TWO LIVES IN HARMONY

The Autobiographies of

Leonard Thomas Lees

and

Evelyn Hilda Mary Lees

PART 1 1918 1957

TWO LIVES IN HARMONY

LENS STORY At the instigation of our family, we, that is Leonard Thomas Lees and Evelyn Hilda Mary Lees, take pleasure in recounting some of the highlights of our life and it gives us a lot of pleasure because we think, honestly, that we have had experiences which could interest our children and grandchildren. So please bear with us if perhaps we wax nostalgic on some incidents which were dear to us at the time. So, as head of the family (??) Ill make a start. I was the middle child of a family of seven three sisters older than me, a brother and two sisters younger. Dads name was Leonard John Lees and he was born at Richmond, Surrey (in England). It is interesting to note here that Dad was the only surviving son of an only son, so, in fact, he was the last male of his family. Mums maiden name was Louisa Caroline Wells, she was born in Peterborough in Hampshire. Both Mum and Dad were born in 1887, and if I remember rightly, were married in 1910. When the First World War started in 1914 there were two girls: Winifred Alice and Edith May, then followed Kathleen who was born in 1915 and I followed on May 8, 1918. We were added to in number after the war with the arrival of Rose Olive, Leslie John and Irene. I believe I am right in saying that we were all born in a tiny two up, two down house in Talbot Road (No. 32) Isleworth, Middlesex. The house was built in 1860 and although the interior has been altered it is still the same to look at on the outside. Dad was in the Army in the First World War, but because of a heart condition he did not serve overseas. It is interesting to note here that in spite of this heart condition he was a heavy smoker and drinker all his life and ate the things frowned on today like fat pork, and each evening he had a large bowl of OXO with salt, pepper, curry powder and a big knob of dripping. Dad lived to be ninety two years of age. Prior to this, Dad was assistant manager of a large wholesale grocery store in Richmond, but after the war he was unable to get back into the trade (except for a brief period much later). I can remember that even after many years he would weigh up in a brown paper bag one and two pounds of sugar from a two hundredweight sack with
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uncanny accuracy: he would weigh it in his hand before putting it on the scales and invariably he would be spot on. Also with butter or margarine, he would cut off from a huge slab 1lb, 1/2lb or 4oz and even 2oz of butter and he would rarely have to add or subtract a portion. The same with dried peas, haricot beans and the like. I have watched him bone a side of bacon and not have enough meat on the bone to put in a mousetrap. It was a shame that he could not pursue this trade for, after trying for a long time he eventually had to take work as a labourer on the railway. He was in and out of work during the Depression years which I am sure resulted in him dropping his bundle. He was well spoken and well dressed up until this time, but with not being able to get work in his chosen profession he took to heavy drinking, shirking responsibility in the home and to the family. There were many men in similar circumstances, their lives shattered with war service, only shadows of their former selves, who eventually sought oblivion from reality in excessive drinking. Beer was only four pennies for a pint so it wasnt expensive to get drunk. In spite of this we were a happy family, although I recall as a lad I was always hungry. How Mum managed to feed such a large family was a minor miracle. I know that Mum very often went without but always provided Dad with a substantial hot meal each day. I well remember sitting watching Dad eat his meal, hoping that I might have a potato or a small piece of meat but no, he had a wonderful appetite. Just about the time I was due to commence school (at four) my Dads sister, her husband and their three children, arrived at our home from Egypt where Uncle Sid, as a regular soldier, was serving. They had nowhere to go so Mum and Dad put them up temporarily. How they all fitted into our tiny house I dont know, but I do remember that we slept six to a bed, three girls at the top and three at the bottom. I dont know just how long they stayed with us but Aunt Bertha had two more children and brother Les joined our family. My younger sister Rose slept in a cot in Mum and Dads bedroom. In spite of all the children in one small house, I cant for the life of me remember the house being noisy, but I can recall that when I first took Mum home and I later asked her what her impressions were, even with our married sister away, Mum said it really was like Bedlam.
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Having three older sisters, I quickly learned to read and write and I started school on my fourth birthday. I really loved every moment of each day at school. Its strange how little episodes stand out and I clearly remember when I was about eight or nine years old, May 24 was known as Empire Day and all the kids from each school would assemble on the local Recreation ground to sing stirring songs about the Empire. This year I had been singled out with a few other boys to sing the song Jerusalem. We were all in white: white shirt, shorts, socks and white shoes. All of this gear was loaned to me as our parents were far too poor to buy extra gear like this. I dont remember much about how the song went, but I recall that we were given the afternoon off school (a very rare occasion) and on the way home (still in this white gear) we went via the local sewage farm. There was one pad that looked firm and the rest of the boys dared me to run across it. I got about halfway across and the pad was by no means as firm as it looked and my snowy white gear was soon a horrible smelly mess. I remember coming home and trying to clean it up. My Mum was furious and spent the whole afternoon boiling them up. She must have made a wonderful job of the shirt and shorts but I do remember getting told off by the teacher for getting the white shoes so grubby. Thinking of this episode reminds me that I was so embarrassed when I had no shoes to wear and had to wear a pair of girls buttonover shoes that the girls had grown out of. This was right in the Great Depression of the late 1928s and many kids couldnt go to school at all in the winter simply because they didnt have any footwear at all. The winters were bitterly cold and I recall always running to and home from school (about one and a half miles each way) just to keep warm. We always came home for dinner at lunchtime, for we had from midday till two oclock for lunch. On reaching the age of eleven, each child sat for an examination to decide whether they would go on to Grammar School or continue at the Town School. Being always very keen on lessons I had reached the top class in Primary School when I was ten years of age. There were about ten of us, boys and girls, who had accomplished this. We formed a separate class without a teacher. Lessons were set for us each period and we were without supervision all day. This was a great honour and we were looked on by other children as being a bit good.
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When I sat for the Examination eventually I was fortunate enough to get excellent marks. If my memory is correct I got 192 out of a possible 200. Remember that each subject had a possible 20 marks. My jubilation was short lived when my parents were not prepared to let me go to the Grammar School which meant me staying at school until I was seventeen. They wanted me to leave school as soon as possible so I could go to work and bring a few shillings into the coffers. I recalled how nonplussed my favourite teacher was she offered to set me up in school uniform and pay all fees until the usual help to poor families was forthcoming. But my parents would not be moved: they wanted me out to work as soon I reached my fourteenth birthday, so I spent the next three years at the Town School. There wasnt the scope for advanced tuition, but school came easy to me and I never went below sixth in a class of forty. I was also mad keen at sport and represented my school at football and swimming. But I left school on the day I reached fourteen and started work the next day at a boatbuilding yard. Work wasnt new to me as I had a newspaper round since I was eleven years old, starting at six in the morning, then helping the milkman until it was time for school. Then after school I cycled to the Railway Station, picked up the evening papers, then went round the streets selling them. There were three evening papers: The Evening News, the Star and the Standard. All the money I earned went to help out, for Dad was in and out of work, sometimes for months at a stretch and there was no dole in those days. This first job of mine was only at the end of the road, on the banks of the River Thames. I loved the work which was mostly to assist the boatbuilders but one job I loathed. It was known as holding on. The carpenter had nailed the outer planks to the skeleton structure with copper nails from the outside, then hed go inside the boat, put a copper disc over the nail and cut the nail off short, Then starting from the top downwards, I would hold this solid iron rod of about two inches in diameter with a protrusion which would fit over the nail head and the carpenter would hammer this nail and disc until it was burred over. The end result would be as strong as if it were riveted. I was very small for my age, in fact I was nicknamed Tiny, and this was a very hard job. I would hold the end against my shoulder to
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keep the dolly firm on the nail head. How I stuck it all day I dont know it was no use complaining! However, this job didnt last, for about nine months later I was offered a job at a large printing works (my uncle was the foreman of the Composing Department). I started at the princely wage of 10/(ten shillings) a week which was half a crown less than I was getting at the Boatyard. This was considered a plum job, an apprenticeship in the Printing Trade! A bricklayer or a plumber earned 3/2/6d per week while a compositor in the Printing Trade received 3/9/6d. After three months I started my apprenticeship and my money dropped to 7/6d per week. From this I received the princely sum of 6d a week pocket money. To supplement this meagre weekly wage I went into work early each day at 7am to light the pots under the Monotype machines and get the duck-boards in position for the men to start work at 8am. Then when the men had finished I had to stay behind for an hour to sweep the floors, empty the rubbish, clean the toilets, etc. Then on Saturday morning I went in to melt the old type down and pour it into ingots to feed the Monotype machines. This meant working from 8am until 1pm. I was still only 14 years of age and I was working by myself, the only person on the floor, although there was a labourer cleaning machines on the floor below. I did this for most of my apprenticeship: the next apprentice started when I was in my fourth year of a five year apprenticeship. When I was about seventeen, I had the first real love of my young life. One Monday morning a young girl of about fifteen started work in the office as a copy-holder. (A copy-holder reads the copy out loud to the proofreader who corrects the printed word for mistakes, literals, punctuation, grammar, etc.) We had another young fellow working in the office. He was being groomed for an executive position. His name was Colin and he and I were good mates. He said to me I think Ill ask her for a date. Always ready for a challenge, I said I bet you two bob I get a date before you! The challenge accepted, I waited until the reader was out of the office then shot in and asked for a date. She said no at first, said that she was seeing a boy. I told her of the bet that I had made and asked her to promise that if she changed her mind it would be me and not my mate.
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However, I must have been very keen because I asked her again during the week and she eventually said yes and went with me to the pictures that Saturday evening. The two bob I won covered the evenings expenses two ninepennies and fourpence bus ride left enough for a bar of chocolate during the interval. I must have been on my best behaviour for the current boyfriend was dropped and we went out regularly. I mustnt linger over the next three years, but we got engaged on my 21st birthday. This was 1939 and the clouds of war were heavy over Europe. In May of that year conscription for every lad who was 20 years of age became compulsory. I missed out because I became 21 before this came into effect. This was the brainchild of Mr Hore Belisha who was Minister for War or something similar. (He gained fame after the war for the introduction of a yellow beacon which was illumined at night to indicate crossroads. These were known as Belisha Beacons.) This group of young men entered the Army amidst a patriotic burst they wore a distinguishable uniform with a black beret and also a walking-out uniform. I believe it was a blue jacket, grey slacks and a blue beret. This special treatment was shortlived because war broke out shortly afterwards and by August many of these young men were in the trenches of France opposite the famous Siegfried Line and were in the forefront of the fighting after the phoney war of 1939. When I knew that war was inevitable, I made enquiries to join the R.A.F. but I did not have the academic qualifications necessary in those days to get flying duties. Consequently I was among the very first to get conscripted, and, after a really sham medical, I found myself in the Army just ten days before Christmas of 1939. I was extremely fortunate in having to report to Hounslow Barracks, no more than five or six miles from my home in Isleworth, especially so, being winter time and a very cold winter at that, I could get home most nights, it was only a penny bus ride and except when we were on Fire Picket, I made the most of it. As you can imagine, no way could the Army cooks turn out decent meals for the thousands of men joining the Army at that time the food was ghastly and I had a Mum who spoiled me rotten. There was
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a always a meal ready shortly after I got home, this was a great blessing. When I look back on those early days of the war I wonder what the true feelings of the people were. Again, no way could the Army get uniforms or greatcoats for everybody and no way would the Army authorities allow us to wear our civilian clothes. But they were in real trouble because they didnt have any battledress uniforms. We were issued with thick vests and long-john pants, khaki pullovers, socks, boots and a side cap, and drab canvas-style uniforms which we worked in, so when we left the barracks we had our civilian overcoat over our canvas duds, no gas masks, only those issued to the civilian population in cardboard boxes. My greatcoat, or rather overcoat, was black with very padded shoulders, and long almost to my ankles (this was the style in those days). I am sure the civilian population was sorry for us, especially in the pubs when a pint was on the counter as soon as you walked through the doorway, and no way could you pay for your own drinks on that first Christmas of the War. Needless to say this situation altered alarmingly as the War progressed. Talking of buying your own drinks, we couldnt buy many on a shilling a day although beer was only 4d a pint. During my late teen years, when I was clothes conscious and much of my money went on clothes, my Dad was very jealous of me and was very cutting and sarcastic in his remarks to me. I didnt spend very much on drink whilst all of Dads pocket money went on beer and smokes. He never bought any clothes shirt and socks, etc. had to last until the next Christmas presents from his family. I recall very vividly the first evening I walked into the Victoria Tavern at the corner of our street, in my Army uniform. Dad realised for the first time that I was grown up and from that day on we had a great relationship. Perhaps to emphasise our previous relationship I could recount a little episode that took place when I was 19 or 20 years of age. I had been to a dance and got home about 2.30 in the morning. In those days all buses stopped at around 11pm taxis were out of the question, so if you saw a girl home to her place it was Shanks Pony. Sometimes a round journey of up to ten miles. Anyway, I arrived home on this occasion to find the kitchen light was on and Dad was sprawled in his armchair. Hallo, I said. Why arent you in bed?
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He had been drinking and was somewhat the worse for wear. Your Mothers gone, was his reply. What do you mean: gone? I said. I dont know, shes just gone, was his somewhat sulky reply. I began to get up-tight for both Mum and Dad used to argue and shout when Dad came home drunk. I guess I panicked a bit. I walked over to his chair, lifted him up by the lapels of his coat and shook him like a dog shaking a rat. With a silly grin on his face to my further questioning to where she had gone, he said I dunno, shes just gone! I dont know what I would have done to him if my sister Edith, hearing the raised voices, came down the stairs and said that Mum had been called out to a young married woman, a few doors down, who was in labour with her first child. In those days many women acted as midwives and the doctors rarely put in an appearance until mother and baby were nicely cleaned up. This gives you some idea that my Dad and I were not the best of mates prior to my joining the Army. The early days of the War were strange in many ways. Lifestyle for everybody changed. Men and boys went from secure homes and jobs into a totally different world, into the Army, the Navy or the Air Force. Speaking for the Army, in two short months just eight weeks they endeavoured to turn an ordinary civilian into a frontline soldier. Not that many of the instructors had any idea of what a front-line soldier really had to be. It all came out of the various Army Training Manuals. The emphasis was, of course, on discipline, and many semi-illiterate and bullying soldiers were promoted to corporal or sergeant to train the incoming conscripts as fast as possible. That first winter was very harsh which didnt help any. The sergeant in charge of our intake of about thirty men was an Irishman, course and tough, a welter-weight boxing champion, and believe me, his word was law. When he shouted, and that was often, we jumped and he made life intolerable to anyone brave enough to stand up to him. When I was about twelve or thirteen years of age I joined what was known as the Church Lads Brigade (it was run by the Anglican Church) and we were drilled Army style, even carrying Army .303 rifles, going through the process of firing .22 rifles. This really gave me an advantage over the other guys, and consequently I was kept back after our eight weeks initial training to take an NCO course.
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I didnt mind this a bit for the rest of the guys were sent straight to France and straight into action against the Germans. I didnt get very far on this course, three or four weeks at the most, and everybody on this cadre was sent down to the holding battalion at Tonbridge in Kent, which was actually the holding battalion of the Royal Fusiliers. Drafts were going out each day to reinforce the troops in France. Even then I didnt get on a draft, simply because with the initial L I was always classed as one of a section of men known as waiting men. Let me clarify this. All men with the initials A K were on standby for the next draft be it France or the Middle East. Then the next draft was all the men with the initials M Z. The idea to hold back all men with the initial L was to put them into a draft if someone had to drop out, if he was sick or had gone AWOL (absent without leave). Anyway, I was never called and remained with the holding battalion at Tonbridge until the evacuation from Dunkirk. Then, of course, everyone was drafted to various battalions to make up the strength. I think all of them went to units who were designated to defend England when the Germans invaded following the evacuation from Dunkirk. History has revealed that this invasion never took place. I was sent to Canterbury, only a few miles away to join the 9th Battalion Royal Fusiliers. Just about this time one significant event really jolted me. My fiancee Betty decided to split up after courting for three and a half years. I was all for getting married. Betty was eighteen, but her dad had been crippled in the First World War and her mother had to bring up a large family and they wouldnt give their consent at that stage, so we agreed to break the engagement. We were both young, it was inevitable that I would go overseas and if we were meant to be life partners we would see how things were at the end of the war. I mentioned previously that I was very fond of dancing so wherever I was stationed I was seldom at a loose end. Every little town and village in Kent organised dances for the troops so, although I missed Betty very much, I became used to us being apart. The Army made sure that we were always busy.
We were stationed (that is, our battalion) in the villages around Canterbury a lot of the old manors and residences were taken over
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by the Army and were used as headquarters while the troops were billeted under canvas. I was in the Bren Gun Carrier Platoon in H.Q. Company and was stationed at Milner Court in Sturry, a village a few kilometres from Canterbury. Milner Court was a big private school and the pupils had been evacuated away from the war zone. I was in the motor cycle section of the Bren Carrier platoon and it was our job to patrol the South Eastern coast from Whitstable and Herne Bay right round the coast, including Deal, Dover, Folkestone, Hythe and the Romney Marshes to Lydd. We patrolled various areas each night. This was no mean task as in that area a complete blackout was rigorously enforced. The headlights of our motorcycles were masked so that only a faint glimmer was allowed. We had many spills. One comedy of errors comes to my mind and I often chuckle to myself when I recall it. We had a lad attached to us he came as a potential officer he was a public school boy: Eton, I think. He had an awful job trying to master the bike and the blackout. There was one particular road leading out of Canterbury that ended in a T junction. There was a lone house on the right before you reached the end of the road, and we would start to slow down before we turned right. Poor Trevor used to miss the turning night after night. He would go straight across the road and finish up in a hawthorn hedge. When we picked him and his bike up he would say in his very cultured accent Oh, bother! I missed the turning again. We would make our way back to our billets at first light each morning, many a time we would stop at a lonely farm and help ourselves to a chook that had wandered from its roost. I was a sidecar passenger on the occasion Frank Murgate, a big six-footer, was driving the bike. It was cold at night and Frank had on every stitch of clothing he possessed plus his greatcoat, steel helmet and rifle slung across his shoulders. I can see him now, picking up a twelve foot pole and chasing this poor chook. What with the clatter of his rifle and his tin hat and the banging on the ground when he tried to hit the wretched bird, added to this his expletives when he missed, soon aroused the whole farmyard. Eventually he caught this bird and put the chook in the compartment behind me. When we got back to
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our billets, Frank opened the compartment and believe it or not, the chook made off and the whole pantomime started again, this time with his bayonet instead of a pole. It didnt take him long this time to catch it and wring its neck, then he threw it to me. Its your turn to do do something. Get the feathers off! Here I must mention the entry of Aunty Dora into my life. Our tents were in the far corner of the playing field right under the railway embankment. Aunty Doras garden went right down to the corner where our tents were pitched, so, having spoken to her and her next door neighbour (affectionately known as Bill) we got round them to bake this chook for us. In due course, down to the fence came this chook, cooked to a turn, roast potatoes and garden peas. To us it was a feast fit for a king. Thus began a very happy relationship. This Frank Murgate was a writer and often sat in his tent writing page after page which consequently lay scattered around the tent and woe betide anyone who shifted a sheet or mildly remonstrated. Without halting in his writing Frank would pick up a boot, a mess tin or anything within his reach and hurl it in the general direction of the offender. Our tents were pitched in the far corner of the playing fields at the foot of the embankment of the railway line that went from London to Dover and Folkestone. It was significant that on Saturday mornings especially, we were aware that the milk train stopped for several minutes at Sturry Station to pick up milk from the outlying farms, then stop at various stations to pick up more urns. Without broadcasting it over much, several of us saw an easy and cheap way to get up to London. It was four oclock in the morning so obviously not too many people abroad, and the train crew must have turned a blind eye as we hopped aboard. The dodgy part was getting past the Military Police at Waterloo Station who were always on the lookout for soldiers who were AWOL (absent without leave). We soon found out they looked for untidiness and dirty equipment, so we made sure that we were extra smart, buttons polished and brasses on our equipment faultless, and invariably passed their scrutiny. The main trouble was getting a lift back on Sunday night or early Monday morning for there wasnt always a goods train going back the way we wanted, but I cant recall ever getting stranded in London and always managed to front up at Roll Call on Monday mornings.
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After a couple of months had passed after the evacuation from Dunkirk it was fairly obvious that the Germans were not going to invade Britain well not at that time, anyway, so we trained in preparation for the many rumours that were always floating around we were going to take part in a raid on a Belgian port we were being fitted out with warm clothing to go to Russia we were going to Ireland because Jerry was going to establish a base there. Eventually we moved to Colchester, a military town in Essex where thousands of soldiers virtually kicked their heels until drafted. Whilst we were there an ACI (Army Command Instruction) was issued to the effect that as so many aircrew were being lost during the Battle of Britain, selected volunteers from the Army were being transferred into the R.A.F. to train for flying duties. Anything to get away from the hum-drum of Army life, three mates and myself volunteered. We had heard that physical and educational requirements were very demanding and the examinations very thorough. Maths, Logarithms and Algebra were a must, so we went on a crash course in our spare time and swotted like blazes. Then the day came when we had to go down to London for this examination. It was very intensive, both oral and written and the physical itself lasted well over an hour. At the finish we were interviewed by a high-ranking officer. I recall standing before him: he was sitting on the corner of a desk, holding the ends of a heavy round ruler on his hands. Suddenly he released his hold on the ruler with a shout Catch it! My reflexes have always been excellent and I swooped down and caught it before it hit the deck. Apparently I had passed all tests except one part of the medical I had broken my nose a few weeks earlier and I was told that if I got the O.K. from an ear, nose and throat specialist, then I would be through. About a week later I had to go down to Maidstone in Kent for this exam and was told that I would hear in due course. Two of the other guys had passed O.K. and were soon away. About a week later I was on C.O.s Orders and went up before the Commanding Officer, fully expecting that I was soon to be on my way. But no, I was shattered to hear that the R.A.F. had received their complement and were not accepting any more transfers, but alternatively, if I wished to volunteer, I would automatically be promoted to Warrant Officer 1 and transferred for training as a
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glider pilot for the newly formed Parachute Regiment. I said no to this as my heart was in the Royal Air Force, and as a glider pilot it would be a one-off affair and on landing your glider you would attach yourself to the nearest infantry unit until you could get back to a glider base. No, if I couldnt be in the R.A.F. I would take my chance in the Royal Fusiliers. I often think back to those days and wonder how I would have fared as a fighter pilot. At that time life expectancy was very short. It is interesting to note that many months later at Benghazi in the Western Desert, we met up with one of the guys who had transferred at the same time I had tried, a guy by the name of Larry Laidlaw. He was now a Flight Lieutenant in Beaufighters. We never heard anything at all of Sgt Bill McCarthy who was also accepted at that time I believe he was a sergeant pilot on Spitfires the last time we heard of him. Whilst we were waiting to join the convoy which ultimately sailed to the Middle East, we were stationed at a place called The Thicks at Buckley, a small village some miles from Ipswich which I believe is in Norfolk. We were under canvas in a wood with nothing whatsoever to do, only wait. We were not allowed to leave the camp area, being on one hours notice to leave. I dont know how long we were there: possibly three or four weeks but it seemed like a lifetime. My offsider, (also a Len) Len Warren he was a full corporal, I had only one stripe then suggested we had a shot at getting home for the weekend. We didnt think of the consequences: we would probably be charged with desertion if we had been caught. The Thicks was a bus ride out of Ipswich, so we hopped off the bus before entering town and caught another bus to Colchester. We got there some time in the afternoon, but to our horror, there was a troop exercise on in the town. No soldiers apart from those taking part in the exercise were allowed in the town. Len and I ducked into the nearest pub we thought we would lie low for a while and make a move when it got dark. This wretched exercise was still going strong when they called last orders, please. Fortunately we got into the company of a middle-aged couple who had a small cottage a couple of doors away from the pub and they invited us back until things quietened down. I remember we played cards until well into the night and I won about three pounds, which was a fortune to me I was getting seven shillings a week and I felt bad about accepting their hospitality and winning money from them.
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When we eventually decided to hit the sack Len and I shared a 36 bed (something that would cause eyebrows to be raised these days). Next morning the exercise was still on, troops all over the place. After a slap-up breakfast (I really felt bad by now about the three quid I won), we decided to try and catch a train for London. This cottage was only a stones throw from the station. In fact, I think their garden backed onto the platform. So when the train for London steamed in, the lady of the house, Len and myself got through the fence and strolled towards the train. If I recall correctly, these good folk had gone over earlier to the booking office and bought our tickets. Before we had even reached the nearest carriage, a Redcap, or to be more explanatory, a Military Policeman, put in a sudden appearance and before he could ask for our passes, the good lady indulged in talk with him, explaining that we were her nephews and that we were on our way back from leave. Her efforts were very successful and we hopped on the train just as it was pulling out. In those days, trains rarely, if ever, ran on schedule and it was mid afternoon before we reached London. Then I had almost an hour journey before I reached Twickenham and I believe I am right in saying that we saw each other for about an hour before I had to leave to get back. (This sequel will come from Mums pen.) I cant remember how we got back, but get back we did and I know that both Len and myself were present when roll call was called in the morning. Shortly afterwards we left for Liverpool by train and if my memory serves me right, we were on the train for the better part of two days, a journey that would take about four or five hours at the most, but of course, the time factor had to be taken into account so that we could get straight off the train and onto the ship in a minimum of time so that the ship could be away from the dockside without any delay at all. As we sailed from Liverpool on the Dutch liner SS Nieu Holland it was a damp miserable day, and as the ship left port to join the convoy, the misty cranes and wharves of Liverpool made a dismal picture. We were off to who knows where, the U-Boat menace was at its peak in plundering the convoys and I wondered what the thoughts of the fifteen hundred or so troops and crew members were on that day. I know what mine were. Into my life some eighteen months previ14

ously had come a young lady who was now my wife and as I thought back over that year and a half I guess my thoughts were very mixed. I couldnt be sure of seeing my loved ones, but I did have my memories, and I must hasten to add that those memories kept me going for the next three and a half years! I mentioned earlier that I met Dora Tugwell over the fence while we were at Milner Court, also her neighbour, Bill Couchman. One evening I was in Bills lounge there were usually one or two of the guys there having a cuppa and this young lady, who turned out to be Doras younger sister, came in to thank Bill for a birthday present. I find that on first meetings, something about a person seems to stand out. With this lass (who of course became your mother), it was her hair It was done in page-boy style, a fashion popular in that day. It was dark brown and shone as though it was burnished. One other incident on this first evening: Bill had made spaghetti on toast for supper and, seeking for conversation, Eve asked if Id like the salt and pepper. Keen to continue the conversation, I said Yes, please but when I shook the pepper pot over my spag, the top wasnt screwed on and I got the whole contents as an added extra. Not having got beyond the yes and no stage, I didnt ask her for a date, but later asked Bill if shed do the honours for me and ask her if she would go to the pictures with me the next evening. If she thinks Im just another soldier looking for a date, tell her you know Im not fresh! I think Bill must have asked word for word for my offer was accepted and next evening we went into Canterbury to the cinema to see Gone With The Wind. I know its no big deal nowadays, but we progressed to holding hands. The next day the German Luftwaffe bombed Canterbury and the Odeon (I believe that was the name of the cinema) received a direct hit. Fortunately it was after the programme had finished and there werent any casualties. The next evening we met again and went for a walk. We went along the Sturry road towards Herne Bay and this dog took a fancy to us and walked with us. I guess we walked six to eight miles and at a likely spot in the woods I suggested that we have a rest and in gallant style put my Army greatcoat down for us to sit on, but this mutt who had accompanied us got in first and stretched out contentedly. I cant honestly remember if we shooed him off: perhaps Eves memory is better than mine.
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We decided to keep corresponding after Eve went back to Burgess Hill and although we were able to see each other infrequently, we put our thoughts on paper and eventually came to the realization that we had passed the fondness stage and we were in love with each other. In 1942 it was obvious that the next stage of the war was being fought in the Middle East and rumours persisted that our Division was due to go overseas. When, we didnt know, but Eve and I decided that we would become engaged and, as the possibility of going overseas became more of a reality we decided to get married. In spite of very confusing stories, I will endeavour to tell what actually was said when I asked Eve to marry me. I had been on a short weekend pass to London, which was the designation I was allowed to go seeing it was a forty-eight hour pass, so naturally I went home to my parents. In the course of conversation I said that I thought I would be overseas in less than three months. Mum said Have you thought of getting married before you go. You dont know how long you will be away. Its obvious that you and Eve are very much in love. Why dont you get married: Eve will get a marriage allowance and by the time you get out of the Army you both could have a decent nest egg to start your married life together. So I didnt suddenly say to her My Mum says why dont we get married? But get married we did. Being away from the home scene I didnt realise what a tizz Eves mum would be in when we just said We plan to get married in May. This was at the end of March. I didnt think about rationing, movement of civilians, etc. I just thought Well get married! I left all the arrangements to Eve I think we decided on May 9th together. The week prior to the 9th of may I had been selected to be one of the enemy at an officers training course for the duration of a week. This was really intensive with day and night exercises, endurance tests and the like. Need I say that when the wedding day arrived I was a spent force. To start off, I had my leave pass made out to London when it should have been Folkestone where we were to be married. The reason being was that Folkestone was out of bounds to everybody unless they lived in the area or had official authority to enter. On the train from London to Folkestone a Captain in the Military
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Police asked for my leave pass, and when he saw it was made out to Isleworth he blew his top and was about to stop the train and have me taken off. After my feeble attempt to pour oil on troubled waters, it was left to my Mum and brother Les to plead my case. As it was a marriage and involved many people he eventually relented and let me continue my journey. It was customary in those days that when German planes were overhead that the train drivers, both passengers and goods, get off the track as soon as possible and stayed under camouflaged sidings erected for the purpose of concealment from the air. This happened on two occasions on that day with the consequence that the train was hours behind schedule an hour before the time the wedding was about to start, Eve was on the platform with her hair in curlers. It was panic stations as we rushed off to change for the wedding. I dont believe I had time to wash properly. I had borrowed an Army Blue walking out uniform for the occasion so I had to change from my khakis. I had a blue short-sleeved pullover under my jacket. We discovered later that this was inside out and back to front and one sock was inside out. Buster, Eves cousin Noras husband (a sergeant in the Marine Corps) said hed walk with me to the church we didnt have any transport, in fact we were lucky to get a car for Eve and her dad. The church was only five or ten minutes walk away and we had to pass the local to get there. Of course, we had to stop for a courage booster (only one!) then on to the church. Well, we went inside and sat down. The church was empty, no flowers, no people, no organ playing. We sat there for a few minutes and then I said to Buster Are you sure this is the right church? Well, he replied. It could be the next one a little way up the road. Fortunately it was and we took up our seats in the front row. As I looked around I saw one of the elderly ladies get up from her seat and come before me. As she opened her mouth to speak I saw that she had one tooth and it was pointing straight at me. It was too late to duck, she put her arms around me and planted a kiss on my cheek. Im your Aunt Em, she said. Lumme! I thought. What have I married into? Then another Aunt appeared. It was Aunt Lizzie she was a sweetie and I was reassured. Then the Wedding March started and Eve came down the aisle on her Dads arm. She looked radiant and I marvelled at how she had been able to make the transformation in so short a time. Shortly after the marriage service had started, the air raid siren,
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which was on the roof of the Church Hall, started wailing to signify that enemy planes were overhead. The minister didnt falter, just went ahead with the service. I was a bit on tenterhooks and thought that he might cut the service short, but no, he went ahead. First he pointed out all the things that were expected of a wife the whole box and dice. This is good, I thought. Therell be no doubt in Eves mind what is expected of her! Then he turned on me. My word! I sunk down lower and lower into the pew. I wished I could get smaller and crawl away. He really got into me and I began to wonder what I had let myself in for. Anyway, the All Clear siren sounded so we knew that Jerry wasnt going to add to it! Eve and her Mum had put on a terrific spread seeing that food was rationed we were fortunate in that we had an iced wedding cake, this being possible only because Fred Maddocks a cousin-in-law, worked at the bakery. The liquid refreshment was also hard to come by but Eves dad had managed to get a few quarts of light and brown ale, so we were able to drink a few toasts. We were going to stay at Doras for a few days so we left at about 9pm to go to Canterbury by bus. When we got there, there were no buses to Sturry which was about four miles away. Taxis were non-existent, petrol was rationed, so it was Shanks Pony for the newly weds. After the weekss activities and the activities of the day, I was almost a zombie before we had got very far along the road. Then Eve remembered that Bill Couchman had moved from Sturry and now had a cottage about two miles out of Canterbury, so we decided to call there and ask if we could leave our suit cases there. She was tickled pink when she saw us she didnt even know that we had continued our friendship, let alone being married. In true Bill fashion it was not long before she had another spread before us, and time went by quickly, as we ate and brought her up-to-date with all the news. Eventually we arrived at Doras cottage in Sturry at about 2 am and when we tried to open the front door Doras dog gave us such a noisy welcome that the whole village must have woken up. They were very quick to tell Dora later Did you know that your sister and a soldier spent the weekend at your place. Sturry is a very small town. Our weeks honeymoon was soon over and we went our separate ways, meeting only when we could get my infrequent leaves to coincide with Eves holidays. Im off the track here at this time Eve had left her nanny job and was working at Teddington hospi18

tal. She was there when I had Embarkation Leave and when I came home for those few hours from The Thicks. I had a mate in the Army, Tom Lewis, he was two behind me when we got our Army numbers on the day we joined up. Eve and I palled up with Tom and his wife Rene and I remember how we used to embarrass the girls, pretending to tie up our camels on the underground. We tried hard to be happy and light-hearted knowing that soon we had to part. In July I got ten days embarkation leave, I guess we tried to make believe that it was just an ordinary leave but in out hearts we knew that I was going off to war to fight in another country and, of course, its possibilities. Two light-hearted episodes remain in my book of memories I loved fishing in the Thames so I said to Eve Pack up a picnic and well go down to Richmond and Ill do some fishing its a lovely day, you can read a book whilst I fish but dont talk. It frightens the fish away. I fished away, not catching anything just enjoying the peace and tranquillity. Around two oclock I thought it well past lunch-time the worms were biting even if the fish werent. So I shouted up to Eve Get the lunch ready Im starving. When I clambered up the bank Eve looked at me a bit red-faced. Whats up I said. Have you forgotten something?. No, she replied, I thought Id not distract you, you said not to talk, so about midday I thought Id just have a sandwich to tide me over to lunch, but they were so tasty and I was peckish and I ate the lot. I couldnt believe it. I dont know what I said, but I believe we packed up the fishing gear and went straight home. A couple of days later we were in Richmond at lunch time and, on looking in the purse found that we had just one shilling and sixpence to our name. I had been looking forward to a feed of cherries so the decision we had to make was between a couple of salad rolls and a slice of cake, or a pound of cherries. We decided on the cherries, they were exactly one and six a pound. As we said goodbye after that leave we didnt know when we would see each other again I know I was heavy-hearted as we kissed goodbye. But we did see each other one more time, Ive mentioned it earlier, but it seemed to break the spell and both Eve and myself knew in our hearts that we would most definitely meet again. These, then, were all the memories I had as I saw England disappearing in the gloom, but soon we were occupied in settling in on the ship that was to take us where, we did not know. The crew of the ship were mostly Dutch and Lascans, we were to see a lot of
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them over the next two months. The officers were allocated cabins, Warrant Officers and Sergeants shared smaller cabins, whilst the corporals and other ranks slept in hammocks. These hammocks were slung between decks for us to sleep in, and during the day they were folded (exactly) and stowed away. Space was at a minimum which virtually stopped any activity on board. To keep fit we marched for hours up and down the deck, or for a change we donned P.T. kit and ran up and down the deck. I dont recall how many ships were in the convoy, and the German U boats had a ball pecking off at random the slower ships who fell behind. Some of these were ammunition ships and were easily picked out by the firework display that followed a hit. We always knew when the subs were active, because the destroyers and corvettes would race up and down dropping depth charges. We went almost to the coast of America to avoid the U Boat channel and we didnt come East again until we were opposite the coast of Africa. We dropped anchor at Dakar on the Gold Coast to take on water and supplies, but nobody was allowed ashore because every known disease, including cholera, was rampant. We eventually put in at Cape Town but we were very unhappy with the reception we got at first. After many lectures concerning our behaviour we were allowed ashore. We soon found out why the cool reception. Apparently, the convoy who landed there previous to us were Australian troops and they had gone on a drunken rampage, wrecking pubs, turning taxis and private cars upside down and heaving chains through pub windows. My offsider Tom Lewis and I were soon chatting to a couple of pretty South African nurses when a big car drew up at the kerb. The lady in the car called me over and said If you want to have an enjoyable time in Cape Town it would be better not to be seen talking to Cape coloured girls. We thought that they were two suntanned white girls and I said we were sorry and would not do anything that was not in order. The lady invited us to for for a ride in the car and we went for miles along a coast road under the Table Mountains. Then we were taken back to her home, a palatial building on the slopes of the mountain with a glorious view of the city and sea. Her husband was the manager of a gold mine. We wined and dined and bathed and changed into white shirt and shorts whilst our uniforms were dry-cleaned and pressed and shirts and vest and pants were laundered. Then, after a beautiful meal, we were driven back to the ship with the promise that we would be picked up in the morn20

ing. I believe that we were in Cape Town for a week but the time just flew by as we were taken to all the beauty spots and then back for delicious meals. After five weeks at sea it was by far the highlight of our journey out. One incident comes to mind of that journey. I was in charge of a fatigue party on the ship, unloading stores for the galley and shop, and drinks and extras for the Officers quarters. We were told that we could eat and drink what we liked, but on no condition were we to bring up anything after we had finished. Of course, one of the guys had to put a spanner in the works and tried to smuggle a couple of bottles of whisky on deck and was caught. That ended one of the best fatigues Id ever been on. That bloke wasnt popular, I can assure you. Leaving Cape Town, we cruised up past Madagascar and eventually crossed over to Bombay. This was the first eye-opener for us to see how the other half lived we thought the natives in Cape Town had it rough, but the squalor in the poor areas was indescribable. The Black area was out of bounds for all ranks but to give us an idea of what their existence was like, we marched through that area just before leaving the city of Bombay. It was very early in the morning. The pavement was the bedroom for hundreds of homeless and as we marched through, a wagon was already removing those unfortunates(?) who had died during the night. I will always carry that scene with me and that terrible smell that was cloying as we marched through those streets. We were glad to be on our way up the coast and through the Persian Gulf to Basrah. The nights on the boat in the Indian Ocean were memorable we were allowed, on a roster system to sleep on deck. The sky was a deep purple, the stars were big and bright and seemed to hang down from a ceiling. It was hard to realise we were on our way to fight a war! Basrah was only a stopping place to get fitted with our tropical kit, pith helmets and khaki drill shirts and shorts. But we were there long enough to have more than a share of sand, flies and heat. It is reputed to be the hottest place in the world and we wouldnt argue with that. Then we were off, up through Iraq, then known as Mesopotamia, almost to the Kurdistan border, to guard an oil refinery from a possible push down through Turkey by the Germans. This of course, never eventuated. We were there around nine months, under canvas just a couple of miles from an Iraqi village called Kirkuk, a dirty cluster of mud houses with no sanitation or anything else going for it. We were not allowed to buy any food or fruit, and drink only from sealed bottles, for every known disease was rife in this village. We pitched our tents, then to make them more comfortable, we
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dug the earth, or rather, sand, to a depth of two and a half to three feet. This enabled us to stand up and move around more freely. We were glad of a fly sheet over the tent especially when the rain set in. Ive never seen rain fall so consistently. We dug trenches around our tent for the rain to get away down the many gullies, but many tents (including ours) had the misfortune of the sand walls collapsing through the rain and filling the tent with water. Fortunately it didnt happen at night which would have been disastrous. The area was absolutely rich in oil and on every puddle was at least an inch of black crude oil. Ill tell you a little story that happened during this wet season. I was company orderly sergeant and a guy named Goodlet was orderly corporal. He was a lance-corporal only because he had put in for a commission he was a complete idiot! One evening (it was pitch black and raining hard) I sent him over to H.Q. with the censored mail. He was gone ages but eventually showed up in a terrible state. Apparently he needed to go to the toilet. Now the toilet was an unusual contraption: it was two cross members of wood each end of a hole about four feet long by four to five feet deep with another round pole across the two end pieces. Yes, youve guessed right! He toppled off his perch into the morass of oil and you know what. He still had clenched in his fist the bundle of what was originally mail for home. He said to me I seem to have had a disaster. I wasnt too happy but the guys who had laboriously written those letters were really irate. I guess I was a bit smug about this, for a week or so before this incident he was going into the village and I asked him to get my wristwatch cleaned it was a nice gold watch that my family had given to me for my twenty-first birthday: it was my pride and joy! When he went to collect it a couple of days later they palmed him off with a cheap imitation that wasnt worth two bob. I was furious but I didnt get my watch back. Whilst we were there we had to take part in an endurance test in the hills of Kurdistan. Now the Kurds are the most bloodthirsty tribe imaginable and every soldier was told that no way could they drop out of the march if they really couldnt go on a truck would be going up and down the convoy. We marched and marched for hours, trudging in the dark, holding on to the equipment of the man in front, It was bitterly cold, sleet fell continuously and to cap it all off, when daybreak came and we stopped for breakfast, there was nothing for us. In the wadi (or gully) where the cooks had set up their cooking gear, they were swept away by a downpour in the hills that had rushed down and washed the
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cookhouse, food and cooks away. They never found any signs of the cooks or gear. We had all had enough by then and a fleet of trucks was sent from Brigade H.Q. to take us back to camp. It really was a twenty-four hour endurance test it took some of the guys quite a while to get over that exercise. One ray of sunshine whilst we were in Iraq was a troupe of entertainers from home. I recall one singer summing the place up with a ditty sung to the tune of Where the Mountains of Mourne and it started with But Mary, this Iraqs a terrible land with one blade of grass to ten acres of sand etc. This just about summed up the country it was desolate, no grass, no trees just miles and miles of sand. We were not sorry when our Division was ordered to move and we went on a journey not to be forgotten easily. We went right across the desert to Israel and over the Suez Canal into Egypt then right across to Libya where the 8th Army had routed the Afrika Corps who were in full flight to Tunisia. Our Division was to take off some of the pressure from the Divisions that had slogged from Alamein and had been in action for several months and were in need of a rest. On the way we passed many wrecks of war, German and Italian tanks and guns, trucks and equipment, fuel dumps and food dumps left by the enemy as they retreated. We didnt enter the battle until the last month or so of the Desert Campaign, but it was no pushover. After an almost non-stop journey from Iran, we were sent straight into battle we were soft from inactivity, our feet were not hardened to the burning sand or the cold by night and we suffered. Our first taste of action was to advance through a Brigade of a British Regiment who had lost their way their officers had panicked when confronted by a very dedicated German elite battalion and had retreated willy-nilly. We were sent in to stem the tide and I could recount many acts of bravery over the next couple of weeks. Our Battalion won the D.S.O. and many men were decorated. Without wanting to glamourise the action, I was proud to belong to the 9th Battalion Royal Fusiliers. I think the first of several indications that God had His hand on me occurred during the last big action of the Desert Campaign. Our Brigade was to be used as a distraction to make the enemy believe
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that a major attack was coming from the 8th Army front (this was north of the town of Enfidaville in Tunisia) whilst the rest of the 8th Army went round the flank to link up with the First Army which was composed mostly of Americans who had landed at Algiers. Consequently the whole of the Afrika Corps had no option but to surrender. We had to make an apparent attack on the German positions supported by some of the armour and guns of the 8th Army. This meant advancing over open country I was in the leading platoon of B Company which was leading the way. We had advanced some two and a half to three miles when all hell was let loose. The Germans had their guns trained on our line of advance, their machine guns were lined up to cover the area and as we reached the spot, they poured in thousands of rounds. Our battalion was cut to pieces. I was fortunate in that when they opened fire I was on the forward edge of the area covered. In spite of this, I almost copped a packet one bullet went through my water bottle, one through my ammunition pouches, two went through my haversack, through my mess tins and shaving gear and one bullet went through the handle of a pick axe I was carrying behind my pack on my back, tearing the handle to shreds and cutting my back rather badly. Another bullet hit the bren gun I was carrying and knocked it out of my hand. I was knocked to the ground and rolled into a shell hole which saved me from further injury. Here I was pinned down for some hours until darkness allowed what was left of our company to withdraw. I was not a religious man then, but I remember praying as Id never prayed before, asking God to save me and promising to be a good Christian in future. Although I didnt keep that promise at that time, God did hear and answer my prayer and I shall recount a couple more instances in my Army life to substantiate this. One was only a week later when we were relieved and went back some distance for a well-earned rest. We were in an olive grove and we had dug slit trenches big enough for two men under the trees. I had been promoted to sergeant and had taken over 10 Platoon and had just finished the daily arms and ammunition report and personnel position to take over to the Company Sergeant Major when Jerry bombarded our position with a six barrelled mortar that we called Moaning Minnie because of the sound it made as these six projectiles went through the air. I had just jumped into our platoon commanders trench to get his signature when the bomb landed right on our position. It lasted only a few
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minutes but it had disastrous effects. I looked over in the direction where my trench was to see that the tree overhead had been hit and was covering the trench with my mate Lance Corporal Fred Harris in. Lieutenant Jones and myself rushed over and dragged the tree away. Fred had changed ends and was sitting at my end of the trench his head was down over his knees and helmet was forward over his face. There was a small hole at the hairline at the back of his neck, but it must have turned as the shrapnel entered his neck for it had gone right through his neck and his face was a mess it had killed him instantly! I had been eating hard tack biscuits with treacle on in the Officers trench, and my mouth was still full as we lifted Freddie out of the trench. I remember vomiting and Jonesy saying to me Come over and have another biscuit or youll never eat biscuits and Golden Syrup again. I cant remember whether I accepted his invitation but I do remember that Freddie Harris had been sitting in my place in the slit trench. I recall also that a few days later it was late afternoon and I was sitting on the parapet of our slit trench with two of the boys of our platoon. I remember very vividly that my feet were red raw and I sacrificed some of my precious water to put a drop in my mess tin and bathe my feet with my handkerchief. There had been a lull in the activity for a couple of hours and Jerry (like us) was taking advantage to come up for air. We could see them plainly, they werent more than 200 yards away. They werent bothering us so we were not bothering them. Then suddenly the German artillery thought it had been quiet long enough and sent over a barrage which again was bang on our position. One shell landed on the soft sand on the opposite parapet to the one on which we were sitting. The boys on either side of me were severely shell shocked, yet it did not affect me. I know now that God was answering that prayer of mine. (There are a couple of other outstanding incidents that I shall write about in due course.) The war in the desert ended about the end of May, 1943, I remember spending my 25th birthday in a slit trench. We had been holed up for about four days and the only time we could get outside and stretch our legs and get something to eat was after it got dark. The meal was cooked way back and brought up to the front in large square boxes called Hay Boxes. Invariably the tea was only lukewarm and if we were very fortunate the water truck made it up front and we could fill our water bottles.
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Our quarter master Charlie, who gave his age as ten years younger so that he could stay with the battalion (he would have been all of 54 years old) was a tremendous guy he was as miserable as sin if it meant dishing out a new battledress or a pair of socks but when it came to getting the rations up to us he would move mountains to feed the boys. There are always episodes that stick in your mind like the time when we could not get back to pick up rations for a couple of days, When eventually we did make it and caught up with Charlie he growled to the eight or ten of us who fronted up Wheres the rest of them if its good enough for me to come up here, then the least they can do is to come out and get it! I said Charlie, thats all thats left of us! I can see him now, his wizened face and waxed moustache, as he turned away with tears running down his cheeks. Im sorry boys, I didnt know! Shortly after the fighting in the desert finished I was one of the lucky ones who had a weeks leave in a camp for sergeants and W.O.s. It was on the shores of the Mediterranean between Tripoli and Tunis and we spent the week swimming, sunbathing, eating and drinking. The mess waiters were Italian Prisoners of War and on the counter was a box with the words Mess Waiters Comforts. One of our Platoon Sergeants, Blimp Simpson was infuriated and picked up the box and hurled it out of the window. He was severely reprimanded by the Senior W.O. but we all felt it was going a bit too far for they were still our enemies. Returning to our unit after a good rest we found that the Battalion had been brought up to full strength with mainly kids of 18 or 19 just out from England, and N.C.O.s who had been holding staff jobs in Cairo. I felt sorry for them as we went straight into training for a landing in Italy. We were sent to a hilly area on the edge of the Sahara Desert. It was stinking hot during the day and freezing cold at night. Nobody was allowed outside their tent between 2 and 4 oclock each afternoon I dont know which was best: inside a red hot tent, sweltering with no air or outside in the blistering heat, but there wasnt any shade at all no trees, no buildings, only the burning heat of the sun. We got on parade at 4pm and straightaway began running up and down the sandhills. It was still stinking hot but after a couple of hours of this, darkness fell and with it instant relief. We were in tropical kit during the day but with nightfall on would go our battledress.
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I remember that we were soaked through with perspiration but as we waited for transport to take us back to camp, darkness would fall so rapidly that soon we would be shivering. I really did feel for those kids straight out from home. Those of us who had guard duties would put on battledress, greatcoats, balaclava and gloves and long for the day to dawn to warm us up again. To start off, a lot of the new guys went sick, but the exercise was to toughen us up. This was no place for the weak and faint hearted. But this was not the end of our misery as we were taken to the shores of the Med and practised landing from assault craft. Day after day we jumped into the sea with full equipment and before we had a chance to dry out it was over the side again. We guessed that these exercises were for a landing probably on Sicily or mainland Italy. It proved to be Italy and we made the short journey on the Polish liner S.S. Sobrieski. Our main problem was getting from the decks of this large ship to the assault craft bobbing down below. Many of us made our way down rope ladders which was no mean achievement with the load we were carrying. I weighed mine and it weighed just over 110lbs. We carried everything except the kitchen sink. Apart from the usual equipment we carried an entrenching tool, as many Mills hand grenades as you could clip on your belt, a Tommy gun with as many full mags that could fit in the two pouches, all the tucker you would get for two days, usually compo rations and hard tack biscuits, a small tin of cheese and meat , dry rations for tea making and a little utility stove for brewing up. All this, and I only weighed in at 132lbs. We left the Sobrieski about six miles off the coast of Salerno and each Landing Craft assault carried a crew of three sailors and thirty two soldiers (one complete platoon). These craft were flat bottomed and pitched and rolled in the heavy swell. I felt sorry for the lads who were poor sailors as you had to bend over double to get below the gunwales of the craft. The Germans were onto us as soon as we were within range and peppered us with small arms fire as we came into shore. Photos taken of this section of the beach indicated that it was not mined as two people were taking their dogs for a run along
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it. But this was not so and because of a misunderstanding, I am still alive to write these memoirs. As the landing craft hit the beach the front ramp was lowered and the platoon came ashore from left and right of the ramp. Our platoon officer, Lieutenant Jones jumped out first on the right hand side. His runner, a lad named Hinson, should have followed on the left side, then myself as platoon sergeant on the right hand side behind the platoon officer. He was about 63 and leapt about 12 feet up the beach. Poor old Hinson followed his officer. He was about the same size as me and leapt about 5 feet straight onto a mine. I went out to the left and if Hinson hadnt made that mistake I would have landed on that mine. Gods hand was on me. Lieutenant Jones copped a chunk of shrapnel in his legs and didnt get much further. So I found myself in charge of the platoon without very much idea of what was happening except that we had to reach a town named Battapaglia, about five miles inland, and consolidate by midnight on Day Two. We didnt experience too much opposition as the Italians had capitulated on the evening before we landed, but the Germans were carrying on without them. The landing at Salerno was really a diversion to take the pressure off the 8th Army who had landed at the toe of Italy and were pushing up the west coast. Our division was attached to the 5th American Army which was made up mostly of green troops, many straight out from the States. Without wishing to be bitter, they were a great let down for whilst we had reached our objective at 10pm on the second day and taken up positions in Battapaglia, we had a bitter disappointment when we found that we were opposed by two of the elite regiments in the German Army the Herman Goering Panzer Division and a static Parachute Regiment. On top of that, the American troops on our flanks were still on the beach where they had landed. We were out of food and ammunition, we were surrounded and our Battalion H.Q. had retreated through the only road open back to the beach. Our last orders were to fight to the last man and the last round, but most of us had fired our last round and were waiting for food and ammunition to be brought up to us. It was impossible to stay in town, the German tanks were systematically blasting us out, so we had no alternative but to try to get back to the beach.
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I had about seventeen men left out of my original platoon of 30 and I had picked up a couple of men from a machine gun unit and a couple of Sappers from the Royal Engineers who had lost their way. The machine gunners were out of ammo, so their guns were useless and the Royal Engineers who were demolition experts didnt have any explosives, so they were not much use. So we decided to try to get back, but once out of town we were in open country and sitting ducks for the sections of German troops scouring the outskirts of town. It was afternoon by now, so we decided to lie low in a tomato plantation and wait for nightfall so that we could wade across a river. I was lying by a stream which was obviously watering this crop of tomatoes and failed to see or hear a German patrol until they were almost on us. I automatically jumped to my feet and, hoping to surprise or confuse them, pointed my empty Tommy gun in the general direction of the patrol commander and shouted Hands up! Imagine my surprise when he pointed his automatic rifle at me and said with a distinctive Cockney accent Turn it in, chum. You are surrounded. And indeed we were. The patrol had seen us go into hiding, made their way to us and completely encircled us and were pointing their rifles at us as we lay on the ground. Apparently this German sergeant had lived at Clapham Junction with his parents until the mid 1930s, when his parents, being German had moved back to Germany. He could have riddled me with bullets as I was the aggressor. Again I must say that Somebody, more than Lady Luck, was on my side. Darkness had fallen by this time and we were herded back to the town of Battapaglia, which was indeed a sight with many houses burning and gas mains ablaze. The Navy was really blasting the place and as we heard the screech of a shell both Germans and prisoners dived for cover in a bombed building. It seemed I had lain in this shop doorway for an eternity and was sure that the column of prisoners and guards must have moved on by now, and as I furtively emerged from my shelter, hoping to dash back in the direction we had come from, a German soldier, obviously sheltering in the next doorway herded me along to the main column. They marched us to the rear of the town where groups of prisoners were coming in dribs and drabs.
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I well recall that for the next few days the Germans attempted to evacuate us from the Battapaglia area and move us up to Naples. They herded us, about thirty to a truck, probably a five tonner, with no kit and no food or water at about 6.30 in the morning with the dire threat that if anyone escaped every third man on the truck would be shot. I was senior N.C.O. on our truck, but we had a naval pilot, a sub-lieutenant who had been shot down also in our truck, who took me aside and said that as a flying officer it was his duty to attempt to escape. The rest of the men on the truck got wind of this and were quite hostile to the pilot, but he was adamant he was going to escape and, sure enough, on the way back (we didnt get too far because the road was impassable from the shelling and bombing by the Air Force) this officer dropped over the side of the truck as it slowed down to turn a sharp bend in the road and got away. I must add that the two guards who should have been guarding us in the back of the truck had moved into the cab with the driver where it was more comfortable. I must admit that when I got back, I was more than a little fearful as we got off the truck and lined up to be counted. You can imagine the consternation of the Germans when the counting revealed one short. This was it, I thought. Now we are for it! But we didnt realise that the German guards were more worried than we were and knew that they would be in big trouble for allowing a prisoner to escape. We were amazed when one of the guards grabbed a prisoner who was walking past with a pail of water and added him to the column, called over an officer who, counting us, found the number correct. For about a week to a fortnight the Germans tried to evacuate us from the Salerno area as each day more prisoners were brought in to swell the numbers. There were hundreds of Americans, some mere boys straight out from America, frightened and bewildered. Eventually they succeeded in getting us through to Naples where we were taken to the marshalling yards where a long line of closed trucks was waiting. They herded us into these trucks, about sixty, I should imagine, into each truck. The one I was in had been used to cart coal and there was two to three inches of fine, black dust on the floor of the truck. When we moved or shifted position, everyone was coated in coal dust which got in your mouth and up your nostrils making it difficult to breathe. It was stifling during the day and bitterly cold at night. No one had any gear at all, just a khaki short-sleeved shirt and khaki shorts, socks and boots. There wasnt room for us all to
30

lie down so we took it in 3 hour shifts to either lay down or stand up. I dont know what was best. The train started and stopped on one occasion it stayed at a siding for three days. Once each day, after nightfall, we were allowed out, one truck at a time, to answer the call of nature. I remember one night everybody in the truck except myself was herded outside. As a sergeant I was probably the senior N.C.O. Three German officers roughed me up a bit, I hadnt a clue what was wrong until another officer came along who could speak English and accused us of trying to break out of the truck as there appeared to be a wider gap at the grid that served as a window than any of these openings on the other trucks. These windows were bolted from the outside and were solid metal. How the brains of the German elite worked I do not know, unless they worked out that we had bent them with our bare hands! I dont know but they assured me I would eventually be charged with attempting to escape. Sufficient to say that I never heard another word about it, but it was mighty scary while it lasted. I just wouldnt have a clue how long we were on that train. It seemed like weeks and I recall it was well into November when we reached a P.O.W. camp at a place called Moosberg. It was bitterly cold, and as I said we were in Summer gear and this was only a transit camp for prisoners coming up from Italy. We only stayed for a few days then we were put in trucks again. Our destination was Stalag 8B at a place called Lamsdorf in Upper Silesia, not far from the Polish/ Czechoslovakian border. It was a big camp housing around 10,000 prisoners from all countries of the Allies, English speaking mostly. The other countries like France, Belgium, Polish, Czechs and Russians were in other camps. There was quite a large camp for Russian P.O.W.s only about a mile from our camp. I remember vividly our arrival at Stalag 8B we were cold, hungry, miserable and indescribably filthy. The lights from the camp could be seen as we disembarked at Lamsdorf Railway Station remember it was November and it got dark before 4pm and as we walked the couple of kilometres or so I remember the feeling of hopelessness that took hold of me. Yet, in spite of that, there was a feeling of relief that perhaps we could stay put for a while, away from the cattle trucks which had become black refrigerators as we moved into Upper Silesia. As we entered Stalag 8B we were searched, photographed, fingerprints taken, searched again, interrogated and bombarded with
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ridiculous questions. Then off to a delouser where we allowed a hot shower, issued with warm underwear and secondhand battledress. Some of the guys at the back of the queue missed out on our warm khaki battledress and were issued with Polish or French uniforms. This was later put right as gear arrived from the British Red Cross. I was extremely fortunate again and was taken to block 38 which was a compound for Camp workers, cleaners and waiters in the German Officers quarters, or mess orderlies in the other ranks barracks of the German guards, workers in the Red Cross depot, both in Stalag and unloading parcels at Lamsdorf Station. Then there were men employed in the Camp cookhouse, boot repairers, tailors etc. In fact this was known as the rackets compound. The men working ion the German messes were allowed to bring back any bread or soup left over, the men working at the Red Cross depot at Lamsdorf could eat anything there but were not allowed to bring anything back to Camp. This meant that the men in the barrack room not on those details could have their ration of bread, potatoes and ersatz coffee. This coffee was made from acorns and had no resemblance whatsoever to the coffee we know. When the Red Cross parcels started to dry up in August, 1944 we were still able to keep going on the extra German rations. Being a big prisoner-of-war camp there were comings and goings of men to various working parties outside of camp, to coal mines, state farms, even some sort of work in production factories that were not directly attributable to the German war effort. Everybody under the rank of Corporal had to work for the Germans and many senior N.C.O.s wanting to make a run for it would volunteer as N.C.O.s-in-charge of working parties as they had a good chance of making a getaway. This, of course, meant that there were not many attempts made from inside the Camp of escaping but I must make mention of one particular incident that really hoodwinked the Germans. Around the perimeter of the Camp was barbed wire about thirty feet high, double width with coils of barbed wire in between. In front of this was a trip wire about 10 feet in and nobody was allowed to step over this wire. Anyone trying it on would be met with a burst of machine gun fire from the goon towers. From the trip wire to the walking path was about another 10 feet which the Germans allowed prisoners to cul32

tivate vegetables when the Red Cross people thoughtfully put a few packets of seeds in the bulk parcels. In the Palestinian compound several men were cultivating this marrow it grew to a tremendous size, they fed it with wool running from tins of water and as it grew it was a focal and talking point of all who admired it. One guy got on the band wagon and opened a book to guess the ultimate weight of this marrow. As it grew it was lifted up and placed on a wooden box about two feet square, the earth was neat and tidy around it and onlookers were kept at a reasonable distance. Then, early one morning in June 1944 there was a buzz in camp and after roll call we raced around to the marrow to see a squad of Germans filling in a big hole that ran right under the wire. I dont know how many escaped but it was rumoured that at least half a dozen R.A.F. types had got clean away. (Incidentally, no R.A.F. personnel at all were allowed on working parties.) The escapers had picked this spot very carefully, it was almost alongside the huge compound latrines, a spot that was almost blind to the searchlights in the goon boxes. As soon as it was dark they dug the tunnel and disposed of the earth down the latrines. Before dawn each day they would carefully arrange the marrow on the box and tidy up the surroundings. It was a crash event and probably only took four or five nights to tunnel under the wire and make a clean getaway. Then, of course, D Day arrived and the morale of the camp was sky high. Whats the Gaff? was on everybodys lips. There was, as far as I know, one secret radio in camp which was never found and provided us with the progress of the Normandy landings. This radio was another evidence of the camps brains. We had a special latrine for dysentery patients, shunned by one and all because the disease was so catching, but the boys who dug this latrine also dug another room adjoining in which this radio was eventually installed. The entry was from the dysentery latrine and they were very brave men who went under these circumstances into this room each night to bring us the B.B.C. news. We never knew who these men were, there were too many stool pigeons around, wanting to know who they were and where the radio was, but each evening around 9pm the B.B.C. news would be passed on to each barrack room and we followed very closely the advance of the Allied armies.
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There were many bets laid (and I know some were honoured after the war) on the exact date the war would be over, some bets not always involving money. One of the men in our combine (usually four friends who would pool Red Cross parcels and therefore make the contents last longer) was a South African a likable lad by the name of Keith Manson, he said that if the war was not over by Christmas Day 1944, he would jump in the water tank near our compound. (These were huge tanks made of concrete, holding several thousand gallons of water and were installed to fight fires as the Barrack rooms were all made of wood.) This water wasnt in any way clean and all sorts of junk went in it. Keith didnt realise when he made the bet on June 6th that on Christmas Day the tank would be frozen almost solid. This didnt deter Keith, for on Boxing Day and the war still being in progress, he borrowed a pickaxe from somewhere and hacked away at the ice until there was a hole big enough to jump in and jump out again. It was rumoured that the next day the Germans dragged the tank for a missing guard we were marched out of the camp around New Years Day so it was never verified that they found the body in a state of decomposition. For several weeks we had heard the guns of the Armies Germany and Russia as the Russians advanced into the Silesian corridor and rumour was constantly rife as to when we would be evacuated from the Stalag it was fairly obvious that we would be marched out for there were upwards of 10,000 men in the Stalag, and of course they couldnt all be on the same road together: moving this number of men could create difficulties as the roads were snow and ice bound. Then we got the news officially, the evacuation of the camp was to start the next day it was January 1st, 1945. The camp was like a madhouse, many prisoners fashioned sledges from tables and shelves. Mementos guarded zealously for years were dumped, excess clothing went the same way. Food was the main item to be carried and cigarettes, which was always the currency in camp. Gear was packed and repacked, everything we could pack on our sledge was considered and reconsidered some of the guys in Stalag had been there since 1940 and just couldnt make a decision. There wasnt much sleep that night, we were wondering if Ivan would get here before the Jerries could march us out. We had a very good Block-Fuehrer he was a German-Pole and
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Len at 20

Len in 1940

Len in Baghdad, 1942

Len in 1942

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Eve during War

Len in 1946
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Eve in the bush at Medina, 1957

The family at Medina, 1957

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he used to pass on scraps of information that would make our lot a little easier. It was suggested that John be issued with a British uniform and when we marched out he should slip into the ranks and join us. I dont honestly know if this, in fact, did happen, but he was a great guy and many men avoided punishment because of John. The day we marched out of the P.O.W. camp will live forever in my mind. I cant remember the exact date (that didnt mean much, anyway). It was the first week in January, 1945 bitterly cold and snowing fairly heavily. Men were rushing here and there, saying goodbye to friends from other compounds many had been together for upwards of five years. The Germans were marching us out in batches of a couple of thousand, I guess. Our names and numbers and finger prints were checked and rechecked, we were issued with two Red Cross parcels per man one Christmas parcel (which we should have received two weeks earlier) and an ordinary parcel. This wasnt too bad for us who had a reasonable sledge but the guys without didnt know whether to dump their gear, clothing etc., or eat as much as possible there and then. They were to regret eating it up as food became increasingly scarce as the days and weeks went by. We eventually formed up outside the Stalag gates by midday but it was six oclock in the evening when we eventually started walking. It was pitch black and snowing hard, you couldnt see more than a few yards and it so necessary to see the men in front. We plodded on right throughout the night, stopping each hour for the stragglers to catch up. Many who were not fit fell by the roadside and never made the home run. Every time we stopped our wet boots froze solid which added to the agony of sore and aching feet. Those of us who were reasonably fit and had prepared ourselves for marching couldnt do a thing to help those boys who just couldnt go on. It was just a survival of the fittest. The Germans marched us right through the night and it was breaking light when we had our first long rest. I believe it was in the yard of a school which had been evacuated. I was in a group of four guys: Johnny Green, Bill Gilson, Joe Farley and myself. Apart from Joe we were fairly small guys around 56 and ten stone in weight. Joe was a big man, well over six feet tall. He suffered considerably, needed much more food than we did. He was in the Royal Army Medical Corps and went along the column trying to help those who were sick as much as he possibly could. He
38

didnt pay sufficient attention to his hands (he only wore mittens) and consequently incurred severe frost bite eventually losing several fingers. Unfortunately Joe passed away on the day we were liberated. We made a point of always getting to the front of the column (it got shorter as the weeks passed) so that at the end of the day we were the first to get any food that was going and occasionally any accommodation that was forthcoming which wasnt very often. Some evenings we stopped at a State Farm and were allowed to rest in the barns. I recall more vividly our stay at the barns for invariably something happened. Three occasions stand out in my memory, not very pleasant but worth recording. They are not necessarily in order except the first one. We had been issued with a bread ration, one loaf to ten men which worked out at two very thin slices per man. I slowly ate one slice and kept the other in my mess tin for the morning which was in my small pack which I used as a pillow. I was awakened in the night by some activity at my head. It was a rat gnawing at my haversack to try to get to the bread. I shooed it away but it came back for another attempt. Again it was unsuccessful. Another time we arrived at a State Farm just as two Ukrainian farm girls were carrying a tub of swill to the pigs. I was sickened when thirty or so of our guys rushed these girls, knocked over the tub and ate the swill. I, too, was starving but Im glad to say I still had some dignity. That night many discovered that eating pig swill was not good for the stomach and were violently ill. Another time, also in a State barn, one of our guys produced a chook which happened to fly into his hands and damage its neck. We pulled the feathers out, hid them deep in the straw, tore it to pieces and ate it raw. I was fortunate to get a leg and I remember sucking on it long after the meat was gone. Ill recount another occasion, not a happy one. At one barn we stopped at there was a two hundredweight sack of wheat, obviously to sow next year. Of course, the boys were soon into that, ate as much as they could and filled their pockets. Of course, it was discovered in the morning and a search revealed many guys with wheat in their pockets. They were lined up and systematically flogged with pieces of two by two. Although I ate my fill, I wasnt stupid enough to fill my pockets.
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Food was always extremely scarce. On one occasion while marching we didnt have any food or water for four days. We got weaker and weaker and it was hard to drag one foot after another. My boots had fallen to pieces and for some reason I had hung on to a pair of shoes that Eve had sent me. These soon wore out and I tied rags around my feet but this didnt stop me from getting frost bite on my right heel and, although the thaw set in in March, the damage had been done and I had a very nasty sore place on my heel. Fortunately, while everything was frozen solid we didnt have colds or flu but after the thaw we were plagued with coughs and colds. We were never dry, our feet were cold and wet. Many of the boys had eaten mangel wurzels without washing them. (The Germans used night soil on the crops as fertiliser and of course, those who had eaten these had amoebic dysentery.) This raged through the column and dozens of boys died because the medics didnt have any treatment for them. As we got weaker, the distance we could walk got less and less and we often had rest days when even the rifle butts of the Germans couldnt get us on our feet. We were heading towards France and we could again hear the sound of artillery fire but this time it was the advancing American Army. Each day we could see columns of German soldiers retreating to take up new defence lines. Then, ninety days after being marched out from Stalag 344 at Lamsdorf in Upper Silesia, we were liberated just outside Frankfurt on Maine. I can recall that time so very vividly we walked through the town at about three in the afternoon, my leg had finally given up on me. I couldnt go a step further. My ankle was swollen with pus and ached deep into my groin. I lay on the pavement as the remnants passed through. I felt too sick to care what was to happen but the good folk of this German town cared. They brought me out food: potatoes and onions, another brought out a bowl of soup and one dear soul bathed and bandaged my foot. Unbeknown to me, the march was to end at this town there was a French P.O.W. camp just outside the town and they marched the remaining guys into the camp and housed them in two huge marquees in the compound. They sent out a horse drawn cart to bring the stragglers in. Then came an episode that still makes me sick to think
40

of it. We just lay on the ground in these marquees, too weak to move and the French P.O.W.s came into the tent with cooked potatoes, not to give us, but to sell to us for watches or rings. Anything of value had gone long ago so these frogs took their potatoes away again. Men were dying of starvation. Each morning we dragged out half a dozen who hadn't made it during the night Big Joe Farley was one of them. I couldnt understand some of the guys, they lay there all day talking about food what they would eat when they got home and the order they would have the dishes served. Johnny and I couldnt hack that and we would crawl out of the marquee during the day time and catch what little Spring sunshine there was. Then, when we had been there for three or four days, we heard a lot of commotion going on outside the wire Germans were running to and fro, the roads were packed with German transport crawling past: they were wood-fired and the smoke was belching out of the funnels. Suddenly the street was deserted and we saw coming towards us a marvellous sight: an American tank with infantry troops riding on top. They rumbled past all day and a detachment of their personnel was detailed to look after the guys in the compound. It was General Patton (old Blood and Guts as he was known to the troops) and his tank corps roving far and wide in front of the infantry, who had sent the Germans who had been guarding the camps, running away from them. They left us with cartons of cigarettes and K rations, a compounded ration that had the necessary ingredients to keep the foraging tank corps fit and healthy. At the beginning there were not a lot of these food packs but as the troops advancing behind the tanks caught up with us so more food was organised. Men were sent out to scour the countryside for vegetables and a couple of sheep were slaughtered, but we were too weak to eat much and what we did get down came up almost immediately our starved stomachs could not handle such rich food. However, I must go back a few days to record an incident which I think is worth mentioning. I forgot to mention that of our column of some 2,000 P.O.W.s only four hundred were with us when we finished the march. The Germans were all for marching us back into Germany but realised the state of the majority of the guys made this impossible so they ordered the two medical doctors who were with
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us to get the two hundred fittest men to march out again. After looking at thirty or so they declared that not one man was fit enough but Jerry was adamant: two hundred men must march out. After conferring, the M.O.s asked for volunteers to step forward and I recall that every man who was able to stand took a step forward. So the medical officers had to pick two hundred of the fittest. These brave men were marched out on the day before the Yanks arrived and we heard later that they were marched up to the Bavarian Alps and were not released until July, 1945. On that day I recall that a flight of American planes flew over the camp, mistook it for a German camp and sprayed a corner of it with machine gun fire, killing and wounding about a dozen men. The Yank soldiers, mostly coloured troops, were magnificent. We were emaciated, filthy and stinking, alive with lice. They carried us down to the delouser. I recall so vividly this big, black top-sergeant picking Johnny and I up and carrying us, one under each arm, about two hundred yards down to the delouser, where we stripped off our filthy rags, taking them from us to be burned and wrapping us in a blanket. I remember looking at Johnny in horror, he was just skin and bones. Of course, we were all like that, When we were weighed I was just under five and a half stone. I forgot to mention that our column of men were all non-commissioned officers, from Regimental Sergeant Majors down to Corporals. We had to give our number, rank and regiment. I was really taken aback when sergeants, warrant officers and corporals were actually private soldiers and had promoted themselves when captured to avoid working for the Germans. There was, in fact, one genuine Sergeant Major, about six sergeants and the same number of corporals. R.S.M.s who for the past couple of years I had been calling Sir were, in fact, just private soldiers. As the American soldiers moved on we had to keep some sort of order. Many of the men who had been prisoners since Dunkirk wanted to wander down to the town. Of course, they were unarmed so it wasnt a good idea for them to be roaming around the countryside. Although very sick and hobbling about on one leg, I was detailed to oversee four German prisoners-of-war in cleaning out the latrines. I truly felt for these German soldiers they had fought a good, clean fight and because they had lost they had to suffer the indignity
42

of cleaning out latrines. They were in a filthy mess many men had dysentery and had no control over their bowel motions and, if the seats were occupied (and they always were) then the men relieved themselves where they were. It was an awful mess. I was in no condition physically, nor did I have the heart to cajole these men into cleaning up this filthy mess and I was so pleased when the main army arrived and I could hand over this job to some guys from the Pioneer Corps. Shortly after, the main army caught up with us and it was not long until a flight of Dakota planes were on the runway of the nearest aerodrome to fly us back to Blighty. The planes were normally used to ferry supplies and had no seats at all. It was a nightmare, we sat on duck boards with our backs to the fuselage. We didnt have much meat on us and these planes were notorious for being tossed about the sky and as the plane hit an air pocket and dropped several feet we hit the deck with a bang. It would have been more comfortable to stand but this wasnt allowed and I remember being growled at by a R.A.F. type when we all crowded to one side of the plane when the White Cliffs of Dover were sighted. We landed at an aerodrome somewhere in the Midlands and the W.A.A.F. (the Womens Auxiliary Air Force) had really gone out of their way to make us welcome. We were shepherded into a large hanger to tables groaning with pies, cakes, sandwiches and jellies, etc. the goodies we had dreamt about. No need to tell you how we suffered as we tried to cram all this food into our shrivelled stomachs. All night long there was a constant stream of bodies going to and from the toilets. Next day was really hectic, getting bathed and deloused, and deloused yet again as the lice eggs hatched out and these German lice wanted to come out and look at these new surroundings. We were issued with brand new gear, chevrons were sewn on uniforms, medal ribbons sewn on tunics, drawing six weeks leave money, ration books, leave passes, rail warrants. All this was too much for some of us whose tummy upsets meant many visits to the toilet. In fact these trips were so frequent that even at the railway station in London I had another urgent call and missed my train to Ashford, Kent and I had to wait several hours for the next train. I was dog-tired when I got out at Ashford to meet up with Mum who I hadnt seen for three years, That
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trip to Mums flat from the station was the last straw. I had all my kit and equipment and how I managed that mile to Mums flat Ill never know. I dont know how much Mum will recount at this stage but I think her memory and account of our reunion will be much more concise and coherent than my remembrances, but I do remember, on getting ready for bed I threw my thick vest to her saying Run your nail along the seams and kill any lice your find! Not a very romantic thing to say, but then as soon as my head hit the pillow I was unconscious. The next six weeks went by in a daze, going here and there, meeting up with family and friends, being bombarded with questions. What was it like? I tried to hide my physical weakness I couldnt get enough to eat, in spite of the double allowance ration card given to all returning prisoners-of-war and I might add, the best part of Mums ration. We went to Paignton in Devon for a delayed honeymoon, which wasnt a reality as I was slow to pick-up and had very little drive at all. While we were there the Armistice was signed on May 8th (my 27th birthday). I remember that day so well Mum and I were walking along the sea-front. It was a mild, sunny day, we were just sauntering along when a hand on my shoulder spun me around and I went weak in the legs. I thought I was seeing a ghost. A big sergeant confronted me. It was Tom Glover who was a sergeant in the mortar company of our battalion. The last time I saw Tom was on a street in Battapaglia in Salerno he had taken a burst machine gun fire which had spun him around and sent him sprawling. He didnt move and I remember saying to myself There goes poor old Tom! After being in a hospital in Rome for a while he was sent to a P.O.W. camp in Germany somewhere where he fully recovered, and although not on the march, arrived back in England about the same time as I did. Naturally we had much to talk about so we got around together for the remainder of the time we were in Paignton. Strangely enough, Tom and I were sent to a rehabilitation camp at Barnsley in Yorkshire. However, our ways parted soon afterwards as youll see as the story unfolds. Whilst we were at Paignton several things stand out in my mem44

ory. We went to a theatre to see a play Scandal at Bartelsea and a couple of days later went to a show and saw a comedian who was very popular in those days. His name was Cyril Fletcher. As I mentioned earlier, I was always hungry. One day Mum saw a Madeira cake (an unusual sight) and went into the shop and bought it. When we got back to the small hotel we were staying at we found that we had no means of cutting the cake we didnt want to ask the good lady for one otherwise she would have thought that we were thinking that she wasnt giving us our full ration, which of course wasnt the case. Eventually we solved the problem. Can you picture a Madeira cake being operated on with a nail file and a short one at that? Mum also bought tins of Oster milk (a baby food) with her points and I drank that to help put on some meat on my bones. This it did in remarkably quick time: I put on brand new flesh and every time Mum gave me a squeeze I would jump with pain. Too soon that six weeks leave was over and I was on my way up to Yorkshire I met up with Tom Glover in London and we journeyed up together. We hadnt been there long and I knew something was amiss with my right hip and when we went out one afternoon for a game of soccer, I asked the P.T. instructor if I could go in goal so that I wouldnt have to run around. However, I inadvertently had to kick the ball occasionally, but eventually I gave the game in and retired hurt. That evening Tom and I went into Barnsley for a couple of beers, but during the evening I said to Tom I think Ill get back to barracks while the buses are still running. My hip is really giving me what for! We had been chatting to a couple of girls whose husbands were still overseas and I left Tom talking to them. I couldnt get into my bed quickly enough but all night long I was in agony and by the morning I was rolling on the floor in fever. They brought the M.O. over and he put me straight in hospital. The bad place I had on my heel had apparently turned septic and the bad stuff had gone up to my groin and had eaten into the joint of my leg where the X-Ray showed a hole in the joint as big as a walnut. I dont know what they actually did to me but I woke up on a frame with a pin through my leg and a rope over the end of the bed with weights on, obviously to keep the joint apart. This didnt
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work out because the weights were getting accidentally knocked or some kid would try to swing on them, so after a couple of weeks I went down again and they put me out and put a plaster jacket on me from under my arms to my bottom down the right leg to my ankle and down my left leg to my knee with an eighteen inch long piece of wood keeping my legs apart. It was most uncomfortable. By this time the authorities had informed Mum of my hospitalisation and she came up to Barnsley to be near me. However, septicaemia had taken over my whole body and I was in a bit of a mess. A new drug, penicillin had been introduced and was only available to the armed services, and was used on me. I was in a very low state, I abused Mum, the nurses and the doctors. I wanted to be left alone. My stomach and legs swelled inside the plaster. I was in agony. Eventually the doctor realised what was wrong and mercifully cut the plaster away. They took me down to the theatre and the nurse told me afterwards that they had drawn over a pint of pus from my hip. I had, I believe, 130 injections of penicillin in my arms. Toward the end they couldnt find a new place to inject into the muscle. I had the injections every three hours, night and day. Eventually the swelling went down and I was able to have another similar plaster on. This time I was conscious and made sure I blew my tummy out as they wrapped the plaster around me and it was much more comfortable. One amusing incident I recall during those early days in hospital. Mum had only just arrived from Kent and was sitting with me one afternoon when who should walk in but Tom Glover and this woman, or rather, one of the two women we were talking to the night I went back early. Poor old Tom, when he saw Mum, he went a deep red and the sweat poured off him as he tried to make excuses for being with this girl. Apparently he mentioned that I was in the local hospital when he saw these girls at the local and this lass said Ill come with you when you pay him a visit. There was nothing to it at all but Tom had visions of Mum telling Pat, his wife, that Tom was interested in someone else. Mum said that she didnt give it a thought and truly it was really harmless The following proves once again that the Good Lord had His hand on me. The surgeons had diagnosed my problem as an infected tuberculosis hip joint and had decided that my leg would have to come off at the hip. Mum and I had resigned ourselves to the fact that this had
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to be the way so gave our permission to proceed. The local surgeons held off until a visiting orthopaedic surgeon (the most eminent in the North of England) confirmed their decision on several patients in the hospital. I can see him now, a small, unpretentious man in a stained grey suit with drooping grey moustaches stained by nicotine. He had long, delicate fingers but there was nothing delicate in the way he dug his fingers in my groin, then after some deliberation, and to my astonishment and joy, he said Theres no need for this boys leg to come off. He hasnt T.B. I should say its more like septic arthritis. Hell come out of this with a deformed hip but hell walk again. Itll take a long time but hell come good again eventually. Shortly after this, the house surgeon asked me if Id like to go to a hospital nearer home. Of course I said yes and it wasnt very long afterwards that I was sent down to Orpington in Kent. Ill not forget that journey, either. As I said, I was in this double spiker with my legs wide apart. Somehow they got me into a railway carriage, but to get me out of the railway carriage and into an ambulance was another work of art. Anyway, they managed somehow and I was taken down to the prefabricated hospital at Orpington in Kent. I was put in a huge orthopaedic ward housing some twenty four or so patients all on Thomas extension spikers or callipers and crutches. No wonder we adopted the favourite song as our theme song Dont Fence Me In. They were a great bunch of guys and nurses. I was expecting to become almost a fixture there but after Id been there for a few weeks I remember the afternoon well, Edith and Jim and Mum were there: in fact they hadnt arrived very long an orderly came in with a trolley and took me down to the theatre. Much to my surprise and joy they took the plaster off and told me I could get up and learn to walk again. I had vowed all along that the day they took the plaster off I would walk and I did just that. It was only a few steps but I thought it was quite an achievement after almost six months in plaster. I was determined to walk again. I progressed from crutches to two walking sticks, then to one and eventually threw that one away. Now today, fifty years down the track I am still walking. I can only give God all the glory for the surgeon had only promised me a minimum time before I would have to have the hip joint fused. In those days, replacement hip joints hadnt been heard of . One highlight during my convalescence at Orpington was being taken by bus to Stamford Bridge, the home of Chelsea Football Club to see a representative English team play the famous Moscow Dyna47

mos. There were over 60,000 spectators that day and us blokes in hospital blues were taken down to the touchline as the crowd overflowed onto the edges of the playing area. None of us were mobile and I can remember getting a bit scared as the crowd climbed the fences. They settled down when the game started. I cant recall who won the game but it was a far cry from the games on packed mud that we had enjoyed watching at Stalag. And enjoy those games we did, as there were many former professionals in the P.O.W. camp, enough to field four very competitive teams representing England, Scotland and Wales and The Rest. There were some great games fought with all the tenacity of international games with upward of 5,000 enjoying the games. You will no doubt wonder how all these people could watch the match, but improvised stands of barrack room tables and forms were used to get a view of these games. Yes, it was a memorable occasion to be at the first international soccer game after the War but to me one sight that was even more memorable was on VJ night (Victory over Japan) which ended the whole Second World War, and that was to see the whole staff of the hospital: surgeons, doctors, sisters, nurses, orderlies and all the walking wounded going right around every ward doing the Conga. The amber fluid well and truly flowed that night. Eventually, I think it was early March of 1946 I learned that I was to be discharged from the Army Ceasing to fulfil Army Physical requirements or unfit for further military service and I went off to somewhere in London to get kitted out for civilian life. We had to hand in all our Army gear except for the Army issue greatcoat. We were allowed to keep that. I recall that when I was transferred from hospital blues to khaki, I was given all my gear: kitbag, haversack, water bottle, rifle and bayonet and the whole lot. I was able to hand all of that gear in with the exception of my rifle. Nobody wanted to be responsible for that. Usually when a soldier left his unit, it was handed in to the armoury and a receipt given. But I didnt leave my unit, I left hospital and do you think I could get rid of this wretched rifle. They were all civilians giving out the civilian gear and nobody wanted anything to do with a Lee Enfield rifle. On my way out of the building I left it behind the door. It didnt mean anything to me Id never fired a shot from it. It had been given to me when I went up to Barnsley many months previously and had followed me around ever since.
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When I came home, we lived with Auntie Elsie, her husband Fred Maddocks hadnt yet been demobilised (he was a Captain in the Army Catering Corps he was a baker by trade). However he was demobilised shortly afterwards and came home with his parcel of civilian clothes. Being an officer, he had to pay for his walking out dress so he came home in uniform. Fred always was a bit of a skite and said Ive got a beautiful suit, made specially for officers. When he opened the parcel it was exactly the same as mine, the same material, same cut as well. At long last I was back in Civvy Street ending five momentous years of my life. Five years that I now know showed just how Gods hand was upon me in every way through the good times and the bad, but always keeping me in His care. It was really chaotic in the work force, men trying to get their jobs back that they had left five years before, many like myself having to compete with men who had only been in the services for a short time. Unless of course, you had been in the building industry. They were welcomed back with open arms and could work seven days a week if they wanted to. The printing firm I had worked for had leased part of its factory to a firm who had been bombed out in London, so they had their previous employees coming back seeking for their job back. Many of us had disabilities of varying kinds and in many cases it was a physical impossibility to carry out the work you were doing prior to the war so I had no hope at that time of continuing in the printing trade. I managed to get work in a rubber factory but that meant being on my feet all day. Then I got a job at Coleys thermometer makers. My two sisters Rose and Irene, also my brother Les had worked there during the war years. It was a reserved occupation. I was happy there but the housing situation was deplorable. We managed to get two rooms in Eve Road. Mum cleaned the house for this widower in exchange for two rooms and I believe we paid a small rent. By this time we had two children, and when we found that Robin was on the way, we knew that we would have to have a larger place. Eddie Lewingdons (the widower) son was back from the Army and he wanted our rooms because he was married and we had to get out. I used to pester the Council (the equivalent of the State Housing Department) but they had nothing whatsoever to offer in fact they suggested that I move back with my Mum and Dad and Eve moved
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down to Folkestone with the children. Naturally we wouldnt have a bar of that, so eventually we moved down to Folkestone with Gran and Grandad Spickett (Incidentally, they had Auntie Flo and her two daughters Winnie and Ruth living there. No, Im wrong there, Ruth was married and Win married just after we arrived, I think.) Anyway, Gran and Grandad had two rooms, Auntie Flo had two rooms and when Rob arrived we were all sleeping in one small room. We approached a local councillor who pushed our case and the outcome was that we went to the other extreme. The house they put us in was a huge three storey building. The owner had evacuated during the German air raids on Folkestone and had settled elsewhere so the house was commandeered to house the needy. I think that we all remember how bitterly cold it was in Winter. I was back in the printing industry. After a stint at a small printer in Sandgate and a place in Dover I got on the staff of the Folkestone Herald. I really loved working there and I was as happy as I possibly could be there. However, we had to look ahead and think of the family growing up rapidly. Eves cousin Gladys and her husband Buck with their three daughters had migrated to Western Australia and wrote back glowing accounts of the tremendous opportunities in this new, young country. So, after a lot of thinking about it we sent off for brochures on migrating to Commonwealth countries. When they arrived, complete with application forms, the glowing accounts of a new life in Australia really made up our minds for us, so we filled out the application forms and sent them off. At this time England was having a big argument with Egypt who subsequently denied Britain access to the Suez Canal. Perhaps this was the reason for not hearing any more of our application for almost a year. Then just before Christmas 1956 we received notice that our applications were successful and that passage had been booked for us on the S.S. New Australia, leaving Southampton towards the end of January. It was to cost us 20 for the whole family. But also in our family was a dog, an Old English Sheepdog, and he wasnt included in the 20. What was to happen to him? It was decided by the female section of the family that if Andy Pandy couldnt come, nobody was going. Then problem number two came up. If we did take Andy
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Pandy, how could we pay for him? I think the total cost for him to go was around 60 his journey on a freighter The Rhodesian Star and his quarantine fees would be exactly half of the amount we would have after selling (which meant almost giving away our furniture). We had 120 plus the few things we were allowed to take with us as stowage on the ship I forget the exact weight but I believe it was two tea chests that we were allowed. However, the money for the dogs passage was forthcoming, thanks to the assistance of Sid Judd, our dear friend, who loaned us the cash and Eve promised to send her child endowment money back to England until the debt was paid. I had to take Andy Pandy up by train from Folkestone to Paddington where we were met by a man from the firm of Spratts who were shipping the dog out. Poor old thing, he just couldnt understand what was happening when I handed him over and he was put in this huge crate. He never did forgive me for I distinctly remember that when, about four months later we went to pick him up at the quarantine station at Bickley in Perth, he ignored me completely. Eventually the day arrived when we had to present ourselves at Southampton Docks. My brother-in-law Jim Knight and sister-in-law Phyllis came to see us off. I recall that even in those days there was tight security. Graham had a toy rifle and this was examined intently by two uniformed men before Graham was allowed to take it on board. Although we had mixed feelings now that the day had arrived we were determined right from the start to make a go of it. We knew we had to stay a minimum of two years but to return to the U.K. was always out of the question from a financial point of view and anyway, we were always determined to make a go of it. The S.S. New Australia was not by any means a luxury liner it was in fact a troopship with somewhat hasty conversions to accommodate families. Nevertheless, Eve with Barb and Robin were on A deck whilst Graham and I were on C deck. Remember the Suez crisis was on and when we had a boat drill it wasnt very comforting to know that half the family was in a lifeboat forward on the bow side whilst the other half was on the starboard side. Fortunately this was never put to the test because the ship sailed well into the Atlantic Ocean and around Cape Town, not touching the Suez at all.
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The cabins were very primitive, just six bunks to a cabin where Mum was whilst Graham and myself shared a cabin with a big Londoner names Jim Muir and his son. One thing I remember to this day is that Big Jim wore a pair of short Wellingtons (rubber boots) and the smell from them was terrible. I reckon that Graham, although he was only eight years old, still remembers Big Jims wellies and his son, Young Jim, who would insist on getting around in the nuddy. I remember at that time the song doing the charts was A White Sports Coat and a Pink Carnation. No matter where you went on the ship this tune was blaring out. They asked for volunteers to help in keeping the children occupied for the four weeks while we were on board and although I had no teaching experience at all I really enjoyed using the material provided to keep the children occupied. In spite of a lot of whingeing from a section of the people migrating (they were mostly from Liverpool and that area and hadnt left anything grand) but the food was adequate and plenty of it. When we left Southampton it was bitterly cold. It had been snowing, then freezing and the weather had improved as we crossed the equator and sailed south around Cape Town. We stopped at Durban for a couple of days and we were allowed ashore. The only thing I really remember about Durban is that we bought a bottle of real milk so that we could have a decent cup of tea. I enjoyed every day of the trip but for poor old Mum it was a nightmare. The ship rolled both ways from the time we sailed out of Southampton until we entered Gage Roads at Fremantle and Mum was seasick almost every day but she never complained and always made light of it. When we docked at Fremantle we wondered what had hit us. It was well over 100 Fahrenheit and we had all this debriefing etc., to go through before we were allowed on shore. Uncle Buck, Auntie Glad and their friend Bill Francis were there to greet us. I remember piling into a taxi for the 18 mile trip to Medina. The countryside was black and burnt, it was stinking hot and I remember when we got out of the taxi at Medina I offered the driver ten bob tip, to be told You keep it, Mate. Youll need it more than I will!
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This was our introduction to Australia you know the rest but some forty years later I can honestly say that we have no regrets whatsoever. Just a few months after arriving in Australia we heard the Gospel of Jesus Christ who promised us a full life and we can testify to the fact that through the years our Lord has been very precious to us. Truly He has supplied all our needs.

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54

EVES STORY I was born on 30th September, 1919 to Dora Maria Sophia Cronk and Frederick Spickett just after the end of World War I and christened Evelyn Hilda Mary. My only sister Dora was three years older than me, a pretty little girl with thick black hair, dark brown eyes and olive skin. We were very close as children and did everything together, it was an average childhood Dad was a postman so we were always properly fed. The one thing I hated though, was the hand-me-down clothes from older cousins. When Mum did buy us new clothes, they were always about three sizes too big so that Dora wore hers for three years, then they were passed down to me. I can remember from the age of six until I was twelve I always had a fuchsia-coloured velvet dress. I wore mine until it was too small, then I had to wear Doras for the next three years. My favourite aunt Auntie Lizzie made those dresses, she was a clever needlewoman and made any new clothes we had. Talking about those dresses reminds me of the night my cousin Eve Foxs baby was born. Mum arranged for old Mrs Hammond, who lived next door, to look after us while Mum went to help the mid-wife. We had to sit in Mrs Hammonds cluttered front room, which, because it was rarely used, was very damp. We sat on high-backed artificial leather chairs and played Ludo for four or five hours until Mum came home. When we tried to get up from the chairs, our fuchsia coloured velvet dresses had stuck to these wretched chairs, spoiling both our dresses and the chair seats. Mrs Hammond was mad. Your so-and-so kids have ruined my best chairs! (Mrs Hammond is mentioned on a couple of occasions later in the story.) We often used to go to tea with Auntie Lizzie and her husband, Uncle Frank, usually on a Sunday. Dora and I went to the Primitive-Methodist Sunday School from 2.30 to 3.30 pm then we would agitate to go over to Auntie Lizzies house on our own. She lived in a big old three storey house, plus a basement, and as soon as we arrived she would take us up to the top of the house tea tray in hand tell us to sit on this large tray and we would bump down each flight of stairs hanging grimly on to the tray and Auntie would be waiting at the bottom of the stairs to catch us. Mum and Dad
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arrived earlier than usual one Sunday that was the end of our flying tea tray trips. I used to spend some weekends with my cousin Nora, Mums niece (Nora lives in Brisbane and we still write regularly to each other). They also had a big three-storey and basement house near the Folkestone Harbour, as Uncle Bill, Noras dad, was a professional fisherman. The house was very dark, especially the basement. The kitchen was also used for baiting the lines this was done on long rods. My Aunt and Uncle and cousin Gladys would sit on stools, baiting the hundreds of hooks with small fish and stacking them in big tubs for the fishing trips. I remember the house always reeked of fish. Nora and I were good friends and spent hours with our dolls and prams and going for long walks. We lived in a very old house with the date 1759 chipped into the bricks over the front door. We used oil lamps and candles for lighting. In the kitchen was a huge range standing on flagstones. I vividly remember my Mum putting on one of Dads cloth caps and wrapping a big overall around her. Then she would stand on an old zinc bath on top of the stove and with bannister brush in one hand, would climb up the iron rungs inside the chimney (this had been built in the days when small boys were used to climb up and sweep the chimneys (you can read about this in Charles Kingsleys book The Water Babies). I was only about three and I remember how terrified I was seeing Mum disappearing up the chimney and even more terrified when she descended five minutes or so later, black from head to foot with half a bath full of soot which she had swept off the walls of this high chimney. Mum kept this house beautifully clean, and wall-papered the rooms regularly every two years. I remember clearly having to call at the landlords little corner shop to ask if Mum could have some wallpaper for the living room. Mr Garretts reply was Yes, tell your mother to choose it and Ill allow her up to fourpence hapenny a roll. I think the room took about seven rolls and fourpence hapenny was the cheapest you could buy. (It usually had bunches of grapes or huge rosy apples all over it.) The walls were terribly uneven but Mum did a wonderful job. Dad usually made it his job to white wash the ceilings first; Mum had to hold the bucket of whitewash for him while he climbed (none too steadily) up the ladder. Im never sure
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whether Mum or the ceiling got more whitewash but our house was always well decorated. Outside there was a high stone step up to the front door which opened straight off the narrow path with a cobble-stone road in front. Mum hearth-stoned the step each morning so it was always spotless white. The doors opened into a tiny porch where we hung our coats, hats and scarves, then into the main living room. That room remains vividly in my memory I can see the long wooden table which Mum scrubbed regularly. After dinner (which was always at midday) a long tapestry type of tablecloth was put over the table with a heavy ball fringe all around. Once in a mischievous mood a friend of Mum and Dads sat under the table and cut all the balls off. My poor Mum was very upset as ball-fringed tablecloths was the in thing. Another large room led from the living room which was the kitchen, scullery and wash house, but the only water tap was outside and was shared with Mrs Hammond. From this room was a door which shut off the two flights of stairs, one to the back bedroom and the other to the front bedroom. The stairs went round like a lighthouse, they were just bare boards scrubbed clean. Above the front bedroom was the attic where Dora and I slept. At the top of the back staircase was the other bedroom which was very unsafe to use so Mum used it as a junk room the odd roll or two of wallpaper was put up there, Mums old mandolin, a small red-topped stool, Mums old felt hat with a large feather decorating it were just a few of the many things I can see clearly as part of that room. But Im sure my most vivid memory is of being sent there very frequently when I misbehaved, and the door firmly closed. In my frustration, I would tear up heaps of wallpaper and poke the pieces through the gaps in the floor boars so they fluttered down into the kitchen below. Of course, subsequently I had to sweep up the mess, but I did have the satisfaction of getting my own back. This room must have had a marked effect on me because after Barbara was born I was given chloroform and I dreamed I was sitting on the red topped stool with Mums hat with the feather, on my head and playing the mandolin. Half way up those stairs was a shelf to one side on which there was a pair of brass scales with lead weights. Mum left a tall tin of old buttons beside them and Nora and I often sat on the stairs and played
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sweet shops. In the garden were two toilets next to each other with a thin 3-ply board separating them. One was for the Hammond family and the other one was for our use. Mr Hammond was a very heavy drinker and I can remember sitting in our loo while Mr H was in the other, and saying Its all that beer that makes such a stink! Id heard Mum say it but of course I shouldnt have repeated it I got a terrible hiding for saying that. I remember that Dad was sorry for me and made a fuss of me when Mum wasnt around. Mum was a good, caring mother but sometimes I felt I took punishment for Dora, too. She had a nerve problem from the age of nine. It was known then as St Vitus Dance and she had to be kept quiet and so was seldom chastised while I got untold slaps on the calves of my legs for such things as breaking a cup. One punishment in particular I think was very unfair when I crept up to Doras bedroom to read her a story because she hated being alone. I got into terrible trouble for that. This old house had a character of its own it had been a smugglers cottage although we didnt actually know this until some years later when the two cottages were demolished. Mum had always thought there was a cellar underneath and Dad tried once to lift the flagstones around the kitchen range. Poor Mum nearly had a fit when she found out what he was doing she was sure there would be skeletons under there. However, as Mum discovered later, there was an underground passage leading to the sea which had been used by the smugglers to bring contraband into the country but not a single skeleton was found. Ive already mentioned Mrs Hammond, our next door neighbour. She was a funny old lady and could never remember our surname: Spickett. So Mum was always Misswasname to her. She was lonely because of her husbands drinking habits and used to play Shovehapenny with Dad every night while Mum knitted. When we moved to Charlotte Street, which was just around the corner, she missed us. One evening there was a knock on the front door, Mrs Hammond stood there, wearing as always, a mans cloth peaked cap and overalls. She was very apologetic to Mum and greeted her with Can I ave a game with your old man, Misswasname? So the nightly games continued. At school I was an average student. My two great loves were poet58

ry and writing essays I learned reams of poetry but was very timid when asked to recite them aloud or taking part in school plays. One year I was picked to play Father Christmas and learned my part perfectly. Auntie Lizzie had made my outfit and I was so proud of it, but as soon as I got on stage I forgot my lines and burst into tears the prompt obliged and spoke them for me. When Dora and I were quite young, around six and nine upwards, Mum would take us off to Pluckley, about twenty five miles away for three weeks (usually one week of the school holidays and two weeks off school) to pick hops. These so called holidays were hard work, although we had lots of fun. Dads sister, our Aunt Emily, her daughter Queenie, along with her school friend, would come with us. For accommodation we were housed in huts and shared a huge wooden bed covered with straw. We slept three at the top and three at the bottom. Mum slept on the outside and kept a huge sack of potatoes next to her so that she could throw them at the field mice which plagued us at night. All the cooking was done in a big iron pot on a camp fire and all our water had to be carried about half a mile across a rough field. The huts were crude, one-room structures with uneven earth floors. You had to sit on the bed for there wasnt room for chairs. We took sandwiches with us in the morning for midday lunch and how we children hated the bitter taste of hops on our hands. Mum would take a big wet face washer in a tin to wipe them with as there were no sprinklers or hoses to wash your hands in the hop gardens. One year Mum had made some rhubarb wine before we went on this years hop picking holiday. She must have corked the bottles too early because when we got home, the bedroom ceiling was stained a funny pink colour. Mum wouldnt let us go upstairs to the attic where the wine was kept as she was sure a murder had been committed and the blood had soaked through the ceilings, but the corks had popped and there was a river of wine up there. Whilst we were living in the old cottage in Dover Street, it was a yearly Summer event for my cousins Bill and Amy Cronk and two boy friends of Bill to spend at least a weeks holiday in Folkestone. They stayed at Noras house because there was more room, but spent most of the days with us. I used to dread them coming because the boys were full of fun, but played some scary tricks on Mum who was a good sport and never seemed to be upset with them. They would
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grab her and hold her down while one of them got a tin of black Cherry Blossom shoe polish and smothered her face with it, then they would push her up the stairs to the bedroom. Two would go outside and hold a blanket open while the other would push her through a window. I dont know how she escaped getting injured. They would keep her outside, go in and lock the door. She was slim and agile but very neurotic, always thought she had T.B. or cancer, and spent a lot of time in bed leaving Dad to look after the chores. He would even have to take the ingredients for cooking dinner to the bedroom because she believed she was too ill to get up. On one occasion Mum made a roly-poly suet pudding, rolled it and tied it in a cloth and told Dad to bring the big iron pot to the boil and drop the pudding in, which he did. At dinner time he duly unwrapped it onto a plate and to our amazement the pudding was black and had to be thrown away. The reason was that Mum had made a stew in the pot the previous day and some had stuck to the bottom and to loosen it Mum had filled it with water containing a handful of washing soda (the usual way in those days to remove burns from pots). Dear old Dad had seen the pot full of water and without checking it had boiled it up and cooked the roly-poly in it. He really got a tongue lashing for that. Mum never lived down the faux pas she made, of the time she went to the mens outfitters to buy a black silk scarf for someones Christmas present, and to the surprise of the shop assistant asked to see a black mans neck scarf. As a little girl I had always wanted to be a nurse when I grew up. Even when I left school this was my one ambition, but my Mum discouraged that. She felt it wasnt quite decent, so I was sent to clean the house of a very nice old lady, but a bit later I got a job looking after children which I thoroughly enjoyed. Joan Edwards, who had been my friend since we started school together, became a very close friend when we left school. We managed to both get Wednesday afternoons off and went for long walks in the country, gathering primroses, violets and bluebells in the Spring and blackberries and elderberries in the Autumn for my Mum to make jam and wine. We would go home to our place for tea and
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afterwards to the pictures, having coaxed my Dad into giving us halfa-crown to pay for our seats and a bag of sweets to suck in there. In 1938, Dora married a coalminer from Dover, George Tugwell, and went to live in Sturry, near Canterbury. George was working at Snowdon Colliery, a few miles from home. The following year when war broke out I was working for a family as a nursemaid to a little boy named Graham. These people decided it would be safer to move away from Folkestone as it was a garrison town and as war seemed imminent. After a months holiday in Birchington (near Margate), it was obvious that war would break out. Mr Forward thought it best for me to be with my family, which I did just two days before war broke out. Mr Forward was a private tutor for boys who lived-in and were preparing for matriculation before entering a public school. They decided to move to a safer area and chose Burgess Hill in Sussex, so I had to leave my job with them. I was so unhappy. Apparently little Graham missed me, too, and they asked me to go and join them in Burgess Hill. I was twenty years old then but Mum really put on a bad show as she didnt want me to leave home. Dora was living in Sturry, I guess Mum felt deserted. Joan had moved to Twickenham and was working in the post office and I missed her very much. I loved it at Burgess Hill, a pretty town, one hours ride in the electric train from Brighton where I spent most of my days off. Troops were billeted in many of the old houses in Burgess Hill and the war was hotting up, so we eventually moved to Uplyme, near Lyme Regis in Devon, to a house on top of a steep hill. By this time, Mr and Mrs Forward, Graham and I and three boys were in residence. It was winter time and it was my job to pump the water from outside into the house. I had to pump one hundred times each morning, At this time I had a boyfriend named Charlie, he lived in Dover, seven miles from Folkestone, and he used to come over to Folkestone at weekends on his motorcycle. He also was a coalminer, and always had a bad cough due to working underground. This eventually turned to tuberculosis from which he later died. I believe I was more sorry for him than in love with him for he had a very unhappy life. I went home for my 21st birthday, staying with Dora and George at Sturry. The lady next door had given me a birthday gift and I went in one evening to thank her for the present. I was introduced to a young soldier who Bill (her real name was Lily) had invited in for a meal.
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We chatted a little, then next day Bill came in to tell me that the soldier had asked her to ask me to go to the pictures next evening and she was to be sure to tell me he wasnt fresh. (I must have appeared a real prude.) However I went to the pictures with him and I knew then that I was in love. After seeing him just twice more I returned to Burgess Hill to find that the Forwards wanted me to take Graham to Beckingham in Kent to stay with Mr Forwards sister and her husband he was an official in the Ministry of Food at that time. What we didnt know was that the Battle of Britain was to be fought almost overhead during that time. Fighter planes from the base at Biggin Hill engaged the German aircraft. There were many dogfights with Spitfires versus Messersmidts and it was decided to transfer the Ministry of Food to Llandudno in Wales. Graham and I went too, until Mr Forward was sent to Douglas on the Isle of Man for a training period prior to joining the Royal Air Force. We went by boat across the Irish Sea from Fleetwood in Lancashire (I think). It was a ghastly trip the sea was rough, hardly any passengers escaped seasickness. I had to leave little Graham with his parents who were amazingly not affected and go below decks. I just wanted to die it was an awful experience. When we finally arrived at Douglas, feeling a little better, we were taken to a boarding house on the sea front. One look at the meal laid out for us was enough to start me off again: plates of very fat ham and cream trifle. Rationing was very tight but for some reason or other there were luxuries we hadnt seen for some time on the mainland. Many of the boarding houses on the sea-front were taken over by the Government to house the Italian internees and were fenced off with barbed wire. Many a young girl was moved on by the police for loitering too long to catch a glimpse of the handsome, swarthyskinned Italians. When Mr Forwards training was over I went back to Sturry for a holiday. All this time, Len, the soldier Id met in Sturry and I continued to write to each other, and it was on this holiday that he asked me to become engaged. This proposal wasnt exactly a romantic one. We knew that before too long he would have to go overseas and his Mum had suggested we should get married so it was a case of My Mum says why dont we get married? We bought the engagement ring and married just a year later. After leaving the Isle of Man, Mr Forward was sent to Drem, near
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Edinburgh in Scotland. I caught the night train from London to Edinburgh arriving about 5am. The train was almost filled with troops, and I was the only female in a carriage with seven soldiers. Everyone was friendly and no one said or did anything of an offensive nature. The guy next to me dropped off to sleep with his head on my shoulder. When I arrived at Edinburgh it was pitch black so I went into the cold, bleak waiting room, rested my head on my gas mask box and slept until it was time to catch the bus to Dirleton. I really loved Scotland, and the people I met there, although I missed the boys coached by Mr Forward, as, of course they had to return to their homes. The war was really hotting up by now. It was probably late in 1941 and I knew that soon I would be called on for some form of service for the country. Mr Forward really wanted me to join the W.R.N.S. (the Womens Royal Naval Service) but I was too shy for that life. Joan Edwards mother was friends with the matron of a small cottage hospital in Teddington, Middlesex which was only two or three miles from my cousin Elsie at Twickenham and a further two miles to Isleworth where Lens family lived, and she got me an interview for me to become a probationary nurse. It was much easier for Len and I to see each other when he got a 48 hour pass, and I was able to see more of Joan who was still working at Twickenham. At the hospital I had to work shift work (there were three shifts) and we worked that shift for a fortnight. We were paid monthly the grand sum of 3 a month including meals and uniform. When I arrived at the hospital I was given a Saxe-blue dress, stiff white removable cuffs and collar and a linen square for my head which was to be worn around the front of my head and gathered behind. I was told that someone would come early in the morning to show me how to dress, but when no-one turned up I did the best I knew and arrived at breakfast with my collar back to front and head-dress folded like Matrons. What a stir I caused among the staff who quickly put it right for me. We were fed well enough but meat was very scarce and worked out to about two chops or their equivalent weekly so we nurses were pleasantly surprised to see a small steak on our plates one dinner time. It was truly delicious. When we had finished, the cook put her head round the dining room door to see how we had enjoyed it. Of course we were very generous in our praises until she announced Of course you know you were eating horse!
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Well the reaction was immediate. Half the girls flew to the toilet where they were violently sick at just the thought but I didnt mind. It was by far the best dinner I had there. Bushey Park, a beautiful park quite close to the hospital was the billets for the American Forces. The American soldiers were very sloppy in their uniform dress and often wore big sprays of flowers pinned to their battle dress. They were, of course, very popular with the girls as they had lots more money to spend than our boys and could receive nylon stockings from their families to give to girl friends, unlimited cigarettes and chewing gum. I remember one Yank being brought into hospital during the night with broken legs. Hed been over-doing the generosity stunt with a married lady nearby, whose husband returned about 2am and threw him out of the window in his birthday suit. In March of 1942, Len was sure that it wouldnt be too long before his unit went overseas so we planned to get married on May 9th in Folkestone. My Mum was very upset at such a short notice and was sure the marriage couldnt last, but, thank the dear Lord, it has already lasted over 55 years. Of course, the wedding was a utility affair, just close family. Even Joan, my dearest friend, couldnt be there as she had joined the A.T.S. and couldnt get leave. Dora became my Matron of Honour (she had a lovely red-haired baby girl named Marion). We were on tight rations but Mum really did wonders with the tiny amount of food available. My cousin Elsies husband was a baker and managed to get enough icing sugar to ice a small cake. Len had to come down from Colchester, in Essex and made the mistake of only getting his pass made out to London so had trouble with the Military Police when he boarded the train at Waterloo to go down to Folkestone. England was expecting to be invaded by the Germans, and Folkestone, being right on the coast and just across the Channel from France, was out of bounds to everybody except people living in Folkestone. Len, no doubt, has told his version, but I remember waiting for the train at Folkestone Railway Station, hair in curlers at two oclock. We were to be married at 3.15 pm. My dress took all my coupons: it was long, shell-coloured pink with short puff sleeves, caught at the bottom with orange blossom
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and lots of pink tulle. (When we left England I gave the dress to my niece Marion as she was enjoying going to dances and I thought she could make a nice evening dress of it. However, two years ago, fifty three years after our wedding, Dora mentioned in a letter that she still had the dress hanging in her wardrobe, so I asked if I could have it. When it arrived, I was surprised to find the material hadnt faded at all except for the tulle around the inside of the sleeves, and hem being torn and silver fish nibbling the bottom of it it was still as pretty as ever, and to Lens and my surprise I was still able to squeeze into it, although getting out of it was a different story as I filled every crevice and had to lift the extra lumps and bumps to get out of it.) We had five days honeymoon, then ten weeks later Len came home for ten days embarkation leave. During those days together we really got to know each other better and were very much in love. Len loved fishing in the Thames and whilst he was overseas I had a very vivid picture of him standing on the river bank in an old green jacket with his thick mop of chestnut curls cut short, of course, Army style I was never allowed to talk on these occasions for fear of frightening the fish away so one day, when we had taken a picnic lunch with us, I was getting very hungry and Len was having fun fishing, so I ate my lunch and his too. I wasnt popular when he decided he was ready to eat. We didnt have much money and towards the end of his leave we had one shilling and sixpence between us it was either a makeshift lunch or a pound of cherries so we settled for the cherries. These memories were very dear and precious during the time that Len was away. Soon after our wedding, Lens unit came down to Ilford (in London) for war weapons week and the troops marching through London was a morale booster for the shell-shocked Londoners, and he sent a letter to say he could get home to Elsies from about 7pm to midday the next day. I was on evening shift (4pm to midnight) so asked Matron for permission to meet Len outside the hospital at 12.30am and walk the 23 miles to Elsies, but she flatly refused. I was furious but determined not to miss seeing him, so, after duty I went to my room, put my dressing gown over my clothes and shoes hidden underneath I walked casually down the corridor, past staff members who had just returned from a dance. I must add that I had arranged my bed with a pillow under the covers to look like my body, as Matron did a round checking that we were all in at 12.30am.
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Just around the corner was a window which opened by sliding it upwards. It was on the second floor and right beneath the window was a coal heap to feed the boilers. It was a narrow window but by throwing my shoes down first, I was able to crawl through and land on the coal heap. From there I ran barefoot to the gate then on went my shoes and I ran all the way to Elsies home. Len and Elsie were so surprised to see me as Id told them of Matrons refusal to let me go. When I returned next day, my bed had been made in the normal way, but no one mentioned it to me, nor I to them so I guess someone knew what I was up to. In August Len came home on ten days embarkation leave just three months after we were married. When the time came for him to leave we were naturally sad at parting as I waved him goodbye at Richmond Station I had this sinking feeling that he wouldnt come back. I went back to his Mums house at Isleworth and, as I went in, there was a crash of a bomb landing not too far away. Lens eldest sister Win was pregnant with her third baby who was almost four weeks overdue. She was very upset at the closeness of the bomb falling and said That could have scared me into labour! But baby Len, as he was later called, waited another week before he was born. He had quite long finger nails and the skin on his face was peeling, I guess because of his late arrival. However, about two weeks later I came off duty at 4pm on Sunday and there was Len waiting at the gate. He had sneaked home from the place he was billeted in Ipswich after a very eventful journey which I think he has recorded in detail. We only had two hours together before his return. Somehow this was reassuring to me and as I saw him getting on the train at Richmond Station I had no doubt at all that one day he would be back. Even in some of the darkest days when his letters didnt get through I always knew my dear and loving husband would be back someday. I thank and praise God for His faithfulness in answering my nightly prayers for him. He left England in August and I decided to move nearer to Mum and Dad who were still in Folkestone, or Dora, George and Marion at Sturry.
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As I was now married I had a choice of two jobs, one as a probationer nurse at an asylum for the mentally ill or at Ashford Railway Works, who were manufacturing railway waggons for our Russian allies. I chose the latter and had six weeks training at Canterbury with five other girls, then to Ashford to work on a huge drill making brake bars. The factory operated seven days a week, twenty four hours a day. The men worked two 12-hour shifts, the women three 8-hour shifts. I hated the work, but there was a good feeling of comradeship among the workers. We all had a husband, brother, father or sweetheart away at the war. Many of the young men working there were longing to get into the services but were in a reserved occupation necessary for the war effort. It was unpleasant for them as some of them received white feathers as a sign of cowardice. While I was still living at Sturry with Dora in October, 1943 I came home on the train from the day shift one afternoon. I sat with my eyes closed but very much awake and saw a buff envelope stuck in the corner of Doras old-fashioned mirror, In my daydream I took it down and read the words that Len was missing in the Mediterranean Theatre of War. When I walked into Doras kitchen she was crying, and there in the mirror, just as I had seen it, was a buff coloured envelope from the War Office. Before I opened it, I told Dora what was in it, and sure enough there it was, word for word just as Id seen it in my dream. I never thought for a moment anything really had happened to him I knew we would meet again. I got washed and changed and caught the next train to London to tell his mother as no one had the telephone then and I didnt want to upset her by sending a telegram. I remember a nice old Anglican priest being in my compartment who listened very lovingly and said he would let my Mum and Dad know. He honoured his word, too! When I arrived at Isleworth, Lens parents, Rose, Irene and Les were roasting chestnuts on the open fire they were very surprised to see me. It must have been about 9.30pm and his Mum seemed to go to pieces, yet I felt so calm about it all. I didnt cry until next morning when sitting in the kitchen, Mrs Hammond (Lens neighbour) in her loud voice was singing, over and
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over again a song of the day Youll be so nice to come home to. Mum and I both bawled our eyes out that song has always brought a lump to my throat that so easily things could have been different and he may not have come home. When I returned to Sturry two days later there was a letter from Sgt Sid Judd who was in Lens battalion. The three platoon serjeants had made a pact that if any of them were killed or whatever, they would inform each others family and Sid wrote a beautiful letter full of encouragement to say he had seen Len taken prisoner of war and that he wasnt wounded. He also gave me his wifes address in Erith in Kent so that I could visit her and this I did. When Len came home we became close friends. Sid died suddenly in August 1966. I lived with Dora for the first year, travelling the seventeen miles there and back on the train, but eventually found it too time consuming so took a bed-sitting room in Ashford. It was very cosy with a portable electric cooker which stood in the hearth so you could sit in an armchair and cook a meal. There was a single feather bed and an old fashioned sideboard to keep my food in and a curtain across the corner by the window behind which was a jug and basin for washing. There was only one bathroom which nine of us war workers shared with the landlady and her husband. I had enjoyed working as a probationary nurse and was asked to do my training, but felt as I was married it wasnt really worthwhile. How wrong I was. Ive always been sorry that I didnt go on with nursing. But to return to my time at Ashford: I can remember the first doodlebug or V1 as it was called. These unmanned warheads were fired from across the Channel bound for Greater London and used to pass over Ashford. I remember one coming overhead with a flame blazing from the rear. A Spitfire went up to intercept it and I believe it was exploded before it reached London its intended destination. I believe the whole night shift ran outside to see this strange German V1. They became commonplace my little attic room had a window at each end I could hear the doodlebugs coming towards me from one window and often saw them tipped over by the Spitfire pilots, and explode harmlessly as I looked out of the other window. I made a number of good friends while I was at Ashford but sadly lost touch with them after the war. I worked at the factory for about two years until Len came home.
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The last six months were very hard I hadnt had any mail at all from him since November 1944. We heard on the radio that POWs were being marched out in front of the advancing Russian troops, but didnt hear any more until April 10th, 1945. I had been on morning shift and as it was market day at Ashford I spent an hour looking around there. When I arrived home it was to find a telegram for me on the hall stand. It read Arrived England hope to see you soon love Len. Well that was enough excitement to send me straight up the fifty or so stairs, two at a time, to change my clothes (I wore a boiler suit to work) and dash in to tell my friend May who lived on a lower floor, then hurried to catch the bus to Folkestone to tell Mum and Dad the good news. Dad, who had been a prisoner-of-war in the 191418 war said: Dont expect him home for at least a week he will have to be deloused and checked in hospital before he comes home. However, I arrived back in Ashford on the 9.45 pm bus to find a young woman who was the sister of the factory setter (they lived in the next street) and apparently just after I left Folkestone the police arrived at my land-ladys to say that Len would be home at 9.45, the exact time I was getting off the bus. Her brother had gone to Folkestone to find me and she had met all the buses coming in from Folkestone. I ran down to the station in time to hear my name being called over the speaker. Len had had an attack of dysentery just when the train was due to leave Waterloo Station and would be on the next train arriving at 11pm. Well it was almost a relief as I was way up on cloud nine and this quietened me down. The only thing that worried me, I hadnt any Shredded Wheat, Lens favourite breakfast cereal, so I ran around to my friends who lent me two portions. It had to be a loan as cereals were on a points system and a packet would take ten of your precious 50 points for a month. This delay gave me time to freshen up and I was in good time to meet the train. I remember sitting in the waiting room next to a young soldier who had just returned from overseas to find his home, wife, three children and his mother all gone: killed in air raids. I felt almost guilty, feeling so happy myself. The train pulled up and I saw Len coming along the corridor. He
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seemed all ears and hat. His face was grey and gaunt and he was so very thin. As we hugged each other on the platform a tremendous wolf whistle went up from inside that long train. As we walked back to my little bed sitter, Len was painfully slow I didnt know then how he had suffered over those months I hadnt heard from him, and his letter, a VE mail explaining his condition finally arrived a month after he did. We shared my single feather bed that night, not an enjoyable experience as he really smelled terrible due to his lack of decent food and the rubbish hed salvaged from pig food, etc., while he was on that terrible march across Germany. After an uncomfortable night Len and I caught an early train from Ashford to Waterloo then to Richmond and a bus to Isleworth where most of his family were waiting at the bus stop to meet us. Poor Len, they almost carried him along, firing questions at him and wanting to know all the gory details of his experiences. He had six weeks leave and we booked up for two weeks at a boarding house in Paignton in Devon. Ex-POWs were allowed double rations and the landlady (who strangely enough was born in Talbot Road) was very kind and generous, but Len couldnt enjoy heavy meals but I managed to get hold of two tins of Ostermilk baby food which I made up for him to take regularly which gently broke him in to more solid food. The war ended whilst we were there on May 8th, Lens birthday, and we celebrated our third wedding anniversary the next day. While in Paignton we met a serjeant who was in Lens battalion who he was sure was killed by a burst of machine gun fire at the landing in Italy. Tom Glover and his wife were also holidaying in Paignton, so we all went to the Palladium to see a well known comedian whose name was Cyril Fletcher. The next day we all went to see Scandal at Barchester. I still have the programme with all our signatures on it. When the six weeks leave was up, Len was sent to Barnsley in Yorkshire although the war was ended. He was still very weak and as he has written himself, ended up in hospital until January 1946. Sometimes I wondered if life would always be full of partings. A few days after he went back off leave I received a letter to say he was in Wakefield Hospital. I decided I must go to him so I straightaway packed a suitcase and caught a train to Yorkshire. Len
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didnt know I was coming and was very surprised to see me. I hadnt any idea where to stay in Wakefield so enquired at the hospital office whether they had any suggestions. I was given an address within walking distance from the hospital with a nice family, a young couple with a ten-year-old son, Gerald. The man worked as an orderly in the lunatic asylum and kept us laughing with some of the happenings among the inmates. He told us about a Jewish patient who used to make his will out every night until another Jew came in, then the first one changed his will, leaving everything to his fellow countryman who was delighted with the arrangement. The only trouble was that next morning the writer of the will was still alive, but the other Jew insisted he must be dead because he had the written will. The poor guy tried hard to convince him that he still was very much alive and resorted to turning somersaults up the ward to prove it. After a month in Wakefield my savings were dwindling so I took a job as a nursemaid with a Jewish family in nearby Leeds. I had to live-in there but after two weeks I couldnt stand the food there among other things , so went back to Wakefield for a week as it was very difficult to get in to see Len from Leeds. Len was still in plaster, down both legs and right up under his armpits. He had been in much pain and it had been suggested that his right leg should be amputated, but as you know, this tragedy was averted. It was suggested that he could be transferred to a hospital nearer home and as funds were very low I decided to go back home. I was living with Elsie at Twickenham. Len followed two weeks later by military ambulance to Orpington, just outside London, in Kent. I will never forget the first time I went to visit him on a Sunday. Shortly after I arrived I was told that he had gone down to the theatre to have the plaster removed. After an hour he came back on a trolley pushed by two orderlies. They lifted him onto a bed and told him that the surgeon said he should try and walk. Can you imagine my surprise when he got off the bed and walked quite steadily across the ward. I used to visit him each Sunday at Orpington until he was allowed home in January after being six months in hospital. Elsies husband was still away in the Army until he was demobbed in March, so we stayed with her but he was a difficult man who wouldnt hear of any lodgers in his home so we moved in with Lens Mum and Dad.
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Lens youngest sister and her husband shared the front room upstairs, Lens Mum and Dad the back bedroom and we had the tiny front room downstairs. We all ate in, washed in and shared the living room downstairs. The toilet, a revolting thing, was outside the house. While we were there Barbara was born in a very rough and ready Irish nursing home at Twickenham. The service and care left much to be desired, but with the baby boom we just had to get what was available. Things were even harder when I brought Barbara home in the cramped conditions in Talbot Road. We were offered accommodation in the next road: two rooms, one up and one down. In return I looked after this middle-aged widower, cleaned his rooms and cooked for him. We thought it was heaven for a while until his son came back from the war and decided to stay, then there was two men to look after. The young man was very selfish and built a T.V. set in an open box on the floor with parts and wires exposed. Barbara was at the crawling age, and we had to go through the living room to cook on the gas stove in the scullery. I had a worrying time keeping her from these wires and parts she could have so easily been electrocuted. She was an especially mischievous child and really kept me on my toes. Barbara was about 18 months old when we were living in those two rooms in Isleworth and she was a real pickle. I had to keep my vegetables in a low cupboard in the living room and one morning I went up the narrow, steep staircase to get Barbaras clothes prior to bathing her. She was on the floor in her nightie. I collected the clothes and came out of the bedroom to see that Barbara had crawled three quarters of the way to the top of the stairs. When she saw me she tried to crawl backwards down the stairs, but her feet caught in her nightie and she fell to the bottom of the stairs. I couldnt get down to her quickly enough when I saw her lying still at the foot of the stairs. When I picked her up her face was blue. For some reason, I dont know why, I slapped her quite hard on the back and to my surprise, a shower of raw peas flew out of her mouth and she was able to cry. She must have taken the peas out of a pod and swallowed them which could have choked her. Another time I couldnt find the potatoes, which were rationed. I
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really thought Eddie Lewendon (the landlord) had given the potatoes away, as when he had a few drinks he was very generous. However, later I went to the scullery to light the copper for washing and boiling the washing and found my potatoes pushed into the firebox under the copper (Barbaras work). Another time she scribbled in pencil on the newly painted wall and proudly told her Dad me pencilled on the wall. He painted over it, telling her she was a naughty girl but an hour later she had repeated the operation and couldnt wait to tell him me pencilled on the wall again. I believe it was Mum who smacked her bottom. Im really jumping ahead of myself for I was saying how mischievous Barbara was. When she was two years old Graham was born. Dora had moved into a pre-fabricated house in Canterbury and invited me to go down there for the birth. I went down there two weeks before he arrived (right on the appointed day) a lovely baby weighing 8lbs 4ozs, bald as an egg but with beautiful skin. Barbara had weighed just 6lb with lots of dark hair like a little doll. We still couldnt get a house anywhere in the area. We were told that we would have to be on the waiting list for four years for a council house. Meanwhile the man we shared the cottage with got married again and went to live with his new wife, so his son decided to buy the cottage and told us that he was getting married and would want the house within six months. Len applied for a job at Sandgate Printers, near Folkestone and was successful so we moved into one room in my Mums house. She already had her older sister living with them she rented the back sitting room and the big front bedroom, so Mum and Dad moved out of their bedroom for us into the tiny box room. Our room was small and so crowded with a built-in cupboard for clothes and a very large old-fashioned chest of drawers, so when we arrived with a double bed, a single one for Barbara, a drop sided cot for Graham and a few months later a tiny crib for the new baby it was like being packed into a sardine tin. When one baby woke up in the night we quickly brought it in with us so as not to disturb the other two, also Mum and Dad were next door one side and Aunty Flo on the other side. The back yard was the size of a pocket handkerchief so there was not much room for them to play in. I used to rush through the chores, cook midday dinner and put the two little ones in the pram and go off to the park or beach
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each afternoon all except Wednesday when my dear friend Joans Mum had an afternoon off work and we used to visit her. What a dear soul she was she must have dreaded her day off but always welcomed us and made us feel wanted. After living with my family for about sixteen months a local councillor spoke up for us and a house was rented to us in Cheriton, about two miles away. We were so elated at the thought of being a family on our own, but what a great barn of a place it was. It was three storeys high with five bedrooms, two huge sitting rooms with a door that folded back across the room to make a huge room that could be used almost as a dance hall. There was a big, dark kitchen and scullery and a huge bathroom which was actually a converted sixth bedroom, no hand basin or shower, only a marble-topped wash stand with jug and basin for washing hands and face. The toilet was the next door along the landing. It was a cold house in the winter and we had to light the kitchen boiler stove for hot water, and as we were rationed to one hundredweight of coal a week there was seldom enough to have a nice open fire in the sitting room. We had some very cold winters while we were there and at times the snow was so heavy that the coalman couldnt deliver. Mrs Green, our neighbour, and I took our pram to the railway yard where the coal heap was, me pushing and her pulling alternately to bring home a hundredweight of coal in sacks for each of us. We did that for a month until the snow cleared. Of course the children had to go to school up and back four times a day it was about three quarters of a mile each way. We always went for a walk after school, sometimes climbing Caesars Camp (a large hill behind Folkestone) to collect wild harebells and dolly grass then home by 5.30pm ready for tea at six oclock when Len came home. They were happy times, although hard. There never seemed to be enough money and I remember that on Monday mornings I often used to tip up the old blue armchair for odd coins that may have fallen out of someones trouser pockets. On Sunday afternoons in winter we went for long walks together and in Summer we would often go to the beach a good four miles or Len would play cricket with the Folkestone Printers team and sometimes I would take the children to watch.
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Graham was always a nervous little boy and lisped quite badly. Barbara, two years older, was the only one who could understand him, but he was helped considerably by a speech therapist, a Miss Kenny. On the floor in the kitchen was a huge coconut matting square and one day I found it absolutely covered in porridge oats (uncooked of course). Graham and Robin had played snow storms and sprinkled everything with it. We had taken compassion on a beautiful old black Spaniel bitch and in due course she presented us with three puppies. We only kept one puppy and called it Bigead (for obvious reasons). Robin adored this puppy and when Barbara and Graham were at school he would pull up two chairs and play Ludo with the pup. I must say that Rob did all the dice shaking and moving counters and never lost a game himself. One day he chased the pup round and round the garden at such speed I was sure he would fall over and said to him Rob, if you fall over it will be no use crying, because Ive told you not to tear about! However, round and round he went and sure enough, over went Robin. He came in with grazed knees and fighting back the tears. As I bathed his grazes, he said between sniffles Im not crying because I hurt myself, but that dog laughed at me! I looked out the window and there was the pup, tongue hanging out and gasping for breath looking for all the world that he was bursting his sides with laughter. Soon after, Robin started school and the pup really missed him and used to mope around with tail between his legs looking so miserable. The first day at school was very exciting to Robin. He told us of three boys in his class who had funny names: Harry Harding, Willie Walsh and Raymond Catworthy. Graham chipped in with: Oh, they all have funny names in the first class. My cousin Gladys, her husband and three girls planned to migrate to Australia in 1955 and as we werent really settled in a comfortable home, agreed that if they liked it out there, they would sponsor us and we would follow. They were booked for Melbourne, but friends of theirs who had migrated a year earlier sent a telegram saying that they had a job for Buck and there was plenty of accommodation at
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a place called Safety Bay in Western Australia, so they broke their journey at Fremantle and joined them. Buck got a job at the Kwinana oil refinery and a pleasant state house at the nearby town of Medina and wrote, encouraging us to come out. We applied and were subsequently accepted but because of an impending war between Britain and Egypt, the Suez Canal was closed to shipping, so our sailing date was held up and it was almost a year before we eventually got our sailing date. I remember that we got notification amongst the Christmas mail for our sailing date early in 1957. By then neither Len nor I really wanted to come to Australia although we didnt admit it to each other until years later. We had just three weeks to sell up our furniture and got very little money for it: about 100. When people know you had to sell to leave the country, they offered very little. However I remember so vividly sitting by candlelight waiting for the last of it to be collected the power had been turned off as we were spending the final two nights at Canterbury with Dora and George. I remember the feeling of homelessness when we left that night. We had to be in Southampton by about midday so had to leave Canterbury very early in the morning and sailed later that day on the SS New Australia. I kept a diary of most days on that journey to Australia. Ill write it now exactly as I wrote it forty years ago. Wednesday, January 30, 1957 We caught the 6.24am train from Canterbury West and after a cup of tea, we boarded the boat train which took us slowly to Southampton. It was pretty crowded, there seemed to be hundreds of children. Lens brother and sister-in-law waved us off all smiles so we didnt feel sad. Arrived at docks just after midday. About half a dozen names called out for baggage search, ours were untouched. We were given dining room cards, handed in medical cards and showed identity document and were all aboard within twenty minutes. Went straight to cabins to unload then on to dining saloon for lunch. At 2.30pm we put to sea and boy how she rolled. 7pm dinner, 8pm dinner returned. Len said dining room still deserted except for a handful of braves. A very nice young woman in my cabin with a small boy and a girl of nine. Barbara and Robin are in with me. Len and Graham have an
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East End of London man and two boys in theirs a bit rough but likeable. Saturday, February 2nd Felt a bit better but we were still rolling well. The Welfare Officer asked for volunteers for school teaching for an hour and a half each morning. Len is to take 89 year olds. Also Sunday School organised. Steward showed me where to get boiling water so I get early morning tea now hes my friend for life (I come to life). Sunday, 3rd February Sea much calmer, dining room filling up. Forgot to mention there are 1600 passengers on board and about 600 crew. Everything appears well organised and food good and plentiful only thing lacking is fresh fruit. We passed Canary Islands about 6pm this evening unfortunately between lights so only visible as hazy shapes on horizon. Would love to set foot there. I didnt start writing until today so afraid I havent kept you much informed. Have seen a onearmed man and a crippled woman aboard surprising after stiff medical. Monday, 4th February Feel fine today, sat on deck at 8am writing letters in sleeveless blouse water looks beautiful children went to school this morning, queer mixture of teachers, but one Grammar School master fortunately. I did washing, we have to be mean with fresh water because of longer run around Cape, so save a pile. Not really adequate drying room but then some people leave clothes too long in drying room. Ironing room very good. We have been cruising down Moroccan coast today, beautiful sunshine and gentle breezes. Len has quite a tan mainly on his bald spot. He is playing Housy-Housy tonight, while I sit out on prom deck writing this. Children all asleep. There is dancing on later, may have a look in. Sky looks lovely tonight, half moon and starry sky. Better go in I think, dare not get romantic with the other half two decks below me!! Believe this is all part of an Aussie plan to increase population later! We are stopping at Dakar tomorrow to get a replacement chain and anchor for the one we lost on Thursday. Hope there will be fresh fruit available, we need it. Dont know yet if we can go ashore.
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Tuesday, 5th February Another lovely morning but breeze quite fresh. School as usual for the kiddies. I did the ironing. Poor old man trying to iron his shirt. Took compassion on him, landed with a pile and the promise of more tomorrow!! Took pot of tea on top deck, lovely breeze blowing but need hats and sunglasses very soon. 5pm, about another hours run to Dakar, much warmer now. Just seen small rowing boat with four darkies aboard. Everyone excited and peering at coast getting nearer. Theres another small boat, I think they are fishing. Kiddies all hanging over the rail waving being held firmly by parents. Coast line taking shape, can now see a group of white buildings and the waves lapping the beach, must take snaps. Am dying to reach harbour, do hope we can go shore. Rumour says we can, then contradiction. Passing green island aboput 500 yards long, no trees, just grass. Coast line very clear now, hundreds of flat-topped white buildings, some almost sky-scrapers. Entered harbour at 7.15pm while we were at dinner. Could go ashore from 8pm till 12.45am but children too weary. Intrigued with natives wearing overcoats we are still in shorts, etc but they tell us it is winter here. Stood out on prom watching harbour lights and darkies below selling cheap junk for big prices. Crowds gone ashore, but last ones not away until nearly 10 oclock. Wednesday, 6th February Sailed again at 6.15am, much grousing among people about overcharging 3 for ten minute taxi ride, 3/6d for a cup of coffee. Someone bought a wallet embossed with elephant, paid 1 for it and found Made in England stamped inside. Not really sorry we didnt get ashore, no one found any fruit which was my chief interest. Warmer today but still gentle breeze. School doing nicely. Whist drive and dancing tonight. Evenings dead loss as small boy in my cabin wont have light out, so the other three kiddies cant sleep. Graham, who is in cabin with Len two decks below doesnt like being left as other boy in his cabin doesnt go to bed until about 11pm so we spend most of time standing outside cabin as stewards not available after evening meal. Very hot in Lens cabin. Graham connot rest. 6pm just washed my hair, sitting on deck in sunshine and breeze to dry before dinner at 7pm. Taking kiddies to flicks Kiss me Kate tonight so they slept this afternoon. Glad we sailed earlier in year, as
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trip would have been much warmer. The ocean (Atlantic) is like a mill pond, hardly a ripple. Next stop Durban instead of Cape Town. Longing for tea with fresh milk several cows on board, but no milk. Robin adores the waiter, who has promised him a small white jacket as Robin helps clear the table for him. Lovely dinner tonight roast turkey (large portions) roast and new potatoes, peas Robin eating better than when at home. Flicks very noisy lovely short film about Perth, beautiful scenery new industry all around. Thursday, 7th February Its been a sweltering night, babies crying all along corridors forgot to mention two children in next cabin gone to hospital with whooping cough. Sitting close to rail to get slight breeze this morning. Believe have been watching flying fish come up from water, skim along about three yards then disappear, very fascinating must check this, sea wonderfully calm. Like to watch pathway of ship, appears so wide, crumpled ribbon. Getting hotter, been warned about wasting water, hope it isnt rationed. Len met man who used to work at Pearces (printers) of Brentford where he was apprenticed. Did ironing, perspiration ran down legs into shoes and soaked dress. Had shower and changed clothes. Can have as many cold salt showers as we like. Too hot to take tea in dining saloon. Had iced drinks and biscuits on deck. Waiter brought Rob white jacket down tonight at dinner, touches his ankles and sleeves turn back to elbows. Hes thrilled to bits wants to get up at 5am to help. Waiting for Len from Housy-Housy hotter than ever tonight but still breeze on deck though not a cool one. Cross the line tomorrow about 4pm. Cant bear this heat, Cabin registers 88F tonight. Children restless, wish could sleep on deck. Right about flying fish saw hundreds of them skimming along water about 50 yards then disappearing. Saw shark, also. Tuesday, 8th February Woke up in pool of persiration cabin registers 95. Took pot of tea on deck early, sat up there till breakfast, lovely breakfast kidneys and eggs. Up on deck again, surprisingly breezy but very warm. Sea choppy, average distance travelled per day 438 miles. Several people slept on deck last night we shall tonight. Saw film Above us the Waves with John Mills.
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Saturday, 9th February Slept on deck (boat deck) under stars, bit hard but beautiful breeze blowing, Sailor woke us up at 5am to scrub deck. Took tea and biscuits in foyer. No school today roasting on deck, glad we didnt sail in African Summer as heat intense now. Sunday, 10th February Nothing important happened today. Monday. 11th February Definite change in temperature much cooler. Trade winds blowing, sea quite choppy, sky overcast. Sitting back on deck, still dont need cardigan. Just had first cup of tea (tea time) quite a roll on. Deck almost deserted, wind screen up. Tuesday, 12th February Not much to report to be a talk on Western Australia later. Saw film about Perth looks really beautiful. Keep wondering how Andy Pandy enjoys it Good library. Wednesday and Thursday, 13th and 14th February Took to bunk again, real Cape rollers no end of crockery broken. Friday, 15th February Still rocking got dressed and tore up on deck to get air before sickness starts again. Been following coast all afternoon very rugged high cliffs, sandy shore, no sign of habitation. Arrive Durban tomorrow with coach tour and Zulu dance if you wish, Would rather get exercise can do black bottom any time. Writing this in queue to see the film The Benny Goodman Story. Saturday, 16th February Arrived Durban 3pm. Letters from home, two from Dora, one from Mum and Dad and one from Mrs Baillie. Shore leave from 3.30 4.30pm. Durban very clean town, wide roads, lovely buildings. Many natives dressed in hideous head gear, bells on feet and wrists and lower half in fur trimmings, running barefoot pulling rickshaws. Fascinated with chubby piccaninnies strapped to mothers back with beads in their hair, look like old-fashioned milk-jug covers. Most natives barefoot, every third darkie has concertina or fiddle, make soft, sad music as they walk.
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Disappopinted in fruit, oranges green (must be out of season) apples 5d each, bananas 1d but mostly over-ripe. Nice grapes 1/3d per pound, pineapples one shilling. Apart from fruit, sweet and tea shops everywhere but shops closed for the weekend so no souvenirs. Managed to buy a quart of milk. Kiddies first glas of cows milk since we came aboard. Took snaps in gardens. Back on board about 9pm. Kiddies weary. Sunday, 17th February Boy are we stiff!! Can hardly move our legs after walking yesterday. Will have to run around deck each morning to get legs in working order again. Everyone half dead today. Saw some dolphins this morning. Ship still rocks dont feel too brilliant. Shant be sorry to reach Fremantle. Monday, 18th February Lazy day felt rough Tuesday, 18th February Kiddies sports. Robin won both races (sack and obstacle for 57 years) Barbara tried no luck. Len won Fathers obstacle race. Didnt fancy showing my pants climbing through lifebelt. Len busy helping with Sports. Fancy dress for children on Thursday. Robin to be waiter, Graham as a dice, Barbara and Carol (cabin partners) as Jack and Jill. Must get busy with crepe paper. Film on tonight, also dancing. Wednesday, 20th February Freds birthday today more sport and community singing. Everybody busy with crepe paper and needles for tomorrows fancy dress. Thursday, 21st February Fancy dress party, some marvellous entries! Should hate to be judge one small girl had five hats on her head and was carrying a C&A bag. Lovely tea party after; each child had carnival hat, balloon and streamers dining saloon beautifully decorated with flags. Menu: minced chicken, pork and beans, cereal, fruit set in jelly, ice cream, rich fruit cake, iced sponge, cream sandwich, madeira cake, biscuits, apple and orange each.
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Friday, 22nd February Enjoying fresh breeze, all have lovely tans. Barbaras arms peeling. Number of people have boils wish there was more fresh fruit. Told well reach Fremantle 5am Wednesday. Been a lovely week but long to get back in harness. Watching boat drill, boats lowered over side crew seem new to drill. Children at Cinema this afternoon. Saturday, 23rd February Very rough sea today at dinner, ship rolled, many chairs overturned with kiddies, icecream and blackcurrant tart all over floor. Blankets fell off cupboards, also life jackets and games of dominoes. Kiddies community singing and prize-giving this morning. Captain presented prizes. Len won one hundred cigarettes for winning obstacle race. Sunday, 24th February Ship still rolling but Im used to it now only three more days and well be there Sunday School as usual. Monday, 25th February Nothing of importance to record. Tuesday, 26th February Our last full day on board the SS New Australia sorry in many ways though shall be glad to settle. Special farewell dinner tonight. Roast turkey, etc. Everyone eager for tomorrow. Wednesday, 27th February When we woke up this morning we were in Fremantle Harbour. Had to see Immigration doctor for any likely infection then officer who gave us a large envelope of helpful information about the usual procedures for employment. Also animal and bird life. ABC programmes relayed from BBC. Cooks travel agents came aboard, changed money. Got through Customs in no time at all. Gladys, Buck and the girls waiting at the barrier. We took a taxi to Medina (our future home) about 17 miles from Fremantle. First impressions delighted us with the place. So ended our trip to Australia.

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As we travelled to Medina we thought this really must be the outback, it seemed a long journey through bush land. I should have mentioned that while we were waiting to be accepted as migrants, Dora, not knowing this, had bought a puppy for the children. He was beautiful, just a bundle of fur, part Old English Sheepdog and when we knew we were definitley leaving, Barb and I decided we couldnt possible come without Andy Pandy so we had to borrow his fare of 60 it cost Len and me 10 each, the children travelled free. (This money I paid back each month from my Family Allowance.) Pandy had to be handed over to Spratts dog handlers in London and put on a ship (the Rhodesia Star) about three weeks before we left but arrived six weeks after us, then spent 60 days at Bicton quarantine station. Friends of ours who had a motorcycle with sidecar took me out to Bicton to pick him up. He was so excited but never quite forgave Len for handing him over and never took much notice of him. We spent two and a half years in Medina and I never really regretted coming to Australia although we were on a very tight budget and Len wasnt really happy with all the travelling he had to do to get to work and the poor bus service caused him to spend much more time than necessary away from home. The children went to Medina Primary and Barbara to the high school. As there were so many migrants there, Grahams teacher was French and made learning a frustrating exercise. They also went to Sunday School, a little group of earnest Christian folk got together to organise this and began a weekly cottage church service. It was at the first service held in the home of Shirley and Don and their children that I first heard the true Gospel message that Jesus died for the sins of the whole world and if I repented of all that was wrong in my life and confessed I would not only be forgiven but know for certain I would go to heaven when I die. It was something I had battled with since a little girl. Don had had a real experience of a changed life. It was that night that convinced me of how much I needed to trust the Lord with my future. Ive made plenty of mistakes since that day and have spent much time in confessing and with Gods help I believe my life has changed but I do thank him for the peace of mind I now have. The rest you as our children know. We have lived here in W.A. for over forty years now and there is nowhere in the world I would rather be. Thank you all for your love and caring.
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LEONARD JOHN LEES 18881978 Leslie John Sept 1921 m. Phyllis Irene Feb 1923 m. George Rodsdale m. Leslie Smith Caroline Kathleen LEONARD THOMAS Rose Olive Oct 1914 May 1918 Feb 1919 m. Cornelius m. EVELYN m. Ron Leadbetter Connors SPICKETT Jean 9 May 1942 Keith John Kenneth Ron John Terry Cara Jeanette

LOUISA CAROLINE WELLS 1889 1974

Winifred Alice Dec 1910 m. Joe Voss

Edith May Dec 1912 m.James Knight

Joan Brian Brian Leonard

Tanya James Alan Janet

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FREDERICK SPICKETT 1887 1969 Dora Beatrice Winifred June 1916 m. George Edward Tugwell Nov 1913 Marion Sheila Frederick

DORA MARIA SOPHIA CRONK 1888 1979 EVELYN HILDA MARY September 1919 m. LEONARD THOMAS LEES May 1918

LEONARD THOMAS LEES May 8, 1918

EVELYN HILDA MARY SPICKETT September 30, 1919

BARBARA EVELYN October 15, 1946 m. Ken Dunwoodie Alisa Karen m. Ashley Taylor Jake Ashley Brooke Madison Susan Patfield Christopher John Belinda Jane Michael Edward

GRAHAM JOHN October 14, 1948 m. Teresa Carney

ROBIN MICHAEL August 25, 1950 m. Trudy Jones

Gary Mark m. Simone

Leah Matthew Sarah

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PART 2 1957 2008

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Lens Recollections. Settled into Australia, facing a positive, bright future and having found the peace that only the Lord Jesus Christ can bring, the harmony in our lives was tighter than ever before. We had forged a binding ring of friendship with a group of Christians in Medina which is still as strong today as it was those fty or so years ago. Although we could not know it at the time, those friendships still mean as much to us as those we have made since, even though, sadly, a number of them are no longer with us, waiting until we all meet again on that glorious shore! These friends include Shirley and Don Dowling, Jean and Harry Wonnacott and Bob and Doreen Pitman, the core members of our tiny Medina worship group. With these people, we travelled all over the southern metropolitan area, attending church fellowships, camps and bible studies. I know the boys, Graham and Robin, remember sitting on the oor of Bob Pitmans Holden ute, freezing cold from the wind, sometimes drenched by the rain, singing hymns and choruses as we journeyed to places as far and wide as Jarrahdale and Mandurah. On one trip, one of our Sunday School boys, Tony van Doornam, discovered an orchard and gorged himself on unripe locquats. The stomach ache was short lived but the ribbing he got from the other children stayed with him a lot longer! Together we ran a Sunday School at the Medina Hall, which was nanced mainly by the owner of the Gospel Bookshop in Perth, Miss Stenhouse. During this time, we were also very heavily involved with the Billy Graham Crusades visit to Perth with mass rallies at Claremont Showgrounds. Don Dowling introduced us to the Claremont Football Club and drove us in his ancient Hudson (named Dorcas after the Biblical gure) to watch them play on a number of occasions. While my allegiance remains true to the Tigers, I am disappointed to say that not all our children are quite so enthusiastic. I also made friends with a neighbour of ours who came from
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Hounslow in the same part of London that I did, originally. Their name was Broughton and he will forever remain in my memory as every time he drove his old bomb up the street, all the neighbourhood dogs chased after him, barking every time the old motor backred! However, while our spiritual and social lives were full and rich, I was not happy at work. Initially, when arriving in Australia, I took a job at the South West Times in Bunbury, several hours away on the bus. I would leave on Sunday evening, stay in digs until Friday and then return to Eve and the family for two days before repeating the routine. This only lasted for a couple of months and I successfully applied for a job at Imperial Printing Company in Hay Street, Perth. This also involved a great deal of travel from Medina on the bus and soon afterwards I took a job at Lamb Print in Fremantle. But still I knew this wasnt right for us, and when a vacancy opened at The Albany Advertiser, we travelled down there to investigate accommodation and, if it was satisfactory, we would consider moving there. I had an aunt and uncle who had migrated there forty years earlier and Eve had read about the town and had wanted to see it since she was a girl. However, the house we were offered was in very poor condition, with mice boldly coming out from the nest they had made in a sofa, the kitchen lthy dirty and with rat holes plugged up with empty beer bottles and cans. Reluctantly we declined the offer of the job, but a few months later, we were again contacted by the proprietors of the Advertiser, promising us that they could now offer us much better housing. Bob and Doreen Pitman drove us down in their 1958 Holden one Friday night and we remember stopping to freshen up just outside Albany at 5.30 and having the choice of hot coffee or tomato soup for breakfast! This time the accommodation was a little better than that offered on the earlier visit, but it was an old, draughty place near the corner of Collie and Grey Street, next door to the re station and only a few hundred yards from the back alleyway to the Albany Advertiser. There
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was a primary school a quarter of a mile in the opposite direction and the shopping street was only a block away. The house was a bit disjointed with the bathroom in an outhouse connected by a galvanised iron passageway. There was only a chip heater to warm the water and whoever had last painted the lounge room walls had not bothered to move the furniture but had painted around it, leaving the outlines of chairs, dressers and bookcases still in the former colour! But we were really anxious to move away from Medina with its searing hot summers, its remoteness from any prospective work and its lack of services. So we accepted the job and the accommodation and on one freezing cold morning in August, 1959, we stacked all our belongings into the back of a rewood delivery truck owned by a friend of ours named Barry Jubb from Jarrahdale, who had generously offered to drive us the two hundred and thirty miles or so to Albany. Eve, Barbara and Robin squeezed into the cabin with Barry, while Graham and I sat in the back with our Old English Sheepdog, Andy Pandy, who had also migrated from Folkestone with us in 1957. We sat down near the tailgate of the truck with a huge pile of blankets and eiderdowns, with the furniture piled up behind us. Not having any experience in furniture removals, we had not secured the load very well and after a while it started to shift in the only direction available towards us! I sat there with by legs braced against the tailgate and my back to the furniture, Graham and the dog between my legs, trying to stop the load from moving further and crushing us. We had arranged that I would signal with a mop if we needed anything and Barry would pull over to the side of the road, but with a heavy fog on the foothills of the Darling Range, his rear view mirrors were misted up and he didnt see it. The situation started to reach the crisis point and, being newly converted, I turned to the Lord and prayed for our safety. Almost immediately the truck slowed down and pulled into the verge.
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However, it transpired that the reason for the stop was not for our benet Eve had given Barbara an apple and as she went to swallow a piece of it, the truck hit a pothole and it lodged in her throat. Try as we could, we were unable to shift it and Barbara was turning blue as she struggled to get oxygen into her lungs. We were close to panic, patting her back, massaging her throat and even turning her upside down didnt help. In desperation, I took a piece of chocolate cake and thrust it down her throat and fortunately, that dislodged it and she was able to breathe again! Although it left her with a bruised throat, thank God she was still alive and no permanent damage was done. On our arrival in Albany we were met by the managing editor, Noel Whiteford and the works manager, Dick Berrill. We were all pretty dishevelled and Eve had on a very ragged old pair of slippers which kept her feet warm in such a cold morning. Probably not a very good rst impression to make on these venerable gentlemen and they must have wondered if they had made a bad choice of employee! On moving into the house on Collie Street, we discovered the chip heater belched billows of smoke and soot, leaving you dirtier after your bath, but was virtually useless in its prime function of heating water, so kettles needed to be brought up the passageway from the kitchen stove. But we were really happy. Proximity to school and work meant we all had a lot more time together as a family. Then a vacancy occurred in one of the three cottages owned by the company which were immediately behind the printing factory. We moved into one of these, which, although it was much smaller, was a lot easier to clean and manage. However, there was no running water inside the house, the toilet was, as was common in Albany in those days, in an outhouse in the garden and the bathroom was a corrugated iron lean-to on the back of the house. The water had to be heated in the laundry which was situated in yet another out-house and carried over.
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One night, Eve got the water temperature to her satisfaction and stepped into the bath when she heard some suppressed giggling from the alleyway beside the house. The following day the neighbour asked, did you take a bath yesterday? and when Eve replied Yes. Why? the neighbour said I should have warned you. There are some nail holes in the tin wall which some small boys look through. Apparently you can see everything! Our house was right next to the Anglican Church Rectory and this next incident really demonstrates another answer from the Lord. As our only income was my wages from the Advertiser, Eve decided to look for some work to supplement the budget of our family of growing children. She only wanted a part time position so she could be at home when the children left for school and returned in the afternoon. That very morning, the Raleigh man called. This was the representative of a company of door-to-door salesmen selling a variety of spices and sauces. Eve looked at them and said I would like to buy many of these things, but I am afraid our income is not enough for that! Imagine her surprise when the man said Would you be interested in a job? What sort of job? Eve asked. Next door, at the Rectory, they need someone to clean for three hours, ve mornings a week and they are offering 4/6d an hour! Eve couldnt believe her ears and immediately went around to apply and was successful. She came home and after thanking the Lord for His answer to her prayer, tried to get the dog to celebrate with her, but, of course, he was not a bit interested! Meanwhile, at The Albany Advertiser, I quickly tted in and enjoyed the company of my fellow workers. The newspaper has always been known for its weird and eccentric staff members and a few really stand out in my memory, none more so than old Charlie Warburton. His wife had left him, probably because of his peculiar habits and he lived in a house on the side of Mt Clarence with his son Ted. Feeling a bit sorry for him because of his obvious loneliness I invited
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them around for a meal. They became regular visitors and appreciated our friendship. However, Charlie was a heavy drinker, probably an alcoholic, while his son suffered a mild epilepsy and frequently had short petty mals. Some of these occurred at very inopportune times, such as when he helped us move, stopping in the middle of Collie Street while helping Eve carry a chest of drawers across to our new home! Another time he and Graham were sparring in the bedroom and as Graham took a swing at him, he suddenly tted, resulting in Graham knocking him through a louvred window, breaking about six panes! Charlie rode a Vespa scooter and it was not uncommon to see them roaring through the night, Ted on the pillion, head on one side and a blank expression as he suffered a petty mal! But Charlie was a liability to himself as well as to his son. He operated a Linotype machine, typesetting newspaper copy and regularly worked overtime. Not having much of a home to go to, he would have his evening meal at the Premier Hotel, most of it in the form of liquids, so he wasnt always stone cold sober when he started the evening shift. One evening he took a galley of irregular width type out to the slug saw to trim it to length, but in his state, did not apply any of the safety guards. When he pushed the type through, he got his nger in the way and the blade sliced into his index nger, cutting it to the bone. He popped it into his mouth to stop the blood from going everywhere and, inadvertanly, disinfecting it with his alcohol infused saliva! He informed the foreman that he was going up the road to Dr Lubichs surgery to have it attended to and that was the last we saw of him that evening as he popped back into the Premier afterwards for a bit of post-operative anaesthesia. The following morning he turned up for work wearing a leather sheath over a bandage which the good doctor had applied to protect the sutures he had inserted. Within an hour, Charlie cut down another galley of type and again shoved his nger into the blade, this time cutting sutures, bandage and sheath as well as his newly formed scab tissue!
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But at least he turned up for work that day. Another morning he had not arrived for work nor rung in sick. I volunteered to go around to his house which was less than half a mile away, to check he was okay and not spark out on the oor or something. As I walked around the back to where he had some fruit trees and vegetables growing, I saw him lying in his bed on the semi-enclosed back verandah, the covers pulled up to his chin. But sticking out from the foot of the eiderdown were a huge, muddy pair of hob-nailed boots! Charlie had been digging when he heard me arrive and had dived into the divan with no time to remove his footwear! On our arrival in Albany, we began to look for somewhere to worship and after rst visiting the Brethren who met in a hall on the other side of the re station, we decided that was not the right place and for a couple of weeks we joined the Salvation Army services just over York Street on the corner of Grey and Aberdeen. Then we became aware of a very vibrant congregation up the road at the Albany Baptist Church and felt this was where we wanted to worship. As we had now settled in our home and our work, I wanted to make a response to Gods undertaking for us as a family so when I heard that there was a Sunday School teachers meeting in the week, I assumed that the Church would be needing volunteers for this essential part of its ongoing development. I arrived at the appropriate time, thinking that there would be maybe a dozen people present, but about thirty had gathered at the only meeting that appeared to be in progress. The Sunday School Superintendent asked me and a young fellow named John Mallaby if we would be interested in starting a Sunday School at Elleker, about eight or so miles to the west of Albany. We both agreed and, with a lot of help from others, ran a very successful Sunday School for many years. John later went on to become a Church Pastor and has remained a very loyal and trusted friend. The Sunday School picnics at Cosy Corner were a highlight of our calendar and eagerly anticipated by the children and their parents alike. The watermelon seed spitting competition and the peanut hunt were keenly contested and the outing often coincided with the running
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of the salmon, when local farmers-cum-shermen would wait in their shack at the top of the hill until a shoal of salmon came in close to the shore. Then they would row around the sh, pulling a huge net to trap them. A tractor would then pull the burgeoning net into the shallows where they could be thrown onto the shore and then loaded into a truck bound for the local cannery. In those days, a haul of up to ten tons was not uncommon and our Sunday School students would help with the haul and be paid with a fresh salmon for their efforts. Also very popular was the periodic movie show by a Church stalwart, Ken Ferrell with his sixteen millimetre Bell and Howell projector. One of a series shown by Ken or his daughter Nola was a comedy called The Rascals. Ken would stop the projector every so often to make sure the condenser didnt overheat. We formed a good friendship with the Ferrells and at Easter, he would take us camping out near the Kent River, where he and his brother Wally had been among the Group Settlement Scheme pioneers in the nineteen twenties. Another family who we became very friendly with was the Harrisons who lived almost next door to the Elleker Hall where our Sunday School was held. This ne Christian family single-handedly made it possible for a monthly Church Service as well as the weekly Sunday School and mid-week activities by always ensuring the Elleker Hall was beautifully presented for each occasion and properly cleaned for other users. In addition to those at Albany Baptist, there were also three outstations that held services: Many Peaks, Elleker and Denmark. Eve and I invariably went to the afternoon service at Denmark and quite often I was privileged to conduct it. I usually took a couple of people from the Albany congregation to swell the numbers which uctuated from a dozen or so during winter to thirty or forty in the holiday season. I recall one very funny incident. We did not have a pianist this particular Sunday and I got the organist from Albany to play three or four hymns for us onto one of those old reel-to-reel tape recorders
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and gave Trevor a used tape to record over whatever was already on it. When I solemnly announced that the next hymn was There were ninety and nine . . . etc, and told them to start when the music commenced, I pressed the play button. Can you imagine the surprise and subsequent laughter when Graham and his mate Steve came on playing their guitars and singing Mrs Brown Youve Got a Lovely Daughter! Nobody told me you were supposed to rewind the tape before playing! Eventually the Denmark Church grew in numbers and were able to support a pastor on a part-time basis. About three years later, in 1963, we welcomed a new pastor at the Albany Baptist Church, Rev. Victor White, who had been involved with the introduction of The Boys Brigade at his former Church. He suggested to the Diaconate that we look into the possibility of commencing a Company in Albany. At the time, B.B. had taken on in Perth. Boys Brigade was a monument which was, and is First for Boys: the brainchild of a Scotsman by the name of William Smith, and was founded in Glasgow on 4th October, 1883. It was the rst of all uniformed organisations for boys and girls which has spread all over the world. In October of 1883, William Smith, with his two friends invited the boys of Woodside Mission Sabbath School to form The Boys Brigade. The badge was to be an anchor and the motto Sure and Stedfast The motto was taken from the Bible and the object was quite clear to all. It was The advancement of Christs Kingdom among boys and the promotion of habits of Reverence, Discipline, SelfRespect and all that tends towards a true Christian manliness. The word Obedience was added some ten years later. In a drive to start more B.B. companies in Western Australia, a meeting for potential leaders or ofcers, as they were known, B.B. having adopted military ranks for Boys and helpers, ranging from private, lance-corporal, corporal, sergeant, Warrant Ofcer, Lieutenant and the leader, Captain. He was distinguishable by a red rosette worn under the badge of his Glengarry hat.
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I wonder how many old boys of B.B. remember the stirring song of the emblem that binds them all together. Theres an emblem fair that is known to all. A sign to help us through: It stands for strength and it stands for right An anchor tried and true. The emblem of The Boys Brigade, it helps us on our way. Our fathers knew in days gone by the sign we know today. Chorus: Sure and Stedfast, the Brigade Boys motto clear. Thats our watchword when troubles and trials are near. Sure and Steadfast, to the ag that ies above, In all that we do well try to be true to the Anchor that we love. As I write the words of the Boys Brigade emblem, I can recall, eighty years ago, a large picture of my Dad in the B.B. uniform with sergeants stripes on his arm, in the old uniform of pillbox hat, white haversack and belt with the anchor crest and Sure and Stedfast motto. We returned from that meeting very enthusiastic and the Church endorsed the idea of starting a Company of Boys Brigade with Ken Marshall and myself as ofcers and Jim Shiner and Arthur Wilks as warrant ofcers. Bill Grassom offered to canvas the town for recruits to start the Company. As the only person with military training, I therefor had the task of bringing order and discipline to a very nondescript crowd of some thirty or so boys from 12-16 years of age. Both Graham and Robin were in B.B. from the start and distinguished themselves in the various activities. Each year on Founders Day weekend, every Company in WA would meet in Perth for a programme of activities from Best Drilled Squad, Best Drilled Boy and on Saturday, Sports Day. Sunday was a march through Perth followed by a mass church service. This was the major event of the year and on Saturday evening a rally was held in Perth Town Hall when trophies and medals were awarded, drill demonstrations, martial arts exhibitions and choral singing entertained Boys, families and visiting guests.
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I remember very vividly on our rst journey when the 21st Albany Company made the trip up to Perth in a convoy of cars. As we watched the Drill Competitions, our lads came to me. We could have a much better drill squad than any of those Perth boys, they insisted. This was the enthusiasm I was looking for. There and then I promised them that if they maintained this eagerness throughout the year, we would bring home those two trophies. The following year we went up to Perth brimming with condence and sure enough brought back to Albany both trophies. It is with a smile I remember being shoulder-lifted from the parade ground by the members of the Drill Squad, who, being only in their early teens, struggled with my weight but carried me, Surely and Stedfastly, past the ranks of the other companies present. Graham was the NCO drilling the squad and Robin was a squad member, whilst Stephen Watson was by far the Best Drilled Boy in the competition. Stephen had a ventricular septal defect, in those days known as a hole in the heart which limited his activities, but he never shirked any parade and attempted every item to earn his badges which he wore so proudly on his armband. His brother Bevan was a member of the Drill Squad and won the Best Drilled Boy for two years after following Steves example. Their mother was a leader in Life Boys, the junior section of Boys Brigade. Graham and Steve were great mates for years and when they were seventeen years of age, both had motor cars. Early one Saturday morning, Steve drove to Perth to attend a relatives wedding but on the way his heart gave out and he hit a truck travelling the opposite way. He died instantly. I remember it so clearly. While I was working overtime on Saturday morning, Graham came into the Advertiser, where he also worked by now, to break the sad news. Following closely in popularity behind Founders Weekend was our annual camp out at Pooles Farm Glen Echo, on the Lower Kalgan, just a few miles out of town on the Nanarup road. Edgar and
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his good wife, Meg, were so very generous in giving us a large paddock to pitch our tents and use for general purposes. They also made a barn available to serve as cookhouse. Most of the meals were prepared and cooked at home prior to the camp. For the preceding fortnight Eve prepared and catered to a hungry company of about thirty men and boys. Her chocolate pudding with chocolate sauce was a highlight of the camps, along with the campres at night, which were essential in Albanys cold climate. It became a tradition to have the pudding and sauce on the last night of the camp, followed by impromptu skits by the various sections, communal singing and roasting spuds in their jackets. At one camp we made the bad mistake of camping in a hollow in the large paddock and in the night it rained heavily. By midnight the tents were awash. A hasty retreat was made to the cookhouse, the only dry place in the paddock. Eve and I had to take turns to stay awake to stop the hungry boys from helping themselves to the fruit we had brought with us. These were happy days spent canoeing on the Kalgan River, treasure hunts in the bush and other healthy activities. Unfortunately, after seven years, many of the original boys had left school and had jobs in various places and left Brigade. Their parents lost interest, so we decided to put the 21st Albany Company into recess until we could start afresh with new ofcers and new boys. At this point I must mention that while the Company was so active, the Mayors of Albany, Jack Barnesby and his successor George Formby, along with the minister of the Scots Church and several other prominent dignitaries in town, gave us excellent support by being present at many of our functions. It is hard to mention everybody who gave their time so willingly to teach the boys crafts and skills. For many years Ken Ferralls brother Wally, a stalwart of the Salvation Army, taught the boys bugle and drums and formed the Boys Brigade band which played for our marchers on Anzac Day. The minister at the Albany Baptist Church also served as Chaplain and apart from administering the spiritual side of the Company, often
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gave very sound counselling to boys who needed that assistance with their lives. Wilf Carter, an ex-Baptist minister, stepped in as Chaplain when we were without a minister, and while holding down the job of driving a school bus, took over many of the responsibilities of the church pastor. There was a break for several years, but eventually Ray and David Redshaw moved to Albany. These two men had been in B.B. in Nottingham in England and were very keen to restart the Company. Word had apparently got around of the success of the previous Company and we didnt have much trouble recruiting boys for Sections 1 and 2. Girls Brigade commenced around that time so that both boys and girls were a very lively part of the Church congregation. There were three Sections of Boys Brigade: Cabin Boys from 6 to 9 years, No. 1 Section from 10 to 12 and No. 2 Section from 12 to 17. At 18 years of age, the young men were promoted to Warrant Ofcer with the status of Potential Ofcer. Each Section worked independently of each other, the boys graduating as they reached the requisite age. The activities were many and varied, including canoeing, orienteering and gym work: vaulting and ring work. Several boys in the Company achieved the ultimate award: the Queens Badge. I remember that Eleanor Jones of the Girls Brigade also earned this award. which was usually presented by the Governor General on a special awards night which included the presentation of the Duke of Edinburgh Award. On Parade Nights, the evenings activities would draw to a close with canteen open. Eve would cook biscuits and cakes and we would make up cool drinks. We charged a small amount and all the proceeds went towards buying an old caravan which we converted into a canteen when we were camping. During the summer months we made regular excursions to the Porongorups for a get-together followed by a sausage sizzle and bread rolls with mugs of steaming soup, made and carted out to the
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Porongorups at exactly the right moment to feed the boys. Betty Redshaws variety of soups vied with Eves chocolate pudding in popularity. Unfortunately after another seven years, Boys Brigade had to go into recession again when discipline and dedication had to compete with computers and video games. In the nineteen eighties, I was inspired to write this poem: It was February of 63 and the record bears me out That we in Albany saw the need for the kids that were without The teaching of a Sunday School, or knew about our Lord So we thought wed get together and bring to them His Word. It was Victor White, our Pastor who mentioned Boys Brigade So after prayer and planning, a trip to Perth was made To attend an Ofcers Training School, it was out at Alf Staers place. We met Geoff Warren, Ron Hawes, Brian Crooks and others there to set the pace. I recall that weekend clearly, for after booking in We looked for a place to lay down our head, but my, what a din! We couldnt see for cigarette smoke that completely lled the place And Newland Hutchinson reminded them they were there by Gods good grace. I thought this set the pattern for the wonderful time we had As we shared and prayed and saw the vision that made William Smith so glad. And we knew for sure, as we made our way back That with Boys Brigade and God we were on the right track. Bill Grassom brought the boys along, the tough, the weak, the strong. And being in Boys Brigade they would soon learn right from wrong. With Ken and Arthur, Len and Jim, with Gods Word and with drill The Company had Gods blessing and started with a will.
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Its history now that in our second year, and in the ones to follow We brought back the shield for the Best Drilled Squad we beat the Perth boys hollow! Then followed up with the Best Drilled Boy, this made old Wes quite sad! And when we took it off for the second year it made him hopping mad. Around 1970 a slump set in, with ofcers and seniors going And leaving the Company understaffed we could see which way it was blowing. So rather than fade into history, into recess we went for a while, And waited for God to supply our needs, so we could come up again with a smile. And sure enough there dawned the day when our prayers were answered at last. Two brothers came from the Old Country, they had been in Brigade in the past. So with Ray and Dave and David S, and Arthur of course, and me, Followed later on by Ric, Greg and Ray we started the Company. So the 21st lived once again, and as the years passed by The Company went from strength to strength and heres the reason why: With the ofcers and Chaplain John and also skipper, Ray But the Captain over all of us is the one to whom we pray. The years have come and the boys have gone, whilst we have grown in zest. We say with pride because weve proved, we really are the best; We won the sports two years ago, and to prove this was for keeps We repeated the victory again last year and won by heaps and heaps. And why this blurb? you ask of us. What makes you crow so loud? Our reply is this, well have you know, and this is why were proud! Weve come of age were 21 and God has truly blessed. And that is why we have to say The 21st is the best!
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Several years later, when I was Honorary Chaplain of then Albany Regional Prison, there were four ofcers who said that the discipline and dedication of their time in Boys Brigade helped them in many a touchy situation. Talking about the Prison brings me to the next phase in what was a very blessed period of my life with the opportunity to repay both the country which I am proud to call my home as well as to the Lord who has enriched my life way beyond any expectation I could have had prior to my coming to know him personally. Having recently retired with the intention of spending my days pottering in the garden and perhaps banging out the odd masterpiece on canvas, Eve and I entered a time of our lives which was to be so rewarding and brought us so many new but rm friendships. We sometimes joined ofcial groups from local churches who went to the Albany Regional Prison to have fellowship and offer bible classes to those interested in seeking a more enriching life than they were experiencing in prison. Sometimes we visited twice in a week and on Saturdays, some church folk would go and involve inmates in a variety of activities with the inmates Many of the inmates just wanted to talk and appreciated an attentive, non-judgmental listener. Others wanted to play board games, discuss local and national news topics, literature and sport. We always sang a few choruses and hymns and nished with a few verses from the Bible and subsequent discussion. Eventually I spent so much time over there that I asked the Superintendent if he would allow me to visit as ofcial prison chaplain. As no person or church had expressed any interest in this ministry, he answered in the afrmative and gave me the liberty to attend whenever I was wanted to or was needed. With the support team we had set up among people from several churches, we had a very rewarding time. Christmas, as with all Christian people throughout the world, was a highlight of our year. Just before Christmas Day, usually on the previous Saturday, we held a carol service. The prison cooks and kitchen staff really excelled themselves with sandwiches and
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Christmas biscuits. As a special feature, I usually succeeded in getting someone from the local Repertory club to come and sing or give an item of entertainment. Harry and Dorothy Clements, close friends and neighbours as well as being staunch members of the Salvation Army, helped out on several occasions. They were both wonderful vocalists and sang together in close harmony, contributing greatly to the spirit of Christmas. So many lasting friendships were formed in those days and still exist to this day, long after their return to the outside world. Unfortunately this era came to an end when the powers that be decided that each prison must have an ordained minister as chaplain, and Prison Fellowship was formed, in some cases working very well with the Chaplain. This was not the case in Albany where neither the prisoners nor the outside visitation team were happy with the arrangement and visits on a regular basis almost ceased entirely. When we moved to Busselton our connection with the Prison Fellowship stopped although Eve, who had very strong ties with many prison friends, continued to write to a number of the boys. We still have two very great friends with whom we still keep in touch regularly. But one memory of our wonderful time there will stay with me forever. When I had been Honorary Chaplain for around a year or so, I had a chat with the Superintendent and asked him if he had any feedback from his ofcers and the prisoners, concerning the Christian groups activities and their effect on the lives and morale of the inmates. As far as I can recall, the reply came thus: Well, perhaps I could answer you in this way. If, on a Friday afternoon I sent all my ofcers home and I went on a shing trip for the weekend and I forgot to close the gates, one thing I would stake my life on is that Terry and David (two prisoners who became dedicated Christians) would still be here on Monday morning when I returned.
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I didnt ask any more questions. I knew that the decision Eve and I made several years ago was the correct one. By this time you will have no doubt formed the idea that our lives were very involved with the Church and to a large extent this would be correct. In addition to our Boys Brigade and Prison Fellowship activities, I was also on the diaconate and, for a while, an Elder of the Albany Baptist Church. This was only for a short time as work commitments at The Albany Advertiser meant that invariably I worked back three nights a week until nine oclock and often on Saturday mornings as well. Many of the normal household tasks I would have carried out would have been neglected except that Eve dealt with them in her usual quiet, uncomplaining way, although I know that at times she would have loved a little help in the myriad chores that went with looking after me and three very healthy, robust children. I worked for The Albany Advertiser for just twenty years, in charge of the commercial printing section of the newspaper publishers. In the early days of the 1960s, the demand for printed matter was not exceptionally keen in a small town like Albany and quite often it was touch and go whether we received our wages and I know that one of the directors put his hand in his pocket on more than one occasion to help meet the payroll. Needless to say, over the years we had many characters. There was one, who probably should remain nameless although some of you will know to whom I am referring, who was unwittingly the butt of many practical jokes and pranks. Probably the most hilarious was the occasion the Princess Royal, Her Highness Princess Margaret, was to visit Albany and there was some speculation among the staff as to whether she would include a tour of the Albany Advertiser in her itinerary. The idea took off and in the imaginations of some of the younger staff members, the visit became a reality and it was discussed at some length as to who would have the honour of receiving her as she made her entrance.
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Now the subject of this particular story was a compositor in his twenties who was renowned for being rather gullible. When he was approached to have the honour, he accepted with great enthusiasm. During the lunch break, it was decided to have a dummy run: a sort of dress rehearsal, and the photographer, Ed Schmidt, set up a tripod and camera just inside the front door. The chosen one was coached in sweeping open the door, bowing and the correct form of address and protocol. When he was able to perform the task to everyones satisfaction, he suddenly realised he was still in his jeans and apron and pleaded to be allowed to go home and don his best suit for such an auspicious occasion. Although the lunch hour was nearly over and he lived at least ten minutes drive each way out at King River, this situation was priceless and so I gave him the nod. He was back in half an hour and burst into the comp room. Im not too late, am I, Lenny? There are cars in the parking bays out the front and the police havent cleared a space for the Royal Cavalcade. By this time everyone was roaring with laughter and his face fell as he said Are you playing a joke on me? Another time which springs to mind was on a warm, summer afternoon and Robin used to come in after school to do odd jobs for a few shillings pocket money. On this particular day he asked me if I had anything special for him to do. The proof press needed cleaning as the ink on the roller platen was drying up and I told him to get some rag from the machine room and give the press a birthday. If I remember correctly, he made a lovely job of it and, hands covered in ink, he cleaned up in the washroom and tossed the rag into the bin. At knock-off time, one of the machinists, Eddie OByrne, was looking worried and asking everyone if they had seen his shirt, which he had taken off, putting his bib-and-brace overalls back on over his singlet. By now you will have guessed that Robin saw the shirt draped over a rail by the Heidelberg and assumed it was a piece of cleaning waste. I dare not quote Eddies remarks when he found out!
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When I was approaching sixty years of age, the Albany Advertiser decided to change from the old hot metal letterpress method of printing on atbed presses and convert to lithographic offset printing. This was, for me, a totally different ball-game and I found that, having reached retirement age due to my overseas war service, I was eligible for the old age pension, topped up by my Army pension from the United Kingdom. I promptly applied and retired from the workforce, updated my car and bought an eleven foot caravan. Australia is a very big country and we really felt the pull of the open road. On one of our earlier trips in 1978, we were holidaying in Busselton when Cyclone Alby devastated the area from Bunbury right through the South West and Great Southern to Albany. In fact, we had just arrived in Nannup just as Alby crossed the coast and the journey into Busselton was a nightmare as the wind raced through the trees, snapping the tops off as if they were matchsticks. Our caravan had a pop-top and when we arrived at the Kookaburra Caravan Park at about 6.30pm, the place was deserted so we parked under the peppermint trees with the front of the car facing the gale. Common sense told us to leave the pop-top down so we had to crouch in the small van, praying that we would come through safely. The other occupants of the park had vacated their vans and sought more stable shelter at a nearby hotel. The storm raged all evening and once I cautiously opened the caravan door to see an uprooted peppermint tree go whirling past. After the cyclone had passed we got a few hours of sleep but were wide awake at rst light to survey the damage. We quickly moved when our rst sight was a torn off limb of a peppi tree swinging on the power lines immediately above our van! The devastation was considerable. In the area between us and sea, a twenty foot cabin cruiser that had come into the bay for protection had been picked up and placed in the centre of the park. Some of the piles from the part of the jetty which had been ripped to pieces had been deposited all down the shore as far as Wonnerup and are still evidence of the damage a cyclone can cause.
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Many roads were impassable between Busselton and Albany and on our return trip two weeks later, trees were still littering the sides of the roads, I recall when we stopped for petrol on the Muir Highway between Manjimup and Mt Barker, the pump attendant wanted to know how much we required. When I said Fill it up he was agreeable as he had to work the bowser by hand. When we arrived home in Spencer Park, we couldnt see our house for the piles of fallen trees our neighbours had stacked on our front lawn to be removed at a later date. It was, as I recall, a much later date when they collected it and all my lawn had died. We had a tall r tree in our back garden that would have towered sixty feet and had been our rst Christmas tree in the house when it was new. For a number of years, we repotted and then planted it out each December until it grew too big to move. Unfortunately, 1977 had been the last Christmas it would see as the wind had lifted the roots on the west side and it was leaning dangerously over the house. One more good blow and number 13 would cease to be our home. Ray Moore, who was at that time skipper of the Boys Brigade, along with Arthur Wilkes and a couple of the senior Boys made a wonderful job of felling it without even one picket being dislodged from our fence! An organisation in Victoria called the Christian Fellowship Group had been formed for people throughout Australia who wanted to travel and have fellowship with other Christians from all States and denominations. They all had the other common goal of seeing Australia (including Tasmania) and New Zealand and more recently, other countries including Europe, North America and Africa. We had many happy excursions with this very sociable but highly devout family of Christians, but the most memorable by far was the journey through the Red Centre, taking in much of Western Australia and the Northern Territory. We travelled rough, slept in two-man tents most of the time, had breakfast and supper in the dark most of the time but were able to cover many kilometres of the northern part of Australia. The travel bug had us in its grip and in 1981, we bought a
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campervan. It was a Ford Econovan and we had it tted out as a mobile home with a push-up top and a gas stove at the rear tailgate. We had a small annexe made that attached to the van at the back so that Eve could stand up comfortably to cook our meals and be sheltered from the prevailing weather conditions. However, the annexe could not keep out the swarms of very friendly ies, which, despite Eves best efforts, often tried to eat part of the meals and were in danger of becoming protein in our diet! In June of that year we drove to Perth and met up with our friends Jean and Harry Wonnacot, whom we had known since we arrived in Medina back in 1957. With their 12 year old youngest son, they accompanied us on a three month trip around Australia. We were in our Econovan and they were towing a caravan with their sedan and we planned to keep each other in sight as we drove around Australia on a carefully planned itinerary which would allow us to see all those things we had dreamed about seeing. Other travellers had given us various bits of advice, we had read extensively in the travel pages of the newspapers and would diligently watch any television travelogues dealing with the areas we intended visiting. Our plan was to be away for thirteen weeks and every detail was planned down to the nest point to allow us maximum sightseeing in this time, but you know the saying about the best laid plans of mice and men! Out itinerary went out the window within the rst week. Harry was a big man, well over 20 stone, and needed a big caravan. He had settled on a seventeen footer that was extra wide to accommodate the bed which was tted across the van instead of the more common orientation facing down the vehicle. This huge van presented a number of problems apart from the added wind resistance. It was difcult to get out of the way of oncoming trucks hurtling along the narrow high roads. As these vehicles will not slow down, it is incumbent on the other road users to pull over and let them pass. Also, just turning the van around in caravan parks, steering or backing it into bays and getting it started took more time than our nifty little camper.
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Then we had an unscheduled extra four days in Broome, once again due to Harrys monster van. In order to nance the cost of this trip, he had sold his modern car and replaced it with a smaller, cheaper model which was really not up to the task of hauling the caravan over rough roads. It required extensive repairs which delayed us and threw our schedules awry. I also experienced a problem with the Econovan and while we were at Broome I discovered that the left hand front tyre was badly worn and needed replacing although the grease monkey at the garage could not nd out why it was happening as the alignment and balance were correct. We needed to replace the tyre again after crossing the Queensland border as it had once again worn right out. At Geicke Gorge on the Fitzroy River we had one of those little incidents which were not much fun at the time, but which we laugh about now. After parking in the caravan site, Jean and Eve did the laundry while Harry and I did a bit of motor maintenance here and there. In the afternoon we joined a very interesting boat excursion up the Fitzroy to see the spectacular gorges and scenery, as well as the crocodiles basking in the sun on the riverbanks. Upon returning to the van site, Eve and Jean went to bring in the washing which was hanging on the communal clothesline. As Harry and I approached the vans, I tripped over a tree root and went sprawling, cutting my forehead quite deeply. Harry saw the accident and after ensuring I was not seriously hurt, went to his van to get the rst aid box. As he went around the back of the van, he didnt notice he had left a window open and walked straight into it, his nose taking the brunt of the collision. Jean and Eve returned with the washing to see Harry and me lying on the grass with wads of cotton wool trying to stop the ow of blood from our heads. After we assured them that we had not been ghting, they injured our pride even further by bursting out laughing! Between Fitzroy Crossing and Halls Creek, we approached a dip in the road where water was running across which was around eighteen inches deep. Harry drove in rst and got about half way through when
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the water got into his points and the motor cut out, stranding them in the middle of the creek. He panicked a bit when the motor wouldnt restart as there were quite a few road trains on this stretch and he knew they would expect him to get out of their way, a feat which was impossible in this predicament. Hurriedly, he tried to dry the points with a cloth, but the car still would not start. Then a utility with six aborigines on the back pulled up with the comment Evrythin alright, Boss? to which Harry replied I could do with some help! Imagine his dismay when he saw a road train approaching and the ute drove off with Okay, Boss! and disappeared up the road, probably to summons a tow truck from the next roadhouse. As the train came into sight, Harry tried the ignition one more time and to his delight the engine roared into life and he was able to get to safety on the other side of the water just as the road train sped past! When we reached the Queensland coast, we were enchanted by its absolute beauty and spent more time there than we had anticipated so that by the time we arrived in Brisbane, we realised that Harry had to be back in Perth to re-commence work in just two weeks time. So our journey back to Perth was made in very quick time which meant quite a few items on our agenda were missed, much to our disappointment. I would advise anyone contemplating a trip similar to that which we originally planned, not to attempt it if time is limited. It is just too vast and too wonderful to have to hurry. Anyway, in Brisbane and again in Adelaide, I had to get new tyres tted to the left front wheel and still none of the mechanics could gure out what was causing the excessive wear. Then, when we had been back in Albany just a couple of weeks and had spent a lot of time consulting the local Ford dealer and the State and National distributors to no avail, I was talking to a friend whose father in Ireland had a string of garages and retail outlets. He immediately announced that I know whats causing it! It is a variation of tow-in on turn. he pointed out that
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both wheels were adjusted to an equal number of turns on the threaded ends of the axle. When we had this investigated, sure enough here lay the solution of the problem and with a minor adjustment, the wearing never re-occurred. Of course, this should have been detected on the assembly line months beforehand and at the pre-delivery check. It was just as well that we took this trip at this time as a while later, arthritis began to set in and the idea of driving long distances became less exciting. So we decided to go back to tours, including several to the United Kingdom. We had made a very successful trip back there in 1974 when our two boys, Graham and Robin, were working in London on a shortstay basis. We booked a coach tour of Scotland right at the start of the holiday season before the crowds arrived, so the hotels and catering companies were very anxious for our custom, treating us like royalty. Entertainments and amusements were all brand new, not just revised versions of last years worn out programs, so we were in for many delightful treats. On this tour, Graham had been able to get some time off work and joined us and we spent a great week together travelling around with a company called Glenton Tours, whose driver and tour guide, Bill, took his job very seriously but had a very well developed Scottish sense of humour. Among the many highlights of this week were two which stand out in our memories and I think they are well worth mentioning. As we approached the border town of Gretna Green, Bill told us how for many years, young couples would elope across the border to get married in Scotland, avoiding the Church of England ruling about conducting weddings without parental consent and proper reading of the banns. In Gretna, the local blacksmith was a civil celebrant and had the authority to conduct a ceremony over his forge and consequently the town, being just over the border, became a popular destination for these lovesick English couples. On the day we arrived in Gretna Green, Bill informed us that we were fortunate to be arriving just as a wedding was about to take
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place and we would be attending it. We realised this would be a staged show as this practice had ceased many years ago, but Bill insisted that a wedding was to take place. Little did Eve and I know that we would gure very prominently in the ceremony. It just so happened that the date was May 9th, our wedding anniversary. Graham had told Bill and arranged that we were to be the happy couple! The photograph in this book records that very memorable occasion and tells the story even more graphically than words could. It was hilarious and I can recall nearly leaping out of my skin when the smithy brought down a huge hammer onto the anvil, just a few inches from our clasped hands as he pronounced, in his beautiful Scots voice, that we were now husband and wife. You can imagine the banter in the coach as we travelled on to our hotel for the nights stay. When we drew up outside the hotel, the manager came up to the coach to tell us which rooms we would occupy. We had been told by Bill,that we would be occupying the bridal suite and this appeared likely as everyone was assigned their rooms except Eve and I. Imagine our astonishment, when contrary to what we were expecting, we found our names were not on the guest register! Eventually, they found us a spare room in the basement. I wonder if we were the only honeymoon couple in Gretna to spend their wedding night in the company of their twenty-six year old son! The second episode was really silly. Several days later we arrived at a very pretty town called Dalmally. I particularly remember this as the local church was built by a rich resident who was incapacitated and unable to move around freely. An unusual feature was that the roof of this church was made of lead and I thought that there probably very few places in Britain where this would have remained in place for so long. But back to the story. After another excellent dinner that evening, we were invited into the big dance hall at the hotel for some musical entertainment by a husband and wife team. The lady was a well known highland singer and was to be accompanied by her husband on the piano accordion, which were still very popular in Scotland at the time.
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When they made their appearance, the singer (I believe her name was Flora McDonald) apologised to us that she had just had her front teeth extracted that morning but had decided, in ne theatrical tradition, that the show must go on and she would not dream of disappointing an audience and they would proceed as planned. She was standing at the rear of the tiny stage while her husband sat on a kitchen chair in front of her, which is the traditional performance pose for this kind of act. I was sitting next to Graham and after she had sung a couple of songs, I was aware that Grahams shoulders were going up and down as he tried to control his silent laughter. As it was a very solemn song about the pibrochs or the Massacre at Glencoe or something, I quietly asked him what was so funny. His reply, much to the annoyance of a local family who were really enjoying the music, set me off giggling too. Look at her mouth, then look at the back of his head! The rear of his stately bald pate was glistening with the little drops of saliva which ew from her mouth every time she sang a sibilant consonant! We expected him to produce his handkerchief but, like the professional trouper he was, he waited until the end of the bracket, then quietly moved his chair out of range and began the mopping up operations. Unfortunately, we were probably the only people to notice this and our mufed amusement annoyed some of the audience who assumed we had imbibed a wee drams too many! There were so many memories and it is tempting to mention them all here, such as the time we heard a cuckoo, a rare sound in Britain these days, and when Bill pointed out a wee haird o moockle coos (a small herd of long-horned cows) in a paddock. Every now and again he would play a tape of Scotland the Brave on the coachs sound system and announce in broad Glaswegian, Ach, wha a country! One evening as we returned to London, we arrived at a small Yorkshire village and checked into the hotel. The evening meal was
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running very late and the chef apologised, saying that there was a staff shortage but that it was being rectied. However, the two characters who appeared in suits and white shirts must have been dragged from the local watering hole as they were full as boots! I dont say this lightly as the tables had been laid very poorly and cutlery was missing from several places. Graham was missing a steak knife and asked one of the waiters to bring him one. He obliged immediately, but as he approached with it, he tripped on a chair leg and the knife ew from his grasp, arced through the air and landed, blade rst in the top of Grahams boot. Not to be out done, the other waiter also stumbled a few minutes later and showered peas from a tureen all over a very regal looking aged lady at the other end of the banquet table. Bill had kept everyone so amused and happy that morale was high and we all had a jolly good laugh at this, even the lady covered in green veges! I remember though, that the waiter didnt understand why were all splitting our sides and stumped off, looking quite grumpy, to get another serving. Around a decade later another incident occurred while on a trip to Scotland, this time with our daughter Barbara. This one was not so amusing and still puzzles me as I know it to be eerily true. We were visiting Edinburgh and had taken a guided tour of the castle which overlooks the city. As we moved from one hall to another, for some reason both Barbara and I decided to take a photograph of a couple of suits of armour which stood in a corner against a bare stone wall. There were no ornaments or swords or other weaponry as is common in these sorts of monuments. The armour had been set up to show how it would have appeared in battle, with the visors down. We then moved on to the next hall and thought no more about it until the following week when we were back in London. Barbara had taken her roll of lm to a photographic shop to have the pictures developed and printed and we were sitting in a bus shelter waiting for a bus to take us back to Isleworth. Barbara opened the envelope and
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started browsing through her photos. Suddenly I was aware of her starting suddenly and she exclaimed loudly Oh, Dad! Look at this! She had a reasonably expensive camera and the picture was in sharp focus with excellent lighting, but it was very different from the scene we both remembered. In the photo, both the suits had the visors and face plates raised, revealing two very distinct faces inside the helmets. One was a lean face with a pointed beard while the other had a chubby, rotund face with a bright, bushy beard! But in addition to this startling apparition, immediately behind the armour was a window, partly opened, and to the right of it, a closed door, which both of us knew for certain were not there. A few days later when I had my snaps printed, the same thing appeared, although not as clearly as in Barbs: the features on the faces were not as distinct although the other noted apertures were again in the wall behind them. We wrote to the tour company and tried to contact the guide but never received any answers. But to add to the mystery, not long afterwards both Barbaras and my photographs and negatives of this particular scene disappeared and although we have searched high and low, we have never set eyes on them again. And once again I must strongly deny that either of us had been sampling the product of the distillery for which this part of the world is famous! And before you jump to conclusions, the sixties were well and truly over and neither of us has ever hallucinated before or since! We both declare with no reservations that the visors were down, the walls were blank and that these photos really did exist. I dont believe in ghosts and have no reason to believe I suffered a delusion so until some physical evidence is provided, it must remain a mystery. Very often, during the eighties and the early nineties, we took short vacations in Busselton where our dear friends from the Medina days, Don and Shirley Dowling had moved some time previously. We soon realised that the climate was kinder on our aging bodies, the hills
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less steep and it was considerably closer to our family who now all lived in the northern suburbs of Perth. The Shire was erecting a large village of small cottages for elderly people just a couple of hundred metres from the shore of Geographe Bay, near the famed Busselton Jetty, and less than one hundred metres from the main shopping street which accommodated a supermarket, doctors surgeries, the post ofce, banks, etc. It was also a very short distance to the hospital, a facility that, as you get older, is comforting to have nearby! Our rst application for one of these cottages was not successful, but as it was placed on le, we were notied about a year later that one was available should we wish to renew our request. As Barbara and her husband Ken were now living nearby in Dunsborough, and Barb was in charge of the William Carey Baptist Aged Care facility just to the west of Busselton, we immediately responded. One unforeseen result of our moving was a huge deterioration in the tonsorial elegance of the male members of the Albany Baptist Church! Having learned to cut and style hair while in the prison-ofwar camp, I used to trim the hair of the two boys and their friends into the latest Beatle or Elvis fashions. Several Church members learned of this and requested I trim their locks for them, for which they duly placed a couple of shillings in the Mission Box as payment. Over the years this mounted up and many a Saturday afternoon would see a queue of hirsute gentlemen sipping tea on our back verandah, awaiting their turn in the chair. Harry Wonnacott used to regularly have his trimmed and I remember one hot, humid March day he stripped off his shirt so that the little snippets would not lodge in his collar and irritate him. It had been a few weeks since his previous visit and when I had nished, his massive torso was covered in hanks and locks from his former barnet. No worries, Len! he boomed. Ill get the boy to put the hose on me! And so he stepped down onto the lawn while his son, Colin, played water from the garden hose over him.
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But while Albany blokes grew shaggy, the gentlemen of Busselton began to look quite debonair as I resumed the practise at our new home. In fact, thirteen years later, I still get the scissors and comb out and do a few heads at the village, although arthritis forbids me to have the production line from the Albany days! In Albany we had been very heavily involved in the Church as you will have learned from earlier in this biography, but on moving to Busselton, we stepped back a bit. However, we continued to worship regularly, attend services and prayer meetings and made some new friends among the folk at various congregations around town. When I turned 85 in 2003, it became necessary to be examined annually to renew my motor drivers licence and have now successfully done this on ve occasions, which enables us to continue to move around under our own steam. I must admit, though, that I limit our car journeys to the surrounding forests and beaches as my legs and feet are not in perfect condition and prohibit me from driving too far. Our GP once told me that, in medical terms, my feet were buggered! Eve has always been a great walker and has encouraged me to take a regular, daily walk, regardless of the weather. Nowadays I have to use a frame and take frequent stops but I know that without this, my legs would deteriorate quickly as have those of so many other of our friends in this town as they reach their nineties and I consider my mobility to be a great blessing. We have been in these aged folks untis for about twelve years now. We moved mainly so that the journey to visit the family would be shortened, but, with the passing of time, although I still have my drivers licence, I cannot drive for many miles. Bunbury, Dunsborough or Margaret River are about my limit, but Eve and I manage a walk along the sea front as often as we can. I have progressed from a walking stick to a frame on wheels. This exercise, with the Lords enablement, gives us the exercise we need. I also have a gopher which I picked up very cheaply but I promised Eve I would not let it take over all the while I can still walk a bit. The main thing is that we have each other and the love of a very caring family, and the promise from the Lord of our lives that we will be with Him for eternity. What more can a man expect from life?And
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in the joy shared by dedicating our lives to Him, we have found a harmony in our marriage which leaves me in no doubt I am among the most blessed husbands in the world!

The Wedding Ceremony at the Gretna Green Smithy's anvil. Scotland, 1974. Len and Eve are the happy couple while Graham is in the back row at the left (with long hair). The driver, Bill, is front left.

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The 1964 Best Drill Squad at the Perth Town Hall. Graham is the Squad NCO and Robin is rear left. Right Marker is Bevan Watson, the brother of the Best Drilled Boy, Stephen. Bevan succeeded Stephen as Best Drilled Boy in the subsequent two years.

Anzac Day Parade in York Street, Albany. The Colour Party conprises Graham (left), Colour Bearer Len (centre), and Stephen Watson on the right. Leading the rear rank is Arthur Twaddle who later became a trade instructor at the Albany Regional Prison.
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Above: The Prison Group after Sunday Service. Left: Some of the boys who attended services at the Prison. Back Row: Simon Middle Row, John, Terry and Tommy Front Row: Shane and Ryan.

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Eves Recollections. My memories of our arrival in Fremantle are very clear in my mind. This was, for me in particular, a momentous step forward in the lives of all our family, although at the time, we could not possibly realise to what extent. It was the 28th February, 1957 an exciting day for all of us. My cousin Gladys, her husband Buck and their three daughters were all waiting for us on Victoria Quay, in the hot sunshine which surprised me by its intensity. Air conditioning was virtually non-existent in those days and we sweltered through a taxi ride out to Medina through acres of burnt-out bushland. I was intrigued by the housing estate at Medina where Gladys and her family lived. The houses were all timber framed with asbestos bro cladding, many with brick chimney stacks and either tiled or corrugated bro roofs, each on a quarter of an acre surrounded by a jarrah picket fence. They were all painted in one of a variety of pastel colours and comprised two or three bedrooms, a kitchen, living room, bathroom and laundry. The bathroom was equipped with a handbasin, small medicine chest, a bath with an overhead shower rose and a chip-heater to warm the water. But, to my new-chum English delight, every one had either an owned or rented refrigerator! This was completely new to us and a boon on those hot Western Australian summer days when the temperature went over the hundred degree mark on numerous occasions. This was a real treasure. We had two young sons and a daughter, while Glad and Buck had three daughters, so sleeping arrangements were quite complicated until a very kind neighbour offered the three oldest of our girls, Barbara, Marilyn (Lyn) and Janice (Jan) sleeping space in the sleepout of their house. Graham and Robin shared one of Glads bedrooms, their youngest daughter, Denise, moved in with them and we slept in the third room. It worked well for the six weeks we had this arrangement. I went to the State Housing Commission after that and applied for a house and was offered a choice of over fty empty homes! So
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I spent the day walking around Medina before choosing a nice little three bedroomed house with four steps up to a small verandah, a reasonably sized lounge room and a kitchen with a wood stove. We lived there happily for about thirty months until August, 1959 when we moved to Albany. We had brought our part Old English Sheepdog with us from Folkestone and he was quarantined for six weeks at Bicton, near Fremantle. The neighbour who was accommodating our girls very kindly drove me up there each week to visit him until he was released to come back to Medina with us. The attendants at the kennels were very good to him and turned a little spray on to keep him cool during that hot autumn. As you probably know, his breed have very thick coats as they invariably spent the nights, even in winter, guarding the sheep against foxes and other predators. Medina was a very basic township, built to house the workers from the Kwinana Oil Renery, BHP Steelworks and later the Alcoa Aluminium plant who were bussed to and from work, as very few of them had cars and most of these were old bombs as they were referred to. A lot of workers lived in very old houses much closer to the industrial area, so until more industry came, Medina remained a very small town with one row of shops: a delicatessen, newsagent, post ofce, sh and chip shop, hardware and general store which also sold shoes and clothes, a greengrocer, butcher and a cinema with an open-air section which was very popular in the warm summer evenings. Around the corner was a hotel and the Medina Hall which was in almost constant use: for bingo, club meetings, badminton and a Sunday School which we soon became involved with. Over the road was the police station, library and TAB. There was a Salvation Army hall, a Methodist, Presbyterian, Anglican and Catholic church there, along with a primary school, Catholic Schools for girls and boys and, in the second year we were there, they built the Kwinana High School which Barbara attended for about six months until we moved away. Many of the teachers were from migrant families and spoke very poor English. But seeing that the general population of the town was a
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mixture of English, Scottish, German, French, Dutch and Italian, there was a quite a communication problem with people misunderstanding each other but a community spirit prevailed. In a minority were the Australians and I believe it was very hard to nd two Aussie families living next door to each other. As Len has mentioned, his rst job was in Bunbury so he had to live there all week and come home for the weekend on Friday evening then go back on Sunday afternoon. That did not work out very well and eventually he got a job in Perth which involved travelling by two buses each way. This was not only hard on Len but the children were still asleep when he left and had to go to bed almost as soon as he arrived home in the evening. A new job in Fremantle reduced his travel time considerably but when a job came up for a compositor two hundred and fty miles away in Albany, we became very interested. Lens father had a sister who lived there and so he applied and they invited him down for an interview. As we had no car, we didnt know how we could get there and back in one weekend, but a wonderful couple who ran the Sunday School our children attended in Medina offered to drive us there in their car. I must mention that because of wonderful friends like Bob and Doreen Pitman, along with other ne folk at the Sunday School, we had become practicing Christians and were baptised in the ocean at Kwinana. We left the three children with another Christian family, Don and Shirl Dowling and their kids, and set off for Albany on a Friday evening. I took a thermos ask of tea and Doreen brought one lled with tomato soup, plus some sandwiches. I well remember the big discussion whether to drink the tea before we went to sleep in the car and keep the soup until morning or vice versa. Eventually we decided on the former but waking up to a cup of tomato soup was not really an ideal breakfast. Len had the interview and the manager of the Albany Advertiser took us for a beautiful tour along Marine Drive and up Mount Clarence. We were very impressed with the town and the scenery but were not so delighted with the accommodation they had chosen for us.
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It was a very old house built overlooking Princess Royal Harbour but inside was a different story. It was lthy and there were rat and mice nests in the ancient furniture and they ran freely over the armchairs. There were beer and cocoa tins shoved into the rat holes in the walls and a kitchen range with no stove lids so that the saucepans would have to sit over the re itself. There was no running water in the house and we learned later that the building was condemned and pulled down soon after we looked at it. Reluctantly we refused the job and made our way back to Medina, very disappointed. Neighbours who lived behind us in Atkinson Road, the Broughtons, who incidentally came from Hounslow near where Len had lived the early part of his life, used to chat to us over the back fence. One day the lady said that her husband had been working in Albany and heard that the position at the Advertiser had still not been lled. Len reapplied and was accepted, with the promise of much better accommodation. Immediately our lives improved as Len was happy with the job, the children settled into the schools very quickly and I soon found a little job cleaning a number of holiday cottages managed by a friend of a lady I had done some ironing for in Medina. I earned four shillings and sixpence an hour doing this which was a real blessing as the kids needed school clothes and their appetites were growing no end! These cottages were quite a distance from home, up to half an hours walk, and I worried about not being home when the children got home from school. Lord, I would love a job with enough to pay my grocery bill each week and be near enough for the children to come to me if they had any problems, I prayed. So I wasnt particularly surprised when a man came to the door selling kitchen spices and tried to sell me some. I would have loved to have been able to buy them but had to tell him I could not afford them. Would you be interested in a job? he asked. Of course, I was all ears as I had been praying for just such an opportunity and when he told me that the wife of the Rector of the Anglican Church had recently had surgery and was not allowed to do housework, I put on my cardigan straight away and went around to apply.
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The Rectory was almost next door with just a tennis court between it and our house and the pay was four and six an hour, three days a week, Monday to Friday. I was given the job and was overjoyed that the Lord had answered my prayer, giving me enough money and also be near enough to home for the kids to contact me. I did that job and also cleaned the Church Hall on Saturdays for twenty ve shillings. It used to take me from 5.30 until nearly nine oclock to do that hall and the money paid for the deposit on our rst ever own home a nice little State Housing Commission built house three miles away in Spencer Park. It was my pride and joy and was immediately behind the Annie Bryson McKeown Silver Chain home where I was offered a job as a cleaner. I left the Rectory and worked there for almost fteen years. I loved working there among the aged residents. Again I was blessed with a gate through the fence to go to work. Our matron was an ex-army nurse and very strict, although she could also show a very kindly side. However, some of the old folk were intimidated by her, as illustrated by this next little saga. One morning I went on duty at 8am and on my way down to the cleaners cupboard, one dear old lady came out of the bathroom and toilet area in a really terrible state. The previous day she had bought a packet of Apple-a-Day tablets for bowel regularity, which were in the form of little chocolate squares. Without reading the instructions on the box, she thought she had to take the whole packet . . . need I say more? I could just imagine what matrons reaction would be, should she walk down the corridor, so I said to the dear old soul Now stand quite still, dont walk any further until I come back! I still chuckle when I recall that she looked down at her slippers and dressing gown and said in a bewildered voice Oh! I wonder oo done that? Anyway, she stayed put and I managed to nd some old newspaper and clean her slippers and feet, then take her into the bathroom, remove her nightie and give her a nice wash in disinfectant. Then I put her in a clean nightie, rolled the soiled clothes and slippers
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in newspaper and tossed them over the fence into our garden until I could slip through and soak them out at morning tea time. Fortunately, matron never found out or the dear old thing would have been in all sorts of trouble. I could relate many stories of similar events and one springs to mind which illustrates the genteel nature of some of these residents. One lovely old lady adored all animals, especially my three cats and one morning, another staff member went into the shed and noticed that a mouse had somehow got into a large cardboard carton and was frantically jumping up and down inside, trying to get out. Somebody suggested I get my old white cat, Sneezy, who was sunning herself just behind our gate. I picked her up and showed her the tiny rodent but she wasnt interested and just wanted to get back to lazing out in the sun. She quite resented being woken just to catch some blooming mouse! The lovely old lady who had been watching this from her window felt sorry for my dear old kitty and said I wish you people would leave dear Sneezy alone, shes been catching mice all morning and was leaving that one for her supper! She was really happy that the mouse had escaped and pleased our puss had returned to her spot in the sun. Our family grew up in that house in Muir Street, but eventually Barbara left to commence nursing at Royal Perth Hospital. I missed her terribly. She had been working in Caris Bros, a jewellers in York Street, since leaving school. She was seventeen when she left home and I was pleased to learn that there were two other girls from Albany starting their training at the same time. She did very well and continued nursing until her marriage to an old high school friend, Ken. Graham commenced an apprenticeship with the Albany Advertiser where Len worked and Robin trained at the R&I Bank. All the children had done well at school and Robin had been the dux of the school in Grade Seven at Albany Primary. Talking about primary school reminds me that on the day he started school back in England in 1956, the names of some of his classmates intrigued him and at tea time he told us that three boys he
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became friendly with were Harry Harding, Willie Walsh and Raymond Catworthy. Oh, said Graham, who was two years older. They all have funny names in the rst class! Len was deeply involved with work at the Church as Sunday School Superintendent at Elleker and also became a deacon. A little while later he helped start the 21st Albany Boys Brigade company and was made an ofcer, so he was always busy when this was added to his regular job. But we were always happy and the boys made some good friends both at school and at Boys Brigade and in the Church youth groups. In 1965, just before my father passed away, I returned to England for a visit and stayed away for six months, including the sea voyage each way. Air fares were prohibitively expensive in those days and I took in ironing to earn the extra money I needed for this trip. My parents were living with my sister Dora in Canterbury at the time and I stayed with them for much of my visit, but I also went up to West London to visit Lens family as well as my cousin, Elsie, who lived in Twickenham. Everyone made me very welcome, but I missed Len and the children so much, I even considered borrowing the airfare to return early. However, I stayed on and returned as scheduled, laden with gifts the family sent for us all. In the customs hall at Fremantle, I found that the duty on these came to more money than I had left in my purse and had to call out to Len to come and pay the rest. What a way for him to have to welcome his wife home! After Barbara married, she lived in Nelson Bay, near the Air Force base where Ken was stationed and then when he was posted to Malaysia, she joined him and lived in Penang with their little boy: our rst grandchild, Garry. We had visited them in Nelson Bay, but he was nearly three years old by the time we saw him again when they returned from Malaysia. In the nineteen seventies, both the boys went to live in England.
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Robin had been working in the bank in Morley and had made friends with a young English immigrant who was very homesick and decided to accompany him back to the United Kingdom, intending to stay for three or four months, but stayed there for over four years. Graham went over about eight months later and stayed for just over two years. Robin returned home and married Trudy, who he had become attached to before he went abroad. They lived in Albany for a while then moved to Perth. Graham, meanwhile, still had itchy feet and after remaining in Western Australia for about fteen months, returned to England, where he met up with Teresa on a Christmas visit to Paris. She was from Queensland and when they returned to Australia, they were married in Brisbane before driving back to live in Perth. Ken was, by now, stationed at Pearce Air Base, just north of Perth and Barbara also had a little girl, Alisa. They lived in Nollamara before building a house in Greenwood. So all our children now lived and worked in the Perth metropolitan area. Robin and Trudy and Graham and Teresa each had a daughter and then a son, so we had six grand children, who we were very careful not to spoil, but I know we were a little over-indulgent on some occasions that their parents pretend not to notice! Len and I used to spend our holidays at Busselton each year. I was still working at the Silver Chain Home until I was almost sixty. Len retired at about the same time and we decided that we would settle in Busselton one day. Meanwhile, we joined a small group who visited the Albany Jail. Len became the honorary chaplain and took Bible Study with a group of interested men and for a while we were the only two visitors for the Church group. We would go into the room allotted to us and when at rst no men turned up, we would sing a scripture chorus as we walked around the catwalk and out. After a couple of weeks, one young man turned up, then another until after a while, we were happy to see a dozen, sometimes more, sometimes less and it was wonderful to see how quickly they picked up the words to the choruses. A couple of them brought along their
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guitars and we just about raised the roof singing. At Christmas time the Superintendent allowed us to hold a carol service and many other men turned up. A very generous supper was put on for us by the catering staff and a couple of old friends of ours came along with us on that night. They belonged to a local repertory company and both had lovely singing voices. I remember one night that lamingtons were among the supper snacks and Len got tucked into them with enthusiasm. He had his reading glasses hanging around his neck on a strap and to everyones amusement, when he placed them on his nose, the lenses were well coated with dessicated coconut! After our initial visits when only Len and I went by ourselves each week, others, some from our Church, a couple of Anglicans and some from various other congregations joined us every Saturday morning and one Sunday a month and we had a wonderful fellowship. I think because of my white hair, I was thought of as Gran and the younger boys would tell me some of the problems in their lives. Most were from broken homes and dysfunctional families with alcoholic, abusive parents. They craved loving words and encouragement. We know of several lads who came to know Jesus as Saviour and are still in contact with two of them who are now married with children. One of them visits us every year with his wife and two little boys while the other lives in Penang and is hoping to get a permanent Australian residential visa this year. He, his wife and three young sons have been here at least four times and are a beautiful family. The youngest boy is about eight now, but when he rst visited, the only sentence in English he knew was Good on yer, mate! One incident brought home what a great and wonderful God we have was when one of the boys in jail was healed of a very serious and potentially terminal heart condition. And this answer to prayer was not an isolated case. Meanwhile, we were waiting for a house to become available for us in Busselton. Barbara and Ken had moved to Dunsborough where she worked at the Baptist William Carey Nursing Home in Busselton and Ken sold real estate in the popular tourist town. Eventually, a
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house became vacant for us in the village and we moved in and for two years saw a lot of our daughter and son-in-law before they moved back to Perth as their rst grandson was born. Like most grandparents, they wanted to see more of him, as well as their daughter, Alisa and her husband, Ashley. We hated the thought of them leaving here as it was the rst time we had lived in close proximity to our family. But it was still close enough to Perth to visit for a weekend and as they have a holiday house at Quindalup, only fteen or twenty kilometres from Busselton, they often come to visit us. One blessing at the time was that our dear friends from the Medina days had lived in Busselton for some years and now resided in the same village as us. Sadly, Don died about seven years ago but Shirley still lives there, although it is not the same without Don and his endless supply of stories and anecdotes. We are really happy here as every convenience is within walking distance, such as three supermarkets, our doctors surgery, a library and we only have to walk across the big playing eld to see the ocean. I walk along the footpath above it every morning and it is a real delight listening to the gulls, white cockatoos and pink and grey galahs all chattering along together. We have always enjoyed the funny little things the children in our family have said. As we have six grandchildren and ve great grandchildren, there are many more than I will relate here, but I will give some of our favourite examples. Gary and Alisa, Barbara and Kens children, used to come for a week or two during their school holidays when they were both at school. We had our little caravan in the back garden and the children enjoyed playing in it. One year they brought down their cowboy outts and all the paraphernalia and enjoyed dressing up in it to play. One morning I noticed they were not in the back garden and checked in the caravan to see if they were in there. Sure enough, they were sitting in there with their arms around each other looking very sad. I asked Whatevers up, kids? and Alisa announced Our
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brothers been shot! Then Gary added And his guts is hanging out! Susan, Graham and Teresas daughter, always wanted to play at nurses whenever we went to stay with them. I had to be the patient and on one occasion when she was about four or ve, I was to lie on the couch while Susan x-rayed my head. Len was sitting nearby and asked her Did you nd any brains in there, Darling? Susan, disgusted with his ignorance said Of course not, Grandad! Christopher, her brother, had a make-believe friend called Tom Jarmie whom he spoke of quite often. One day when we were driving out near the Upper Kalgan, he pointed out through the car window and solemnly told us Tom Jarmie lived in that house but hes sold it and bought a garage! His imagination was quite out of this world. Robin and Trudys daughter, Belinda was sitting between Len and myself in our campervan while we went for a drive. I was teaching her an old Sunday School chorus: Jesus bids us shine with a pure clear light Like a little candle burning in the night. He looks down from Heaven to see us shine. You in your small corner, and I in mine. Belinda wasnt happy that it nished there and added her own last line: And Grandad in his! Michael, Robins son, crept into bed with Len and me about ve oclock one morning. His pyjama sleeves were wet so I asked him what had happened. Well, Ive been trying on your teef! he answered and sure enough he had taken our dentures out of their mugs and put them in the hand basin which he had lled with water while he tried to see if they would t into his tiny, four year old mouth. Then came our rst great grandson, Jake, who loved to listen to adult conversations and pick out a word which evidently he was used
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to hearing and which fascinated him. His mum, Alisa, was taking him to change his clothes when Jake said to her I love you, Mummy! I love you, too! Alisa replied. His quick response to that was I preciate that! His younger sister, Brooke, was having her fourth birthday and we were all having a picnic in the park. She was getting a bit bored so I took her to nd some swings. On the way she picked up a twig from a gum tree and was admiring the leaves on it. Do you know, Brooke, that I once knew a man who could play a tune on one of those leaves? I told her. I think I could do that! she announced and so, with much spluttering and spitting, she tried but with no success. You try, Gran! she demanded and of course, I had about as much success as Brooke, who was disgusted that Gran couldnt do a simple think like that. She stood still with her hands on her hips, and in her most reproving voice, said Gran, I dont think you are putting your heart into it! Well, that is one each from our lovely kids, although many more humorous stories cross my mind. Our youngest great grandchild, Sarah, is six, Matthew is eight and Leah is ten but we dont see them as often as the others because they live in Albany. They are the darling children of our oldest grandson, Gary and his wife, Simone. Our life in Busselton is idyllic and peaceful and I would just like to briey reect on it. Len has joined a Bridge club which holds its meetings and games about ve minutes walk away from our house. He is very happy with that and attends once a week and sometimes twice. He will be ninety by the time you all read this, still has a great sense of humour and manages to take a walk each afternoon with the help of a four-wheeled walker. He suffers badly from arthritis in his hips and feet and also in his hands but is always cheerful, especially when our children or grand children ring us from Perth where they all live now, with the exception of Susan who lives in Melbourne and Gary who I mentioned a couple of paragraphs ago.
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I belong to a poetry club where I enjoy reading and listening to poetry once a month. I have also found a dear friend who has a small black dog named Jeannie. Agnes, my friend, has been very sick for quite a long time now, so I walk Jeannie every morning at seven. Agnes and I have many things in common and can always nd something to laugh about as we remember the old days when we were young. She is Australian, one of a family of seven children, so has very different memories and experiences to mine. At ninety two, we have known each other for around eleven years and in that time have never had an angry word together. As I often say to Len, our lives have been in harmony, and more so since we gave our hearts to the Lord and Saviour Jesus. We have known good times and sad times but we both rmly believe it is our faith and willingness to do whatever He guides us to do which has kept us from giving up when things have looked bleak. Thank you, our wonderful God, for giving us peace and assurance and for the certain hope of eternity with Him!

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