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I was a messenger boy during the Blitz, then went up to join the Royal Navy on my 17th birthday in 1941, saying I was 18. After undergoing a medical, I was in the Marines 2 days later and then transferred to the Royal Marine Commandos.

I was in Canterbury in early 1944 when the city was blitzed. Being a commando allowed private billets and whilst asleep in bed one night, the landlord tried to get me up by saying that the brewery over the road was on fire. I told him, “OK, in five minutes”. I eventually got up when the garden was on fire and then went into town to find my mates.
We came across a bloke who asked for a hand. He wanted us to help move a piano to his brother’s because his house wasn’t on fire. So we moved this piano down a burning street to his brother’s house!

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