War and Evacuation ( Part 2)

In 1938 I started at Highbury County Grammar School for Boys. Our school motto was “Ne Absinte” meaning never give in. The school hymn was “To be a pilgrim. It was a strict school. I remember getting a smack round the face from the headmaster one day. He was known as “Boggie”. I was having a slight “tussle” with another boy in the cloakroom and he caught us red-handed. He also gave me four strokes of the cane across my backside. I had the marks for days afterwards.

The other big thing that changed in 1938 was Union Square. It had large communal gardens where we all played. It also had allotments, large trees and shrubs. In 1938, because of the threat of war breaking out, all this was dug up and a huge public underground air raid shelter was constructed. We didn’t have a garden as such, just a small yard, so we couldn’t build our own Anderson shelter. Our back room became our Air raid shelter. Dad put sand bags at the windows and the ceiling was shored up with Railway sleepers. This was where we had to head for at the first signs of danger.

Mr and Mrs Bates, who we shared our house with, had a married daughter called Dolly. Her husband had been called up for the army, so she and her infant son came to stay with us.So when the Air raid sirens went off we all clambered to the back room for safety. Me, Mum, Dad, Dolly and her son and Mr and Mrs Bates. The back room was no bigger than ten feet by ten feet. You can imagine how crowded it was.

Before the war we had a radio. As there was no electricity, the radio ran off of what was known as an “accumulator”, rather like a car battery. We used to have to take the accumulator to a shop and have it re-charged on a regular basis. It may have been called a “wireless” but I can assure you it was anything but that as there seemed to wires everywhere.

With the threat of war looming, Dad decided to rent a radio from Radio Rentals. This consisted of a loudspeaker in the house and the radio came into the house via a cable rather like TV does today. The advantage of this arrangement, apart from its simplicity, was that well before the Air raid siren warning went off, the control room at Radio Rentals would interrupt the broadcast and announce a “Red Alert”. Listeners then knew that very shortly the Air raid warning would sound.

In August 1939 our Headmaster made it clear that if war was declared the whole school would be evacuated, all together. I can remember his words clearly. “Hitler will not stop my boys from getting a full time education.” We all had to pack a case and leave it at the school. On 1st September 1939, I went to school as normal but never returned home. We were lined up in the School Hall, given a gas mask, a brown paper bag containing tins of food and tubes of Horlicks tablets, then taken to a London Railway station and boarded a train. We had no idea where we were going but we were all mates together and it seemed like one great big adventure. What my poor parents were going through I just can’t begin to imagine.

We arrived at the rural village of Kimbolton, in what was then the County of Huntingdonshire. Our school was to share the facilities of a large local school in the village. Unfortunately no one seemed to have told the local community and they wanted nothing to do with “London kids”.

I was billeted, along with another boy called “spoonie” Reynolds, with the Fletcher family. They lived in a tied cottage. Mister Fletcher was a farm labourer and the cottage was owned by some Lord who owned the farm that he worked on. Mister and Misses Fletcher had a daughter called Vivienne.

There were eight cottages in a row. Four blocks of two. There was no running water, no heating or lighting. The water tap was in the back yard and was shared with the adjoining cottage. The lavatory was a shed at the bottom of the back yard with a plank of wood with a hole in it over a bucket. This was also shared with next door. The bucket was emptied once a week by a horse drawn cart. The smell wasn’t great when the weather was warm…

The Fletchers were nice people. It must have been strange for them to suddenly have two lively twelve year old boys from London sharing their house.

Two days later on 3rd September 1939, we all gathered in the local Church to hear the announcement that war had been declared. Many teachers cried that day.

My Dad said that it would all be over by Christmas, he just forgot to say “which” Christmas.

Sharing the schools facilities didn’t really work out and we had loads of spare time on our hands. Me and a few mates would go rabbiting and mole hunting. The Ministry of Agriculture were paying a shilling (five pence) for each mole tail. We thought we’d be rich. We never caught one!

Two months later the school moved again. This time we were sent to Midsomer Norton in Somerset. We were going to share a local High School. This was music to our ears. It was a mixed school. It had girls!

Our Headmaster was determined that we would get a full time education but not bring disrespect to the good name of our school. He set out some rules.

1. School caps must be worn at all times.
2. Anyone caught fraternising with girls would be expelled.
3. A minimum of two hours homework each night.
4. The local Billiard Hall was strictly out of bounds.

The rule about girls had to be quickly implemented. Within twenty four hours of our arrival, a mate of mine was caught in a very “compromising situation” with one of the local girls. I had a feeling I was going to like Midsomer Norton!