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by John Albert Salter

Surrey
When war was declared on 3rd September 1939 I was 4 years old. My family lived in a 3 bedroomed bungalow at the end of an alleyway off the main Godstone Road in Whyteleafe Surrey. My Dad had been discharged on medical grounds from military service in WW1 and was working full time as an excavator driver in the local Kenley chalk pits. During the Second World War he also took on the job of air-raid warden. My Mum had taken on my Dad's 4 sons from his previous marriage and I was the eldest of 13 children from my Dad's 'second family'.

There was not much money around.I think I only had the clothes I stood up in. I had holes in the backside of my trousers and kept my back to the fence all the way to school so no-one could see.I even took the studs out of a pair of white canvas cricket boots, blacked them and wore them as boots
to school.

I did anything and everything to make some money as a child. I picked bluebells and sold them door to door to anyone who felt sorry enough for me.I picked rosehips and sold them to the Government for the manufacture of rosehip syrup and collected acorns to sell to the Government for pig feed.I caught and sold rabbits. There was always plenty of wood around from bombed out buildings and I would chop this up, bundle it and sell it door to door for firewood.

My Mum would sell our ration coupons ( meat, clothing etc.) because she didn't have the money to buy anything. She would also take in washing and ironing and would keep cockerells in the garden which she would feed up on potato peelings and sell at Christmas. We also lived next to the railway line and I would collect the coal from the steam trains that went by and take it home for fuel.

We didn't go hungry though. We had land around the bungalow and grew every sort of fruit and vegetable you can imagine: 5 types of apple, quinces, redcurrants, gooseberries, cobnuts etc.and we had rabbit and chicken meat from those we didn't sell.I also had school dinners and I can remember eating stinging nettles at school which had been boiled up like cabbage. We didn't have sweets, although we were given ration coupons for them. I can however remember eating cough sweets instead!

We had an enormous Andersen shelter built in the back garden. People were sent in to dig the hole but we all helped. It was built partially underground, covered with corrugated iron and then covered with earth. I can remember it being dry and warm. We also had big concrete shelters at Caterham Valley Secondary School which were three-quarters built underground and had 3 or 4 steps down into them.There was also a local cave where peple would hide when the sirens went off.

We had a radio and the cats whiskers, a crystal set, to keep us informed as to what was going on but the first time it really hit home was one Sunday afternoon when we were all sitting outside in the garden having Sunday lunch. Suddenly we saw lots of planes above us. We thought they were 'ours' on their way out to Germany ( we lived close to Kenley Aerodrome and were used to seeing hurricanes or spits,I can't remember which,flying overhead day and night and big puffs of black smoke in the sky from anti-aircraft guns ) but on this occasion there was a full-on dog fight with enemy planes.We all ran for the shelter. My Dad was the last one and as he ran into the shelter a plane fired at him but fortunately missed!

Then one night we were asleep in bed when we were suddenly woken up and taken to a house in Warlingham. I have no idea what this house was but after a couple of days we went home to discover that a bomb had been dropped 20 ft. from our bedroom window on the railway embankment. It had not gone off and the bomb disposal team had been in to make it safe and remove it but it had left a crater.

Somerset
It was at this time that my Mum and Dad decided that my brother Tom and I should be evacuated. We were sent along to the Salvation Army and were kitted out with some clothes (pyjamas, shoes, trousers, a shirt and a coat) from bundles which had been sent from Canada. The next day we were on the platform at Upper Warlingham Station carrying brown paper bags with our clothes in ( some children had suitcases!), a gas mask and with a label through our button hole with our name and destination on it - South Petherton in Somerset. There were a couple of hundred other children on the platform and the steam train was almost full when it got to us. We probably stopped off at a couple of places on the way but most of us disembarked at Yeovil and my brother and I, along with 30 or 40 other children, were taken in an old Bedford utility bus with wooden seats to South Petherton village hall where we were all made to stand on the stage and wait to be 'picked'. Tom and I were the last to be 'picked' if you can call it that. We were actually offered to Mr Davison and he said we weren't big or strong enough to do the work he needed doing on his farm. I told him that we could do anything anyone else could do and so, very reluctantly, he took us to Davison's Farm ( a small farm)at Yaybridge near South Petherton.

We worked hard on the farm . There was no machinery, everything was done by 'hand' or 'horse'. We would feed the chickens, collect the eggs, hoe the fields ( along with a couple of Land Girls) and milk the cows ( turning the teats upright and squirting eachother for amusement and drinking the milk whilst it was still hot). We would help deliver the milk from a horse and cart from great big churns giving everyone a measure into the jugs they gave us and at the end of the day we would ride the cart horses back to the field although we had been told not to get on them!

The farmer put savings stamps in a book for us for the work we did but I suppose we only went home with a few pounds each.

I wouldn't say we enjoyed our time there. Mr and Mrs Davison had clearly wanted someone older and stronger to work on the farm and although we worked hard I don't think we came up to scratch.

Mr and Mrs Davison were very religious people and went to church 3 times on a Sunday. Most of the time we were dragged along with them but on occasions we were left behind and this gave us the chance to learn to ride a bike.They had told us not to touch their bikes but being children as soon as we were left on our own we would take the bikes onto the side road and learn to ride them. I learnt to ride on a womans bike with a basket! We would of course make sure the bikes had been put away before the Davisons came back.

We were supposed to go to school in the local village but after going a few times we wagged it as much as we could.The local children in the village didn't like us very much and would call us names like'fleahead'.

We were not surprisingly well fed living on a farm but there was no radio and we would work until it was dark, have tea and go to bed. When we had time to play we would amuse ourselves in the woods and around the ponds.

I suppose we stayed there for 18 months at most (and I don't remember having any contact with my family during that time) but we became homesick and we weren't enjoying it so we asked the authorities if we could go home and an aunt came to collect us.

Back to Surrey
By the time we got home things were worse than ever and there were doodle bugs flying over us.Lorries would go up and down the main road with searchlights at night looking for planes. One day whilst we were sitting in class the sirens went off and we were led out to the shelters.As we were led out we saw a doodle bug overhead, cut its engines and come down. It hit a bungalow at Hill Top Whyteleafe right by the side of the Kenley Aerodrome and killed everyone inside. We all saw the explosion.

I suppose because we were so close to Kenley Aerodrome all the roads leading up to the big roundabout on the main road and the roundabout itself were camouflaged. There were big poles coming up from the ground with a canopy of netting covered in green and brown sacking creating a tunnel for vehicles( although we could go days without seing any) and providing us with a climbing frame. We would climb up the poles and jump into the sacks. There were bunches of barrage balloons in the sky which were silver grey and looked like they had ears which we all called 'flying pigs'. Then a bit further up the road we would go to visit the Canadian troops who were billeted in a hotel and some of the big houses on the main road.They would have a tuck shop once a week where they could buy chocolate and bottles of lemonade ( which we had never
seen before) and cigarettes. But the only thing they gave us was bottles of their own pee which they passed off to us as lemonade as a joke.

I went to school from time to time but wagged as much as I could. I would wait in the bus shelter and watch for my Mum to go out and then go home.Or I would go to the woods and play on my own until home time when I would join the queue coming out of school as though I had been there all day.I was always able to find better ways of passing my time. I would collect shrapnell and perspex and make the perspex into rings using a hot rod over the fire. A friend of mine, Nobby, would pay for us to go by steam train to nearby Hever Castle ( which seemed deserted at the time) and we would fish and throw the cannons into the moat. There was a local nudist colony and we would hide in the trees to watch the nudists play tennis ( even during the war years!) My 'gang' would sneak in to Kenley Aerodrome and watch the planes testing their guns before they took off.We would break into the '600 Group', a supplies firm, steal drums of flare powder and set fire to it. We would play in the 3 swimming pools by the side of the main Godstone Road which had a slide etc. and which still had some water in them (though they were not full). Sadly though the outhouses around the pools ended up being used as a mortuary.

Leading up to the VE Day celebrations everyone in the area had been building the most enormous bonfire in the chalk pits by the side of the main Godstone Road for weeks. People had brought out anything they could find, doors, tables, chairs etc. to put on the bonfire! The air wardens handed out live rounds of ammunition(303)which had been kept in a local storage facility in case of invasion and thunderflashes to throw on the bonfire which caused such explosions when they went off that it lifted you off the ground. But no-one got hurt!The street party was a mile long from the parade of shops in Whyteleafe to the big roundabout.

By VJ Day the main celebrations were over but my dad and I had our own celebrations. My dad made an effigy of the Emperor of Japan , strung it over the pub sign at the Whyteleafe Tavern and set fire to it,setting fire to the pub sign in the process. I threw smoke bombs into the pub. I thought it was funny but nobody looked best pleased as they came running out.

So there you are, the story of a war child from Surrey, who had childhood 'adventures' both good and bad but the memory of which will stay with him always.

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