The Memoirs of Peter Horace Charsley. H&D = Horace and Daisy, my mum and dad. IN THE YEAR OF OUR LORD TWO THOUSAND AND SEVEN I TAKE UP MY PEN TO WRITE ( a much later year but I always wanted to start a book this way since I read and admired Daniel Defoe’s ROBINSON CRUSOE the first time ) The chronological course of the events that follow cannot be guaranteed, but none the less are my recollections. Some of the names have been changed to protect the innocent. SON OF HORACE The sun was streaming in through the French windows, I was standing on the dining room table sobbing, with my eyes full of tears, while Dr Miller hacked off my foreskin. This was my earliest recollection of being on this planet. On reflection I suppose I should have been grateful that Dr Miller was Jewish and probably quite experienced in this operation. The circumcision had to be carried out on medical grounds, I could not pee properly. I suppose that I was around 2 or 3 years old. It is said that our first recollections are of intense pain or intense pleasure, and the more intelligent you are the further back you can remember. If that’s true it’s a wonder I can remember getting married. Bertrand Russell said that he remembered being in the womb and the pain of being born. My parents Horace Charsley (as one of a large family, his parents claimed that they had run out of boys names so the last three had no middle name) and Daisy Emily, nee Ford, were married the 6th July 1930 and I was to be their first born so you see it was no shot gun wedding. In fact they had given up the possibility of children. My father often reminded me of the fact that he was very shy and had he not been so shy I would have been 5 years older. The Great Event occurred in a flat at number 113 Tynemouth Road, Mitcham, Surrey.(before post codes), on the 27th June 1935. My father who at that time was a charabanc (coach) driver, left a £5 note behind the clock for a doctor if one was needed in his absence. My entry into the world was a difficult one and not helped by the fact that my mother in her agony and excitement had forgotten to make the midwife aware of the £5 note. The labour continued hour after hour but the midwife although she wanted to call a doctor. didn’t, because she thought mum could not pay him. And now we complain about the NHS! It’s as well I’m no Bertrand Russell or you would have to read another few paragraphs of complaints about childbirth from a different viewpoint We only lived in Tynemouth Road for a few weeks so the opening event took place at Newbarnes avenue Mitcham, this was a new house next to Mitcham common and unusually for those days my parents were buying it on a mortgage. This was where my sister, Wendy Silvia Mary was born on the 23rd of January 1939, 3 ½ years after me. Aunty Lucy missed no opportunity of reminding me of how when she was changing me as we were travelling on a coach to Bognor Regis, I pissed in her eye. H&D 2 Fast forward to 1970. I am working as a counter clerk in Balham (yes Gateway to the South ) post office. Would you like a Barley sugar? asked a female colleague 5 positions along the counter, always the glutton I said, please, and she threw it through the air towards me, as I prepared to catch it I felt an intense pain in my nose as my mind flashed back to the back garden of Newbarnes Ave where the lady lodger threw me a stick of Barley sugar, a twisted stick 3/8”( 10mm) by 8” (200mm) out of an upstairs window and as I tried to catch it, missed, and it hit me full on the nose causing it to bleed and to recollect the pain some 30 odd years later. Incidentally my mother told me that she and dad took in this woman and her husband to help pay the mortgage, and when they owed several months rent they did a moonlight flit. It was here that I started my unsuccessful mechanical career by gaining access to the garage at the bottom of garden, somehow removing the oil filler cap on uncle Lens ex Wolseley police car and pouring sand into the engine. The result of this abrasive was to write the engine off, and no doubt also resulted in some verbal abusive in my direction. At the start of the war my parents had to give up the house because of a downturn in dads earnings. Because of the threat of bombing nobody wanted to buy property so the prices dropped dramatically and they lost everything they had paid into it. Luckily my grandfather (Charsley) owned among other things a small terraced house which was vacant at the time and my parents rented it. This was 67 Leonard road Streatham Vale SW16 right next door to a Baptist chapel, mum was slightly deaf so when the very big 8 valve Marconi radio was not at the repairers we were in no danger of being converted to Baptists by the hymn singing. Our side of the road was in London for the post but in Mitcham Surrey politically, but the opposite side qualified as London for both. The children went to a London County Council school and we attended school in a Surrey County Council school. I have no memories of my time spent in Leonard Road that are stronger than watching my little sister Wendy fighting for her breath, and indeed her life. She was in a makeshift cot, low to the floor and in front the open coal fire. On the fire was a kettle which had to be constantly topped up with boiling water, which had an additional 18 inch (450mm) spout that dad had made from an old tin container, the purpose of which was to project outside the fireplace and the chimney and fill the room with steam to assist the baby’s breathing. This was Diphtheria. The doctor told mum and dad that if Wendy survived the night, she would probably live, and fortunately she came through the ordeal, unlike the majority of children with this disease at that time. My aunty Sally spoilt me, and I thought a lot of her, one day she took me into a shop and bought me a toy submarine which I played with in the sink, I couldn’t play with it in the bath as we didn’t have a bath room. We did have a steel zinc one with a handle at each end which was dragged out once a week though. “Please and Thank You“, were taught me on every visit to the local grocers in Grove road by Mr and Mrs Hyder who owned it. I remember waiting for the milkman every morning for my own carton of cream, what a life! I have to use fully skimmed now. This was supplemented with spoonful’s of malt extract to make me a big strong boy, and it worked, I turn the scales at over 21 stone now. You should see my muscles ripple, when the wind blows! I don’t recollect how we arrived in Willington, but I do know the chain of events leading to our arrival, which are as follows= H&D 3 WILLINGTON Mums family the Ford’s lived in Lillian Road near to my dad’s family home in Marian road, evidently the builder had immortalised his daughters names in his work. In Lillian road was Smith’s the coal merchant who was related to one of mum’s friends, Theresa who was married to my dad‘s cousin Fred Standbridge. Mr Smith had a male relative who was a farmer in Willington and it came to pass that aunt Theresa ( I was encouraged to call her aunt) moved to a nearly new council house in the same road, number 7 Chapel Lane, and next to a beautiful thatched cottage where artists would often set up their easel’s. Did you understand the forgoing or shall I start again? Back in Mitcham, or hop picking (popular holiday for Londoners) in Kent one of mum’s sisters, my aunty Sally got herself pregnant which although young unmarried ladies boast about it now, in those days it brought shame on the whole family. The father was a married man who was given one hell of a beating by my uncle Bert. Aunty Sally was promptly sent to aunt Theresa’s before her condition became obvious to the neighbours. Mum followed to care for aunty Sally and also to get out of range of the expected bombing raids, with Wendy and I in tow. This would have been late 1939 or early 1940.So you see that us kids were not evacuees in the true sense, we were lucky and had our mum with us. Meanwhile back at the ranch (Mitcham) dad and his brother Len had to leave Bourne and Barbers coach’s ( large numbers of vehicles including some of my granddad’s coaches were commandeered for use of the forces and defence work for the duration of the war) and secured jobs as ambulance drivers. At the end of May / beginning of June 1940 the evacuation of Dunkirk was taking place and uncle Bill (mums brother) on reaching the safety of Dover, no sleep and no food for days. was put on a charge for losing his rifle while trying to get into the boat. Just outside Dunkirk although he had no knowledge of the evacuation, uncle Arthur(mums youngest brother) was in action, trying to delay the German advance. He was at first reported “Missing, Presumed Killed in Action”, but months later, to her relief, mum was informed that he was in a P.O.W. camp in Poland. “It was September 1939 and the sky was full of lead, when Hitler went for Poland and Paddy for Holyhead“(Ferry to Dublin). Yes its funny, but far from the truth as most Irishmen living here either joined the British armed forces or carried on doing what they had been doing, hard manual labour, like their forbears the navies who built our canals and railroads, but now to do with the war effort, building airfield runways and the like. Uncle Len drove some of them himself to and from these sites in one of his fathers commandeered coaches. Lonnie Donnegan had a hit in the fifties called “The Irish Were Egyptian’s Years Ago”, how else did the pyramids get built ? Large numbers distinguished themselves in the armed services. Paddy has always liked a fight! I was advised by an ex RAF Irish serviceman that “ If a country is worth living in, its worth fighting for ” My earliest memory of Willington was the shock of being told that I would have to start school after my 5th birthday. I can only remember the face of one child and he was a boy whose surname was Pearse, I think. However I have many, mostly pleasant memories of the village and will try to relate them to you. Uncle Fred was in the army, so aunt Theresa, her sons, Bernard, who was older than me, Ray who was younger, and spoilt rotten, (Paul had not been born at this time), aunty Sally, and eventually baby George, mum, Wendy and I were the usual inhabitants of the house although the numbers would swell from time to time with long and short time visits from various relatives I remember the joy of learning to ride a bike (not mine)and one day steering to avoid what I thought was an empty packet of woodbines (cigarettes) and being shattered when one of the boys bought it into the house and was rewarded for what turned out to be a full packet of 10. I reasoned that I saw it first so I should get some of the credit, unfortunately I was to learn, life just aint like that! Although this was a fairly newly built house, it is some social comment of the time that it had no bathroom and was built with an outside toilet let into the rear wall of the house which could only be used by going outside in all weathers, this is why the piddle pot was in great favour the length and breadth of the country. We British at that time, in general bathed at most, once a week. When the £10 assisted passage to emigrate to the hot climate of Australia after the war came into force, the Aussies asked the question, “How do you keep a secret from an Englishman?” answer “ Hide it under the soap !“ The toilet, which was built into the back fabric of the house, could only be accessed via a walk in the rear garden, It had no plumbing, and consisted of a wall to wall wooden board with a large hole in it, under which, hidden by a sackcloth curtain was a very large and heavy, galvanised steel, purpose made bucket. The curtain hid the Bucket but sadly not the smell. You can imagine that everybody tried to avoid the job of emptying the bucket. After being in the house for a few months our little hero, who was mummy’s big little man decided to take on the responsibility and funnily enough nobody tried to stop me. It entailed lifting the curtain over the seat and dragging the ¾ full bucket, in stages, down the garden, finding a suitable spot, digging a large deep hole and burying the contents, Piss, Shit and squares of the News of the World, Daily Mirror and the like which had been used as toilet paper . Then dragging the bucket back and replacing it under the seat. We didn’t Know that toilet paper existed at that time, and years after the war when it came into fashion for the working classes. it was made by Izal the antiseptic firm, who in there ignorance, made it from very thin, very weak, non absorbent grease proof paper, which slid over your bum. I now felt very important and would be congratulated on my no doubt very smelly return to the house. Sometimes I would dig the hole where it had been buried some time previously and it may be of interest to know to the uninitiated that the urine had turned all newspapers regardless of their social status, to the same colour of the Financial Times, pink. While living in Willington, I remember being taken by aunty Sally to an optician in Bedford town, as I had been reported to be squinting at the school books. After having drops put in my eyes to enlarge my pupils, and (almost) seeing the sights on a tour of the town, on returning to the optician, I was diagnosed to be short sighted and thereafter wore specs, and I was now called four eyes in addition to the other taunts . On other trips to Bedford I got to like the town, it was probably most famous for its association with The Quaker, John Bunion who wrote most of Pilgrims Progress while serving a sentence in the town prison. The Quaker House where he preached is only a short walk from his statue in the town square. From the bridge over the river Ouse which flows though the town, the student rowers of Bedford college could usually be seen practicing for races with their coach, cycling along the towpath and shouting advice through a megaphone. It was also possible for members of the public to hire rowing boats from a boathouse close to the bridge. While on leave, dad took us all to see Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs at the cinema, but after queuing for hours in the bitter cold, there were no more seats and we were turned away. It was well after the war had ended that I eventually saw the Disney masterpiece. On the outskirts of the town there was, what I thought to be, an extremely interesting market, unlike the usual town market which was in the centre of the town selling mainly fruit and vegetables, this one sold and I believe, auctioned, all sorts of small livestock, different breeds of, tame rabbits, chickens, ducks, geese etc. also second hand, cycles, motor cycles and small farm machinery. I only went there a few times but I loved it. H&D 4 As already stated the house was a state of the art 1930’s council house with no bathroom, no flushing loo and I forgot to mention no running water. Water was drawn from a permanent standpipe disguised as a 5“-6” round cast iron post with a lions head on top. You placed your bucket under the lions head turned the knurled knob where his right ear should be and, bingo water issued forth from his mouth. This tap was situated halfway down the road about 50 yards away. So all the water needed, from making a cup of tea to the luxury of bathing in the portable zinc steel bath, (equipped with a handle each end), had to be carried in buckets. Thus on Mondays (washing day) The water was fetched from the tap or if lucky from the rainwater butt to fill the copper, paper and sticks were lit under it, soda and Reckits Blue were added to the water, large bars of carbolic and fairy soap were involved somewhere and when it came to the boil, the sheets, pillowcases etc. went in. When all the whites had been boiled they were taken out with a copper stick, which in fact was a long round wooden stick, transferred to the sink and rinsed in more clean water (almost every home had a copper. The copper consisted of an 18” deep x 18” across, round thick copper basin, which was built into a square brick structure usually situated in the corner of a scullery or kitchen, it had a heavy wooden lid and a grate underneath which had its own chimney).When the whites came out more soda was added to the water and it was allowed to cool a bit, then the coloureds went in, washed, taken out, rinsed, more soda, allowed to cool and then the woollens, washed, taken out, rinsed, then it was the turn of the socks. You would think that this water had done enough, but no, one by one us kids were stripped and stood up in the copper and washed down. The water by now was warm and indescribably silky from all the soda which was great if you hadn’t any cuts or scratches on your body but if you had, it would sting enough to take your breath away. Grass stains on your knees, are some of the hardest to remove but this soda rich water removed them like magic and we came out of the copper sometimes crying but always gleaming. I am sure there was enough water left to be ladled out with saucepan for one at least of the adults to have a bath, but if so, we kids were not allowed to watch. Incidentally this water worked wonders if you had black fly on your broad beans. Back in Mitcham, uncle Bert (mums brother) was plastering the whole scullery wall opposite the back door, while dad and uncle Len (dads brother) were outside watching a dogfight ( Spitfire or more likely Hurricane V a Messerschmitt 109 or 110) When the Messerschmitt broke away from the fight and dived towards the house. Uncle Len and dad ran for their lives at great speed through the door and into uncle Bert, who’s impression was pressed into the plaster, like a Tom and Jerry cartoon. H&D5 After my recollections of the following, I will have to agree with you that I was a right little shit. I thought the world of my aunty Sally, but on reflection, I was a thorn in her side and never missed an opportunity to make her life hell. Somewhere, probably at school I had seen a picture of an elephant trap, fortunately, foregoing the sharpened stakes I set about setting a trap for the rather rotund aunty Sally. This is where my experience of digging holes came into its own. Near the far end of the garden I set to work in earnest and dug a wide hole about 18” deep, then spanned the top with thin branches of dead wood, which I covered with newspaper before hiding it all under a thin layer of soil. The trap was set and all I had to do now was provoke the unfortunate lady enough for her to chase me down the garden. Fortunately I don’t recall what I called her, but whatever it was it did the trick. Off I ran, zigzagging down the garden making sure I was just out of reach until I jumped over the trap and the bottom half of my victims right leg disappeared to the accompaniment of screams of pain and shock. Fortunately for her and unfortunately for me no incapacity occurred and she was soon chasing me again but this time with a broom. I hid for a few hours until she cooled down. Tea like most things was rationed and I did nothing to endear myself to the household by running into the dining room and depositing a snowball in a freshly brewed pot of tea. On another occasion yours truly found out how to use a screwdriver, and removed all the door handles in the house, after which aunty Theresa christened me the “SHIT ARSED MECHANIC”, unfortunately this did not disqualify me from the unenviable task of squeezing out the yellow heads and the occasional boil on her back and shoulders. Us kids had forgotten what oranges and banana’s looked like and even the home grown apple was restricted to the season, however then, as now, some varieties were kept in storage and were released at a premium. these were a luxury item, I was very partial to them and no apple was safe from me. Anyway during a glut in the apple season aunty Theresa decided to teach this little apple thief a lesson, so she bought a large quantity of the fruit, placed it in the middle of the table and gave me licence to eat as many as I liked. Her idea was that eventually I would eat so many that it would sicken me of the fruit. After some hours and my very frequent visits to the loo, she decided that she couldn’t afford to continue. I still love apples. H&D 6 Aunty Sally attended church, the one at the other end of the village, near the ancient Dove Cot (National Trust or English Heritage) which I am sure I wasn’t allowed access to at the time , but have visited a couple of times since .If you have not been inside ,it’s worth a visit if you are in the area. The key holder at the time of my visits lived in the house next to it and he told me about a young Japanese tourist equipped as usual with camera’s and buckets of film whom he showed around and after which the elderly key holder told his tourist that he had been a guest of emperor Hirohito for 4 long and extremely unpleasant years, but was pleased to be of help as all this took place before our cameraman was born. The tourist spent a long time apologizing for his countrymen before he went on his way. Dovecots were used as a source of fresh meat during the winter months, until crop rotation and turnips enabled large numbers of pigs and cattle to be over wintered, instead of being killed and salted down every autumn. The following seems unlikely and may have been wishful thinking on my part. My memory is of aunty Sally and I walking home from the church and the vicar stopping to give us a lift, I was annoyed because it was a 2 seat car and I thought I would have to walk home on my own, but I need not have worried because the vicar got out and opened the boot to disclose 2 more full sized seats( these seats were built into the boot lid ,which opened downwards from just behind the regular seats). I saw one of these cars on a recent repeat of Campion on TV. So it probably did happen. On the way to this church and on the left hand side was a disused quarry where we kids played with some old small but very heavy quarry trucks which ran on rails. We were not supposed to of course but we knew nothing of health and safety, and if we had done, it would not have been allowed to come between us and our adventures. On the other side of the road, between the houses was a temporary British army camp in the true sense of the word, all under canvas. I can remember watching a boxing tournament which they put on to entertain the locals, and one of the contestants making a noise every time he threw a punch, Ssss, Ssss, Ssss, he went, while the other guy silently broke his nose, loosened some teeth and generally beat him up. So you see creating a noise to put off an opponent did not start with Billy Jean King or John Mc’Inroe, only that they perfected it. It was a shock to me to see so much blood, as our meagre weekly meat ration would not have provided a teaspoon of the stuff. It was daylight outside but in the bedroom the curtains were drawn to protect my eyes as I was recovering from measles or chicken pox. I was alone, playing with a toy Tommy gun, when I heard the drone, drone, drone of what later, on one of our returns to London, I could instantly recognise as one of THEIR bombers, the engines had a distinctly droning note. But on this occasion I imagined it was a German bomber so aiming my gun at the ceiling, began to shoot it down, click, click, click went my toy Tommy gun, THHRRUUUMMPPPP! went Herr Krupp’s BOMB. It made a huge crater in a field not far from the back of the house and not far from the back of the Crown public house. It was thought that the bomber had one left after things got too exciting for the crew on a raid, so they made their escape and decided the plane would be safer to fly back to the FATHER LAND without said bomb. Apart from the church which was ½ a mile away, the biggest target in the village was the pub, another possibility was the huge searchlight and anti- aircraft gun, if they were in place at the time (these were located in the field opposite the front of the Crown pub, in the corner nearest to the railway station), but the bomb was most likely meant for the railway. In this same field, which is now covered with houses, I saw a bulldozer cover over the bodies of a herd of cows in a huge pit, after they had been shot, bulldozed into the hole and covered in quicklime, during a foot and mouth epidemic. Disease it seems did not take a rest for the duration of the war. By this time dad, who had left his job driving ambulances to drive enormous (in those days) Scammel, Gardner 5 engine, 8 forward and 6 reverse gears articulated lorries (no power steering and the vibration would destroy a wrist watch in no time at all) in which he delivered crates of milk and collected the empties ( very hard labour, loading and unloading by dragging the crates in and out of the body of the lorry with a steel hook) all over London from a huge United Dairies processing and bottling plant adjacent to Vauxhall station which in turn received tankers of milk by rail from the southern counties. Although he was advised not to, because men employed in food distribution were exempt from military service, he left the United Dairies and got a job nearer to us at Cardington airdrome, home of the ill fated R101 airship ( you travelled in this, in the lap of luxury, the conditions and the food were up to the standard of the top hotels of the time) and he got to know one of the foremen who worked on it. I have since visited the huge sheds (can be seen miles away) and airship museum, the large mass grave and memorial to the poor souls who were burned alive in that dreadful accident when it crashed and the hydrogen caught fire in France, on its way to India. Dad was employed driving a Barrage Balloon mobile winch lorry, the purpose of the balloons was to stop low level attack by enemy bombers on our airfields. Much later mum got a part time job repairing these enormous balloons and like her workmates would wrap the silver rubberised material round and round her body under her top coat in order to steal it and bring it home, it was used for various purposes in the house including BLACKOUT BLINDS ( it was an offence to show a light after dark as it would help German bomber pilots “home in” on a target). We saw more of dad now although he had to stay in digs adjacent to the lorry, at whichever airfield he was employed At one such B+B the landlady served up appalling food and the last morning at the digs, she served up some half rotten kippers and dads mate wired them to the back of the stove before leaving. The man in charge of one lorry crew drank heavily every night and because he had a stomach ulcer was always in a foul temper, the following morning, and he and dad would row. Because of my dads way of dealing with bullying types and this was by no means the first one he had had to deal with, he went to see the O.C. in charge of the winch crews to ask to be moved. Dad was told (within hearing of a warrant officer) that he, would have to stay where he was and due to the wartime direction of labour ( some men were directed to work down the coal mines)he would enforce it. Alright then said dad, the very next time he speaks to me in that manner, I will THUMP him, then you will HAVE to change the crews and I will lose my job. The warrant officer now came over, gave the O.C. a bollocking and dad got his transfer. H&D 7 We played together, sometimes in the farmhouse across the road and sometimes at her parents house in Willington, on the main Bedford - Sandy road, now the A603. She was either the granddaughter of Mr Smith the farmer or the daughter of one of his workers. Her name was June, and I was in love, aged 4-5.How this romance ended is lost in the mists of time. This was long before “they were over paid, over sexed, and over here” So she wasn’t lured away with the promise of a pair of nylons “if you let me put them on for you sweetheart” by one of uncle Sam’s G.I.‘s. I can’t remember her being at the school or indeed anything about the inside of the school, the teachers, or the other pupils except for a boy named Pearce mentioned previously, and my memory of him was of playing beside the road. As I seem to have plentiful memories of Willington in general I can only assume that the school experience was very unpleasant, and my mind has blotted it out. Children can be extremely cruel and what happened at Willington school was in all probability the same as the treatment I received on returning to Mitcham the first time, Mitcham again from Weston-Super-Mere, Moggerhanger and lastly Mitcham. I was different in that I was a stranger and most importantly, spoke with a different accent each time. After a few months in each location I would unconsciously pick up the local accent and I spoke it like a native. On first starting at any school, in the playground I would find myself in the middle of a ring of local kids being jeered at, pushed, shoved and punched from one to the other. This treatment started before the bell rang for us to go into school and continued during playtime and if you didn’t get out quickly, after school. Sheila Hancock the actress made a T.V. programme about her experiences as an evacuee, in which she had very similar memories to the above. Uncle Fred came home on leave wearing full uniform and carrying his, gas mask, kitbag and rifle. Invasion was threatened, so every serviceman had to carry his full kit in case the worst happened while he was away from his unit. On returning to his unit he was posted to the far east and although he survived the war he spent the rest of his life suffering with periodic bouts of malaria. Aunt Ginny(my dads) 21 stone, came to stay for a while from Coventry, bringing her grandson Brian who was about the some age as me but not so well built ( I was until around 15 years quite big for my age. At 15, I stopped growing upwards and grew wider and rounder instead) and who I, for some long forgotten reason hated the site of. Inevitably we had a fight, he came off worse and went crying to Aunt Ginny, who grabbed hold of me, held me in her 21 stone grip and told Brian to hit me. Such was his terror of me he wisely declined, so she walloped me instead. I opened Aunt Ginny’s bedroom door early one morning and I hold the unenviable vision in my head, of her facing the other way bending down and starting to pull up her enormous red flannelette knickers. Not a sight for a nasty little boy, intent on revenge to pass over without shouting at the top of my voice to all in earshot. “I’ve seen Aunt Ginny’s B-U-U-U-M, seen Aunt Ginny’ ’B-U-U-U-M, seen Aunt Ginny’s B-U-U-U-M.” On reflection, it was a cross between a full moon and the setting sun! It was widely known that this same Great Aunt could not board a bus because she couldn’t squeeze past the vertical hand rail on the boarding platform. Although at first the Americans were not directly involved in the war at this time, the Canadians were, and Canadian aircrew used the local pubs when they could. On one such occasion some of these guys were invited back to the house from the Crown, bringing drink with them and a sort of a party developed. Aunt Theresa had a pianola, It was a conventional piano which also played large thick brown paper rolls (kitchen roll size), each one perforated to play a different tune. It was operated by activating an internal bellows via the pedals. When the party was in full swing it was decided to play Hands Knees and a Bumps a Daisy, this entailed standing close to and facing your partner, slapping both your partners palms with yours, slapping your own knees, turning and colliding with gusto into each others bums. The unlucky airman who partnered Aunt Ginny was projected into the wall like a bullet fired from his aircraft. The two Aunt Bertha’s came to stay for a while they were known as big Bertha and, wait for it, yes, little Bertha. Dad had stayed the night and was dipping a watering can into the rainwater butt, when at the same moment one of the Bertha’s decided that every little helps, opened the bedroom window and without looking, tipped the contents of the piss pot into the butt. My dads head was bald, pink and wet, and the air was blue, luckily I had started school by then and recognised most of the 4 letter words. Aunt Teresa’s house wasn’t very big but the amount of family and friends that came and went was amazing, she must have been a very strong and extremely kind person, so I suppose that’s why she was mum’s friend. Nearly everything was on the ration, so it was a bonus that up near the main road there was a horticulture farmer, who for a few month’s of the year sold tomato’s. We never had very much money but I was regularly sent to buy a couple of pounds of frying (to soft to market) tomato’s, which were cheap. Mum would split them and fry them in bacon fat, lard or dripping until they were caramelised (burned in those days) on both sides, then thick slices of bread were pressed into them and in turn fried. I am dribbling into the keyboard and can honestly say that this is the first recipe I ever used and I continue to use every time I allow myself the luxury of a cooked breakfast. Raymond was crying for bread and jam(this did NOT mean bread, BUTTER and jam) so Aunt Theresa spread him a slice of our precious blackcurrant jam ration and handed it to him, “I don’t want it” he cried, and cried “I want strawberry jam”. “We don’t have any” his mum said, “ but I want strawberry jam” cried Raymond, louder now, “we have none my dear” said his mum” “but I want some” Raymond shouted even louder, “I WANT SOME” “I WANT SOME” “I WANT SOME” .Poor Aunt Teresa went outside in the rain, tipped the dustbin upside down, found an empty jam pot labelled strawberry, washed the outside of the jar and scraped out enough to satisfy the little !!!! If you turned right at the front gate you passed by the lovely cottage already mentioned, on the right, and the Stokes house on the left, walking straight ahead and keeping to the left side of Mark Young’s field, eventually reaching a stile that enabled us kids to cross the railway (steam).So long as we were careful and looked and listened we 4,5, and 6 year olds thought nothing of it. If I saw my grandchildren do this now, and didn’t die of shock I am sure I would suffer with day and nightmares until I did return to ashes. The reason for crossing the railway was to reach the river where we had most of our adventures. The area we played in had at some time been involved with a mill as there were several iron sluice gates which still had handles to open and shut them, although they were well and truly rusted up by this time. In the shallows there were fresh water muscles and the bed of the river was made up of layers of yellow clay, blue grey clay topped with shingle and pebbles. The blue clay was as good as plastercine and we took it home to play with, but being no doubt full of all sorts of biological life it stunk after a few days. Ray told me recently that I was the leader on these expeditions and was apparently fearless. On one occasion on finding what we assumed was an abandoned punt, I ordered the young crew into it and set off on another adventure which must have included deep water. Somehow we all survived. Many years later I took Wendy’s and my children to show them this spot and I have a treasured photo of them fishing for tidlers. A Mr Jacobs or Isaacs (it was biblical) fished for eels in the river, he had two methods, method one was threading lots of earth worms onto a line, then rolling it up into the size of a golf ball, this seething ball of worms was then cast into the river attached to a line. No hooks were necessary as the eels would not let go of the ball. The other method was a box with a lid, it was about the size of a small coffin. In the middle of the lid was a hole which was covered on the inside with a flap made of part of the wall of a car tyre. The trap was baited with the intestines of a sheep or any uneatable offal. The eels could swim in through the flap but the flap did not allow them to swim out again. He would leave the coffin in the river for several days and I saw him harvest a good catch many times. I am very partial to Jellied eels and am sure that the eel would be a protected species had I continued to live in the area. H&D 8 I am definitely going out of chronological order here as some of the following happened much later when we were living in Moggerhanger, but as it concerns Willington I will pen it in this section. I definitely rode a bike, whether it was mine or borrowed from cousin Bernie I have no idea. I remember riding the bike on my own along the main road from Moggerhanger to Willington, when an open American Jeep with 2 G.I.’s (General Issue) in it (they were having a conversation) brushed against my pedal and threw me off the road and into the ditch , I am quite sure that they didn’t realise what they had done, they never even looked around. This memory is fortuitous, as the fact that I am travelling from village to village makes credible my later memories of Willington. Possibly the searchlight and anti-aircraft recollection were from one of these trips. I am standing with other children on Willington station and a troop train is going slowly through with open trucks carrying Bren Gun carriers and passenger coaches with the windows down, full of American soldiers (G.I‘s), and us kids ,who by now, new what to do, shouted GOT ANY GUM CHUM---GOT ANY GUM CHUM---GOT ANY GUM CHUM---GOT ANY GUM CHUM, until the last carriage cleared the platform. The GI’s had been encouraged to make friends with the British and that included us kids, and as they went past they threw out to us, not packets of gum, but brown cardboard boxes of packets of chewing gum and the same of Hershy chocolate bars. Us kids hadn’t seen anything like it in our lives, it was a scramble but we all had too much. Much is said against the Americans at the moment, but we sure needed them then. Churchill wrote “ I was woken to be told that the Japanese had bombed Peal Harbour, I communicated my condolences to President Roosevelt, returned to my bed and SLEPT THE SLEEP OF THE SAVED“. I am sure that left on our own, we would all be speaking German or Russian now. Before I leave Willington I must relate one more memory of my mistreatment of Aunty Sally. On this occasion we kids dragged a mattress off one of the beds, they were only 6”(150mm) thick and stuffed with horse hair. We dragged it onto the landing, doubled it over and balanced it on the banisters, calling Aunty Sally, Aunty Sally, Aunty Sally. When she started to climb the stairs, we pushed it on top of her, knocking her down the stairs. Again I had to make myself scarce for a few hours. I can’t comprehend why but she was always good to me and we remained good friends all her life. I don’t know the reason , but we returned to Mitcham, where I underwent the usual “you talk funny” wallop-push-thump, treatment at school. However, I do have one memory of the school that was a pleasant one for me, it of course concerns food. Amid all the shortages and rationing, there we were, us deprived kids sitting in the classroom, when the teacher informed us that the large tin of biscuits kept in the shelter in case we were trapped in there for a long time awaiting rescue, had been replaced because it was out of date, and she had been instructed to distribute them among the children. Bloody marvellous! Our house, being only about 400 yards/metres from the railway, had received bomb blast damage in our absence, the front door and most of the windows had been blown out but fortunately granddad, the landlord, had had them replaced. At the beginning of the war every householder in the London area was supplied with the materials to “build your own” Anderson air raid shelter, which you installed at the end of the garden or a Morrison shelter which was a steel and mesh cage in the form of a large table situated in the house on the ground floor, inside which the family would be protected from falling masonry. We had the Anderson variety and dad had to dig a hole approx 3 feet ( 1 M ) deep X 8 feet ( 2 I/2 M ) long X 6 feet ( 2 M )wide. This hole was then covered with thick galvanised sheets of corrugated iron (it was always refereed to as iron but I am sure it was galvanised steel), the uprights of which were let down into and against the sides of the hole and were cast to curve at the top end at right angles to meet their opposite number from the other side of the hole where they were bolted together .I suppose the shelter was about 4 feet (1 1/3 M) above ground level. It had a small door onto the path and the whole thing should have been covered with sand bags but ours was covered with earth about 18 inches ( ½ M ) thick. Marigolds were encouraged to grow all over it and it was a blaze of colour in the summer and for years after the war. The inside was sparsely furnished with duct boards on the earth floor, some wooden forms to sit or lay on and an oil lamp. Bedding etc. was taken with you in the event of a raid. Soon after our first return to Mitcham, we had been away at least 2 years, the air raid siren sounded, we rushed to the shelter and found it full of water, slugs and all forms of insect life. So we had to head for the nearest safe place which in most houses was under the stairs (built of stout timbers which gave protection from falling masonry).I remember the raid very well. Some of the bombs were close and the noise was out of this world, after all they were designed to take you into the next one. Wendy, age 2 was screaming and screaming and screaming, something I never forgot, and it was this more than any other memory of the war, that made it hard for me to forgive the Germans. It took a long time but I now have several very nice German friends. I don’t think we were back in Mitcham for long before dad wanted us away from the bombing again, and mum had a sister, Sue, in Weston-Super-Mere. Aunty Sue and uncle Bill Bailey had, when they had completed their family 13 children. When war broke out they were well on the way, but needed a couple more for the full set. The children were evacuated to different parts of the country but most of them to an address in Weston-Super-Mere. Aunty Sue was a very strong person , she had to be, and when she went to see the children, she was disgusted with the conditions they were living in. She paid a visit to the council offices and although they couldn’t be of help when she arrived, by the time she left, after threatening to complain to Mitcham council and to write letters to the national press, they had decided to commandeer a 4 bedroom house by moving out a middle aged lady and her daughter. So it wasn’t long before Aunt Sue moved in with most of her children. Uncle Bill was now in the RAF, so Aunt Sue wrote to Winston Churchill complaining that her husband had provided her with all these children and was unable to provide her with any help to care for them because he was too far away, wouldn’t it be a good idea to post him nearer home? Its doubtful that Churchill ever saw or even knew of the letter, but someone in the RAF did as Uncle Bill was posted near to home. Many years later she would write to Maggie Thatcher, asking for her old hats. So it was, that this was the house that we moved to from Mitcham to Weston-Super-Mere, to ESCAPE from the bombing the second time. Dad, who was in digs near Cardington, woke up the next morning to the news on the radio that Coventry had been very badly bombed and that the Luftwaffe on leaving the site of their main objective, had dropped everything they had left on Weston-Super-Mare, before heading back to Germany. Normal communications were down so it was many hours later and at a police station, that dad was assured he still had a family. A few days later I had to start school and remember picking up lumps of shrapnel (the cruelly jagged fragmental remains of the thick steel bomb casings) in the road on the way, and of one boy who caused panic among the teachers by struggling in with a live Phosphorous incendiary bomb (designed to ignite in roof spaces). Most of the bombs dropped on the first night we were there, were of the incendiary variety which were dropped in clusters. Starting at this school wasn’t so painful, as I had some older cousins with me, but I remember being physically sick over something they called Welsh Rabbit (Rarebit). As unfortunately for my waistline I am partial to most foods and make no exception for Welsh Rarebit, I can only surmise that to make the tiny cheese ration stretch far enough to feed this multitude of children, it had to be adulterated in some way and it was that, which made me sick. I played in the park (included some white cliffs) with my cousins and also remember that the beach was protected from invasion forces by a wall of barbed wire. There was a magnificent open air swimming pool built next to the promenade which had the highest diving boards I had ever seen or would see for years, quite visible from outside, I cant remember ever being inside it, maybe it was closed for the duration. It was at that time that I absorbed the knowledge (true or otherwise) that a diver had performed a BELLY FLOP from the top board and the result was that it killed him, as his belly had split open. Cousin Terry was about the same age as me and always in trouble in the framework of the family. On one occasion he borrowed ??? the watch belonging to one of his teenage brothers and hid it. After hours of cross examination by the said brother Terry confessed that he had buried it on the beach, but not to worry as he knew exactly where it was. He was quickly escorted to the beach where it soon became evident that to Terry, like the rest of us, one stretch of sand looks uncommonly like another. Its probably there to this day “the sands of time never run out” My bigger cousins earned a few coppers helping people, by carrying their luggage from the station to the bus stop. I offered my services but was always rebuffed with “your too small sonny”. We were there for months rather than years and returned to Mitcham again. I suggest that those of a squeamish nature, skip the next paragraph. I have memories of walking to school with other kids via the pig ally or Ebenezer walk in the middle of which was Mr Strudwicks pig farm. The smell of pig s### permeated everything and this was where my uncle Bill had slaughtered pigs years before, assisted by his young brother Arthur 14 years. No stun gun then, just rendered unconscious with a belt on the head from a heavy wooden Maul (special club With a steel spike). While the pig was unconscious, uncle Bill inserted a stick through the hole in the pigs scull and stirred its brains, raised it up on a chain by one leg, cut its throat, the blood was collected for black puddings and then the carcase scolded to loosen the hairs. At the end of each visit Uncle Arthur had to clean up. He related this to me about 5 years ago, so it made quite an impression on his young mind. Uncle Bill was caught using this method by an inspector years after the bolt gun was introduced. He was told that if he was caught again, he would lose his job. I understand that nowadays pigs are stunned electrically. The above is dreadful enough but at least the animal is unconscious unlike the Halal and Kosher method where the animal has its throat cut and bleeds to death while fully conscious, and with the consent of our government inspectors. I was playing in Marion road where there was a big brick shelter, actually built on top of the road . There could not have been an alarm or I would have been under the stairs at home. I could hear this fighter very low and heading in my direction, I must have been close to uncle Alec’s house, so I ran faster than before or since, and I could hear a burst of gun fire as I dived under the Morrison shelter. A butcher, cleaning his shop window was killed a few streets away. H&D 9 Barry completed mum and dads brood of 3 on the 1st of August 1942 at 67 Leonard Road, Mitcham. Dad was 34 years old and had been by now conscripted into the army. He was not in raptures about it, but he did take with him a single or double rupture and the necessary truss (es). This was the time it was said of the army medical “if your warm, your in”. The fact that he was not A1 medically ensured that he was not posted overseas. He remained a private for the duration and until his demob, and served as a driver mechanic in the Royal Signals and the Royal Artillery where he was also part of the crew of an AAK-AAK (Anti Aircraft) battery, not overseas its true, but still bloody dangerous as these batteries were situated near regular strategic targets or under the path of the Luftwaffe’s bombers and fighter escorts which were picked out by the hugely powerful searchlights which were part of the battery. Much later, after the rest of his unit had been posted overseas, he underwent the knife of an army surgeon, after which he was able to throw away his truss(es) and he became A1. Although he would step back from nothing in civy street, he had no aspirations as a husband of one and a father of 3 to becoming a dead hero in the service of his country. During basic training while on the parade ground the Regimental Sergeant Major asked if anyone played the piano, a few hopefuls put up there hands, to which the RSM said, “good, you lads can fall out and move the piano from the canteen to the officers mess“. Dad and a lot more conscripts soon learned that you volunteer for nothing! I often wished that I had half his guts, as, like I have indicated he faced every problem head on. I was told the following by his sister Dolly just after he died at the end of a long fight with cancer. I already new that at the age of 14 ( school leaving age)he was given a horse and cart by his father and was expected to make a living going round the streets selling coal. He had, like his brothers and sisters had, been very strongly encouraged to help out in the family business as he grew up, leaving Streatham very early with a horse and cart for Covent Garden Market to buy and bring back the days supply of greengrocery, accompanying his elder brothers. So although only 14 he was quite street wise and very strong. This, his first job, entailed getting up very early, getting the horse and cart ready (no mean feat) and taking it to the coal wharf at Streatham Common station and driving it onto the weighbridge before driving the cart to the coal trucks. He then, using a shovel had to fill the sacks with coal from the coal trucks, weigh the sacks (1cwt and 2cwt) and stack them on the cart, all by hand. He would then drive the cart out over the weighbridge so that the company would know what to charge him. He was then ready to vend his wares around the streets shouting his head off “ COAL! COAL! COAL!“ until he found a customer. These clients didn’t all live on the ground floor, he sometimes had to carry the bags up several flights of stairs. Some years later he had a Shire stallion called Captain (18 hands high) with which he won prizes at the annual show on Clapham Common. The Rosettes could still be seen in the house when I was a kid. Back to Aunt Dolly. Dad was driving the empty coal cart back to the coal wharf along the main road from Thornton Heath pond to Streatham Common, he was travelling downhill, when a vehicle backfired which caused Captain to bolt. With young Horace hanging onto the reins for dear life, the horse galloped on down the hill at great speed towards a busy shopping area with traffic and pedestrians milling about. The horse was a fine example of its breed, the biggest in the world (bred centuries before for joisting and to carry Kings and Knights in armour into battle) weighing almost a tonne + the weight of the cart, it looked certain that there were going to be many casualties until young Horace spotted a side turning on the left just before the shopping area, almost at the turning he pulled with all his strength on the left side rein, the horse and cart turned into the side road and travelling too fast to take the corner turned over on its side. This was exactly what young Horace calculated would happen and was the only way to avert a disaster. Fortunately no lasting damage was done to the horse and the cart was repairable. He became a local hero and was in the local newspapers. Our parents now had a Peter, a Wendy and a Barry but always denied that they were inspired in the choice of our names by the book, PETER PAN and WENDY by James BARRIE! It must have been shortly after Barry was born that we returned to Bedfordshire but to Moggerhanger this time H&D 10 MOGGERHANGER Mum had rented a semi-detached thatched cottage from a lady who lived in the village, on the right hand side of the main road to Sandy. We didn’t bring much in the way of furniture with us but we were provided with the essentials by a government department. I remember the items were all marked with a special UTILITY stamp (a wartime government stamp which denoted that the item was basic but of a minimum quality). The funny thing is that, although we must have lived there for3 years and I have plenty of memories of the area, I can only recollect 2 rooms in this cottage,1 up and 1 down, but I feel sure there were more. I also have a feeling that the semi next door was bigger. These two cottages stood on the left hand corner of the road as it ambled down from the Guinea pub, past the school, past the village hall, and past the Rose pub, all on the right, until it made a right hand bend on its way to Blunham outside our cottage, which was opposite Mrs Ashwell’s grocery shop. The locals were soon to name the area RADIO CORNER as mum’s hearing was no better and she had remembered to bring the large 8 valve Marconi radio with us. This radio was switched on first thing in the morning until last thing at night, so it was no bad reflection on Mr Marconi that every so often the condenser ( a continuous coil of copper wire covered in a tar like substance) would overheat, it would smell a little at first and gradually over several days fill the house with acrid smoke until it was in danger of bursting into flames, at which time the radio was put in the care of the local repairer. It was at these low decibel times that the mice, cockroaches and woodworm moved back into the house and a particularly noisy and persistent cricket moved back behind the chimney. These cockroaches were a big problem as they disappeared during the day, but if you came downstairs in the night for a cup of water say, as you walked from the bottom of the stairs to the light switch by the front door, your feet would crunch and crush hundreds of them, and still more would climb onto your feet. As the light was switched on, thousands were visible for a few seconds as they scurried to safety under the kitchen range. The water was provided by the same make of lion standpipe as described previously in Willington, but this time just supplying the 2 semi’s and positioned the other side of the front privet hedge and between the two properties. Unusually at that time, for a 200 year old small country property, electricity was connected. A coal fired cast iron black leaded kitchen range provided the heat, the oven and hot water for all purposes, washing clothes, sheets, a bath, was heated in a steel galvanised bucket. We had saucepans and a kettle of course. This kitchen range which was a fixture, was situated up against the adjoining property and under the chimney, in the middle of the main room (assuming there were others) which spanned from the front to the back. The sanitary facilities were however not as luxurious as those at Willington, because although still the smelly bucket model, the bucket was situated in a back to back wooden sentry box with half on each property and about 30 yards from the cottages. As you can imagine, an excursion to the toilet on a cold ,wet, and if we couldn’t afford a torch battery, very dark night, wasn’t something to be entered into lightly. Our neighbour Mr Looseman, was able to be experienced relieving his calls to nature in three ways, the first was visual, through the knot holes in the boards that separated the two inhabitants, The second was musical, and although only small in stature he was gifted with the sound effects of the full range of the brass section of a Salvation Army Band playing with their instruments half submerged in mud, which created a muffled bubbling sound. Last but certainly not least he had perfected the art of anti social farting, both in volume and in aroma. This old gentleman had with, I imagine, years of practice, discovered decades before lager louts had, while on the throne with a hangover after last nights curry, that the basic ingredient is a good plateful of almost caramelised fried onions or a stew containing the said onions, pearl barley and split peas. It was possible to build on the overall quality with the addition of a few pints of bitter and a tin of baked beans but curries were unknown to him and what’s more to the point, completely unnecessary. Incidentally I have tested the above recipe on several occasions and I can recommend it. My mums name was Daisy but we got to know another Daisy, she was the milk lady. Daisy who was middle aged with buck teeth and her donkey which had excellent teeth, and with the aid of holes to allow its ears through, wore a straw hat, called each day with fresh milk straight from the cow. No bottles, no pasteurisation, milk was dispensed via half pint , pint, or quart (2pint) galvanised steel measures from a galvanised milk churn and into mums milk jug. This method of delivery left the customers wondering if, like a pub landlord ,the product was being watered down. Betty the bakers girl, delivered the bread daily in a small van, she was very pretty and it wasn’t very long before one of the G.I‘s. who were starting to get the reputation “Over Paid, Over Sexed, and Over Here” took an interest in her. The “Yanks” were better at sweet talk, had more money, and what’s more introduced to this country and gave to their girlfriends, the first nylon stockings ( a big improvement on the thick Rayon and Lyle stockings they were used to). They invariably said they had a ranch back home, so it was, that the few English local boys and British servicemen who were still in circulation could not compete. If the lady’s couldn’t get nylons they often dyed their legs light brown and asked a girlfriend to paint a seam down the back of their legs. I would watch, fascinated. Betty like thousands more young girls married her G.I. and I often wonder if things worked out for her ? After the War, thousands of these G.I. brides, some with children, some pregnant, travelled by ship to the U.S. of A. and most were met at the port, but for a few hundred others, there were tears, as nobody claimed them and they had the indignity of returning home to their families on the same ship. To many of these G.I.’s and not only the black ones, a life in the services gave them the best wages they had ever enjoyed, so instead of a ranch (like the girls had seen in the westerns) some of the girls who were met at the ports had a shock coming to them, when reunited with their husbands they discovered that his family was of new immigrant stock, and not only were they very poor, the husband couldn’t afford separate accommodation, and so the G.I. bride had to live with his family, who being Italian, Polish, German or Russian , in addition to the usual trauma of living with in-laws, they couldn’t even speak English. Had the bride wanted to return home, the cost would have been out of reach of her, or her family. Aunty, with little George in a pushchair and I, were on our way to Bedford via Blunham station, which was a fair walk from the house and we were hurrying because we were late. 100yards from the station and the steam train arrived, unlike us it was on time. We increased our speed as we could hear the doors slamming and could see the stationmaster about to signal the off to the driver when he spotted us about to disappear under the bridge, in order to reach access to the station the other side, so he held up the train until Aunty Sally bought the tickets and we were all safely on the train. Later, Dr Beeching would add to our road congestion by closing this line and hundreds more like it. Opposite the station was a field full of large tents, which were used by civilians who enjoyed a holiday helping with the crops, by working in the fields during the day and spending their hard earned cash at night in the pub next to the station. Bedfordshire was famous for its onions, they were a very popular crop, in fact the variety Bedfordshire Champion is widely grown all over the country for shows, as it reaches gigantic proportions. When German and Italian P.O.W’s returned to their countries after the war, its possible that they didn’t want to see another onion as long as they lived, as they were employed in Mark Young’s fields, hoeing onions all day long in the growing season for most of the duration of their incarceration. Mr Looseman who had a wide friendly weather worn face and a good head of grey hair, devoted a large part of his garden to his onions and they were very healthy specimens indeed, for reasons that will soon become apparent. He never needed laxatives of any kind, he was Bedfordshire’s answer to Too Loose Lautrec. He was a good gardener and although we only recognised the smell, he recognised the value of his home grown fertiliser (the founding pioneer of the Green Party) . He grew the best celery in the county, at our expense, by digging long narrow trenches in his garden, inserting the young plants at regular intervals and pouring the contents of his lavatory bucket along the trench and then adding a light covering of soil, after returning the container to his half of the sentry box at the conclusion of each ceremony of, “The Pouring of the Bucket“. As the plants grew and it must be said thrived, this enrichment of the soil took place as often as the level in the bucket allowed. We often prayed that the wind would change direction. I am reminded of an old joke thus. (I bin a spredin manoor all day your lordship” said old George. “Why doesn’t he say fertiliser” said her ladyship. “We ony jus got im to say manoor maam“, said the head gardener. Aunty Sally and little George moved in with us shortly after we arrived, she was company for mum and as I have said before I liked her very much. Little George was a lot younger than me and a little younger than Wendy. He like me, was fond of his food and would gorge himself to sleep at the table with the spoon still in his hand, whereupon his eyes would gradually glaze over and little by little his head lowered itself onto his plate, but not before the plate was empty. On occasions when we were watching him, we couldn’t help but burst out laughing, and on waking to the sound , finding himself the object of the merriment, would scowl deeply and throw the spoon with venom at the person sitting opposite. When he was small he had problems saying T, so he would say Pracpor and Prayler ( tractor and trailer ). Aunty Sally met, and was courted by a much younger man. Mr. Bowman had something of a reputation as a tearaway. When in his teens he was said to play what he considered practical jokes. On the way home one dark winters night he climbed onto the thatched roof of an old ladies cottage and tied a wet sack over the chimney, the smoke forced her outside, which amused him but not the rest of the village, who were in fear of him. He was excused the forces because he suffered with blackouts, but was an active member of the Home Guard and was also completely fearless, so much so, that after being trained, he taught new recruits unarmed combat and how to disarm an enemy soldier. This worked OK, until he was stabbed in the stomach with the business end of a bayonet. He must have recovered or I wouldn’t have had the pleasure of knowing him, I liked him a lot and he was always very kind to me, A very old dilapidated barn stood in our garden between our cottage and Mrs Hills orchard and us kids played in there a lot. One day I somehow fell backwards onto the rounded end of a large staple that was sticking out of the floor, injuring my spine. I screamed and wouldn’t let anyone move me. Fortunately for me, Mr. Bowman called in to visit Aunty Sally, and hearing of my plight, having been trained in first aid by the Home Guard, he persuaded me to allow him to move me to my bed, which he was able to do without too much pain. I suffered from this injury periodically for several years, but it left me eventually. Aunty Sally called me over to the table one day, where she was sitting with, and talking to mum. She showed me a wedding ring on her finger with which she and mum played a game with me, by swapping it under the table. Eventually there were two rings and it was her way of telling me she was marrying Mr. Bowman. Mum didn’t think it was a good idea and that it wouldn’t work in the long term because of the difference in their ages, and she was proved right. On the plus side when they married, he adopted little George, giving him his name. Mr Looseman was at the time around 65 years old I would guess, and very fit for his age or any age come to that. My dad was home on leave. Mr Looseman had discovered a fallen tree in a spinney (small wood) ½ a mile away and suggested to dad that they take the 2 man cross cut saw, cut the tree into logs and have half each. They were at it all day and although Mr Looseman who was obviously used to this kind of work showed no sign of fatigue, poor old, but 30 years younger dad, was knackered. Mr Looseman was very kind to me and would allow me into his cottage, which was far more interesting than ours as it had lots of large glass display cases some with stuffed fish, on the walls, and several with stuffed animals on top of sideboards which were far more elaborate. One contained a squirrel fully dressed as a highwaymen complete with pistols, holding up a stage coach pulled by, and containing various small mammals all beautifully dressed. I remember in particular his spittoon on the floor, he had a good aim, he never missed, and the dark brown mahogany colour of his spittle, the result of a lifetime, not of smoking tobacco, but chewing tobacco. He cut pieces off with his penknife from a compressed block of Twist or Plug to chew for far longer than a cigarette would last. If the spittoon was out of range his target was the open fire, creating steam and a hiss . I also remember him breaking raw blackbirds eggs into his cup of tea and asking me if I wanted some. Wide eyed I listened to tales of his adventures in Canada and in particular, how, when he was a trapper, he had killed enough bears for their skins to cover the whole county of Bedfordshire. I am ashamed to relate that due to the circumstances of us trying to live on a private soldiers pay, we sometimes took advantage of Mr Looseman’s green fingers and his coal cellar. I remember dark evenings when I was helped out of the rear window to carefully creep along his rows of onions, selecting one here, one there, so as not to arouse suspicion, until I had gathered enough to accompany the weeks meagre family cheese ration. These onions were very carefully washed indeed. At the rear of the cottages and on either side of the party wall, let into the wall of the cottages, were situated the respective, but unfortunately for Mr Looseman not respected, coal cellars. I don’t think our one ever had much coal in it, as we couldn’t afford it. We ran the stove mostly on bits of dead wood gleaned from the before mentioned spinney and the hedgerows. Mr Loosemans coal cellar door was secured by a large hasp and staple and an enormous great padlock. It was soon ascertained that the large staple could be worked loose, and when our unconscious provider went to town on his bike, I was shoved out of the window to loosen and withdraw the staple and rob the poor man of some of his coal. While a watch was kept for his early return, I handed the coal in through the window. This practice was carried out from time to time until one day I noticed that his coal was arranged in a pattern ( he must have become suspicious) so after that the pattern was partially and carefully taken down, some coal removed from behind it and the pattern recreated as far as possible. He never, ever, figured out how we opened his padlock, which of course we didn’t. There wasn’t much money for fruit either, so we would help ourselves and say we were scrumping it, the victims of our attention would rather use the expression stealing it. Mr Looseman had a very nice eating apple tree and us little sods were pulling the branches down to pick the fruit which wasn’t ripe, this caused us short term tummy ache and the tree long term damage. In his undoubted frustration Mr Looseman laid a circle of barbed wire (wicked stuff) around the tree to protect it from our attentions. This of course had the desired effect, it kept us at bay and all was well in the state of Denmark, until that is, dad came home on leave. In all my life I never saw him as angry as he was that day. As usual he took the bull by the horns and asked Mr Looseman first of all if he would remove it, as the children were not going to be put at risk of being torn to shreds while playing in the garden, to protect his few pounds of apples. Mr Looseman replied no he wouldn’t, to which dad replied “ I will give you until tomorrow night to remove it, if you don’t, I will ”. Next morning Mr Looseman rode his bike to Bedford to get advice from his solicitor. Overnight it disappeared. Barbed wire is so dangerous that used in civilian situations it can only, by law, be installed at over 8 feet from the ground. Mr Looseman had the last laugh however, at the next ceremony of the “Pouring of the Bucket” he poured its foul contents around the base of the tree, thus stopping me from climbing up the trunk and onto the branches. Ruby, an old lady and an acquaintance of Aunty Sally stayed with us a few days and on leaving, left behind a wooden box which she said she would collect when she was settled in, wherever that would be . After a few months and no sign of Ruby the box was opened and was found to contain jars of jam, tins of meat, sugar and in short, nearly everything that was on the ration. I am sorry to relate that little by little the contents of the box disappeared, as fortunately did Ruby who was never heard of again. The Stork Margarine factory like other margarine factories had to abandon its product and turn its whole production over to National Margarine, a nutritious but more basic margarine. With their minds on post war trade the sales team were not going to let the great British public forget the leading pre war product. So they were constantly advertising on what must have been Radio Luxemburg and in the newspapers. I worried my mum every time I was reminded of Stork Margarine until I was obsessed to taste it, and mum was sick of the sound of me worrying her about it. When after the war I got my first taste of it, I could certainly tell the difference, I had been a victim of an unusual type of wartime propaganda. Sandy was called Sandy because it was built on the side of a large hill made entirely of a natural sand deposit. It was I suppose the biggest town in walking distance of us, although you could get an infrequent bus part of the way, if you had the fare. The town even had a cinema. Our ration books were registered at the grocers there and occasionally I would be sent in to pick up the butter (sometimes rancid) and cheese ration which didn’t take a lot of carrying, even for a small boy. One day in particular I also had to buy a large bloomer loaf of bread. After leaving the town I decided that mum wouldn’t notice if I ate a little piece from the middle of one end, you’ve probably guessed the rest, by the time I arrived home I had eaten my way through the middle from end to end but leaving the crust intact. I was waiting at the bus stop in Sandy one day after going to the pictures (probably George Formby) when unbeknown to me a boy I had the better of in a fight earlier, had his revenge when he kicked me up the bum as he rode past on the back of a bicycle. H&D 11 Mrs Hill lived in the big house nearly opposite the Rose pub, her garden was huge and she had an orchard full of apples, pears and real old fashioned large, fat Victoria plums ( not the ill bred apologies you find in the supermarkets today) that extended from the house, parallel to the road, until, unfortunately for Mrs Hill and fortunately for us it backed onto our little plot. This charming lady assisted in our ambitions to scrump, by taking a shine to Barry who by this time could toddle. Wendy would escort Barry to buy a pennyworth of windfall apples and while Mrs Hill was chatting to the little fellow, we, there were some shadowy figures with me, who could have been cousins or the children of one of mums friends on a break from the bombing. would climb over and fill bags and a small sack with top quality delicious fruit, and hand them back over the fence. There was a cart track which started at the side of Mr Looseman’s cottage and after 100 yards meandered past a little dump on the left, used by ourselves and other neighbours for household rubbish, before passing the rear of Mrs Hills farm also on the left, then passed a meadow on the right in which at the right time of the year in the hedgerows grew violets (in later life I used the memory of the scent of these, to identify good quality Northern Rhone wines) and cowslips, it was occupied by Dobbin the horse, and after what seemed like half a mile, past the spinney on the right that my dad had cause never to forget, the track continued on until it met a main road. Mrs Hill had a grandson a little older than me, who possessed an air rifle. I was pushing Barry in the pushchair along the cart track while Wendy walked beside me, when all of a sudden I heard a noise from behind the hedge and Wendy started screaming and holding her neck, I sat her on top of Barry and ran with the pushchair as fast as my legs would take me to mum. I was convinced that she had been shot with the said air rifle and she had a bright red mark on her neck which did not look like a sting from an insect. However, fortunately Wendy soon recovered, we had no proof, so that was the end of the episode. Regarding the dump, I amused myself for hours in the summer swatting the wasps which were attracted by the jam jars, with branches I had broken off trees. I was dressed in shorts and a shirt, clouds of wasps flew at and around me and mum could never understand how I never got stung. I figure I must have smelled pretty unpleasant, at least to insects and I was very surprised when one of these creatures finally got their revenge shortly before my 70th birthday. I loved to go and look at the fish in Mrs Hills farmyard pond, there were different colours of goldfish, the usual orange colour, yellow, black and mixtures of these colours. But what shocked me about these fish was the size, most of them were as big as herrings. She also kept a few small ones in the horse trough, to keep the water clean I was told. My dad was very partial to mushrooms and as we were expecting him home the next day I scoured Dobbins meadow to find some. I couldn’t believe my luck when in the corner of the field, under a tree there were at least 2lb of the beauties and in addition the largest mushroom I had ever seen, it was nearly the size of a dinner plate, I suppose Dobbin kept the area organically receptive to this member of the fungus tribe. I was so proud. and beside myself with excitement, so much so that in addition to telling mum the good news I naively took another boy to show him my find. Needless to say that the following day when I led dad by the hand to harvest my treasure, there wasn’t a mushroom to be seen. I, like my father before me was extremely shy and one day some of the local young girls decided they wanted to kiss me, I of course being the idiot I was and still am? broke away in absolute terror and ran up the cart track road with several of these young maidens in pursuit, the surface was gravel and ash and I tripped and ground my face along the road. Crying, I was escorted to mum by these little girls all trying to be nurse. I still bear the scars where a moustache would reside if I had one, and the damage resulted in a dental surgeon operating on the roots of my two front teeth some 30 years later. If Barry went missing for any length of time we got to know what the cause was, he would always be discovered standing silently and perfectly still, with a bemused look of surprise on his face, he had shit himself, and wouldn’t move from the spot. He had a foul temper and if he didn’t get his own way a cry would turn into a howl which disappeared into no sound at all as he held his breath until his face turned blue, at which stage, mum held him upside down and smacked him across the back, at which therapy, there was a loud gasping/sucking sound as he filled his lungs with air. Needless to say this always frightened the life out of us all, but particularly mum. To a Scotsman, Haggis is the “chieftain of the pudding race” , as far as I’m concerned the king of puddings is the “Steak and Kidney Pudding” (Kate and Sidney),but the queen of puddings must be “Christmas Pudding” and although it may have been possible if you were well off to buy one ready made at say, Harrods or Fortnum and Mason’s, most of the mums in the country had to make their own. This meant starting to save ration coupons for the very rich ingredients from October onwards until just before Christmas, when the various dried fruits, candied peel, spices, suet, apples, etc, etc, were purchased. Making the Christmas pudding was a kind of a ritual, looked forward to by the children who all gathered together, to take their part in making it. Many a little finger found it‘s way into the sweet spicy mixture for a secretive taste before mum dropped a silver three penny coin into the bowl and all the children in turn were given the wooden spoon and allowed to stir the mixture. It was normal to put the mixture in a basin, cover it with a butter or margarine wrapper and tie a pleated cloth over the top, the pleat to allow for expansion. Unfortunately mum did not have a large enough basin so she had to use the other method of shaping the mixture into a ball, wrapping it in greaseproof paper (I doubt she had any) and tying it in an old pleated teacloth. Early on Christmas day mum had water in a galvanised bucket boiling away on the stove in which she gently lowered three months dried fruit rations and left it to boil for 4 hours. Wherever he was, from time to time, dad would buy a chicken from a farmer and send it through the post. Very often in the summer the postman would be more than relieved to deliver the parcel, because it stank to high heaven and on receipt it would be promptly buried without ceremony. Fortunately Christmas is in the winter and after we had done justice to our Christmas dinner, mum went to the bucket on the stove to retrieve the pudding only to let out a shriek, the old teacloth proved to be too old and it had burst, allowing the contents to escape into the boiling water, which now took on the appearance of Mr Loosemans bucket. I can’t remember who got the silver three penny bit . Dad had borrowed a Morris 8 car while on leave and I don’t remember why, but He took me with him for company, to visit my grandparents. Its possible that my grandmother was very ill. Apart from spending the only night I ever spent under my grandparents roof, my only recollection was having to be persuaded to kiss grandmother who was in bed, goodbye. What I have never forgotten is that her lips were like velvet. Later I recall dad telling mum of how he received a telegram ( telegrams at this time were 99% bad news) in the barracks and although he loved his mother, he was relieved that it was to inform him of her death and that it wasn’t bad news of mum or one of their children. Before I relate the story of the Italian conman its only fair to my many Italian friends that I mention the following. The Italians have been the butt of many jokes about their courage in WW2, everyone knows “The smallest book in the world is the Italian book of war heroes” I remember the Jewish comedian Vic Oliver (who incidentally married one of Churchill’s daughters), in a radio programme called “Workers Playtime” stating that “Churchill has offered to lend Mussolini a submarine so that he can inspect his fleet”. However their were many instances of heroism by Italian individuals and units, especially by regular servicemen. The raids on Royal Navy ships while they were sheltering in various harbours of the Mediterranean by Italian 2 man midget submarines, which sank several important ships (The 2 frogmen attached limpet mines to their hulls), took a great deal of pluck. The Italians were always outstanding engineers and I remember being very impressed by one of these midget submarines displayed in the Imperial War Museum at Waterloo. General O’Connor spoke highly and had great respect for the Italian tank units and their tactics in the early days of the desert war in North Africa. However their conscripted soldiers were poorly trained and very badly equipped, for the daytime heat and severe cold of the desert nights. It must also be said that their allies, the Germans were better trained and equipped and had also been subjected to a superior propaganda machine. H&D 12 Fast forward to around 1990 and I am having my hair (both of them) cut in the Tooting barbers owned and staffed by Tony and Frankie, middle aged Italian brothers. Both had a very good sense of humour and took great delight in taking the pee (winding up) their regular customers. They would both be working on separate clients but instead of, as is usual, talking to them, they talked to each other about the nationality of the customer. Bloody Paki’s!, bloody Irish!, bloody Jews! Bloody Welsh! and in my case bloody English! They would then rattle off anything that they thought would provoke (they picked their victims carefully), and when they succeeded, they both, and all the customers in the shop had a good laugh including the victim. Today was my turn, “bloody Engleesh, when a we come a this a country we told no more bloody foreigners gona come here, so we buya da shop an now da country fulla bloody foreigners, Engleesh, bloody Conmen!” I told them that the first Conman that I ever encountered was an Italian and I related the following= At the battle of El Alamein in 1942 the Italian army surrendered in such vast numbers that in order to get some idea of their numbers, British officers had to stand on tanks and count them by the acre. Most of them were held POW in the UK, and Bedfordshire had its share. Because of their avowed intention and duty to escape and get back in the fight, German POW’s were taken to work in the fields under armed escort by lorry, with two armed soldiers on the back of each truck until they arrived at their place of work, where they were guarded by an armed soldier in each corner of the field. At the end of the day they were returned to the POW camp in the same fashion. Italian POW’s on the other hand, had no ambitions to escape and were only too pleased to be alive and out of the conflict. This allowed that they occupied cottages and houses under the control of their own officers who walked them to the fields to work. Some of them drove tractors, some rode bikes and apart from the large round coloured target patches on several parts of their uniforms for British soldiers to shoot at if they did try to escape, ( incidentally these patches were also sewn onto the German POW’s uniforms ) they had a life of almost civilian proportions. What these Italians were forbidden to do was fraternise with the people, and apart from trading aluminium rings for old worn out aluminium kettles, pots and pans to melt down and manufacture more rings, on which they would engrave your initials and sell for pocket money, there are today, many an Anthony or Rosemary who owe their existence to the endeavours of these young men and violation of the fraternisation rule. I was about 8 years old at this time and I used to stand at the side of the road watching these men on there way to or from work and some would talk to me and one in particular (I think he was an officer) who was very nice, always asked me for soap which was very scarce and on the ration, he offered an ice cream in exchange. He kept this up for some days and as I felt sorry for him because he said he couldn’t wash, and I hadn‘t eaten an ice cream for ages, I stole a bar of soap from the cupboard and waited for him to pass. When I gave it to him, he thanked me and told me that in Italy he owned an ice cream shop and when he returned home he would send me a big ice cream in the post, I couldn’t understand why the other POW’s were laughing and as I was not going to tell mum about stealing her soap it wasn’t until much later when I had my first ice cream for many years that I realised why they were laughing. So that gentlemen! I said, was the first conman I ever encountered. This produced moaning noises from my favourite barbers and Tony disappeared while Frankie carried on cutting my hair, a few seconds later Tony reappeared and pressing a bar of soap in my hand said, “have it back you Engleesh Bastard”. My mother was in her 80’s when I confessed and handed her back the soap. H&D 13 The Rose pub was quite small and only a 100 yards or so from our cottage and sometimes we played with the landlords children, the eldest was called June who was older than me. I remember being told to “speak Kings English boy” by the landlord, and in a broad Bedfordshire accent. On another occasion I overheard in the yard a farmer say to him “ I hope this war goes on for ever, I’ve never made so much money”. I told my dad the next time he came home on leave and he nearly exploded. Mary was an old lady who was a regular at the pub, her little Jack Russell dog followed her everywhere even into the pub. “Her Name Was Mary” was a popular song at the time and was frequently sung inside the Rose, mainly because Mary’s dog always joined in by howling right through it. Another dog in the area was called Jack because he was in a permanent state of sexual excitement and Jack was one of the ways of describing this condition at that time, at least in Bedfordshire. There was a rainwater barrel in the pub yard which I liked to peer into to watch little worms swimming up and down. At some stage a couple and their very young children moved in with Mr Looseman, and I expect he was pleased about it as it meant his crops would be better than ever. A little boy of theirs, aged about 12months dropped and smashed a large pickle jar and the poor little kid somehow managed to sit on it, receiving multiple cuts and was lucky he didn’t castrate himself. The father, Dick was handy with electrical work and it wasn’t very long before he asked mum if he could run a speaker from the 8 valve Marconi into the cottage next door (he must have been as deaf as mum to need a speaker), mum being a kindly sole gave her permission. It wasn’t long before he was popping in to suggest a change of programme, and it wasn’t long after before he got a take it or leave it from the kindly sole. Dick complained to dad one day that Jack ? Had poked him in the eye the night before, in the Rose, dads advice was “ Thump Him and you will find he won’t do it again”. The signal for the expected invasion early in the war (operation Sea lion) which fortunately, because of the outcome of the Battle of Britain, did not take place, and the signal for the end of the war, in case some of the population couldn’t hear mums radio, was the sound of church bells, so when someone mistakenly gave this valuable and very welcome news to the vicar the bells were rung loud and clear, but only unfortunately in Moggerhanger had peace broken out, the rest of the world carried on killing each other. August time, farm workers would cut a wide path through the wheat with scythes around the outside of the field, to allow room for the horse/tractor powered binder to cut the wheat. The binder would cut around and around and as it got nearer to the centre, various game, mostly rabbits which had been frightened into the centre would make a break for it only to be met by men with sticks, dogs and shot guns, not many made it to the safety of the hedgerows. Occasionally a frightened rabbit confused at not knowing which way to turn would squeal as it was mangled by the binder. I remember telling dad that one of these men was a very good shot and dad said that with a shot gun he would have had a job to miss. This reminds me that dad could not wink his left eye, so because he was right handed he had to wear a patch over his left eye when firing a rifle. At threshing time I got myself a job for about 10 minutes, quickly hanging the empty chaff bags on the threshing machine as soon as the full bag was taken off by someone older. However I suffered with hay fever, and had to retire with eyes and nose streaming. The Thrashing Machine was a very large wooden vehicle which was pulled along the road and onto the field by a steam roller (like the ones you see at steam fairs).From a pulley on the steam roller a long belt (this belt if it broke or slipped off could and did kill or maim) was connected to a pulley on the threshing machine and this was the only source of energy used to power the various tasks of this predecessor of the combine harvester. The wheat had previously been cut, tied in sheaf’s, and stacked all over the field in the style of small tepee’s until dry, and at threshing time farm workers pitch forked them to a man on a horse drawn cart, until it was as high as he could stack it while standing on the top of the sheaf’s. The cart was then parked adjacent to the threshing machine where the man standing on top of the cart transferred the sheaf’s by pitch fork to another man on top of the machine, who fed them into it again using a pitch fork , to produce grain, chaff and large straw bales, bound with wire. The school dentist would arrive a week or so after our mothers had signed their consent on the forms we took home. He parked his small white caravan in the playground and we were lined up outside it a dozen or so at a time. The first child went in, was examined, and if any teeth were to be removed was given a shot of cocaine and told to join the end of the queue, and by the time he/she was in the chair again, the offending tooth was numb and ready to pull. Terrifying as this was to us children it was not as bad as a generation before, when the dentist toured the streets seeking victims, and my grandmother Charsley arranged for the extraction(s) to be performed on one of her young daughters across the road at her aunts, because she couldn’t stand the screaming (no anaesthetic). Another unpleasant memory of Moggerhanger school was of all things, country dancing, I hated it for two reasons, first I thought it was for girls and more importantly, I had to learn the right steps and if I got confused, which I usually did, the girls would all laugh at me which made me even more confused. This resulted in my hiding under the desks during country dancing lessons and gave me a lifelong reluctance to join in and I sincerely think that I missed out on a great deal of fun in life because of the innocent laughter of these children. The village hall was much bigger inside than it looked on the outside and was used for regular dances. As already stated I was paranoid about dancing but as yet I have developed no similar aversion to sandwiches or for that matter any sort of food. It was possible for children to gain admission to watch and to partake of the refreshments for a small amount, say 2p. I could always get the fee from mum and it was a special treat because of the meagre rations, there was as much cheese in a dance sandwich as we were entitled to for a week. I feel sure I had more than my share. The band was the same at every dance and always included a fat man on the banjo who us little sods nicknamed Piggy. They played the same tunes most people had heard on mums 8 valve Marconi, so they were all familiar with the rhythms. I cant remember if they played in tune and didn’t much care as I was concentrating on the refreshments. The local girls were able to dance with British, Canadian and American servicemen, mostly airmen, and a few farmers sons and farm workers who had not been conscripted because of the importance of home grown food (the workforce needed for each farm was assessed according to its potential production).At the time thousands of tons of allied merchant shipping was being sunk weekly by German U Boats. The ladies fashion at the time was a straight frock pulled together in the middle by a cloth belt, which was tied in a bow at the back. Us horrible little boys would stand patiently at the edge of the dance floor looking as though butter wouldn’t melt in our mouths until a couple got close enough for the bow to be pulled, causing the dress to hang down in a very shapeless new fashion. We only did it for a joke so it was difficult for us to understand why the girls got so embarrassed in front of their partners and so mad at us. Another use for the hall was the distribution of egg stuff (powdered egg) and on other occasions chocolate powder, to the children, generously donated by the Americans. There were just the four of us at the time and the ration was x amount deposited in a basin per family and Barry was too young to carry a basin, so mum, who found she was unable to count on these free hand out days, only had 2 families, not 3, and 1 basin, so I made sure I was in the front part of the queue and as soon as I had collected a measure I ran home, mum emptied and washed the basin and I then ran back with it to the queue where Wendy was waiting at the back, and we had “double bubble” as they now say. The Guinea was a full sized old and pretty pub at the crossroads in the centre of the village and on very rare occasions in the summer, if we had visitors staying and if mum had enough money (sometimes from picking peas) we would go there for a drink and a chat. Us kids weren’t allowed inside but there were some seats in the rear garden so that’s where we spent a few hours with lemonade and some Smiths crisps which were “potato flavoured” and the bag also contained a little dark blue twist sealed, bag of salt. Smiths were the only firm then and for many years who made crisps. I couldn’t have been a nasty little shit all the time, as I remember a Canadian airman sitting me on his knee and letting me have a drink of his beer. I often wonder if he survived, so many didn’t. There were several airfields in the area and at night if we couldn’t sleep we would count the bombers overhead after they had taken off and on their way to Germany, and early in the morning count them as they returned, wondering the fate of those missing. I mentioned peasing (pea picking),which was a good way of earning a few bob. The farmer would call in his lorry or tractor and trailer very early in the morning at the homes of volunteers who would have to travel on the back of the vehicle in the open to the field where they were given a bucket, an empty wooden box and a sack, then directed to a row of peas where they sat on the box, pulled pea vines out of the ground and after picking the pods from the vine dropped them in the bucket. When full the bucket was tipped into the sack and when that was full it was carried over to the weighing machine and if heavy enough a Tally coin and an empty sack was given to the picker who started over again. “Come Mister Tally Man Tally Me Banana”. These Tally‘s were exchanged for cash at the end of the day I think for a shilling each ( 5p ) but it would by 3 loaves of bread. One day some gypsy’s turned up for the work who proceeded to fill the bottom of the bag with pea vines added earth then more vines and finished off the top with a few handfuls of peas. They were found out and made to leave in a hurry. The fare we took with us was lemonade bottles full of cold tea including sugar and milk, and doorstep sized sandwiches containing anything that was available (made the night before). The women would chat all day as they worked and I remember one old lady they nicknamed “Semolina” who caused much comment and laughter by insisting to wear an old pair of knickers on her head to protect her from the sun. I still have a memory of Bill Fillery standing in the living room of his house in Lillian road Mitcham, he had those piercing eyes, similar to Enoch Powell but much kinder and he was married to mums best friend Vi Rice. There eldest child was a very pretty girl but for the life of me I cant remember her name, Raymond was a few years older than me and David, whose son was to play for Chelsea F.C. was a few years younger than me. Bill Fillery was killed in action, I think on D Day 6th June 1944. Mum invited Vi and the boys for a break away from the doodlebugs (V1 pilotless flying bombs). So they came peasing with us and I remember the boys made us laugh when it was discovered that they had innocently been shelling the peas into their bucket Unfortunately a popular song at the time and played frequently on the radio started thus = He’s just my Bill ,an ordinary guy, etc. and this would naturally reduce poor Vi to tears. As already stated the cottage was quite small and for a while mum, Aunty Sally and cousin Gladys ( they were all, as they say “well made”) all slept in the double bed. One night the iron bedstead gave up the ghost and crashed onto the floor. I don’t remember anyone being hurt but I can still remember the screams of laughter. Peasing was a financial success, so when the farmer was looking for volunteers to pick French beans, mum, Aunty Sally and cousin Gladys asked to be picked up the following morning. They were in for a shock, instead of sitting down all day on a box, because French beans are not ready for picking all at the same time, the plants are left in the ground, so you walk along the rows stooping over and picking the beans as you go. This is no problem for seasoned farm workers but to city dwellers it’s a killer. If they were in a sorry state when they arrived home, they had great difficulty getting out of bed and were unable to walk upright the next morning and had to ignore being summoned by the lorry’s horn at 7am. Mums brother Arthur had been liberated by the Americans, after dreadful treatment, malnutrition ( he had a lung removed because of the neglect of respiratory illnesses. If you didn’t go to work, you didn’t eat ) and surviving “friendly fire” by British fighter planes ( he made coffins for 8 men who had survived thus far and no further) during the “Last Escape” ( In fear of the Russian advance their German captors marched the prisoners many hundreds of miles in the middle of the Polish winter towards Germany). He had now come to visit two of his sisters and I have a memory of him standing on a grass verge near the cottage in a blue shirt and light grey flannels, he was looking into the distance, no doubt reflecting on his past and future. At some stage it was suggested that he earn a few bob peasing, I think he went once but had too many bad memories of working in the freezing fields of Poland while suffering from malnutrition (German guards would hit his feet with a rifle butt to make him work faster). He didn’t stay long, although I pleaded with him to stay, he returned to London to continue his courtship of the love of his life Gladys (a different one), who he would eventually marry. It was a very nice bum, it was on a bicycle saddle and to add to the confusion of yours truly, it was attached to a male Royal Air Force officer who was riding by the school gates as I started to walk home from school. After falling in love with a girl when I was 5 years and now being 8-9 years old, and still very shy, but secretly admiring the fair sex in general and a few girls in particular, I was much troubled by this bum. I can only hope this member of His Majesty’s heroic R.A.F. had a normal member and a deformed female style bum. Had I had any knowledge of homosexuality, I might have, instead of walking through, “come out” of the school gates. Instead I ONLY admired, girls and ladies bums and their other attributes for the rest of my life, to date anyway. Had my parents been rich and sent me to an all boys boarding school, who knows ? I am eternally thankful that they were working class. No children! no grandchildren! no great grandchildren! What an existence ! George Formby was much loved at this time, he was constantly on the radio and if you had the money, you could see him in a new film nearly every week. He was one of my hero’s. Often when it was raining we would play at concerts in the old barn. We would dress up in any old rags we could find, which included a well worn and torn mans black dress jacket with tails which was left at the cottage in an old box. I would do my George Formby impression ( which I am sure was very good). My Ukulele was an old enamelled saucepan with a hole in the middle of the bottom, over which I strummed with a short stick and sang (I knew all the words), When I’m cleaning windows, Leaning on a lamp post, etc. etc. when I had exhausted George Formby, I would start on Mr Piggy (village dance band) impressions. One day instead of climbing apple trees I decided to climb onto the roof of the barn, which was as high as a bungalow, eventually I reached the ridge tiles and decided to take one off, exposing a small colony of bats, I threw the tile into the air and was back on the ground, with my heart pounding and still shaking, in no time at all. I specialised in tree climbing after that. Dad was stationed in Wales for a time and the first time he came home on leave from his first visit to that country ( Yes Hitler enabled ordinary working class folk to travel the world, even Wales !) he couldn’t get over the fact that they all sang in chapel choirs and would use any excuse or occasion in order to sing. I will now fast forward to a few days before dads funeral in 1997. I visited the house of the vicar who was going to carry out the service to give him some of dads background and discuss what he could use. The Vicar was an elderly Welshman so I told him of dads fascination with the Welsh and their singing, and related the following. Dad told me that there were concerts every week and the soldiers were pleased to get out of the barracks, even if they hated choirs, so the concerts were always well attended. This particular evening one of the men in the choir announced that he was going to sing a solo, in the following manner, “I am going to sing to you, and I hope you will enjoy it as I will” dad imitated his Welsh accent when he related it to me (aged about 8), and when I reminded him about it years later, much to my surprise he had forgotten all about it. I now copied my dads imitation some 50 years later. “Your father was stationed in NORTH Wales” said the vicar. H&D 14 At least one G.I. who had been issued with a box of French Letters (not a packet of three, uncle Sam was always generous) carelessly left them down, and in the excitement of the moment, forgot to pick them up. A young boy found what he thought was a box of little balloons, brought them to school where he distributed them to his mates, who blew them up and tied them to the school railings. At the time we kids all thought they were balloons, but judging by the panic and haste with which the lady teachers removed them, they, definitely knew what they were. Mrs Atwell’s grocery shop (minus groceries) was almost opposite our cottage and it wasn’t exactly or remotely busy, as she never had anything much to sell. The only item I can remember that she stocked and was infamous for were bottles of her homemade sauce, the main ingredients of which were vinegar and mustard, but as they say, “any port in a storm” and pathetic as it was, it helped to make the bland food of that time a little more appetising. She had a large walnut tree in her garden, and we would collect the fallen fruit when she was out or purposely distracted. The following comes to mind, although I must point out that it has come down through the years from a different age and not recommended for use in this one. A DOG, A WOMAN, AND A WALNUT TREE, THE MORE YOU BEAT EM, THE BETTER THEY BE! I can remember in the summer months suffering badly from hay fever and asthmatic attacks, on occasions leaning out of the front upstairs window, with thatch above and either side of me as I fought for breath in the night. In addition, during the day I was particularly affected by tall white flowering plants which grew in profusion along the sides of the road, this plant also gave me nasty headaches. Angels were singing as I stood alone in the garden, mum had gone out and no other radio had the power to reach me so angels they had to be. I was hungry and trying to eat a raw beetroot I had pulled out of the soil, so whether that gave me hallucinations or not I don’t know. The Rawlings farm was a few hundred yards down the hill in the direction of the river and the old water mill which was used at the time to grind animal bones to make fertiliser, On occasions I would see the two teenage Rawlings boys fly fishing near the mill. At the farm, after negotiating my way around the extremely vicious flock of geese ( which were as good as and were sometimes used in addition to, guard dogs, at least until Christmas) I would see them sometimes fighting in the garden with real boxing gloves. They had a brother about my size who I sometimes played with. One day after sparring with each other, one of then had the nasty idea of getting some free entertainment by transferring the gloves to us smaller boys. Being a natural coward, I feel sure that I must have tried to avoid this violence, but to no avail, they were tying the gloves on me. I had no idea what to do, but after receiving a fat lip I decided to punch with both fists simultaneously in the general direction of my opponent, and although I would hesitate to teach boys studying the noble art of self defence to use this tactic, it worked wonders for me. Young Rawlings was on the receiving end and his brothers soon stopped it, this was not how they planned it. However unbeknown to me, a boy around the same size who was versed at least in the rudiments of the noble art, lived in Blunham. So determined to see revenge, the brothers arranged for this boy and I to be at the farm at the same time, and being completely unaware of this arrangement I arrived on the scene. When you stick both fists out together you leave your head unguarded, and it didn’t take long for my new opponent to realise this, so again, although it was one sided, it wasn’t totally so, and a good scrap ensued. It seemed to go on and on, until one of the teenagers separated us. I said to him I think I lost, but because he enjoyed the fight he very kindly told me it was a draw. Its doubtful that he announced the same verdict to the other lad. Mum wanted to know how I got my bloody nose and another fat lip. Barry was only a toddler but his life was not without incident. Having escaped the safety of the cottage and toddling too near the edge of the road, he received a glancing blow from a passing car, which put us all in a panic until it was realised that no bones were broken. I have a lasting memory of him dragging a vegetable marrow (nearly as big as himself) under a five bar gate, out of one of Mark Young’s fields which was the other side of the lane next to the cottage. He must have realised that mum would be pleased with it, whatever its origins. At the side of the road next to this five bar gate was an enormous oak tree, some of the roots of which were exposed and dead. It was easy to break pieces of this off and I would spend hours under the tree carving and paring this material which was much easier to carve than wood from the branches. It was while I was at this one day, that, not angels this time, but a warm wind, which circled the tree trunk and me a few times and was gone. An older boy explained it satisfactorily as an MG car when I told him about it, and being older, I assumed he was right. My cousins, Wally who was older than me, Johny who was the same age and their older sister Gladys, who was a teenager arrived at the cottage, possibly after their father, my uncle Alec had bought the cottage from the lady owner. Cousin Gladys tried to get her young brothers to attend the local school which they did for one day, didn’t like it and because they had their sister eating out of their hands, decided never to go again. Wally, Johny and I were talking outside the village hall when a much older and bigger boy came by and joined in the chat. I don’t remember what it was but he said something Wally didn’t agree with and an argument ensued, which ended with Wally jumping into the air and catching him a clump around the side of the face, in seconds his cheek went very red and we all departed very fast, while he bellowed what he was going to do to us. Had this boy been only up to a year older than Wally, Wally could easily have taken care of him, he was an excellent scrapper and good at all sports. I don’t recall whether Gladys returned with the boys to London before staying with us much longer, but at some stage she met and fell madly in love with a local farmers son, Curley Reid (he had curley blond hair). Cricket in those days was just as popular as football. Every senior school in the country, state or private had competitive matches within the school and inter school elevens, who would compete for the county championship and then individual boys would hope to represent their county. Curley was very popular and an excellent cricketer, he played for the village team, this was an interest Gladys had not anticipated but had to compete with. After working hard on the land all week (and they got extra rations because it was so hard), off Curley would go, all day at the W/E and sometimes weekday evenings to play or practice cricket. This was the cause of much friction between the courting couple and I remember one occasion when Gladys cut the string which attached his cricket boots to the rear of his push bike, and after Curley had ridden off, unaware of his loss, she threw them in the fire. This was the measure of her jealousy, not of another women, but of the power that cricket had over her man. There was a lot of excitement in the air, an election, probably the 1945 General Election. They must have been Conservative canvassers because Labour canvassers were few and far between in rural areas and the likelihood of their owning cars was even rarer. Anyway mum and aunty Sally were bundled into a Conservative car, treated like ladies and driven in style to the poll station. On their return , after thanking their escorts, they closed the door and fell about laughing, they had voted Labour! I can’t leave the county without mentioning an article of food known as the BEDFORDSHIRE CLANGER. Unfortunately I have never seen one but it has been described to me as being like an elongated Cornish pasty but made of suet pastry and boiled in a cloth, having a savoury meat filling at one end and with a strip of pastry separating it from a sweet filling at the other end. This being farm workers food it was taken to work with a bottle of cold tea. Homeward bound, the war was over and dad, like hundreds of thousands of conscripted men, would have to wait, as little by little they were fitted out with a new demob suit (off the peg utility quality) and returned to civy street. While waiting for demob (de-mobilisation) and on leave, dad borrowed a large, grey open backed lorry, I think it was a Vulcan, from granddad Charsley, and came to collect us. Mum and Barry travelled in the cab with dad, while all our worldly goods travelled in the back with Wendy, yours truly and cousin Gladys, who wept all the way to Mitcham for her Curley. It wouldn’t be long before Curley would arrive with his family, marry Gladys and take her back to Moggerhanger. Here endeth the first lesson. H&D 15 I now had to get used to living in Mitcham again, attending Lonesome ( it got its name decades before when it was just fields) Junior school and particularly enduring the unwelcome attention of the elderly Scottish headmistress, a witch called Miss Macleod, indeed a CLOUD settled on my young life. It would be nice to think that it was because of being shuffled around due to the war, that a few of us were behind with our reading, but it was more likely that we were thick. Unfortunately this character from Macbeth decided, it must be said to her credit, that she would help us to catch up with our classmates by holding special reading classes in her study. We few had to read out loud to her in turn, each mistake was rewarded with a sharp rap on the knuckles with the edge of her wooden ruler. This was extremely painful and instead of thinking about the subject, I was in constant apprehension of the next blow to my sore knuckles, which resulted in more of her specialised punishment. So for the rest of my time at the school I was in a state of anxiety worrying about the next reading session. In my memory, Jill always wears the same little woollen brown and green fairisle dress, she was in my class, I had a crush on her and as I was very shy she wouldn’t have known about it. Around this time my cousins Wally and Johny came to dinner with us, because their mother had just died. Miss Charman was nice and I enjoyed her lessons in which she played the piano and she taught us to sing along with her. I can still remember 60+ years later and have often sung to the annoyance of my children, grandchildren and my great grandchild = THE SUN HAS GOT HIS HAT ON, HE’S COMING OUT TO PLAY, THE SUN HAS GOT HIS HAT ON , HIP,HIP,HIP,HOORAY ! AND JOHN’S GOT GREAT BIG WATERPROOF BOOTS ON, JOHN’S GOT A GREAT BIG WATERPROOF HAT, JOHN’S GOT A GREAT BIG WATERPROOF MACINTOSH, AND THAT SAY’S JOHN IS THAT ! Nitty Nora the flea explorer (Health Inspector) paid us regular visits, no doubt her duties were several and for the general wellbeing of the children, but I only remember the nit comb and a thorough investigation of each child’s head for lice. The identical boy twins in our class were so identical that they always seemed to have identical colonies of lice. After her visits, their identical hair was short cropped and their identical heads covered with identical ointment. One of my friends, Terry called me Big Face (no, not pig face) so a fight ensued in the playground I have chosen not to remember the result, so I probably came off worse. We had gardening lessons in a vegetable plot which was part of the school grounds. I suppose we must have cursed inclement weather and having to stay in the classroom. When I left this school to attend secondary school the air raid shelters which I had been pleased to make use of so recently, were still in front of the infant school. H&D 16 Age 11-15 The first day at “Rowan Road Secondary Modern School For Boys” was preceded by fearful tales of bullying by the much older boys and a traditional ducking ceremony, where the new boys were overpowered and their heads held under water for a few seconds to wet their hair. Yours truly, being only a trainee coward but willing to learn fast, somehow avoided the ceremony, by wetting my hair out of sight of my waiting tormentors. Mr Ainsley was a really nice cuddly, fatherly figure, and completely unsuitable as the headmaster of this, or any school. Except in the presence of a few strict form teachers, the boys were completely uncontrollable. Loutish behaviour was the norm both in and outside the school, if a FEW of US met ONE of THEM ( boy from another school in uniform) he was considered a sissy and his cap and sometimes his jacket were forcibly removed and thrown over an 8ft brick wall into the Jewish section of Streatham Park Cemetery. The entrance to which was 400 yards down the road. We never wore school uniforms and I cant remember even if there was such a thing. One thing though is for sure, a boy who dared to wear it would have to be the best fighter in the school. At some stage we must have been given the 11+ exam, and although I don’t remember it as such, I do remember some weird test which I had never seen the like of before, didn’t understand, and failed miserably. The result being that I was selected to spend the rest of my schooling days at Rowan Road. Many years later my wife, Una, was able to purchase mock 11+ exam papers so that our two daughters Sharon and Michelle were encouraged to, and passed the exam, which enabled them to attend Tiffin Girls Grammar school, which was one of only a handful of grammar schools left in the country. Mr Newsom was middle aged, quite short, had thick black hair, and at least at this stage was, the most feared teacher, he taught science and although I’m no scientist I learned more from him than any of the others, because he wouldn’t accept any nonsense whatsoever. Once because he had asked for a ½ inch margin to be drawn down the left hand side of the page and I drew a ¾ inch margin and on another occasion when I had accidentally flicked ink blots over the page because of a dodgy pen nib, I was given the customary treatment of a wallop round the ear, which made my head sing for several minutes and convinced me to be more careful in future. A collection was held when he left the school and the fund was embarrassingly small, it seems he wasn’t popular with the teachers either. Mr Bailey was a science and physics master and may have succeeded Mr Newsom. His style was completely different as he kept order in class by making everything so interesting. To test our grasp of the subjects, we had to write five sentences indicating what science was, and five indicating physics. Yours truly had them completely arse about face, But much to my surprise and my classmates disgust, Mr Bailey apologised for my error, said it was an easy one to make, and gave me some marks. To be continued H&D 17 age 11-15 continued Tony Smith wasn’t Irish but he was a Roman Catholic, the only one out of 350 boys at the school and I was jealous of him because he was excused assembly, as it contained prayers of the Anglican kind. Although my parents were not churchgoers as such, I am sure they believed in God and they certainly made sure us children went regularly to Sunday School, the Band of Hope (we paid a penny every week to cover our funeral),The Recobites, where the part time religious teachers attended in normal clothes and were called brothers. Occasionally it would be announced that in two weeks time there would be a film show and sure enough Brother Rickets would arrive on his bicycle with huge tins of films, a projector and a rolled up screen. He must have been well rewarded with the laughter of the children, as we watched the “Dead End Kids”, “Charlie Chaplin” “Laurel and Hardy” etc. All these religious organisations for the children put on treats for us kids every so often, such as Christmas parties, trips to the seaside which included tea and cakes and in the case of the Recobites, the film show. The weekly events were not particularly well attended, but like children all over the world, news of these treats would circulate like magic and the week before, the venues were packed out, so that us little sods were then able to qualify for the main event. During the tea parties kids like me who had brothers and/or sisters who were too young to attend, stuffed our pockets with cakes to take home for them. Much to the neighbours annoyance, I started to learn to play the Euphonium in the Salvation Army Band. I was somehow under the impression that I was selected to learn the instrument because I had a musical ear, but when I realised it had more to do with the fact that I was the only boy, big and strong enough to lift it off the ground, I became disillusioned, and mores the pity, gave it up. Ernie was a year or so older than me so was in a different class at school but I had played football and cricket with him and other local boys in Marion Road and over Oakley Way (local park) since we were very young. He had smashed an eye on the corner of a cast iron oven door in the kitchen of the family home in Marion Road when he was very young. The doctors at the hospital had tried to save the eye but driven mad by itching in the night, Ernie tore away the bandages and scratched the wound before the nurse could stop him. The result was an infection which resulted in the removal of the eye. I have often heard him say that he wished they had tied his hands to the bed frame. Artificial eyes in those days were not very natural looking or indeed called artificial by the other kids, glass eye was the term used, and very frequently, as a taunt by the cruel little sods. Rotten tricks were played upon him, instigated by bullies and involving several of them, as they soon learned to their cost that glass eye or not, Ernie was well able for any one of them. Although of average size for his age he had a natural strength which was all the more terrifying because of his determination. I remember one occasion when during a playtime break he had been overpowered by several bullies, tied up in scarves and left in a heap in the toilet block. Fortuitously for the gang leader some time later a teacher had noticed water running under the cloakroom door, on investigation he discovered Ernie holding the boys head under water in the basin with the two taps running full on. When news of this got around, Ernie was left alone. Notes for continuation Mr Winstone Boppa Mr Smith Norman Ferris Mr Wilson/duster Jenner Harry Branch Joe Baski Mr Garforth Visiting team Norman Ferris Girls note Mr Hall Sports master Dr Miller/Cassidy Dinners/home time Marbles Accumulators Penny drinks Bikes/speedway/Perriman /Pies and eels Wilden/Bimbo Ebeneezer walk Pigs alley Chickens/ducks/aunt Sue Rabbits/Flemish Giant/ Belgium Hare Snuff/you can say that again Horace bag of farthings H&D 18 Mr P ? Gale Mr Allen Mr Mannering George Ives Mr French Various other boys Mr Leyens Leo’s Chauffer Cafe Mr Sayers Mr Elliott Dad The King The Pollard Oak Sprayers