However I can remember getting quite excited by Graham Walker’s, (Murray’s father), commentary from the Isle of Man for the June Tourist Trophy races. Having been taken to many a grass track meeting from when I was about two I loved motor cycles and any thing to do with them. Little did I know that it would be five long years before we would be able to go to another grass track meeting?

I’m sure I listened to the voice of the then prime-minister, Neville Chamberlain make his fateful broadcast that we were at war with Germany. I’ve heard the recording of that speech so many times since that it is difficult to be certain, what I am sure of, was the change in attitude of people generally and in particular that of my parents who’s faces showed grave concern. Life was about to change dramatically. It has to be remembered they and their generation had, only some twenty years earlier lived through the horrors and privations of the senseless conflict that was world war one.

Many people these days seem to labour under the delusion that we won the First World War, we didn’t! It ended in an armistice, a truce, which meant the killing, maiming and injuring of untold millions men on both sides had been totally pointless and here we were about to do the same thing all over again!

All this meant little to a seven-year old. By now new words had come into everyday use, conscription, mobilisation, blackout, rationing and many more which again meant nothing to a boy of my age, but I would soon learn!

Everything seemed to be changing, I can remember going with Dad and his friend Mr Beswick whilst they were helping to remove dismantled beach-huts from the promenade along the sea-front and the very officious army officer, (revolver in hand!), who demanded to see their identity papers and permission to go onto the beach area. Dad and Mr Beswick were both running their own Private Hire car business and finding custom hard to come by, this was part of what was to become known as the  phoney war, this was the period before Britain became actively engaged in the real conflict this side of the Channel.

My brother, Ralph had already volunteered to join the Royal Air Force and became a member of the R.A.F.  Volunteer Reserve which gave him the right to wear the legend VR on the shoulder flash of his uniform. It wasn’t until many years after the war that I came to realise how much this small badge was respected. In fact many of the pilots who served during the Battle of Britain were young men who had joined the reserve before war was declared, but he, like many others of his ilk were not considered at the time to be of officer class.

I can remember some of the changes that went on at school for instance, in each classroom behind the radiators were square ventilation grills, these were removed and replaced by low doorways, on the outside they built air raid shelters, one for every classroom. These were cold, dank places lit by a single light bulb and with wooden forms around three sides. On the ringing of the fire-bell, the class had to hurriedly get into the shelter whilst the milk monitors had to collect a couple of crates of milk, (one third of a pint in small bottles with cardboard tops and a straw to drink it with), the teacher then distributed Horlicks or Oval tine tablets, two for each pupil, this was air raid practice.

Something that has always puzzled me since, was inevitably someone would raise their arm and asks “please may I be excused?” (This was the manner we had to ask at anytime if we wanted to go to the toilet), they were almost always be allowed to do so. I’ve often wondered what would have happened if, whilst walking through school and across a large playground to the toilets bombs had started dropping? We only did these practices on a few occasions and I don’t ever recall the shelters being used later when we did have real air-raids!

What I do remember clearly was rationing, and in particular, sweet rationing, most of the items we had known before the war had either vanished altogether or were very hard to get. Mrs Ashworth’s sweet shop, on the corner of Castlemain avenue and Cranleigh road didn’t survive very long and I’ve often wondered many times what became of that very nice lady. Dad had by now got himself a job, he was driving a laundry delivery van, I don’t think it was the sort of job that he envisaged but a job was a job in those uncertain days. He insisted that it was only temporary until he could find something better; something better never came along until he retired some forty years later! I didn’t mind at all because when I was off school I quite frequently went with him and I went places we would never have bothered to go in pre-war days.

It was one such trip, coming back from Highcliff and New Milton that we saw a land mine being dropped, (why they were so called I’ve never understood), they were in fact a parachute bomb designed to go off at a certain height, I believe it came down somewhere near Mudeford side of Christchurch, it certainly exploded with a mighty bang! This was not our first experience of bombs, in the early days of the war bombs fell on a house in Cellars Farm Road near Hengistbury Head.

I have always thought these were aimed at the Radar station that was being built adjacent to the Head. The bombs were not very big and it is likely they were dropped from a reconnaissance aircraft possibly taking a close look at the embryo installation. By now we were becoming familiar with some of the less encouraging facts of the war, the Germans had stormed through Europe in all directions and the much vaunted French Maginot line was not so much breached as ignored!

The Maginot line, for those not familiar, was a line of  fortifications erected along the French border with Belgium and stretching a long way in a northerly direction, unfortunately it was never properly completed and the Germans just by-passed it!

Whilst the German advance through the Low Countries had been going on, many British and commonwealth troops were sent to help with the defence of France and due to clever tactics by the German High Command found themselves in very dire situations, along with the French forces making a hasty retreat to the channel ports. We had watched them go on troop trains that passed close to our school. We didn’t have long to wait to see them coming back, it s a sight those who witnessed it will never forget.

There were long ambulance trains with large red crosses painted on each end of every coach and they were packed with troops, this was what has been called the miracle of Dunkirk, the evacuation of the B.E.F, the British Expeditionary Force that went to France, some of whom we had seen leaving on those trains a few weeks before. Imagine our surprise when we got to school the next morning to find hundreds of soldiers sitting in the playground, there was to be no school for us for the next few days! However the sight of so many badly injured allied soldiers was an experience at that tender age was bound to live in the memory for the rest of our lives.

Part 2

Submitted by Mussels
Location: Bournemouth