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My grandmother,my father's mother, lived in a small,thatched cottage in Suffolk in the vilage of Wattisfied which is between Bury St. Edmunds and Diss. Summer Hollidays were spent there and that is where I was when war was declared on September 3rd, 1945.

My home at the time was with my Aunt Violet in Forest Gate, 40 Halley Road, but I later learned that I was not going to be going back there because my father had made all the arrangements for him and I to emigrate to New Zealand in October 1939. He hadn't told me in case it all went wrong, which in fact it did - the ship we were to go on was commandered for war duty and the whole thing was cancelled. Since children started to be evacuated from London straight away it was decided that I shouldn't go back to Forest Gate but would be sent to stay with Grandma, which I wasn't very happy about. Grandmad had another spare bed in the cottage so she had to take in a boy evacuee, who's name was also Ron, and he came from South London. He was younger than me, about 7 I think, and probably because he was unhappy at being taken from his home and family wasn't very friendly. I was 9 years and 9 months.

The cottage was very old and therefore quite basic; it had no electricity, gas or telephone, no running water, no bathroom and the tolet was a moveable shed at the bottom of the garden. For lights we had oil lamps and candles, heating was open coal and wood fires, cooking was a coal heated range in the Kitchen and water had to be drawn up from a well in a bucket. Washing was at a sink in the scullery and so was the bath (a tin one which hung on the wall - bath night was Friday!) - hot water was from the range. I will leave the toilet to your imagination.

There was no television of course and the radio was old and crackly and powered by battery - it had to be charged up at the village shop. Ron and I went to the village school which was crowded because of the evacuees and was not a very happy place because I suppose so many children were naturally upset at being taken from their homes and families; so in that since, I was a lucky one. I was also additionally happy because one of Grandma's neighbours had a dog they did not want and gave it to me, including a kennel. It was called Buster and we went everywhere together. He was great at catching rabbits which Grandma liked, we had rabbit stew regularly.

As far as I can recall we were not very much affected by the war in a country location other than rationing but that didn't seem to make much difference where villagers trade things between one another. The only thing was sweets - there weren't any, but my father used to get them from somewhere and bring them down when he visited every few weeks. They were also brought by my much older cousin, Cyril, who worked in London and used to cycle to Suffok and back every other weekend. We were not allowed to keep them and Grandma kept them under very tight control - her own contribution to "rationining".

Because I was older I seemed to get landed with all the hard jobs' at least it seemed like that so I wasn't a very happy boy. I think I really hated Hitler - it was all his fault.

I had to do a lot of jobs around the house to help Grandma - I had to draw water from the well every morning, bring in the coal, chop the firewood and bring in the logs, clean out the fireplace and range and dispose of all the ashes, go for the milk every morning - about half a mile each way -feed the chickens that roamed around the garden, take and collect the radio accumulator (it was heavy) so we could listen to the war news and sweep the yard. Another job I did was pumping the Church organ, there were no electrical pumps in those days, and I used to get 6d. (2 and a half p.) a week for this plus tips if there were special services such as weddings, funerals etc. I built up quite a good bit of money, because there wasn't much to spend it on, and I kept this in a money box under my bed.

All this carried on through the winter, into the spring of 1940, and I kept asking to go back to London but wasn't allowed to. Naturally, I got more and more fed up. By that time we were getting a lot more aware of the war mainly through the military and flying activities that were going on in Suffolk - there were a lot of wartime airfields there.

It must have been around June 1940 that I was going to School as a large Army convoy of guns, tanks, soldiers in lorries etc. went along the Bury-Diss raod and I sat on a field gate enjoying this immenseley until I realised that I was too late for school. I stupidly decided not to go, but to go home for lunch as though I had been to school and hoped no-one would know. In fact the other evacuee in our house, Ron, brought a note home from the teacher at school enquiring where I was so the cat was out of the bag. (It was very hard to forgive him for not "losing" that note). Needless to say, Grandma wasn't impressed; she gave me a spanking, sent me up to my bedroom for the rest of the day and no dinner.

This all happened the day after I had been very cross with Grandma and wanted to write to my Dad but she wouldn't let me. She had been getting me up very early, around 4 o'clock in the morning, 2 days running to go out and collect wild mushrooms which she sent to Bury to be sold at the weekly Wednesday market. She kept all the money she got for them which I didn't think was right. Now I realise that she must have needed the money more than I did but you don't work that out at 10 yeras of age.

Perhaps I had already been thinking of getting myself back to London but this was "it" I must have though. I had had enough and wanted to go home. The only probem of course was Buster but I knew there was no way I could take him with me as I was planning on going by Eastern National coach to Victoria - so I had to leave him. Not easy! It all proceeded in classic storybook fashion - I broke open my money box, tied the sheets off of the bed together and lowered myself out of the small bedroom window which was in the end wall of the cottage with no other windows, so Grandma couldn't see me. This must have happened at about 1:30 - 2 pm I think because having hitch-hiked to Bury, I got lifts on 2 lorries I think, I arrived there at about 4 pm. This meant that I had missed the afternoon Eastern National coach to London so I was stuck. I still bought my ticket for the next morning's coach and knew I was somehow going to have to stay in Bury all night. I hadn't much money left but I remember buying a Chelsea bun at a bakers and drinking from a water fountain in a park.

I must have roamed around Bury during the evening and ended up sleeping in a public air rad shelter in a park. It was summer time so it probably was not cold but the benches must have been hard. I recall being woken in the middle of the night by people coming into the shelter; there was an air raid!

Unusually for Bury the air raid sirens had sounded; this was the first time the war really affected me directly but what had happened was that a stray German bombed had come over and dumped his bombs, they often did this if they got lost but daren't go back to base with the bombs, they dropped them anywhere. The people in the shelter must have been very surprised to find a little lad sleeping there and handed me over to the Police. The Police must have been informed that a lad was missing from Wattisfield. I don't remember being particularly frightened by all of this, just being given a bit mug of hot chocolate to drink in the police station!

Of course Grandma didn't have a car, not many people did with petrol rationing, so it was the Vicar who came to Bury to take me back to Wattisfield. He knew me well because of my Church organ activities and gave me a really good ticking off but I think he understood how I felt. I had never seen it before, but Grandma really cried when I got back and Buster got pretty excited too. However, later in the day my father arrived and obviously realised that I was very unhappy and took me back to my Aunt Violet in Forest Gate.. Amazingly, considering she lived for a few more years (she died in May 1948) I never saw my Grandma again. I learned many years later that neither did my father. I also never dound out what had happened to Buster.

So there I was now, in London, by now 1940, and much closer to the real war that was coming from the air. The Germans were attacking London firstly by bombers but later, after June 1944, by other damaging and more frightening ways.

Everyone was trying to carry on life as normal but that wasn't really possible. Many times, both day and night, the air raid sirens would go off - a stomach-churning sound that caused the sirens to be given the nick name of "Moaning Minnie". As time went on you became used to used to it but of course you could not ignore it. If fact your whole life was enmeshed in it and to this day I always have a fearful feeling if ever I hear a siren sounding in a wartime film or on the TV .....

Sometimes air raids occurred when you were out and if so it was natural to try and get home as soon possible, usually stupidly, but the alternative of going into a public shelter wasn't very inviting. The first day the Blitz really started in earnest was a Saturday towards the middle of September which was a special day for me for an entirely different reason; my father had been given two tickets to sit in the main stand at West Ham which I had never had the chance to do before. About halfway through the second half the sirens sounded and as we waited to evacuate the stand we could see, looking eastwards from West Ham towards Romford, what we thought was a big black cloud which was strange because it was a lovely sunny day. In fact, what we could see where German bombers, scores of them, heading up the Thames to attack London Docks (where Canary Whart, Expo Centre and City Airport now are). It was a massive raid that caused serious damage, enormous explosions and raging fires that went on long into the night. The target was the London Docks which were a couple of miles from Upton Park. The bombers were being attacked by our fighters, Spitfires and Hurricanes, so it was a most exciting but terrible time. That day was the start of the German aerial onslaught and of the Battle of Britain.

School was very different in those days - I was at the age when I should have been preparing for my 11 plus exams. But these exams were all abandoned then and you just stayed at the same schoo. I stayed at Almore Avenue until the Summer of 1943 and took my "13 plus" exams there in the Spring. I got through to a place at West Ham Technical College in the Romford Road at Stratford.

Life in the war wasn't all doom and gloom though and one of my most cheery memories is of the weekly visits my father and I used to make to East Ham Palace - it was one of the higher grade music halls where a new show started every week. My father had a regular booking for two front row seats on Monday night and it really was first class entertainment. All the big names used to come there, comedians like Arther Askey, Max Miller, Max Wall and musicians such as Stephan Grapelli, Larry Adler and the Weston Brother. Then there were the singers, Gracie Fields, Donald Peers, Flanagan and Allen and Vera Lynn who was very popular, being an East Ham girl.

Just after D-Day the Germans started a new form of air attack using rocket propelled bombs - V1's and V2's. They were fired from sites on the coast of France and Holland and flew straight over to Britain, keeping on going until they ran out of fuel and the engine stopped. They they crashed down, exploding as they hit the ground. One of my very best friends, with his complete family, were killed when a V2 came down in Kepple Road, East Ham at about 2 0'clock one day. About 20 houses were completely destroyed and nearly 50 killed or badly injured, which was about normal for a V2 that came down in a built-up area.

I started College at East Ham in September 1943 and because my time and thoughts became more amd more taken up with studies and homework I only have scant memories of the latter months of the war. One of the things, however, that I do remember well of that time was the prisoner-of-war camp that was on Wanstead Flats. It covered quite a large area and must have housed a lot of prisoners but did not seem very secure. There were just 2 levels of barbed wire at about 10 feet high and I don't remember anything like watch towers with armed guards or guard dogs. The prisoners were mostly Italians. They used to beg people for cigarettes, sweets, fruit etc. and, despite the rationing, some people used to throw things over to them. One part of the camp, however, was more secure and I think the prisoners there must have been German, probably Officer; they didn't get any "goodies".

When the end of the war came it did not have an immediate affect on our way of life because all the austerity, shortages and rationing continued for many years but things like no more black out and having street lights on again improved life a lot. Bombing also became just a memory, although a lasting one......

With love, Grandad 2005. xxx

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