"We're at War,Boys," -Part 2

“WE’RE AT WAR, BOYS!”
contd.(Part 2)

The farm was only a few minutes away, so there was little for me do except enjoy the experience of a rare, if brief, car-ride, and point it out. When we arrived, the five-bar gate was open, and we drove in, past the house and directly into the farmyard.
We pulled up in the shadow of the barn just as two huge shire horses appeared, on their way back to the stables from the adjoining pasture. They were being led by farmhands - and on their backs, clinging to a rein and each other for dear life, but looking very pleased with themselves, were Freddy, Dennis - and Tommy.
At that moment I spotted the cine camera, a big black box on tripod legs with its give-away Mickey Mouse ‘ears’ - the film reels. A cameraman was slowly panning across the yard as he followed the movement of the cart horses. The BBC man I was with put his finger to his lips to stop me calling out to my classmates who apparently hadn’t seen me. Then someone yelled:“Cut,”and the brief scene was apparently over.
“Do you want to join them?” asked my companion. “Your friends, I mean. They’re helping to make a Ministry of Information film about evacuees.”
I needed no second bidding, and in a moment I was climbing a ladder to the top of a straw stack with Freddy, Dennis and Tommy. They appeared not the least bit surprised to see me, almost as if they expected me. But Tommy totally ignored me, seeming to resent my presence.
With a heap of straw hurriedly positioned to cushion our fall to the ground we spend the next hour or so sliding down the “roof” of the stack as the camera rolled. In turns we buried each other under cascades of straw. Then we carved out tunnels for ourselves to scurry through like rabbits until one of the farm workers pointed out that the stack above was becoming unstable.
All this occurred as a series of film “takes” lasting a few seconds. In between were considerably longer periods of comparative inactivity as camera and microphone positions were reset. In one break Freddy took the opportunity to tell me how they had become involved.
It seems that the farmer had been contacted by the wartime Information Ministry - forerunner of the Central Office of Information - for his co-operation in filming evacuee children from London “having fun” in the countryside. The Government, it seems, was worried about the number of small evacuated children already returning to the capital. They wanted to show parents - via the screens of the still open cinemas throughout the country - just what life could be like for young townies down on the farm.
Strangely, years on in my working life, I was frequently providing location facilities for film and sound crews of both the BBC and Central Office of Information. But I never knew directly how that wartime film turned out, or what it was called, as I never saw it. Some months later in those war days, however, my mother and my younger sister were at the cinema when my sister suddenly pointed at the screen and yelled out:
“Look - it’s Ray!” And there, apparently, I was, straddling the back of that big, gentle shire horse, and moments later sliding down the “roof” of that huge straw stack.
Almost a lifetime later, thinking of my debut in film-making (by this time I was proud to boast that I had “co-starred” on film with, Charlie Chaplin, among others - though that’s another story) I couldn’t help wondering why the BBC crew needed someone to show them the way to their recording location, if that indeed is what it was. They must have known it was the last farm on the village road, or could have been told just that.
I like to believe that the headmaster, or his deputy, must have known why my three fellow pupils were not at school that day, and decided to give me the opportunity to join them. I seem to remember the deputy head looking directly at me as he asked if anyone knew the way to Dorringtons’ Farm…
*
A year on, and I had to change billets again; I was told that people were worried about a highly contagious skin infection, a form of impetigo, I was suffering, possibly caught on the farm. I had to abandon my milking ambitions and move in with an elderly widow who ran a theoretical hardware shop opposite the Village clock tower.
It must have been theoretical, because I don’t remember seeing a single customer in the months I was there, or for that matter any hardware among the empty cartons on the shop shelves. When the shopkeeper left to join a relative in another area I had to move on again this time to the Potters - the village cobbler and his wife, a cheerful and friendly couple who lived on the opposite side of the clock tower. I even learnt the principles of heeling and re-soling leather shoes, though presumably because of the sharpness of the knives involved, I was never allowed to practice the craft.
For some reason Tommy and “the twins” had joined the drift back to London, (the bombing was not yet a problem in the capital) and another evacuee was taken into the Dorringtons’ farm. Now those of us who stayed on in the village had our first direct experiences of war.
The first of these involved the capture and detention of a German airman by a group of farm workers in the fens beyond the village. His parachute brought him safely to earth after his aircraft was shot down, and he was marched, wary but unresisting, through the village to the police station at the multi-points of legendary pitchforks, to the curiosity and immense satisfaction of all who witnessed his arrival.
And when a single bomb fell on a neighbouring property, the local brickworks, it struck a small completely deserted building in the early hours of the morning. The arrival of the bomb, thought to be the last of one enemy aircraft’s load as it made its way home, was described vividly and with memorable clarity by that new Dorrington’s house guest, a Jewish lad, at school the next day.
Asked what it sounded like so close to hand, he gave a long high pitched whistle, which grew in intensity as he went down the scale until it culminated, after a brief pause, in his sudden but totally unrealistic: “BONK!”
*
At the outbreak of war, my father had insisted that my mother apply to the London County Council, as it then was, for a post as an “evacuation helper.”
My elder sister Joyce - or Frances as she was known when she later adopted her second Christian name - was already a girls’ high school pupil. My younger sister, then aged 6, was attending the Montem Street Infants school and both of my parents were unhappy with the idea of her going away from home to live, perhaps on her own, with strangers. Father was also anxious too about my mother staying in London to face the bombing.
As an official helper, she could care for a number of evacuated children as well as her own, with the right kind of accommodation. And he would be able to get away from London himself on occasional weekends to visit the family in the country.
That was to prove more difficult in practice than theory. It was difficult to find accommodation for three - whatever their ages. My mother and sisters’ first billet, in the centre of Godmanchester, an ancient Roman town lying alongside Huntingdon, was totally unsuitable. The two schools, conveniently, had been evacuated to the same area, but for a time, my mother and sisters had to live in a village two or three miles away.
It was here, at Little Stukeley, situated on a road linking Huntingdon with the A1 to London, that I began my regular Saturday visits to my family by bus from Warboys. The village was very small as was the house next to the Baptist chapel where my mother and sisters were billeted, so I was never able to stay with them. The elderly couple who lived there were the caretakers of the chapel. They kept two dogs, a “retired” greyhound and an old long-haired softie of indeterminate age and breeding who seemed to spend his entire life in the one main armchair. His name was Sooner - because, I was told proudly, he would sooner sleep than get up.
Whenever we could as a family, we would go exploring or window-shopping during my visits. On this occasion, my mother was busy and suggested I walk down to the nearby RAF bomber aerodrome of Alconbury to see the aircraft, and that I take my younger sister with me. I didn’t mind that at all. Seeing the ’planes seemed a great idea, and although we frequently fought like cat and dog or like all brothers and sisters, we liked each other’s company.
Soon we were standing tip-toe on the grass verge of a country road, trying to see over a low hedge. We watched a group of RAF ground staff loading a twin-engine camouflaged and black-painted Wellington with bombs from a ground trolley. I remember lifting Beryl, then almost seven years old, to help her see more clearly.
An aircraftman looked up from his trolley, an 18-inch-long bomb with a bright yellow painted nose cone in his hands, and alerted his team mates to my sister and me, less than a hundred yards away. Someone shouted: “Come on over. You can’t see much from there,” and he pointed to a gap in the hedge a few yards away.
I needed no other prompting, and grabbing Beryl’s hand, made my way to the gap, scrambling down through a ditch to reach it. Together we ran across the grass and on to the concrete bay where the bomber was parked. Now we could clearly see other Wellingtons nearby also being loaded with bombs.
But now the airman who had first spotted us was talking. “Would you like to go on board?” he asked. I needed no further bidding, and in a moment I was hauling mself up through an open hatch in the aircraft’s fuselage, and dragging an unresisting Beryl behind me.
“You can walk along the gangway,” our airman called though the hatch, “ But don’t touch anything. You might blow us all up.”
The aircraft seemed to be completely lined with racks containing bombs and incendiaries of all sizes. I didn’t know it then, of course, but I can now guess the bombs were probably rated up to 100 or perhaps even a 500 pounds of explosive.
We were able to make our way right through to the bomber’s cockpit, passing by the swivelling turret with its loaded machine gun, then peering down to the nose gunner’s huddled position beyond the feet of the pilot and his co-pilot. I don’t remember if my sister was impressed, but I was fascinated and at the same time horrified. For the first time I realised how uncomfortable and cramped it all was for the crew, who would spend several hours aboard in almost total darkness, only to face being shot at on their way or over their target by scores of ack ack or anti-aircraft guns and attacked by fighters as they tried to fly to home and safety.
Beryl tugged at my sleeve and brought me back to reality. “Can we go home now?” she demanded, adding pragmatically: “I want my tea.” So we carefully made our way back to the hatch, and were helped out by the airmen. Then, as our feet touched solid ground, there was a sudden shout from the distance.
“What the blazes are those kids doing there?” demanded the voice of authority.
“Crikey!” muttered “our” airman. “It’s the sergeant.” Then to me: “Quick! Run for it,” he ordered. “Run like the wind to your hole in the hedge. And keep running. Don’t stop.”
I think we ran all the way home - at least a mile. But for the rest of the day I dreaded that knock on the door, and the police or armed soldiers. They might have seen us as spies. The knock never came, and eventually I told my mother of our adventure. She was furious, of course, that I had put my sister in apparent danger.
Nothing about the danger I might have been in of being shot as a spy.
*
It was on one of the weekend excursions to the Huntingdon shops that my elder sister Joyce had her encounter with an aeroplane.
Huntingdon High Street is very narrow - barely wide enough for two vehicles to pass each other. It has now been pedestrianised, but was then a busy through-route. As we made our way along the pavement, frequently stepping into the gutter to allow someone to pass, we were overtaken by a police-car. It was fitted with a loud-hailer on its roof, and an officer was calling out for the road and pavements to be cleared. “An extra wide load is coming through,” he announced, “Keep clear of the road and footpaths. Stand in shop entrances if possible, or leave the area completely.”
My mother dragged my younger sister and I into the nearest shop, in this case Woolworths, then looked round for Joyce. “Stay here,” she ordered, and rushed back outside - just in time to see Joyce reaching out for a bicycle which had been left propped against the kerb, a typical action of someone who always considered others’ needs.
She was about to wheel it across the pavement to safety when a giant military transporter vehicle - the RAF called it a “Queen Mary”- began to pass. On its trailer was the long camouflaged fuselage of a huge bomber, obviously on its way to one of the aerodromes. The transporter was being driven down the centre of the road - because the aircraft wing stubs projected, some five feet above the footpath…and almost brushing the buildings on each side.
Joyce was aware of the vehicle and its load passing her, but had her back to it and didn’t see the projections. She chose to lift her head just at the wrong moment. A wing-stub caught her a glancing blow to the back of her head, throwing her and the bicycle forward.
The incident was all over in a second or two. Although slightly dazed, Joyce thankfully appeared to be unhurt. After a few minutes seated in a chair quickly provided by a helpful Woolworths’ manageress , she recovered enough to walk slowly back to the billet.
But as we left the shop, we distinctly heard one woman shopper telling another: “These aeroplanes fly far too low. There’s a poor girl in there who was hit on the head by one.
“It shouldn’t be allowed.”
*
(To be continued; see: “WE’RE AT WAR, BOYS!” Part 3)

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