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My war years September 1939 to October 1942.

We lived at Gosport, Hampshire. The war changed our lives completely. I was 12 years old at the out break of war. My younger sister Valerie was 8 years old and my elder brothers, Roy and Eric were 14 and 16 years old respectively. I and Valerie were evacuated to Shedfield about 15 miles north of Gosport and Roy was evacuated near Southampton. My first evacuation place was in a cottage on Admiral Philimore Estate and then to a house of Admiral Halifax. I then moved to a Mrs Harvey home at Shirrel Heath. About a mile from Shedfield. We arrived at Shedfield two days before the war was declared and harvesting had begun. We worked in the fields and we thought it was great fun. It was a complete new experience and the weather was sunny and warm. What I did not understand why the cattle was being shot and buried in a big pit. This was my first experience of foot and mouth disease in cattle.

In our spare time we roamed over the countryside. We would walk miles and we got to know all the streams and ponds. We also found orchards with the best eating apples. Our main food was fruit when we were roaming. In the summer we would swim in the river Meon. Watercress grew wild in the river and we would often eat it. In the winter it was dark when we returned from school. I often walked along the lanes in the dark by myself. There were no road lights and at first I was terrified. It is surprising how noisy the countryside can be. One night, a cow thrust his head through the hedge in front of me I nearly died!

The Tinker had a mobile shop (like a hardware shop) and he appeared to sell everything. A lot of the goods e.g. pots and pans was hung on the outside of the vehicle. Pony and trap delivered the milk. There was one large churn with either a ladle or tap to fill a person’s jug. The mail was delivered to the village post office by motor bike and sidecar. The mail was collected from the post office after the rural postman joined the army. Often it was “by word of mouth” that there was mail to be collected. It was discovered that there were no thatchers to repair the thatch roofs. They had all been conscripted to the services. A thatcher was released from the army but he virtually had to work day and night to repair the roofs that were being damaged mainly from shrapnel. The village shop owner was often on ��ѿ��ý Guard duty. His son who was fourteen years old was often left in charge. He drove the car for deliveries etc. The village policemen took no notice. There was no driving test during the war and after the war if you had a provisional licence issued during the war you could get a driving licence.

We went to school for half a day five days a week for about a year and then a full day. Looking back the lack of schooling in that period of my life was a handicap. I recouped some of my schooling when I joined the Army Apprentice College. The older school children had to help with the harvest. The worst harvesting I considered was potato harvesting. A bag of potatoes was very heavy for schoolboys. On a wet day we had a sack to put over us but the sack would end up soaked. Mothers with children in the prams also helped with the harvest. This often meant carrying the prams to the other side of the field. We had a piece of corrugated iron sheet and if it rained we would make a shelter so the mothers could feed the babies without getting too wet. At school each class had a garden for growing vegetables. The ground was rock hard and it took several weeks to dig a suitable area to grow vegetables. We maintained the garden and I have often wondered what happened to the vegetables. Strawberries were the main harvest and you always knew who had picked strawberries, by the smell. Strawberries for jam had to be picked without the stalk and in variably that meant quashing the strawberry. Hands smelt of strawberries for weeks.

In 1940 after the fall of France war became a reality. From Shirrel Heath we could look down towards Gosport and watch the air raids in the area. Also we could watch the air raids in the Southampton area. I can remember the first air raids. The fighters would shot down the barrage balloons followed by the dive-bombers which would come “out of the sun” screaming down. We were warned that these dive-bombers had a siren fitted to help terrorise population. The Germans stopped using the dive-bombers because they were easy targets for the fighters. We often watched the air raids and planes being shot down. Two amusing incidents occurred. First was when we mistakenly thought the planes we saw were British planes but were German. We found where the key of the Shedfield Church tower was kept and we use to climb up the tower to get a better view. We saw this plane coming very low and we assumed it was British and as it flew past we could see it was German and the pilot clearly. We came down the tower like “lightning”. Another incident was when we were standing on top of a highest hill in the area. The cloud base was low and we could hear a plane circling and when it came out of the cloud it was a German plane. We run as fast as we could, jumping in the nearest ditch.

Sometimes after an air raid messages would be received at the village store of the effect on families still living in these areas. Sometimes it was a re-assurance message but other times it was to say there had been casualties and damage.

There was total blackout at night and if you were in a bright light and had to go outside in the dark it would often take a few minutes to be accustoming to the dark. At night due to the blackout we always knew when the phases of the moon occurred. At full moon we would often play in the fields. If there was an air raid the reflections from the searchlights gave some light. If a bomb was dropped the loudness of the bomb whistle gave an indication how far away the bomb was. A plane that crashed near where we lived was a Spitfire. The plane had developed engine trouble and the pilot baled out successfully. The pilot was very interested in saving his parachute. Clothes were rationed and the parachutes of that period were made of silk and one parachute would make a lot of clothes. When I was in Germany after the war I met a German airman who had been shot down in England and captured. He told me when he baled out of the aircraft and landed he saw mainly women running towards him. He thought they were going to lynch him but the women run past him, collected the parachute and disappeared.

Gradually the air raids changed from daylight raids to night raids. The German planes often missed there target and unloaded the bombs over the countryside. We had numerous bombs dropped around the village and one bomb killed a friend of mine. The older boy’s task was to extinguish incendiary bombs that landed on open ground. The only time this occurred was when I was at home. We would sit by the house with a bucket of water and stirrup pump and a bag of sand, keeping the sand dry so it was not too heavy. I found the biggest problem in an air raid was the shrapnel from the ack-ack gun shells. This was a real problem if you were under a box barrage. A box barrage was when the guns concentrated on an imaginary box in the sky. The worst time I was caught under a box barrage was when I was at home. Eric was married and away from home and mother always insisted I escort my sister-in-law home. I always complained. There was an air raid and shrapnel started to come down like rain. It had been raining and the hot shrapnel was sizzling in the puddles. I shielded myself under a small overhang of a shop window, not daring to move for about an hour. When I got home my mother wanted to know where I had been!

I worked on a farm at weekends and I received one-shilling (5p). Cleaning the chicken houses, picking fruit, mowing the lawns and going to market etc. After cleaning the chicken house I was covered in fleas. Being chicken fleas, the fleas would disappear very quickly because a human is too cold. The farmer had two Lorries and the army commandeered one. He was told he would be paid for the lorry after the war! Lorries had to use petrol, which was coloured, and often an inspector would check the colour of the petrol and the mileage of the lorry. If he considered the mileage was high the farmer would have to account for it. Cars were also checked to ensure they were not using colour petrol. A relative of the family was fined for making unnecessary journeys. When we went to market we always got fish and chips, which was a real treat.

One day we arrived at a farm to work and the farmer had lost control of his farm due to bad husbandry. No warning had been given this was about to happen. A manager had been installed and if the farmer did not agree he would be evicted. The farmer was threatening to shoot the manager and the police was sent for. Finally the farmer gave in; it was quite amusing at the time.

Occasionally a bomb landing in a field would kill a cow etc. This would mean meat with no questions asked. It was illegal to kill farm animals without permission. I can remember when a litter of pigs were born one or two of the piglets were hidden and not registered. These piglets when grown would become illegal meat to be eaten and used as barter for other products. In the area there were several egg producing farms and I was always able to get my mother eggs. Food rationing became quite severe I can remember my mother mixing the butter and margarine with a little milk to make it go further. I developed a taste for beef dripping spread on bread and I still enjoy it to this day. Wartime bread was grey, coarse and dry.

The ringing of church bells was not allowed during the war because the ringing of bells was a signal that the invasion had started. We had an armoury of sticks and other instruments to “fight the Germans”!

A lasting memory was a number of older men marching up and down the school playground with all sorts of guns and brooms. This was the Local Defence Volunteers. After France surrendered Britain was on its own in Europe and the Government appealed to volunteers to aid the regular army. This was the foundation of the ��ѿ��ý Guard. When I watch “Dads Army” programme on the television, I am always reminded of the ��ѿ��ý Guard of that period and what actually took place. The character “Captain Mannering reminds me of the headmaster of the school who appointed himself as Captain in charge. A sergeant was a teacher at the school and he often came to school in his uniform and with his rifle. Due to the shortage of teachers he often taught more than one class. He would leave his rifle in the corner of the classroom with instruction not to touch the rifle. That was an invitation to boys and we often marched around with the rifle. At night you could be challenged by a ��ѿ��ý Guard sentry and just like the TV programme.

All roads, sign posts names of villages and towns had to be erased. There was a large milestone in the village with distances too different towns and villages reputed to be several hundred years old. There was a debate of how to cover the stone. This went on for several weeks; the Germans could have invaded in the meantime. It was finally agreed to cover the stone in a layer of cement.

We were told we must not pass on any information to strangers. Also anyone acting suspiciously had to be reported. We were told that a German spy who was dropped by parachute had been caught because he asked for a drink at a pub during non-drinking hours. One day a lady stopped in a car to ask directions and we would not tell her. She called us stupid boys. We reported the incident to the police and it was discovered she was the district nurse.

I could get a bus direct to Gosport and I often went home at the weekends. Occasionally the bus was stopped due to an air raid and we would have to get off the bus and move away from the bus. This was because busses were liable to be machine-gunned. To travel to home I had to pass through a barrier where your identity was checked. I returned home permanently in 1941.

My first job was on bomb damaged buildings. Raids were continuing but not as severe as previous. We were always trying to be bribed because if in one room all the panes of glass had been destroyed, only one windowpane could be replaced with glass. There was a great shortage of glass. We had to constantly tell people an inspector decided the number of panes of glass but we always caught the flack from people. One air raid I remembered clearly was when a friend and his entire family were killed. They were in the air raid shelter and the bomb landed close by. A part of my job was to board up the windows of the house and I had to wait for the bodies to be dug out of the rubble. I then went to work in a factory producing mortar cases. My job was to work on maintenance. The factory was a wallpaper factory in peacetime.

Most of the roads in Gosport had numbers painted at intervals on the road surface. We had a number on the road close to the house. In an air raid an ack-ack gun or a smoke generator may be allocated to the number on the road. Whilst the ack-ack gun was noisy the smoke generator produced thick oily smoke. It does not take much to imagination what a mess the house was in after the smoke generators were active. We had to seal all the windows and doors with newspaper to ensure the smoke did not get in the house. Later, containers about the size of dustbins, electrically operated produced a white clean smoke.

One of my friends had two families living with him who had been bombed out of their homes. He often slept in an air raid shelter at another friend’s house to get some peace! The area around the factory was the old seaport of Gosport and was heavily bombed. This was an area of narrow cobbled streets with a pub on nearly every street corner. This part of Gosport has disappeared completely with the rebuilding of Gosport. We joined the local Youth Club and we use to take part in social activities. I also joined the army cadet force.

I never thought much at the time but later in life I began to remember boyhood friends who died in the war. Some killed in the bombing and others who were only a year older than me were killed in the services.

Another memory was when Eric was missing after the battle of Arnhem and Roy was seriously wounded at Ghent. My Father and mother calmly said they would both come back OK and carried on with what they were doing. Both brothers returned OK.

I joined the Army Apprentice College REME, at Arborfield in October 1942 and will write a separate story of my life from 1942-45.

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