大象传媒

I am a volunteer working for the 大象传媒's Peoples War Project and I am writing this story on behalf of James Edward Taylor.
I lived in Birmingham when I was a lad in the 1930's and round about 1938 when the crisis was on the primary school ceased to function as it was needed for a casualty clearing station and I did not go to school for weeks and weeks. I passed for the Grammar school at Aston. I was ready to go in 1940 when the bombing started. On the 26th July 1940 I caught the 220 bus from Worcester Street Birmingham with others to join the Grammar School which had been moved to Ashby de la Zouch.
The X99 Nottingham bus set off from Worcester Street Birmingham and the first thing I remember is when we went through Sutton Coldfield the houses stopped and the countryside began. It was a glorious Summers day and I was so impressed with it.
I had seen the countryside but only for a day out in Sutton Park.
It took two hours to get to Ashby, abut 30 miles away.
Ashby was a little town of 5,000 people and we ended up at the Manor House where the school was based. The castle ruin ws on one side, the parish church on the other and a huge lawn. I had never seen anything like it.
I was put in a dormitary with fifteen others, my new friends, the school started in September and while waiting we were taken out for walks.
I was transferred to another house, St. Helens, a Georgian house fronting the main street and that is where I spent the next four years.
The Battle of Britain was then on and the sirens went every night and we spent all the nights in the cellars.
The dormitary I was in at "Saints" ovrlooked the open countryside and I could see the barrage balloons over Derby about 15 miles away. I had an American penfriend and I wrote and told him this and it was censored and he could not read it.
I recall the night of November 14th when we sneaked up out of the cellars during an air raid, looking towards the South West towards Coventry, that was the night they wiped out Coventry. I could see the shell fire and flashes and hear the bangs.
The first time I saw my parents ws at Christmas when were allowed home for a couple of days and I can remember the devastation in Erdington.
At first I was homesick but once I got established with new friends I enjoyed being there. There were thirty of us in the house of various ages and two of the friends I made there I am still in touch with ocassionally.
We used to go to Ashby Grammar school for two hours in the afternoon to use their lab. We had a love of the countryside, birds nesting and walks. One little story, we used to go out collecting wood as fuel was short, we were coming back with a load of wood abut 4 -5 of us I was the youngest and we decided to take a short cut through the disused railway tunnel which was about 1/4 mile long, we were about 2/3 through the tunnel (a single track) and we heard the whistle of an engine. Looking back along the tunnel there was a train coming. We dropped the wood and started to run. As I was the youngest by far and wasn't keeping up I was behind the others. I saw an alcove in the wall which I sank into and the engine roared by. The others appeared white faced at the end of the tunnel looking for me. I never went in to the tunnel again!
We also used to go beating for the local gentry, they liked us because we took an interest in it. We got to have tea in some really posh houses. We also had to go spud picking, this was compulsary and we got paid about two pence halfpenny an hour, just enough for a cup of tea in the local cafe.

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