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Shout-Out to Shakespeare: "So That's The Way You Like It" is a spectacular round-up of all the most notorious clichés. On the 17th March, 1944 Paul and I were evacuated to Argyll Street, Castlefields, Shrewsbury, with Mr. and Mrs. Blent. They were old then and he probably would have retired but for the war. There we were ideally happy. We loved the school, the adults, the other children, the open fields and hills, the canal and especially we loved the river Severn and the weir. Such a magic place. I used to catch tiny salmon tiddlers by tying string round an empty jam jar and suspending it in the water and when the tiddlers entered heave it out to wonder at their golden, blue and scarlet flashes magnified by the jar. I was also ‘adopted’ by Mrs. Blent’s son-in-law who lived next door. He had an exempted occupation as a train driver and was a keen fisherman. He would take me fishing on the Severn for dace, salmon and pike. Such delectable anticipations rapidly became bitter delusions. The first night on ALGERIAN soil was spent on the beach in the open with the rain pouring down. If they were prepared to accept this as a freak, subsequent days spent under canvas at BONE waiting for guns and vehicles to arrive gave them ample proof that DARTMOOR was by no means the wettest place on earth. To add to the disillusionment, the long series of night marches, which took them across ALGERIA and TUNIS to the front, equally convinced them that it was not the coldest.
Of course it was too good to last and we know why ! War was declared and the Japanese troops had no bother in brushing the British aside as they marched the whole way down the Malayan Peninsular. As the Japanese advanced there was panic in Singapore and all the women and children were evacuated by plane and ship. Finally a small but speedy Squadron of ships and fast boats left Singapore for Australia with as many high ranking Officers and their bodyguards as could be mustered. Prime Minister Herbert Asquith writes to his confidante Venetia Stanley; even after Sir Edward Grey has warned that Europe is within imaginable distance of Armageddon - that happily there seems to be no reason why we should be anything more than spectators. At 0900 hrs 12 June all personnel were recalled into the town. The only hope had gone — the Germans coming up from CALAIS, were on the beach behind them, and the town was encircled. Further resistance was pointless. My father also joined the L.D.V. (Local Defence Volunteers or ‘Dads Army’, as it later became known in that well scripted Television Series) One wonders how effective such an ‘Army’ would have been had Hitler invaded!We children were kept far away from it and Dad walked down to the nearest A.R.P post to report the find and was re-directed to another Post in whose area our house stood. The house was evacuated and I later learned it was Royal Navy personnel who came and retrieved the shell.
As it happens all my sisters married either chaps who were either in the forces or ex army servicemen just after the war. Throughout all that time I can honestly say I was never afraid; the thought of being killed or injured by enemy action never entered my little head. I recall there was a Post Office at Roneo Corner and on one day a live bomb ( not primed) was situated outside on the pavement with an invitation to put a savings stamp on it as a message to Hitler. I’m now ashamed to say, considering the awful bombing of civilian targets in Germany, I put a sixpenny Savings Stamp on it. I was eight years old. I don't think that I had ever heard of Adolf Hitler at this time, but I did know of our Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and I had heard the grown-us talking about another war; but I didn't know what it was all about.
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His words were echoed in the hotel by a spa attendant: “Everything is OK. Keep calm,” she told the jostling crowd to little avail. People wait to board an evacuation train at Kyiv central train station on March 5, 2022 | Dimitar Dilkoff/AFP via Getty Images The Fife and Forfar Yeomanry were here; my oldest sister married one in 1944. He was a Catholic, they had a catholic wedding and the dress appeared from somewhere. Whilst at Long Marston, I was loaned out to construct a sewage works at an ammunition depot at Kineton, because the village system was being overloaded. As it was being completed, we had to construct a road for access. The Colonel in charge was very pleased with the work, but said the road required rolling. Silly fool me; I said, “What about the steam roller at Long Marston?” The rest is unbelievable; in no time at all, the Colonel and I were transported to Long Marston. As far as I’m aware, no one was asked if we could borrow it. We watered and fired it, and the next thing, with the colonel at the wheel, we were coming out of the gates of the camp with the guard at salute. It’s about ten miles from Kineton to Long Marston. It was much later in my life that I was reminded of the incident, when I was working for Derbyshire County Council. An architect, Percy Tilley, was an Officer in the Royal Engineers who was at the Kineton Depot at the time. He knew of the incident, but none of the collaborators. Spoonerism: As delivered by Miller's vicar: "The apostles of old were rough, toothless... er, tough, ruthless..." Well,' she said, 'I think we'd be a darned sight better off if you were on the other side!' she said, 'Do yo... do you know this Hitler? 'ave you ever...?'
Next memory is of an air raid when my cousin June, who lived next door, and I sat up at a window watching the search lights scour the skies for enemy bombers. Shortly afterwards my father was called up into the Army and served the next six years in the Royal Engineers. One day, whilst living in Harold Wood with Dad in the Riyal Engineers I recall finding a drawer full of .303 bullets and being shown a .303 rifle which Dad had 'borrowed' from the army and 'loaned' to my mother. She, I later learned, had been told by Dad how to use the thing. After the war my brother and I played with the rifle in the garden at Lilac Gardens but Dad found us and took it away. We never saw nor heard of it again. My mother went into hospital suffering with tuberculosis and as a consequence my brother and I were taken in to Dr. Barnados in Stepney, east London on 25th June, 1940. (From records supplied by Dr. Barnados.) Although you might think there were other relatives able to take us in this was hardly possible since they were all in the same boat. The day war broke out I was five years old and living at 5, Beltinge Road, Harold Wood, Romford, Essex, with my younger brother Paul, my mother and my father who as a builder had just completed eight semi-detached houses in one of which we lived. My grandmother was with us on that fateful day and she and I were in the front room. She tried to explain to me what war would mean but her experience of war was, of course, based on the first world war which brought about the death of her husband, my grandfather. She told me about Zeppelins and how an air-raid warden would cycle round the streets with a rattle shouting, “Gas. Gas Gas” when the deadly Hun bombed England and dropped poison gas. It's easy to fall into the trap of thinking of pre-war Georgian Britain as an idyllic and halcyon era, of endless carefree, summer days at the Henley Regatta, top hats and high fashion and a booming industrial Empire. I said, 'Oh, don't start all that, again... we're guarding the British Isles.' I said, 'we're guarding all the millions of men, women and children... millions of them... and you!' The second major campaign of the war was over and the Regiment’s detachment marched in the VICTORY PARADE at TUNIS.
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Rule of Three: "Aftermyth of War" has Peter Cook's suburban gardener character pop up three times and deliver variations of the same speech each time. Well,' she said, 'Ow are you going to know which is 'im, if they do land? I said, 'I've got a tongue in me 'ead, 'aven't I?'
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