War-Time Shepherd's Bush

BBC World War 11 Recollections

My name is John Hobart Wells.
I was born on 11 September 1931 in Shepherd’s Bush, W12 during the great depression.

I attended nearby Wendell Park Infants and Primary school, until September 1939.
During that month, equipped with gas mask and rucksack we were walked to Stamford Brook Station and I ended up at Gerrards Cross, Buckinghamshire, not that far from West London.
We were given soft drinks and cakes and a number of kind people from the area came to select and take home us evacuees. My new home was Beechwood Cottage in the Windsor Road, the home of Mr and Mrs Walton. Mr Walton was a solicitor and they had two children about my age. My recollection is of a very large house and garden belonging to upper middle class people in contrast to my own working class background. I was well cared for but after a few months my mother took me to stay at nearby Bulstrode Manor, a fine Victorian Manor House owned by Sir John Ramsden. We had virtually the whole estate in which to play but my schooling was limited to half days only.
I recall one morning a police car arriving and taking away the German housekeeper and her husband for internment. I remember too the stray German plane dropping its bombs in nearby fields and I recall vividly one evening in late 1940 seeing the sky lit up from the second great fire of London.
Family life was strained as my father worked at the Hammersmith Town hall and found it difficult to get to Gerrards Cross so we returned home to Shepherd’s Bush for the duration of the war. We returned to the horrors of the Blitz. There were nightly raids on the factories in West London. Many nearby houses were destroyed and I was terrified of the anti aircraft guns, some of which were mobile but mostly located at Wormwood Scrubs. Barrage balloons were a familiar sight. We used to shelter under the stairs in the coal pile during the nightly raids.
One evening we visited my Uncle Arthur in the Fulham Palace Road and were caught in a terrifying air raid in which land mines were dropped. I recall walking back to Hammersmith Broadway treading glass all the way. All of this was too much for my mother, so the following evening we slept on the tube platform at South Kensington Station. Most tube stations were packed with people. Bunk beds were provided against the wall but most of us slept on the platform with bedding we brought with us. The trains were very noisy but we managed to get 4 or 5 hours sleep. Friendships were made and camaraderie built up. However, after a year of this the blitz lessened so my father and I stayed at home and slept under the table while my mother continued to use the Tube Station until the end of the war.

My Uncle Arthur was a chauffeur with the big grocer David Gregg. At the outbreak of the war he delivered provisions to the company’s stores. Every Wednesday my mother used to meet him at Stamford Brook station and when he set her down in the Askew Road her bags were always heavier. It must have been “waste”! However, we never suffered hunger again during the war.

I returned to Wendell Park School and I recall during a morning playtime in 1943 seeing puffs of smoke in the sky. The air raid warning from the previous evening was still in operation. We scurried indoors later to be told that the V 1 flying bombs were attacking London. The V 1's could be heard and when the engines stopped we ducked under the desk until after the explosion. This became a daily routine even if one was outside. We got used to it. However in 1944 we experienced another terror, the V 2 rocket. I remember one Saturday about teatime being shocked a great explosion — the first V 2 had fallen on Chiswick. V2 attacks continued on a daily basis and undermined morale.
Fortunately the Allied landings in France brought this terror to an end but only just in time.
My last recollection of the war years is of joining the crowds celebrating V E day in Piccadilly, a lifetime experience, and I was then 14 years old.

MORE REFLECTIONS ON WW2 in Shepherd’s Bush by John Hobart Wells

In my initial recollections I mentioned my evacuation to Gerrard’s Cross. Our teachers at Wendell Park School who accompanied us could best be described as strict Victorian disciplinarians — the slightest deviation in behaviour, attention or slack schoolwork was dealt with severely. Corporal punishment was the order of the day, every day. The cane was used regularly even on 7 or 8 year olds. Shepherd’s Bush was a tough working class area in those days so I suppose discipline was the means used to make the most reluctant pupils learn the basic 3 R’s. The teachers were not sympathetic when we arrived at Gerrards Cross and I remember one teacher whom we feared, going into the woods to cut a stick to beat us with. However there were exceptions and I remember fondly Alderman Turney (ex Mayor of Hammersmith) who lived in the Old Oak Road and did much to recover my education on my return to the Bush.

I progressed into senior school at Wendell Park in 1943 and the school encouraged me to play the piano at morning assembly. Mr Cooper (ex Blount) and Mr Ecot encouraged my interest in music from Gilbert and Sullivan to classical music and opera and also my interest in science.
As a result I joined St Saviour’s Church choir — Rev Carrington was the vicar and I also played the organ for the Sunday school. Mr Cooper encouraged me to sit an entrance exam for Paddington Technical College at the age of 13, which I passed and from which I built my career in Telecom to reach senior management level.

Throughout the country a ‘black out’ existed at night and was enforced by the ARP and police. Office workers were required to do fire duty at their offices at night usually from the roof or upper floors. The Home Guard was active in country areas and I was told that my father was nearly shot through failing to hear a “stop, who goes there?” challenge. Dad was hard of hearing.

Hammersmith Council organised sports and entertainment in Ravenscourt Park W12 on Saturdays and Sundays and there were always bandstand concerts on weekend evenings.

The Football League programme was suspended but local league matches were arranged on a regional basis using players available on leave or in town. In 1941 some older boys took me to a match at Loftus Road. I was hooked and have been a supporter of QPR for the past 64 seasons. My father, a founding Fulham supporter, took me to Craven Cottage and also to Chelsea at Stamford Bridge. Then of course there was Saturday morning cinema for us youngsters. We had BBC wireless and I remember all of Churchill’s speeches especially the one in which he said there would be no surrender, “fighting in the streets” etc. My mother’s reaction when the penny dropped that this included her, is a treasured memory. Uncle Mac and Toy town featured on Children’s hour. Food was in short supply and Lord Wootton, the food Minister did his best to keep us fed and healthy. Potatoes, cabbage and stew made from bones, were regular meals.
Christmas was austere but most families managed to obtain a tough old chicken. Presents were simple, a stamp album or Saving Certificates, the latter encouraged a lifelong habit in managing money wisely. Although food was rationed fish and chips were always available from the shop in Askew Road (it is still there). Beer was always available too from pubs and off licences. Sadly one Sunday evening The Sun in Askew Road suffered a direct hit ten minutes before closing time and 60 people died the only survivor being the pet canary.

I lived in Jeddo Road and my close friends, the Hodges family lived in Lefroy Road. They were greengrocers and used to make early morning horse and cart trips to Brentford Market for their produce. They are no longer there but the Barnes undertakers are still in Askew Road, opposite the surgery of Dr Hodes, the family doctor. Kenny Barnes was a good friend as was McConnell of Larden Road, who shared my birthday 11 September.

Sadly when I left Wendell Park in April 1945 for Paddington Tech. I never returned to my old school until a recent visit in 2004. (The Deputy Head of Wendell Park School gave me a conducted tour of the school and I was able to contrast today’s teachers who were caring and helpful in dealing with pupils whose first language was not English. Many were refugees and I believe 15 different first languages was the number quoted.) Thus I lost contact with the teachers and friends who played an important part in my formative years. Of course, I have been attending matches at Loftus Road all these years and last year I took my son and grandchildren to my old home and school. Over the years I have visited Gerrard’s Cross, the common and pond where I fished as an evacuee and walked through Bulstrode Park to Hedgerley. I have taken my grandchildren to Beaconsfield Model Village. I still have fond memories of the villages in Buckinghamshire which to me are so typically English.

I have lived in Hertfordshire since 1958 and now also share a home with my South African partner, Ethne, in Cape Town.

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