大象传媒

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I was 16 when the war started. I decided to go into war work rather than the forces and joined Cross鈥檚, which was taken over by Henry Hughes of London. They made scientific instruments.

I mainly tested bomb sights for aeroplanes. We had to line the sights up accurately and test them. Wounded airmen would often come down to see the work we were doing. About 40 of us worked in a separate prefabricated building near the water tower called The Hut on the Hill. Not everyone was local. Some people came from London and were billeted in Dunstable and some who were married took over property and then stayed here after the war. I was living with my parents at home and remained at Cross鈥檚 during and after the war. We worked from 8 am until 5.30pm Monday to Friday and sometimes on Saturday mornings. A lot of London firms came here and took over different places

My father was a special constable at the police station in the high street. He used to be called out at all hours of the day and night. He was in the First World War so he was too old to go to war again. Mainly, he used to round up the rowdies - the forces when they came into town on a Saturday night. They鈥檇 put them in taxis and send them back to camp. They had to patrol the streets but there wasn鈥檛 much going on; it was just a market town.

We had lots of troops billeted in the town of all different nationalities. The Anglian regiment who were billeted here were foot soldiers. The local regiment, the Beds and Herts were billeted here. The Yanks, they were billeted at Cheddington. They were the rowdy ones. There were a lot of gliders in Woburn Park. We were very lucky we had no bombing in the town.

We used to have dances every Saturday night in the old town hall. There was a local band called Fred James and his Band and sometimes there was a dance at the Drill Hall near Tavistock Street. You didn鈥檛 go far because of the blackout but you weren鈥檛 afraid to walk about on your own. I walked home at midnight from the dances and it was quite safe to do that kind of thing then.

If you wanted to go to the dances at the George Hotel in Luton, you sometimes had to walk home as the buses stopped at about 10 o鈥檆lock. During the day you could get buses but they weren鈥檛 very frequent. If you wanted to go anywhere you went on your bike.

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