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My father was regular solidier stationed in Colchester, and he had three sons. I was the youngest.When I was four and had justed started school my mother left us, and I never saw her again. When I came home from school and was told she had gone I cried. My father said only girls cried not boys. I never cried again.As a short term measure my father put us in a Roman Catholic orphanage. He put us on a train in London and told the guard to put us off at Torquay where we were met by two nuns.There was a harsh discipline regime in the orphanage. My two brothers wet the bed so in the morning they were put in a bath of cold water with their sheets.The younger of the two died at the age of twenty three with kidney failure. The food was less than plentiful. At tea time it depended on your size how thick a slice of bread and margerine you got. We had stew every day for lunch including Sundays. On Sundays you had stewed fruit and custard for pudding. You had to eat all your stew because you got your pudding on the same plate. We only stayed in the orphanage for about ten months.
By the time war was declared I had had more 'digs' (lodgings) than a commercial traveller. The younger of my two brothers had been put into a military school. My father had been commissioned and sent to France with the BEF (British Expeditionary Force. I was staying in a boarding house run by two old ladies who catered for actors from the local theatre. They used to give me bread and milk for breakfast to save money on cornflakes.
I shall always remember Dunkirk. When the radio announcer said that the evacuation of Dunkirk was complete we had heard no news about my father.We presumed he was dead or a prisoner. I think the two old ladies were more worried than we were, as there was the question of who was going to pay my board. Three days later early in the morning one of the old ladies came into my room and told me to look in the next bedroom. My father was there in bed. His sand filled revolver was on the bedside table.He had been wounded, and evacuated by hospital ship to the North of England.
I again changed my digs. I think having a soldier paying for my board was a risky business.I stayed with a very pleasant lady called Mrs Ward and her son Malcolm. Colchester was getting very empty by this time. A lot of houses in Salisbury Avenue were empty, and left unlocked, and we could wander round them at will. We could also pick the apples off the trees in the back gardens. We never took anything or damaged anything. We thought how lucky people were to have such nice houses, bearing in mind they were only terraced houses.It then came time for us be evacuated.All my worldly goods were wrapped up in a brown paper parcel and off we went to North Hill Railway station where we boarded a train.
We were told we were going to Peterborough, but ended up in Burton on Trent where we spent the night in a church hall. In the morning we were allocated our billets. My brother went to a local business man's house and Malcolm and I were sent to the dirties house I had ever been in.When I saw the state of the house I told Malcolm we were not staying there and would go back to Colchester. We returned to the Church rooms, and a very officious lady asked us what we were doing.I explained we were not staying in the house she had allocated us to and were returning to Colchester.I also told her she should have inspected the house befor sending us there. She was very taken back, but I was very streetwise and knew she had not done a proper job, and she had certainly not taken any evacuees herself. Just then a lady came in and asked if all the evacuees had gone. She was told they had until we came back. She very kindly took us in, and we were well looked after.
Later my father put me in a military school, and I had to join the army.I took part as a young soldier in the occupation of Austria, taking it in turns with the Russians, French and Americans doing international guards in Vienna. We heard some funny and not so funny stories about the Russians. When they first entered Vienna the Cossacks used to take the Duvet type bed covers from the houses and put them over their horses.They filled their water bottles from toilets, as they had never seen flush toilets before.They stole watches and clocks from the locals, but when the watch stopped they did not realise you had to wind it up, and often threw them away The louder the tick the more they liked them. It appeared that when the Russians first entered Vienna they could do almost anything they wanted. We almost caused an International incident by hauling the Russian flag upside down on one of the International buildings. The Americans thought this was very funny until we did the same with their flag the next day. After that we used to lower the flags just below the parapet and not take them off the toggles. I enjoyed my stay in Austria, and enjoyed listening to the older soldiers stories who had served right through the war.

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