大象传媒

BOURNEMOUTH AT WAR. AN INTRODUCTION TO ALL MY STORIES.

I AM SURE THE READERS WILL UNDERSTAND THAT AT SIX I DID NOT JOIN UP ANY REAL ARMY OR FORCE BUT WE HAD TO BE AWARE OF OUR OWN IMPORTANCE AS THE PROSPECTIVE NEXT GENERATION WHO WOULD NOT PUT UP WITH MR HITLER. ALL OUR DOINGS AT THAT VERY YOUNG AGE WAS BORN OF A VERY VIVID IMAGINATION. WE WERE A LITTLE BUT WELL DISCIPLINED GANG.
MAINLY OF COURSE WE WERE RESPONDING TO MR. CHURCHILL'S SUGGESTION TO FIGHT THEM ON THE BEACHES AND ON THE ROADS. WELL ON OUR FIRST VISIT TO BOURNEMOUTHS LOVELY BEACH WE FOUND SCAFFOLDING AMD BARBED WIRE ERECTED TO KEEP US OFF. NATURALLY WE WERE SADLY DISALLUSIONED WITH POLITICIANS AFTER THAT.

THE ROADS WE PLAYED IN WERE OUR ROADS. THE BOMB SITES, NO LONGER GUARDED, NEEDED INVESTIGATING,OR SO WE THOUGHT NO MATTER HOW FAR AWAY FROM HOME. WE WERE ALWAYS IN A GANG AND I HAD A GO CART WHICH USUALLY CAME WITH US ON OUR TRAVELS THROUGH THE WAR FRONT OF BOURNEMOUTH. WE DID SO MUCH THAT I AM PLEASED TO POSSESS AN EXCELLENT MEMORY ENABLING ME TO RELATE THE STORIES. IF ANYONE HAS A POTOGRAPH OF THE ROYAL BLUE BUS DEPOT IN THOSE DAYS OR ANY TIME I WOULD BE VERY PLEASED TO SEE IT. ALTHOUGH ALL THE STORIES IN MY JOURNAL ARE TRUE I HAVE ENDEAVOURED TO WRITE IN A LIGHT HEARTED, TONGUE IN THE CHEEK STYLE.

I KNOW THAT WAR IS A TERRIBLE TIME BUT YOU WILL FORGIVE ME FOR SOUNDING AS IF I ENJOYED THOSE YEARS OF MY LIFE. WE DID HAVE SOME BOMBS IN OUR TOWN BUT OTHER TOWNS NOT SO FAR AWAY SUCH AS SOUTHAMPTON AND PORTSMOUTH WHICH I VISITED MANY TIMES WERE REALY BLITZED. MAYBE I WOULD BE LOOKING BACK WITH DARKER SPECTACLES IF I HAD GROWN UP IN A HEAVILY BOMBED TOWN. I WILL TALK ABOUT THE BOMBS AND AIR CRASHES IN DUE COURSE.
I would like to add a couple of items of interest which surprise me. They concern me in person. I was very lucky to be around at all. As a very young boy I had contacted Polio (In those days known as Infantile Paralysis. There were three cases in Bournemouth.) I was allowed ot of hospital on my sixth birthday and back to schooling straight away. The only disadvantage left was a near useless left arm.It was intended that I started to learn to play the piano, As it happenned My family took me to see relations at Southampton, Later heavily bombed. My cousin got out his piano accordion and I was sold on having one myself in preference to a piano. It was seen to be a good exercise for my arm and the wish was granted. Well I had one of the Towns top musicians (Later to have his own Band and Broadcasting from London) Jan Wildeman. He came to give me lessons every Sunday morning and I got along very well and built up quite a repetoire. I am very proud with myself when I look back on those days and realise it was less than two years into my musical efforts that I played in a Concert at the PAVILION THEATRE BALLROOM and at the age of eight I was made a star protoge. The audience consisted of Canadian airman billoted in Bournemouth. They gave me a great reception and all joined in singing the songs softly so as not to spoil the sound of my playing. The only request was that I wantedan orange spotlight which was kindly fixed for me. I can still remember each of the tunes in my act. They includedthe popular hits of the time My Hearts With A Convoy. When They Sound The Last All Clear, Russian Lullaby, Vienna City Of My Dreams,Yours, Apple Blossom Time and many more. My reward at the end of the show was a box
of Frys Chocolate. Well received in those days of shortage. That was in 1941 in 1942 My sister married a Policeman and their first child was a daughter. the picture I enclose is of the Four generations and little me. This was taken in the rear garden our house at 144 Green Road. The wall behind the group was a blast wall put up on every home to give one safe room from blast.
I continued to appear in shows all over the Town for various groups and when oportunity arose the gang and I would be investigating the bomb sites or the rare aircraft crashes. At the end of the hostilities my mother Mrs Lavinia Wilson was the one chose by gthe neighbours to oraganise a grand party and celebration event in the kindly cleaned out Royal Blue garage lent for the occasion. There was a wonderful sit down meal and the Mayor of Bournemouth honoured us with a visit in the afternoon. WELL the children had there do and in the evening a band came along for dancing. It was quite a do I remember playing my accordion with them. I was then twelve years of age. An age at which the gang and I demobilised. No more Bomb sites. No more Air Raids or planes flying over to bomb Germany. No more German planes on the way to bomb the midlands. The biggest miss of all were the generous and friendly YANKS. Together with our men they all disappeared over the night of fith of June. To think we had seen them preparing their vehicles with grease to keep out those waters of Northern France.
Some fifty years later I stood in the American Cemetary with the thousands of graves and wept unshamedly at the thought of our friends enjoying their few months in Bournemouthe and then many of them now beneath one of the so precisely placed white crosses.
I should like to dedicate my writing to their
memory.