Love, Work and Rockets. ( Part 5)

My first girlfriend at the London and Manchester was a girl called Joyce. Christmas 1943 I took her out to the Empire Leicester Square to see a film called “The Miracle Of Morgan’s Creek”. By the time I had paid for the seats and the train fare to see her home I was completely skint. Dad thought it was hilarious! I took Joyce out a couple of times but she was more interested in another boy at L & M, can’t say I was particularly bothered.

There was a girl called Evelyn working as a junior in a department on the ground floor. I thought she was a right pest as she used to take the mickey out of us whenever she came up to the Agency where I worked.

I first took Evelyn out to the cinema on 15th June 1944. I was seventeen and she was fifteen. We went to the Carlton cinema in Essex Road and saw “Destination Tokyo.”. I never had another girlfriend.

She left the L & M soon after and became a GPO telephonist in the exchange in Mile End, East London. We saw each other every Wednesday evenings and weekends. One weekend she would stay over at 31 Union Square from Friday evening until late Sunday. It was all very proper. She shared a room with Mum and Dad slept with me in my room. His snoring was worse than the bloody air raid sirens!

The other weekend I would stay at her house in Dagenham. I shared the room that was occupied by her Uncle Stan when he was home on leave from the RAF.

It was in June 1944 when the V1 raids on London begun. They were pilotless aircraft carrying one ton of high explosives and travelling at four hundred miles per hour. At first it couldn’t be established what they were. Our fighter planes first of all tried to shoot them down, but that didn’t stop them from blowing up when they hit the ground, so there was no point. Anti – aircraft guns were not very effective. In the end it seems they were allowed to proceed and they killed and injured thousands of Londoners. They were a completely indescriminent weapon aimed solely at civilians. The Germans paid a terrible price for bombing London. The retaliation was swift and thousand bomber raids started. That is, one thousand American Flying Fortresses bombing Germany during the day and one thousand UK Lancaster bombers during the night.

The V1 was known either as the “doodle bug” or the “buzz bomb”. It flew in a straight line with flames from the engine at the rear and made a curious buzzing noise. We soon learnt that when the noise stopped and the flames went out it would plummet from the sky and explode on impact.

At the L & M, I was given the job of “lookout”. As soon as the warning went I would grab a tin hat and a pair of binoculars and run up to the roof. We had erected a little brick look out post. I would scan the skies with the binoculars and if I saw any doodle bugs heading our way, I would push a button that would set bells ringing throughout the building. Everyone would then get away from windows and take whatever cover they could. I would push the button again when I thought the danger had passed.

Unfortunately during this period there was a lot of low cloud day after day so seeing the damn things was almost impossible. We only had one close encounter I am happy to say. A V1 broke cloud cover with its engine stopped coming straight for the L & M. I pushed the button just in time. It glided slowly above my head and blew up Whitbread Brewery just the other side of Moorgate. The shock waves blew my tin hat off.

For this valiant service in the face of the enemy (I joke), the L & M gave me an extra weeks holiday with full pay.

After the V1’s came the V2’s. These were rockets. These were the most frightening. You couldn’t see or hear them until it was too late. My boss, Jack Trent, lived in Sidcup. A V2 landed in his garden and blew his house to pieces, thankfully no one was home. Another one landed near Evelyn’s house in Dagenham and caused massive damage.

In the autumn of 1944 I had to register with the Ministry Of Labour for Military service as I was approaching eighteen. I had the choice of which branch of the forces I wanted to join. There was, however, a very dark cloud over the whole process. The country was very short of coal miners, so it was decided that the names of each batch of new conscripts across the country would be “put in a hat” and if your name was drawn, instead of going into the forces, you would go down the pits as a coal miner.

I had been down a coal mine when in Midsommer Norton on a school trip. It was my opinion that no man should have to work below ground in all that dirt and dust. A school friend who had been accepted for the Fleet Air Arm, instead found himself having to go down the pit as what was known as a “Bevan Boy”. Bevan being the name of the Politician who was in charge of the Ministry of Labour. He absconded a couple of times and ended up in prison.

I was much luckier and ended up in the Navy. I remember my Mum coming up to the L & M and giving me the news about my call up papers. She was so relieved that I didn’t have to go down the pits!

Before I was accepted for the Navy, I had to pass an interview. Apparently the Navy could get all the conscripts they wanted and could afford to be choosy. I passed the interview and the full medical. All that was on offer was Cooks, Stewards or Supply Assistants. I was accepted as a Supply Assistant but had no idea what that meant. But I had always been lucky and that turned out to be a good choice. I was called up on the 6th March 1945.