not modern ones at that time. And I mean the tragic thing - even searchlights at that time were operated by ear - what they called sound location. They had a gadget like a very large ear trumpet. You had someone who was on the sound locator, and they did very well. The German planes were coming in so low you could almost hit them with a stone at times. So were able to illuminate the German planes but they weren't able to shoot many down not in the early days. But things changed a lot. When it got to about 1943, if we illuminated a plane we could certainly shoot it down, but much of the damage in this country had been done at that time.

It's just come to me - my father was also one of the prominent people in Bridport at that time - he was chairman of the magistrates and they were responsible for keeping the law and order in the area.

When I came back after the war, you were very much aware that Bridport had become run down. I doubt if there was any building work done. Apart from building maintenance. Building materials were licensed. Even after the war. I mean, if windows were smashes, we had to get a permit from the Town Council to provide new glass for the window. And if you wanted a quantity of timber you had to get a licence for that. When I came back it was very obvious that the people that had been managing the area were getting tired, They'd struggled through the war, probably day and night lots of time - I mean people were on aircraft alert and things like that.

Well, all our able-bodied people were all conscripted into the Army and so on. They made do with retired people. That was the reason why, when I came home I said I could see that most of the people in the shop had had as much as they could stand, you know. SOme of the retired people were getting well above working time. And I mean I wasn't .. a lot of people were demobbed before I was, but I was aware when I came back that there were a lot of young people available in the area who'd served in the Army and I was anxious to make sure that they got into work as soon as they could. I became involved in what was - not immediately, but shortly after - called Youth Employment Work, trying to get people that had served in the Army into suitable local employment. You see there weren't any young men in the country at that time (during the war) as they were all conscripted... It was a very different world when we came back, because our own friends and associates had been away and we all had to make new friends and suchlike.

I think that the local farmers were as generous as it was possible to be. If there was any surplus they would help their friends. Whenever I came home during the war there was always a good meal to have! I t was amazing really how we existed. As an isolated island I mean, we came through.

Supplies were greatly restricted. It was impossible to get a lot of things. At one time when I came home on leave - we used to supply a lot of bar iron to blacksmiths and to engineers and to some of the factories. You had a store (of this). We had a good connection with some wholesalers in Bristol and I went and pleaded with them to get some iron for us - and they did help, but not as much as we wanted.

We had connections with twenty blacksmiths in West Dorset and all the factories in Bridport employed their own blacksmiths and engineers. Essential items needed permits, but the ordinary run of things were in short supply in 1941/42.

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