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I was a few weeks from my 7th birthday, and pushing a couple of model cars along the garden wall of my Grandparents house in Blackheath, South London, when the air raid warning went off for the first time. I was called in, although I was loathe to leave the fun I was having, and had little understanding of what it all meant. It was in fact a test of the system. The 'all-clear' went shortly afterwards and my Mother and I, not long after, set off for our home, which was not that far out of London in Surrey, close to Leatherhead.

What I wasn't aware of was that my Grandfather had died a few weeks before - he was very busy in the City, where he was a timber merchant, and to see him only occasionally, was not strange! We lived a very different life in the 30's, not the 'let everything hang out' of today, and children were only told what was considered neccessary!

Very little changed in daily life after September 3rd for some time, although the increase in aircraft and the odd barrage balloon, and, in the case of Headley heath, which was right on the doorstep, a great increase in Army exercises. All the children at one time or another became engaged in the fun, helping to cover tanks with foliage and lying in the bracken with the soldiers. They appeared to be using 'live' ammo. sometimes, because on putting my head up on one occasion, a bullet whistled past my head - something you don't forget once heard, and I was smartly pulled down. On another occasion, when two of us were cooking apples over a small fire in a 'den' created out of the bracken, we heard the sound of motorbikes coming up the track towards his Mother's house, and being aware that the Germans used bikes with sidecars, which we saw these had, we were certain that we had been invaded. What to do! Creeping nearer, we discovered our side had these bikes too.

We had ring side seats for the Battle of Britain, especially as that summer was one of non stop blue sky backdrops for the white of con. trails, occasional black oil smoke and the occasional sight of a parachute coming down; while the sound of machine and cannon fire could be heard intermittently. When dog-fights were taking place, the ground based guns ceased firing. It was at this time that I decided that if I did nothing else in this life, I would become a fighter pilot!
Looking back on the way most people reacted, it was as if we were watching a film and enjoying an icecream or eating popcorn as we watched, because life did continue at ground level much as before. The kids playing games and tea on the lawn for everyone was quite the norm, after watching a major dog fight.

As the war progressed, and bombing became more common - army installations were all around us, and as my Mother had separated from my Father before I was born, and we were living in a beautiful old Rectory at the side of a wood and deep in the fields, where she worked as cook/housekeeper, and, due to the rector who was a keen astronomer, who, together with a doctor, had two large observatories badly camoflaged in the large kitchen garden, we, after the usual nights 'wow-wow-wow' sound of German bombers and much gun fire, awoke to find the house ringed with bomb craters, a 'parachute' mine in the woods and a number of incenderies. Looking back, it was most probably a bomber, keen to get rid of his bomb load, as although with night vision it's remarkable how much you can see, I doubt the house was targetted - anyway he missed!

Shortly after this, what I remember as a German observation plane - although, until he opened fire, I thought it was a Lysander - started machine-gunning the children coming out of school, I was on a bike and some hundreds of yards away, and fortunately no sooner had he started his unsocial behavoir than a Spitfire turned up, he fled, and I believe was shortly afterwards shot down.

When the cities started to be bombed, my Mother, who had been a nurse, set off for London to become an Ambulance Driver/ Nurse, and spent the London blitz' doing just that in the Blackheath - Greenwich area. She told me that one night, when alone on the Heath, with shrapnel raining down all around and all 'hell' let loose, she thought that she must die that night. Then, she saw her father (my Grandfather mentioned above) coming towards her and he said "don't worry, you will be alright". Her photograph with the very necessary tin hat is attached.
I was never evacuated as such, but moved around staying with friends from pre-war days in the village - my Headmistress for one, who knowing my love of 'ginger' marmalade managed to find a supply, the Manor house with East Enders who were evacuated was another, a farm and so on!
I was a choir boy from about the age of six, and when returning to the Manor House, after choir practice one night, found that one of the East Enders had had a birthday party, and that somehow the family had turned out cakes, blancmange, jelly and a real spread - amazingly a lot remained, and as the other kids were upstairs, no doubt making the usual 'rude' noises with the damp hand squashed in the armpit - we knew how to entertain ourselves in those days, I was sat down and told to tuck in. I did just that, and was in severe pain for some time afterwards having to be helped upstairs!

Having most other members of the family in London, one was a Sergeant in the Thames River Police, another severly disabled from Polio was driving lorries, I was often in London, and have vivid memory pictures of bath's hanging at 60 degrees on what remained of a floor and rubble piled high, but people going about their business by tram and trolley bus as normal, while I spent my sixpence in Woolworths for a 'seebackascope'!
Seldom in a shelter, the stairs were considered the best bet if things started to get hectic, also under the bed if in a hurry, providing it was on the ground floor - otherwise, if the outer wall collapsed, you were likely to follow the bed into the street or garden, but more often than not, we ignored them if they appeared to be just passing over. An aunt and uncle with two daughters, my younger cousins, who lived in New Eltham, had the indoor shelter in the front room with the piano. A large flat metal structure being the size of a large dining table, and that was used. Between five and seven people slept pretty well under that, as apart from a direct hit, it would easily hold the roof.

Later, having collected, as all children did, a huge array of shrapnel, nose cones, incendary fins and other splendid 'bits', one of which bounced off my Mothers tinhat that I was wearing while a raid was going on, as we often went out to watch, it being a bit like having a firework display every night. In fact shrapnel from our own guns was probably the most likely object to hit you as it rained from the skies,
I spent the night under the bed when the first 'doodlebugs' came over, not knowing what they were and the unknown noise was frightening, but then you just got used to them being part of life while setting off for school, or whatever - keeping a beady eye out for the one that might have ulterior motives towards you.

I moved many times due changing circumstances, and just before the war ended, we moved from near Bromley (London area) to Cardiff, where, still singing in the choir, I sang with a large massed School group in Welsh ( learnt parrot fashion) outside the imposing City Hall in Cathays, near the Castle, to celebrate VE day, and then suspended myself on one of the many pillars/lamposts to avoid being trampled by the masses having fun! Not long afterwards, there was a U-boat open to the public, in Cardiff docks. VJ day was to come!

Did I become a fighter pilot? Yes! Having been to 14 different schools, most with very limited academic teaching, where often I was knitting socks and scarves for the soldiers!! - who probably got frost bite from the strings of holes, or, playing 'soccer' because of the shortage of teachers, I recognised that I was going to really have to polish up my academic subjects if I was to fly. I joined the RAF as an Aircraft Apprentice at sixteen - a Trenchard 'Brat' as we're known, which gave me intensive schooling and workshops over three years to qualify as a technician (electrical) as well as something of an education. I made the Squadron Commander's life hell - a very splendid man and an A1 flying instructer - by constantly mentioning flying, gained my gliding A and B certificates and within months, was enroute to Canada for basic flying training, together with would be French and Dutch pilots recently having suffered under Nazis rule, and, of course Canadian pilots. Arriving in Canada, we had a months acclimatization in London, Ontario - mainly for the French and Dutch to brush up their english, and a wonderful time was had by all. We were met off the steam train - cow catcher, bell, observation car and all - and welcomed by the local Canadians with chocolate, cigarettes, etc., for the 'boys who had won the war', even though, we, had still to start flying training. The YWCA provided us all with a young lady and her family to look after each of us. The Canadians were so hospitable, and I have a great love for them! Thank you so much!
One quick story! A year or so later, when I was back in Britain, continuing my flying training, I had to be in London for some reason, and having some hours to pass on a cold day, I dropped into the Windmill Theatre - as you do - and entered in the dark and sat down somewhere in the middle to watch the show - tableau nudes and all! When the lights came up between shows, I casually looked around, and found I was sitting amongst all the Canadian flying instructers from Gimli, which is alongside Lake Winnipeg, where we had completed basic training on the dear old Harvard, and they had stopped off enroute from Canada to Germany, where they had been posted. Big grins all round!

I had the very real pleasure of flying the early jets at low level as a day fighter/tactical reconnaissance pilot in this Country and all over the Middle East and East Africa. The Meteor 3's and 4's I used during conversion training, were the actual aircraft that had chased the 'doodlebugs' and downed quite a few!
I carried on as a pilot, for the rest of my 'official' working life. The 'unofficial' continues! A brief summary is shown in my personal details as it's outside the remit of WW2!

The war was certainly an added incentive to my passion for flying which was there as an interest before the war started, and everything that I did as a teenager was towards that end. I joined 30F Cardiff ATC at age thirteen and a half, having told them I was fourteen and a half - you were supposed to be fifteen in fact, leaving behind my short trousers for the first time, having turned up to join on my 'battered' bike in short trousers - normal wear in those days.

I would like to make the point, that if you really want to obtain a 'goal' in this life, and are willing to put your 'heart and soul' into seeing it thro' with plenty of hard work, there is little that will stop you succeeding - years missed in education, a lot of illness - some serious even as an Apprentice and during flying training, family difficulties, and so on, can all be overcome and I have had an incredibly interesting life!
Reading some of the wonderful stories on the ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ site from others who as adults or children went through the war, and knowing many of my age, very few are damaged - changed without doubt - but the human spirit remains undaunted unless sabotaged by false worries and fears!

Finally, because I have spent many years living abroad as well as wandering the world, I have had the priviledge of knowing some splendid people of many races, and one thing I know is, that it's not the ordinary people anywhere in the world who are the cause of war, we should look much closer to home to root out the culprits. Those who start wars, seldom fight them!

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