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Prior to September preparations were being made in the event of war,our Anderson shelter had been erected in the small back garden of our council house and talk was not "if war comes" but "when".We schoolchildren had been given a letter for our parents asking if they would like their children evacuatd in the event of war.To my surprise my parents said do you want to go and I said yes.
On the day of our evacuation we were at our school by 8am where a fleet of LPTB buses took us to Paddington station.we each had spare clothing,a home prepared packed lunch and our gas mask.After waiting several hours we set off in our special train,all 300 of us to an unknown destination.
After eating our lunch we arrived at Henley-on-Thames where the welcoming commiteee and the billeting officials were preparing to leave the station,having processed one train load of children."what another lot" I heard someone say.Subsequently we heard that our train was mis-routed and we should have gone to Wiltshire,the emergency billeting list was produced and we were marched around the streets where the residents came out and took their pick.Because I looked well fed I was left until last with another lad and his younger sister and we were taken by an elderly woman with a batchelor son of over 40 years living at home.
We 3 shared one large bedroom and were fed meals of cold meat,fried eggs,greasy chips and bubble and squeak with the occasional hair in it.
While here I had a septic finger and arm and it was only saved from amputation by the local Red Cross nurses,one of whom was Lady Rathcreedan.After a while we 3 were split up as the other boys parents objected to me sharing the bedroom with their daughter. I went to stay with a Mrs.Scott who had one son a POW and another son and daughter living at home and her husband was the manager of the International Stores in Datchet.This was a warm and welcoming house and while here I was allowed to use the bicycle of the POW son.The official government billetting allowance was 10shillings (50p) per week and to this my parents made a direct contribution to my host family of an additional £1 per week.
Schooling was non existant and after a few weeks we took took turn and turn about with the local grammer school which we attended in the afternoon with our teachers.Mornings were spent on their playing field and I remember playing rounders and running circuits around the field in our overcoats.
If raining we had to attend the parish church and sing hymns.During this time we put on at the Town Hall a concert in aid of the "Gallant Finns" who were fighting the "Wicked Bolsheviks" some weeks later they were allied with Germany and fighting us!
We were not long at the grammer school and
our education continued at Park Place,a stately home where the owner,a Captain Noble,was given the choice of having a school or a hospital in the house.We had the use of 3 rooms, a field for sport and our lunch was cooked on the premises.Our metalwork teacher Charlie Gilham obtained equipment from the Oxfordsire County Council to set up a classroom in Henley and he was surprised that it was the first one in Oxfordshire .We had a long walk with our bicycles up White Hill on the Remenham side of the Thames to reach the house.
I remember the visit of a school dentist whose drill was driven by pedal power provided by one of the pupils,he had a go at filling some of my teeth and it was many years before I next visited a dentist to have his handiwork removed.
During our stay at Park Place many pupils drifted home ,either by train or bicycle and role call was often answered by "Went home yesterday".Our middle aged teachers had difficulty in controlling us and groups of bpys and girls created havoc by shop lifting,damage to property,scrumping etc.
During the Blitz I cycled home to East Acton as the locals said there was not a lot happening up there so Iwent to see for myself.My arrival was a surprise and my father said the bombing would start at 8 o'clock,when this time came and nothing was happening he answered me with "They are not running a train service".My presence in the cramped shelter had kept my sister awake for the first time and she panicked so the next day my mother,sister and I went to Henley where they stayed with a Mr and Mrs Crook in Greys Road and I continued to stay with Mrs Scott.While here I had an early morning job in a local dairy between 6-8 am. washing bottles in an outhouse and helping to deliver the milk at the weekend,this had to fit in with schooling.
On the formation of the cadet forces some of our teachers became officers in the ATC and we were drafted in so that they could keep an eye on us in the evenings.I became not a very good tenor drummer in the band,became proficient in small bore rifle shooting and often used to shoot for the ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ Guard in their leagues and go target marking for them at Maidensgrove when they went fullbore shooting.Ammunition was easy to come by and a friend of mine had the use of a smallbore rifle so we attempted to shoot rabbits in the field behind his house until the local pub landlord caught us and said bullets were flying around him in the woods.We also made model aircraft in our ATC workroom above George Hoopers boat shed..Once a year we went for one weeks camp at an RAF station and I flew in Hawker Hector's, which towed a Hotspur glider, and in Airspeed Oxfords.This was at Kidlington and was enjoyable as the food was much better than the civilian population was getting.In 2005 I am still in contact with ex 447 Squadron members.
My mother went to the Billeting Office and we were all three of us moved into a large old house in New Street where we occupied the two attic rooms.The woman collected our billeting allowance and the agreement was that my mother did the cooking and housekeeping for free,it was a large mansion house which the woman let out on a bed and breakfast basis to the gentry. I did some gardening and cleaned the shoes of her lodgers for free as I was expected to be grateful to be there.
My father was working at Sunbeam-Talbot's in North Kensington and each weekend he would visit us,factory work and ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ Guard duties permitting,and we spent many happy hours on the river in a punt and walking in the country.The first time we took a punt on the river, my father and I paddling,we went around in circles for a couple of hours outside the Leander Club until George Hooper,who had rented the punt to us for the day,called us in and gave us some instruction on how it should be handled and after a little while we became very proficient.
My mother was working hard as the house had seven rooms and she became sick so she visited our doctor who said she was overworked and to do less.She told the woman and said she would be happy to be cooking for her alone and not looking after the house and her lodgers.At this the woman turned extremly nasty and vindictive my father was banned from the house,I was forbidden to bring my bicycle in,we were forbidden the use of the kitchen and restricted to our attic rooms and we had to do our cooking here on two Valor stoves,a small one and a larger one.The food was cooked on the smaller stove on the landing then kept warm on the larger one until three portions were ready.I admit we often fried onions to give displeasure to her.We only had one chair and we mostly sat on the bed to eat by the light of the 40 Watt bulb.The woman then accused mother of stealing some of her silver so my mother went to the police and asked them to search our rooms,which they did and found nothing.The Billeting Officer was not happy with the conditions we were living under and moved us to a vicarage where the vicars wife on see my seven year old sister became emotionally upset as she had lost a girl of this age and I it brought back memories and she was jealous that she was alive and her girl had died and she was always was distant towards her.Again here my mother was expected to cook but she only had to prepare breakfast and lunch on six days of the week.A cleaner and a gardener were employed so I was now able to do a paper round every day.
In 1942 I was sixteen and had to leave school and I was allowed to stay on at the vicarage while I was apprenticed to the local engineering firm of Stuart Turner,here I was given one of the dirtiest jobs to do,fettling castings which contained much black sand.We used to work a 48 hour week and my starting pay was ten shillings and four pence (approximately 52 new pence)per week.I was persuaded by another apprentice,RH(Bob) May to go to evening classes in Reading as there were none in Henley.To achieve this twenty mile round trip by bicycle and get to the University by 7pm.we were reluctantly allowed to leave work fifteen minutes early to go home ,wash,change,eat and leave home at 6pm.Cycling from the outskirts of Henley to Reading and back was a pleasure as we mostly saw no more than two cars all the way and we sometimes saw box barrages from the anti-aircraft units in the sky in the London direction.If it was raining we went by train to Reading and our works manager pulled a long face when we went to collect our fare from the office.
In 1944 my mother borrowed £500 from her aunt and bought the lease of a grocers shop in Henley.This was very fortunate as the day we moved into the rooms above the shop the vicar where we had been staying suddenly died so we would have moved anyway.None of us had any shop experience and it was complicated at first.We had approximately 90 people registered for food and the Ministry of Food used to allow us ten percent extra for Emergency Ration cards and wasteage this was not always used so naturally we had a little extra for us and to barter with!We thought this was only fair enough as had plenty of paperwork and had Points coupons to count each month which we had cut from each ration book,nearly every thing in the shop had a points value.Our purchases for the next month were determined by the number of points returned to the local Food Office.Allof this time my father was still working at Sunbeam-Talbots in North Kensington and after a few months he was told by the Henley Labour Exchange he could have work locally.He applied for his release from London and it was refused so he moved to Henley and went by train to London every day,arriving late.This bad time keeping was reported to the local Employment Tribunal who reluctantly agreed to his release and he be directed to work in the Midlands.As he had mostly worked for Sunbeam-Talbots since 1918 they did him a favour and "lost" his papers so he disappeared and worked in the shop.
Henley did not have any enemy damage during the war but there were several Allied aircraft crashed locally with loss of their crew.One of my most vivid memories was of a large wide column of aircraft towing gliders flying across Henley bridge on a sunny day and going south along the line of the river.It was an impressive but a very solemn experience.
Eventually the church bells were rung and the street lights were lit but we still had to wait for the war to finally finish.I think we all lost a sense of direction and wondered what would happen next as the war had played such a big part in our lives between 1939-1945 and we wondered what would replace it.

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