"For whom the Bell tolls" was on tele this afternoon, I Remember, I
Remember.........

Must have been about 1942, I stood in a queue outside The Odeon Leciester Square, with the most beautiful girl in the world, long blonde hair beautiful face and a figure any girl would be proud to own. She was my dream girl and my first love, she was much more experienced than I and probably a bit older, but it didn't matter cos I was totally infatuated. At that time I was completely ignorant of the opposite sex, didn't know a thing about them, didn't even know that there were any differences between boy and girl. We were never taught about sex at school and my dad said that babies came from under gooseberry bushes and it didn't enter my mind to think otherwise. When we went to the cinema, she would unbutton her blouse and place my hand on her voluptuous breasts, (she never wore a bra), and I was in heaven.

On the way home we sat upstairs at the back in a bus, and we both fell asleep, wasn't until the bus had been stationary for some time we woke up and found we were in the bus garage. It was now so late we would have to walk the rest of the way home, and there was Jerry, dropping his bombs all over the place again. As normal I escorted her home cos she was afraid of the air raids but it would mean a six mile walk for me. Passing down a back street in Fulham there was a row of houses that were on fire, either from incendiary bombs or an oil bomb. The fire service, A.R.P. wardens, rescue and police were all doing the best they could as usual, whilst all the neighbours were crowding round to watch. All of a sudden, there was a terrific explosion, the houses must have also had a time bomb dropped on them. There were people lying all over the place, dead, wounded, crying, screaming but there were many ambulances and crews in attendance, there wasn't much we could do to assist, We carried on walking home. Even though the raid was still taking place, it was heaven saying good night to her on her doorstep, kissing her and pressing up close to her.

We had met at a dance hall near Putney Bridge, she was a good dancer but it was ecstasy to hold her in my arms. I had intended to go to the Putney Dance Hall over the milk bar, but it was a good job I had changed my mind cos that night the dance hall had received a direct hit and both the dance hall and the milk bar were crowded. They used the Gaumont cinema as a mortuary for all the hundred or so young folk that had been killed. During the raid a few of us stood in the doorway of the hall watching Jerry fly over dropping his bombs. The doorkeeper was trying to shepherd us back in to the hall, at the same time saying 'Get under cover you don't know what those bastards can do, I was in the first world war, so I've seen it all'. I glanced at a Pilot Officers chest and in the glow of the fires I noticed that he was wearing the V.C. but he said naught.

I took my girlfriend home to tea to see my parents, and they liked her a lot. Was I a proud boy walking down the street with her on my arm. She told me that she went to night school and was escorted by a married man, also that she had had many other boyfriends, but it all fell on deaf ears cos I was so infatuated. As I only saw her once a week I was getting a bit lonely cos all my friends were disappearing. Little Marie over the road had died of double pneumonia & her sister Cis that I used to go to school with had been in an air raid shelter at work, and a bomb had rolled down the steps into the shelter and killed all that were taking refuge.

Teddy who lived opposite had tried to stop a large electric fan in his factory from going round and had been caught up in it and mangled. George next door had joined the army and was now a prisoner and near to death. Rudyard who lived round the corner had been watching the Jerry's during an air raid, when a bomb dropped close by and dislodged a reinforced concrete beam from the wall in his front garden and it fell on him crushing him. It was the normal thing now to build air raid shelters in the streets, for those folk that didn't have an Anderson shelter in their back gardens. These were made with walls of brick and a one foot thick reinforced concrete roof and one of these had been built in the forecourt of the block of council flats in the next turning. One night a bomb dropped nearby and the brick walls were blown away by the blast, then the reinforced roof fell on the people taking shelter killing most of them (including some more of my friends)

I was now seventeen and the old man had always quoted to me 'Never volunteer for anything son'. So disregarding his statement I made my way to Acton Town Hall to join the army. I had always been interested in electrics so I thought I would join the R.E.M.E.'s. First thing a medical to see if one was fit, the place was crowded with young men. We were all sitting on the floor waiting our turn, when a Major came out of a side room and wanted to cross the floor, he said to us 'Oh mind your tootsies young men'. Christ what kind of an army was he in, but I soon found out it was different once you were in. Passed the medical (which was a suprise cos as a kid I'd had a weak heart) got dressed, then into the army recruitment office. 'Yes son ' said the Sergeant Major 'What can I do for you' 'Please Sir' said I, 'I want to join the R.E.M.E's'. 'Sorry' he replied, 'the R.E.M.E.s are full up, are you over six feet tall' 'Yes Sir', 'then I'll sign you on for twelve years in the Irish guards'. 'You bloody well wont' I replied. Next to the R.A.F. that was situated in an adjacent room off the main hall, but they only had Flight Engineers vacancies and that involved twelve months studying in Canada, which would have bored me stiff. Next to the Navy in the next room they promised nothing, because one could only specialize once one had joined. So I enrolled as an ordinary seaman.

Soon my call up papers arrived and I was to report to Skegness 'H.M.S. Royal Arthur'. Where the hell was that. The farthest I'd ever been away from home was Southend on Mud, or Folkestone. Think my old man knew that I had volunteered, he said to my mum, well I was expecting it but he's a bit young, cos they don't call em up till their eighteen. My folks had a party for me before I left, but my girlfriend didn't come because she had something more important to do, but I had bought her a broach that cost me six pounds, a fortune in anyone's eyes.

Sat up all night, then the good byes to everyone and off to the railway station. The journey from London to Skeggie took seventeen hours as the train kept stopping due to air raids. Didn't know that H.M.S. Royal Arthur had been a Butlins holiday camp in peacetime, but during the few weeks I was there learnt some interesting things. Like how to escape from a submarine by wearing an apron when you're forty feet below the surface, so as to stop one from popping up out of the water like a cork. Also how to row at full speed in a boating lake, when the oars have holes in them and the dinghy is tied to the side. So one had to row like a madman to get nowhere. Also how to march on a skating rink. We had to do fire watching on the roof of the gigantic mess hall, a bomb fell in one of the row of shalies and killed a few men but that is what I had joined up for. Also the sea came over the boundary wall and we had to walk through a few feet of water, so what. The main thing was that standing up there in the winter it was freezing cold, and the new blue overcoats supplied didn't keep the cold out. After absorbing all this knowledge then off to Malvern Hills for six weeks square bashing to pass out as an ordinary seaman. During this time I had had no word from my girlfriend, so wrote to her explaining what had been happening and hoped that she'd wait for me until I returned. To my delight I received a reply from her but wasn't delighted when I read what she had written. 'Dear John, I am not exclusively yours'.

Ignored the old man's advice again and volunteered for active service. The most attractive young Wren psychologist I had ever seen in my life interviewed me. (Had she told me that I had to jump out of an aeroplane without a parachute, I would have done it). She explained that there were only two things open for me, either of which I would have to volunteer for. The first was a torpedo man on submarines, (I was too good a swimmer to entertain this) and the second was to volunteer for combined opps. Now I had never heard of combined opps but it sounded better than dying under the water, so I nodded my head. As an ordinary seaman my base would have been Chatham and I would be able to get home every weekend, but now I had joined combined opps it was changed to Guz or Devonport to the uninitiated. When I got there, the base had been designed to hold twenty thousand, but now there was a quarter of a million personnel waiting for draught chitties.

I soon grew up to be a man.

home | help | contact | e-mail

Copyright www.Age-Net.co.uk 2000 - 2008