大象传媒

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I was born in Poperinge Belgium 02/06/27
This short story of my life is dedicated to my Children and Grand Children in order that they may have some knowledge of my life from as early as I can recall.
I should I believe start by explaining my parentage, as this has a great part in what I have to say.

My Father Albert Douglas Chapman was the Son of a wealthy jeweler in Portsmouth and he had Brothers and Sisters, However Dad was the black sheep of the Family and at the age of 14 was put on a boat to Canada and told to make his own way in life, on arrival in Canada he secured employment as a apprentice motor mechanic which in turn proved to be very wise as will be seen at a later date. At the start of World War One he volunteered for the Canadian Army, serving in Belgium and Northern France for the duration of the war. Whilst serving in Belgium he became very friendly with a Belgium Family whose house was used as a small cafe specialising in the supply of egg and chips which if the soldiers were a little low on funds was paid for by providing a small amount of coal.
Dad did I understand occasionally pay in this way but I never asked him where the coal came from, he was however a person who always managed to get over problems and as Poperinge was a major rail
clearing depot I suspect that as train fuel was coal this was his source of
supply. Mr & Mrs Tally who owned the small Cafe had two Daughters who were evacuated to Switzerland for the duration of the war.

At the end of the war my father remained in Belgium and became an employee of the Imperial War Graves Commission, the main part of the job at that time being the locating and exhumation of the bodies of soldiers who had been buried where they fell and following recovery being buried in a proper war graves cemetery. Father was at all times in touch with the Tally Family and at the end of the war met their daughters who had returned from Switzerland, one of these daughters was Bertha .Love blossomed, Wedding bells rang and Bertha Tally became Bertha Chapman
I had two brothers, Albert who was 3 years older than me and Harold who is 5 years younger. Albert was born in England and therefore had British Nationality.
My parents were at the time of the arrival of Harold and I living in Northern France and by the laws of that country would be, if born there registered as of French nationality, Mother therefore returned to Belgium for our Births as in Belgium you retain your Fathers Nationality and we were indeed registered as British and given birth certificates by the British Consulate in Antwerp.
My brother Albert was sent, I believe it was in 1935, to live with a Aunt In
Faringdon Berks for British education coming back to France during the
school holidays, he did not therefore become involved in our escape from
the Germans in May 1940.

My earliest recollection as a child was at the age of five when we went to
Belgium for the birth of my younger brother Harold, this was in a Convent and I clearly recall the convent gardens and the tranquility and statues, this is also my first recollection of my Grandparents though I was told that we had seen each other many times before.
At this particular time we were living in Albert which is in Northern
France and following the birth of Harold we moved to a very small village called Heilly Sur Ancre in the Somme, father at that time having been appointed caretaker of Heilly War Graves Cemetery which contained just over 5000 graves.
Heilly had as near as I can recall about 135 inhabitants, it had a chateau and numerous tunnels went beneath the village, my childhood was very happy and many hours were spent with friends exploring these tunnels with the aid of oil soaked rags alight on the end of sticks, as one oily rag was about to go out we would light another going as far as we dared with sufficient left for the return trip, some of these explorations would last a hour or more, it was said that Gold statues worth a vast amount of money had been hidden somewhere within these tunnels in the 1st World War but we never managed to find any thing. AII my school friends were French and my sole education was French and the only English which I spoke was indoors or when visiting other British families.
In all fairness to the French I can with all honesty say that I was at all times treated as French without any comment being made regarding my British nationality.
This was entirely different to the treatment received from English children and a few adults for a few months after our escape and arrival in England.
However to continue .Our many activities as children involved playing with many military armaments found in old trenches and fields much of which was live ammunition from which we extracted the gunpowder and used this for burning out ants nests or laid a trail as far as a rabbit hole throwing more powder as far as we could in the hole and then lighting the end of the trail and waiting for the large puff of smoke to come out of the rabbit hole. The amount of old material which kept coming to the top of the earth through natural soil movement over the years was amazing and indeed this did include remains of soldiers. Albert found one in a copse and I found one under a large sheet of tin. Strange as it may seem no accidents occurred with all the playing around on old battlefields and we were not affected by the discovery of human remains.

On the 11th of November each year the entire school attended at the
War Graves Cemetery where we each laid a posy of flowers at the base of the Cross of Sacrifice and a local person would play the Last Post on his
bugle at 11 am. I do recall that this was always an emotional experience.
I do believe that this is sufficient about my pre-war life and I will continue from the date of arrival of British troops in our locality in 1939.

The arrival of British troops was rather sudden this been in the form of a number of military lorries and a small staff car. There had not been any previous indication that they were anywhere near our area and as soon as the lorries had stopped the soldiers got out of the lorries and were relieving themselves at the nearby trees 4 or 5 to each tree trunk, it was quite a amusing sight indicating that they had been traveling without a stop for quite a long distance, others were calling to the villagers W.C. ---W.C. which the French did not understand. 1 understood what they wanted and within a very short space of time they were all doing what comes naturally in a private and dignified manner. It did not take long before an officer asked my Mother for consent for me to act as a interpreter and I then went with this officer to see the village Mayor who was told that his men would be billeted in a farm in the station road and that his assistance in negotiating agreement with the farmer concerned would be appreciated.
In the meantime Dad had come home and we as the local British family were in a great deal of contact with numerous soldiers who wanted as much information as possible about ourselves and expressing the desire to be friends with the local inhabitants.
Everything went well; the villagers did everything possible to help even doing the laundry as the troops had no facilities. I was also in demand when the soldiers realised that I was a very capable poacher and they watched in amazement when I caught trout by the tickling method in one stream and pikes with aid of a section of fishing rod with a very thin strand of wire at the end and a noose suspended a short distance from the tip of the rod, the art was to watch for basking pike in the stream, slip a noose from behind without touching the fish as far as just behind the gills and then with a very sharp upward tug lift the pike out of the water. The soldiers were always pleased with the additions to the army food including eels which I caught in my eel traps in the river at the bottom of our garden and rabbits which I caught in snares; I did not seek reward but certainly did not go short of chocolate. Enough about me for the moment.

My Mother and Father became very friendly with one soldier who in the winter of 1939 had pneumonia and as there was no military hospital was allowed by his commanding officer to stay with us where he would receive all the help possible including assistance from a medical officer who due to the circumstances could not provide comfort and warmth. This Soldiers name was Korky Newcombe and he was prior to having been called up a Bus conductor in Exeter, he was quite young and soon became accepted as a member of our household. Time passed the soldiers were still in our village but it became obvious that the tide of battle was not in our favour and that we ourselves may have to try and return to England,

The Imperial War Graves Commission would not agree to allow employees to leave until orders arrived from headquarters. The commanding officer indicated that the troops could be leaving at any time and he arranged for an ample supply of petrol to be given to us in order that we may be able to get away as and when necessary. Korky told us that he had told his wife about us and informed us that it had been agreed with her that if we managed to reach England we were to make direct to Exeter and stay there until we could settle into a home of our own.

Little did we think that we would be leaving within 48 hours. The following day and this was in May 1940 the troops unloaded their lorries in the village green area outside our house the boxes then being covered over with canvas sheets. The next morning we discovered that the troops had gone, but the supplies were still on the village green.
At that time we heard the noise of aeroplanes and by standing on the green and looking over the roof of our house I could see that the sky was full of black aeroplanes and that parachutists were jumping from these planes.
A few minutes later and as we were standing outside our house a German
armoured scout car approached and Dad told us to get indoors but he and I were still outside when it came to a stop in front of us .One of the soldiers asked for the English and Father replied in French no English here, I took a step forward and looked in the scout car and at the same time as a gun was pointed at me I said to dad in French there are 3 soldiers inside and stepped back to my fathers side, The Germans continued asking the direction in which the British troops had gone and dad said he did not know as they had gone during the night. The Germans said that we had better have been telling the truth and fired a few bullets near us as a warning. They then drove over to the stores left by the British troops and were looking at piles of new boots and underwear etc, they each took some boots and then drove away. Dad then told Mother that we would be leaving in a few minutes and that another British family who were not involved with the War Graves Commission would be joining us, he had quite obviously been prepared for this for some time as he said the other family would be prepared and waiting for us and he then got our car out of the garage.
To my amazement the car had been fully prepared, it was a small bullet shaped open topped car with 2 small seats in the rear section and to the back had been strapped a small handcart with the handles sticking in the air, suitcases and petrol cans were strapped to the front mudguards.
We then called at the other family house and both vehicles left Heilly with the intention of making for Calais.

Part two of my story covers the remainder of the war in UK.

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