Cyril Davies

Born 4 February 1935

Married 14 December 1957

 

Grey, drab, colourless - a world out of depression, a world with little hope - racing towards war. The year 1935. In a low-cost Council housing estate one mile from the banks of the River Mersey, and five from the shipbuilding yards of Birkenhead in North West England, new life is bursting forth this early February. Not yet the new life of the crocus and the daffodil that will shortly abound in the nearby woods and valleys, but the life of a child being born to a young housewife, already the mother of two girls, Violet Davies, and her bricklayer husband Eric.

The name for the expected child was chosen months before, repetitive questions from the girls, Marion now aged five, and Barbara just four, had received the constant answer, Peter! No thought of another girl, no thought of a multiple birth.

The lights burn beyond midnight, a fire burns brightly in the open hearth of the upstairs bedroom, as the activity of the attendant midwife and the expectant mother nears the climax. A head appears, then hand and arm follow pushing the head out of the way. A male child appears, and the participants at this birth realise that there is a second child to follow, pushed aside by this first born - Peter. Half an hour later the yet unnamed twin, another boy, is born. This is his story - Cyril Davies.

The twin boys - born of separate seeds start to take on different personalities right from the start, Peter, fair haired and stocky build favouring father Eric, Cyril dark and slim after his dark-haired slender mother.

Their first birthday arrives with little incident, but as the winter progresses Cyril is taken with pneumonia, and rushed to hospital for emergency treatment. Concern is expressed, only a 50/50 chance of survival is given. A frantic mother seeks assurance and asks if the baby’s chances would be more or less if taken home. The doctors can only say "the same". So mother decides that home is where her baby will be. Her love and devotion, win through - her baby survives.

Those first years are but a kaleidoscope of vague memories for young Cyril, a series of half remembered incidents that are woven into the fabric of life, incidents that help mould a pliable mind and personality into the individual that slowly emerges into manhood.

Another winter in the council house, home to this struggling family. Big sisters take pride in their twin brothers, bring friends home to see their bath time, and to help their mother, heavy with child once more.

Fires are lit, towels spread on the floor in front of the hearth, and the tin bath brought in. Buckets of warm water carried and poured from the laundry ‘copper’ in the kitchen. A ‘spark catcher’ guard is carefully placed around the fireplace for safety, and fresh clothes laid out to air and warm. Bath time is a precious time of fun and sharing for the family.

Increasing tensions in Europe do not seep into the lives of this young family. Their cares are dictated by the daily battles of survival, not the warmongering ravings of a distant dictator and weak willed politicians avoiding confrontation.

Spring bursts forth in colour and beauty as the snows melt, the fields - ploughed and harrowed through the winter, take on the green of new growth of wheat, and barley, oats and corn, and the new birth of twin girls sisters to two year old Cyril.

Dawn to dusk is a constant activity for Vi, feeding, bathing and clothing the babies and toddlers, helped only by the two older girls. The week is regulated and planned, no time off to sit and relax, no time to be concerned at the activities of others. Knitting and sewing, baking and bottling, the nimble fingers ever busy providing for the family. No modern day microwaves or washing machines, just a boiler and dolly-peg for the weekly wash, no spin-drier to ease the burden, but a hand operated mangle beside the kitchen sink, no electric iron to glide across modern fabrics, but a pair of cast-iron ‘irons’ heated on the gas stove, rotated as they cool, and tested on newspaper to ensure they do not scorch the precious clothes.

Her day begins with alarm clock ringing to prepare breakfast and carry-out lunch for Eric. Measuring tea and sugar into twists of newspaper for his billycan at the building sites. Bacon ‘butty’ sandwiches his favourite lunch and ‘saucer’ apple-pies, prepared by Vi the day before, sweeten the day. Six a.m. winter and summer sees the couple hug and part for the day, six days of every week, fifty weeks of every year. Six pm the welcome home, precious moments when children fade into the background, and they savour the company of each other.

The scampering hoards descend rummaging through dad’s lunch-bag, seeking leftovers from his midday meal.

The children grow, becoming more independent as parental supervision lessens. Stepping out into a world which finds itself at war, and the hardships of living becoming harder with the drafting of husbands and sons into the armed forces, and sisters and wives into a land-army, producing food for the nation, or in factories to feed the war machine.

Eric, a soccer player in his youth, and toughened by an outside lifestyle on the buildings is chagrined to find that he is rejected, medically unfit for armed service. A sporting injury years before the culprit, a broken collar bone that had never set.

War brings further hardships and restraints. Rationing of food and clothing, the limiting of travel, the variety of goods in the shops becoming less and less.

This tale is not from personal recollections, but from stories told to me by family members. I was about eighteen months old, just toddling, but not talking very much.

Usually Marion or Barbara would be looking after me whilst playing with their friends. Slowly they became aware that I was missing. For hours they searched for me, recruiting friends and neighbours in the hunt. Still no sign. Then suddenly I appeared, toddling towards them. Repeated questioning was unable to elicit where I had been, until an ice-cream vendor on his bicycle appeared. ‘Baby mere, baby mere’ I said. They looked at me askance. Raby Mere, a popular weekend venue, and the haunt of ice-cream vendors was over two miles away, across bridges, streams, woods, valleys and down lanes. Surely I could not have been there by myself. Unbelievable, but the only possible explanation for the event. To this day, a mere mystery.

Peter and Cyril are now five years old, and Easter brings not only the new Spring, but the start of schooling at the village school. Shepherded by mum on the first day it falls to Marion and Barbara to escort the boys on the mile walk morning and afternoon thereafter.

The summer holidays provide a welcome break from the new routine of school. Singleton’s farm in the lane near the park a principle attraction, with the cows and carthorses in the shippens and stables, chickens in the yards, pigs in the sties, and ducks upon the pond.

Vi, quietly baking in her kitchen, cocks an ear as she recognises a child’s cry of terror and fright carried on the wind from a quarter of a mile away, her child’s cry! Dropping culinary impediments, her black hair streaming behind her and long slender legs striding effortlessly across the fields, towards the source of an offspring in trouble.

Her eyes, sweeping the unfolding vista ahead focus on a group near a cluster of buildings. Jack Singleton is holding her Cyril over the pigs in the sty. Parental protection explodes into anger at the farmer, seeking an explanation for his actions, and the story of children stone throwing at the ducks on the pond does not lessen Vi’s wrath. She is the instrument of justice and punishment in her household, no outsider will usurp that authority.

The long summer days provide the environment for ever new experiences. The fifty odd houses on the estate, the last in the village before the expanse of countryside around, the homes of young families of children, playing and exploring together, a new generation with its nurture controlled and regulated by the effects of war, it’s freedom of expression, and lack of restraint due to that same war, and the absence of fathers soldiering overseas. Food becomes more scarce as the war proceeds, smaller adjacent fields are divided into ‘allotments’ and allocated to each household to grow their own vegetables. Sunday is now ‘allotment day’ digging, planting, cultivating and reaping, supplementing the rationed foodstuffs still available in the shops. A packet of Rowntrees Fruit Gums ample reward for the ‘help’ given to dad.

Air-raid sirens wail, forcing families into wakefulness heralding the approach of enemy bomber formations droning across the night sky. Blackout curtains are thrown back to allow the dim light of the moon to penetrate into the home whilst children are ushered under kitchen tables and into under-stair cupboards for protection from possible bombs, mattresses and blankets off the beds providing scant protection in those early months of war.

A corrugated iron shed is then built in the garden next door, the first of many that are to be built as air-raid shelters, protection from the shrapnel of exploding bombs, the collapse of buildings ravaged by war.

Shared by six families, about twenty-four people, this six foot by ten foot is the haven on many a night when German raiders attempt to penetrate the defences of the local shipyards and the Port of Liverpool across the Mersey, until each family has its own bunker.

"Eric - is that rain?" Vi calls out from inside the shelter during one air-raid attack, as she hears the sound of running water. An hour or so before we had all been ushered into the bunker, and dad had gone through his usual procedure of filling the bath with water in case of incendiary bombs being dropped. Then going outside with the other menfolk who were not away in the war to search the night-skies for activity. This night forgetful of the bath filling and then overflowing throughout the lower floor of the house before running down the steps to the yard outside and threatening the underground shelter. It was a slow process mopping out when no lights could be shown and everything had to be done in the dark.

Yanks! They’re Yanks - American Soldiers. As truck after truck, bursting at the seams with men in uniform, droned into the valley and up the hill towards the deserted golf course, crowds of us waved and raced towards the convoy scooping up coins and gum and bars of chocolate thrown to us by the laughing khaki clad men in the rear.

In no time at all, rows and rows of tents appeared, each housing six soldiers, and wooden huts erected surrounded by rolls of barbed wire. Our village doubled in population almost overnight.

A new status game of collecting American cigarette packets began, swapping and cadging to prove superiority amongst our peers. Our ability to cadge cigarettes for dads, gum and chocolate for ourselves, increased daily.

I stared in dismay, my stomach turning over almost uncontrollably, my heart in my mouth as I looked at the tangled mass on the plate in front of me. Eight years of age and befriended by some American soldiers I had been invited to have lunch in their canteen. A sea of khaki seated at endless tables stretched into the distance around me. I felt small and insignificant seated between these two huge men, and there, served up on a tin plate in front of me was a red and white mixture I had never seen before. Too embarrassed to ask questions, I attempted to eat the uncontrollable writhing mess in front of me with the proffered fork. Tentative at first, I soon found the food quite palatable and enjoyable. Spaghetti was my new experience.

Dawn broke, and the light, brighter and whiter than normal, spread into the bedroom where Pete and I slept together in the old double bed. The room big enough only for the bed and a chest of drawers adjacent to a built-in airing cupboard housing the hot-water tank.

Clad only in one of Dad’s old shirts as a ‘nightie’ we leaped to the window to peer out across the garden and fields beyond. "It’s snowing, its snowing" we yelled, grabbing for pants and socks to race downstairs and get a closer look.

The pristine scene before us gleamed and beckoned, urging us to stamp our footprints into that unblemished blanket of white, to collect and mould and throw balls of snow at one another to roll and sculpture snowmen, fashioned with begloved hands that threshed and banged to regain warmth and circulation before plunging once again into the tingling crisp snow around us.

Small stones and pieces of coal sought for facial features, old rags and clothes to bedeck and dress the created shapes.

Sleds appear as if from nowhere, dragged out of back sheds and unheeded piles of last year’s debris, or the rapid construction of a new sled from packing boxes and strips of metal.

Wrapped against the cold, we trudged across the snow-covered fields through the woods and valley, across the stream to the slopes beyond, dragging the sleds behind.

Venturing only onto the lower slopes at first we would become more daring as the day progressed making longer and longer sled runs down the hills and aiming for the narrow bridges across the half-frozen stream below.

Many a time our aim or control of the sled was at fault, necessitating a rapid roll-off before the sled plunged into the waters below. Wood and bracken gathered to start a fire to keep warm and guard against the eventuality of a soaking.

Children of all ages thronged the slopes, unfettered, outside the control and supervision of adults, a children’s world which developed communication skills and a hierarchy within itself, independent, without need, totally self-reliant. A world which heeded parents in the home, teachers at school, but their peers at play.

"Cyril, we need some coal for the fire!". The coalman had delivered our weekly ration some days before, but the cold winter had meant the fires burning brighter and longer than normal in the open grate in the living room.

Even the pile of logs gathered and cut from the nearby woods had failed to eke out the supply until the next delivery.

Pete and I often went across the fields to the railway track which carried the freight and passengers to destinations beyond our comprehension. These coal burning steam trains, which hooted and belched their way through the cuttings and across the landscape, also provided us with a source of free coal. Having left Birkenhead only minutes before with full tenders of fuel, they often left a trail along the track from the over-full wagons. A tin bucket carried between us could soon hold sufficient lumps of this black gold to keep the home fire burning for another night.

Bath night was Friday night. Our daily ablutions consisted of washing our hands and face, with the occasional dab at a dirty knee. But Friday was different. The fires would be lit or set to draw, heating the water in the ‘back boiler’. A process which took several hours to heat a tankful.

It was no surprise therefore that the bath water was not wasted. Two at a time, and sometimes four at once, went into the bath on the same night, the cleanest first (usually the girls), the water being topped up at each change over to keep it hot. Even Dad would follow us kids sometimes if the water was still relatively clean.

The awe-inspiring facade of Liverpool’s waterfront has greeted many a seafarer, many an immigrant, many a traveller. But to a young child, looking at it across the murky, fog misted waters of the Mersey, it appeared as the fairytale castles of our storybooks, the pied-piper of our dreams, ever calling but just beyond reach. The shipping that plied the river in those days had names that conjured up the tales of adventure in far-off lands, of treasure to be unearthed and wonders to be explored.

My grandfather on my mother’s side had been a marine engineer with the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board, and when he died Gran had been given a cottage to live in down by the entrance to the Manchester Ship Canal, the inland waterway that took cargo to and from the heart of Manchester. Raw cotton from the Americas coming in, finished materials from the mills of Lancashire out to the uttermost reaches of the Empire. It was the spinal chord that kept the industry of the northwest of England throbbing.

As lads, Pete and I would often walk from our village to see Gran, and to play on the river bank and the canal side, racing alongside the gigantic ships as the barges pushed them into the narrow channel that led into to the loch at the canal mouth, watch in awe as the loch gates closed and the waters rushed in to lift those huge ships up to the canal level, and then move slowly off with their cargoes. Sailors, sunburned, swarthy, bearded and brawny, waving and laughing at these would-be Olympians faltering on the shore, standing and dreaming long after the ships and disappeared into the haze.

Though only a few miles across the river, Liverpool was a journey of exciting, epic proportions, a special treat undertaken once or twice a year, for Christmas shopping or a Pantomime or with Dad to a football match to see Everton or Liverpool play. Mum would oversee our preparations, boots shined, socks pulled straight, hair combed, the lick of a handkerchief to remove a facial smudge mark, and then we were off, a mile long walk to the bus terminus in the village, and the tantalising wait for the arrival of the big double-decker bus that would take us on the five mile journey to Birkenhead and the landing stage for the Mersey ferry boats, with the alluring names of Royal Iris and Royal Daffodil. Ferry boats made world-famous by the songwriters of the sixties, and the Mersey Beat. Then the heaving, rolling ride as the ferry crossed the wakes of the ships and barges entering and leaving the harbours. Seeing the huge cranes and gantries of the shipyards where new ships were being built, or older ships repaired.

Approaching the Liverpool landing stage we could look up and see the Liver-birds atop the majestic Victorian buildings on the river front, miles and miles of warehouses and tidal docks for the tea, tobacco, sugar, cotton, flax and wool, bananas from Jamaica, oranges from Seville, tomatoes from the Canaries, spices for the food processors, copra for the soap makers, oils for the margarine factories, and iron ore for the steel works. Who could foresee that within twenty short years the activity would fade, the warehouses become empty and gaunt, and the shipyards idle. But today it was new, exciting and enthralling.

Disembarking, we raced up the steep slope of the floating landing stage, onto the cobbled forecourt of the river-front, to the hustle and bustle of trams and buses carrying the crowds away into the city centre. The department stores and shops were filled with treasures undreamed of, even during wartime. Life felt good. Today you cannot recapture the experiences of the past, the first taste of the fruits of life. It is but once in a lifetime.

"Hey Ciggy - there’s been a policeman looking for you at your house. He’s been talking to Tommy Sergeant too - it’s about Pickering’s apples".

My heart sank, Pickering had an orchard near the church behind the village school, not too easy to get to without being spotted, and we thought we had been careful.

I was just coming home from my newspaper delivery round when I was met by one of the local lads. Quickly retracing my steps to get out of sight of home I anxiously questioned my informant. As he gave me as much information as he had gleaned, memory came flooding back of when Tommy and I had scaled the cemetery wall and filled our jackets with prize apples from Pickering’s orchard, two days before. Scampering off as swift as jack-rabbits when we had sufficient for our needs, we had slowed to a nonchalant walk when at a safe distance from the scene of the crime, enjoying the fruits of our labour.

Passing the first of the estate houses, we were hailed by two girls asking us where we got the apples we were openly enjoying. Proud of our exploits, we made no secret of the source of our supplies, secure in the knowledge that all evidence would soon be eradicated. "Pickerings!".

How little we misunderstood the intelligence levels of those two awestruck females! As we wended our way home it transpired that these two recipients of our confidence decided that they too could share in the bounty so beneficially provided.

Racing off, they approached Pickering’s orchard without thought to caution or concealment. Stripping fruit from the laden trees, they unhurriedly ate where they stood, lingering where they should have fled. Until the heavy hand of old Pickering fell upon the scruffs of their necks.

"But Ciggy Davies and Tommy Sergeant said we could come here".

A caution from the policeman, when he finally caught me at home, was the penalty for trusting others (or should I say boasting to others!) A lesson was learned - no, not to stop scrumping - stop telling others!.

The cat was sitting proudly on the step at the front of the house, its tail swishing from side to side in contentment, the door standing open, the sun shining down with a pleasant warmth, a light breeze stirring the leaves in the garden.

Crash! A sudden gust of wind had slammed the door, the cat, howling down the path, minus half a tail, and we didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, instant Manx Cat was not a common sight.

The baths were open. Long queues formed on the Saturday afternoon to get into the pool. Summer was here and we were going to make the most of it.

Queuing to get in was the first part, then queuing again to hire a ‘cosie’, the navy-blue serge full bodice bathing costume that was still the fashion at that time.

Oh how we hated those, but we didn’t own costumes of our own. When we went to the seaside Mum would put a spare pair of girls knickers on us, nobody knew us there, but here at the baths we were surrounded by school mates. No girls ‘keks’ for us here.

"Whoompf" the explosion reverberated through the dark recesses of the `Otters Bridge’, a long dual tunnel under the railway lines connecting the woods to the parkland beyond. One side of the tunnel carried the stream that bore the illustrious title of the River Dibbin, the other the walking track, used by visitors to the country walks.

Several young girls, caught in the middle of the dark void when the explosion occurred, ran screaming back the way they had entered, straight into the laughing crowd of local boys, just waiting for such ‘entertainment’. Having signalled, to their friends at the other side to drop rocks from the top of the tunnel onto a rail-track fog detonator, perfectly positioned for maximum effect when the girls had entered the tunnel. With the sure aim of consistent practice, those ‘explosions’ could be timed to a nicety.

The Gypsies are back!

A clearing in the small copse between the village and the new bypass road provided an ideal camping ground for the itinerant gypsies that came through the village periodically. The women gaily clothed, selling clothes pegs door to door, the men offering to repair pots and pans, sharpening scissors and knives and seeking other casual work.

"Keep away from the gypsies, they steal children and make them into slaves!" Such warnings only added spice to our adventures, creeping up to the camp site and watching them prepare their meals over open fires. Sometimes we would be bold enough to sidle right up to the fireside watching them wrap hedgehogs in clay to bake in the hot coals. Cracking the clay open and peeling back, so that spines and skin fell away to reveal the tender meat of the flesh. A ready source of fresh meat in those woods and hedgerows.

"Peter, Cyril, Ruby, Joan one for each of you - take them to school now and give them to your teacher".

"What are they for Mum?". We stared at the assortment of small tin boxes mum had prepared with our respective names clearly marked on the top, sealed with tape around the edges.

"They are in case you have to go into the school air-raid shelter and get hungry, there’s a few biscuits and things for you to eat."

Such were the preparations made at the schools. The constant threat of air-raids and possible gas and bombing attacks ensured a state of readiness and practice among all age groups. Gas masks were donned and tested every week, and shelter drill nearly as often.

Years later, well after the war was finished, those small named tins were returned to us. We eagerly opened them to see the treasures inside, amazed that everything was still edible after such a period of time.

She was beautiful, nine years old, we had a new girl in class. I was in love, besotted. I followed her home to see where she lived, watched where she hung her coat in the cloakroom and slipped notes into her pockets during our playtime. "I love you" I wrote and anxiously waited for her reply. Week after week went by without any acknowledgement. She didn’t even notice me when I walked past.

I wonder now if I ever put my name on those slips of paper!

War time rationing pervaded every aspect of family living. Clothing, meat, tea, all of the major foodstuffs, eggs, even for chicken-meal you had to give up your egg ration. If you wanted bed linen you would have to save coupons for weeks, even months. So necessity became the mother of invention. Jam was rationed, and so was sugar, but sweetened condensed milk wasn’t, so that could sweeten your tea or be spread on your bread. At the chemist you could buy tins of blackcurrant preserve, it was more expensive than jam, but no ration coupons were needed. For babies and children under five there was a special ration book which enabled them to have orange juice from the chemist, and bananas from the greengrocer.

Petrol coupons were only available to essential services personnel like doctors or shift workers in the steel industry. The grocery store did not get it’s flour and sugar, as we do today, in one and two kilogram bags, but in large sacks, and then they would weigh it out and bag it as you ordered it. Sugar came in coarse sacking, but flour was in fine white linen-style bags. We would queue up to buy the empty bags, because split, bleached and sewn together they made very good bed sheets.

Knitting wool was also rationed, so it was common practice to undo older garments and then re-knit the wool into new ones. Dad used to buy floor-mop heads, die them and make them into rugs. It was a life of make-do and mend.

After the war, as food and clothing became more plentiful, the factories working again and imports coming in from overseas, the rationing system was slowly discarded. I can remember when bread came off ration, a popular illustrated national magazine had racks and racks of bread as it’s front cover. The ration books were finally discontinued in 1951 or early 1952, more than six years after the war was finished and twelve years after rationing was introduced.

Today’s society is a disposable society, everything comes packaged, and the packing eventually gets to the garbage dump. In wartime Britain it was an environment built around reuse and recycling.

From apple crates to potato sacks, jam jars to soft-drink bottles, everything was stamped with a return value. The flour bags we used for bedsheets were bought from the store at their return value. As kids we would scavenge around to find articles that had been discarded, so as to claim their value from the local store. Soft-drink bottles were a ready source in the summer months when people came from far afield to our woods and valleys for picnics, but would not bother to take their empty bottles away. We would often be disappointed however if the manufacturer was a ‘foreigner’ and the local store wouldn’t accept them.

There was a big campaign in the early years of the war to save paper. At school we were organised to collect old newspapers and take them to the school as a collection depot. I got a germ in my eyes, which caused conjunctivitis, through collecting this waste.

I woke in a panic, I couldn’t open my eyes which were sealed tight with matter that had seeped from them during the night. I was about seven or eight years old a frightened child, crying out for Mum.

With bowls of warm water and cotton-wool swabs, Mum worked on my eyes for almost an hour before they were cleared of the mucus.

Straight off to the doctor for attention, to find that my eyes were filled with a germ multiplying rapidly. It would have caused blindness without immediate attention. Eye drops and bathings were the routine for many weeks to follow. A lasting legacy is the weakness of one eye.

It was Sunday, the fire was lit in the hearth, and set to heat the oven. Mum would bring the rice pudding through from the kitchen to bake when it was hot enough, the gas oven often proving to be too small for a family of eight.

Sometime later Mum came through to check that we had set the table properly. "What’s that noise?" She asked. We looked at her, we couldn’t hear anything, but then a slight scratching noise coming from the oven.

We opened it wonderingly, and out staggered our cat, half cooked alive. It had crept into the oven for the warmth, being trapped when the door was closed. It was lucky for him she came in when she did.

He lost some of his fur but got over it. I don’t think he ever climbed into the oven again.

I’d never seen Mum climb a tree before, but I suppose there is a first time for everything. One of our young kittens had strayed and been chased up a tree near the rail track. It had been up there all night. We were too young to climb up, so Mum had to do it, or the kitten would have been there to this day.

The Clydesdale plough horse needed re-shoeing, so Jack Singleton let us take it up to the smithy in the village.

Just behind the Church Hall was the collection of tin sheds and cobbled yard of the blacksmith. Oh how we liked to watch him work. He would let us pull on the overhead bellows to get the fire all glowing and hot, casting in the metal rods, big tongs grasping, deft hands twisting and positioning on the anvil whilst the hammer rained down beating and shaping and sizing the new shoes.

Lifting the heavy fetlock onto the leather apron across his knee he would wrench and cast aside the old shoes before cutting and cleaning and rasping smooth the hooves of the horse, standing quietly, unheedingly by. Then, one by one the new shoes would be fitted and nailed into place. They shone and gleamed as they struck the cobbles with the distinctive clear ring of new shoes.

Clothing in wartime Britain was scarce, The girls dresses and the our pants would be patched and repaired to extend their life. Ration coupons needed to be saved in order to replace unrepairable items. So a new pair of grey flannelette pants was a rare treat. ‘Only for Sundays, now!’

We went to church in our new clothes, having been told to change afterwards. But friends at play, and slippery banks that made ideal slides, were too much of a temptation. Then, horror of horrors, a big, damp, muddy patch on the seat of my new pants. What would mum say?

I slunk into the house, trying to avoid mum in the kitchen and dad in the garden. I managed to get into the living room before dad came in and sat down. I crawled behind the armchair pretending to read a book by the toy cupboard there. Waiting, hoping, praying that he would get up and go outside again. No such luck. Mum then came in from the kitchen. ‘Cyril, are you there, lay the table for lunch will you!’ I was petrified, there was no way I could get past both of them without them seeing my backside. Slowly I emerged, watching their faces apprehensively. Then trying vainly to run as dad’s hand descended on my arm and dragged me out. The clothes brush was reached for, but it was the back of it that was applied, raising dust clouds from the dried mud, and howls from above.

The ripples slowly spread across the surface of the pond as the water fowl emerged from the rushes at the side, gliding effortlessly away from the small noise that had disturbed her.

We held our breath, gingerly hanging onto the branches of the trees overhanging the water, our eyes searching for the concealed nest of the coot which we had been stalking for the past ten minutes.

"There it is! - there it is!" Yes, just above water level in the tufts of marsh grass nestled five eggs, smaller than a small chicken’s egg, these were the prizes we had been seeking.

Spread-eagled so as not to sink into the mud and water, Cyril gingerly raided the nest, placing the eggs carefully into a piece of old bed sheet used as a handkerchief.

These would make a tasty meal boiled in an old tin-can over a small campfire and eaten with hot potatoes baked in the hot coals. Even as primary school kids, we could make sure we did not go hungry.

"It’s my turn now".

Clambering up into the huge oak tree with it’s large limbs spreading out above the small crowd of youngsters, we were each taking turns on the rope-swing tied to one of the upper branches.

Climbing up into the foliage the next in line would have the rope swung and thrown up to him so that he could stand on the knot tied into the end and throw himself out into space to swing backwards and forwards until the momentum slowed sufficiently for him to jump off, surrendering the swing to the next in line.

Peter’s turn. He had already ascended into the hidden reaches of the branches above, calling for the rope to be thrown up. Catching it as it came within his reach, he began pulling, only to find his progress impeded. Henry Jones, bigger and older than all of us there, had appeared, and decided he wanted a swing on the rope. A quick yank and the unsuspecting Pete catapulted out of the tree with an ear piercing yell.

Once again Cyril marvelled at the speed with which Mum hurdled the back fence and fields to appear at our side, closely followed by Mr. Thurstaton carrying his St. John’s Ambulance First Aid Kit.

Luckily nothing more than a blooded nose and a broken tooth, but did Henry Jones know all about it when Mum had finished with him!

"Hide! Somebody’s coming"

Five nude and semi-nude small boys, not yet in their teens, scampered in and out of the rooms of the deserted and derelict huts that had once been home to the U.S. Forces on the local golf course. Spread around were half dried clothes that had been shed after a soaking.

Nearby, a small lake on which floated a large timber door, a schoolboys dream - a raft! Not half an hour before they had clambered aboard, one to each corner and the fifth in the centre, pushing the craft into the middle of the spread of water with the help of long poles they had cut in the nearby woods.

Serenely enjoying this new freedom they were blissfully unaware of one corner slowly sinking under the weight of one of the heavier boys. Suddenly, water over his ankles, this epitome of British stoicism, erupted into action with a mad scramble to the adjacent corner, his calm, calculating mind, unperturbed by the imbalance now being realigned, causing an increasingly rapid overflow at the new area of this illusory sanctuary.

Titanic shipwrecks floated into the minds of the others as they rushed from side to side before four of the five jumped into the water, floundering towards the banks. Alone, without pole or paddle, stood the one nonswimmer on the now enlightened raft, wet only to the knees, Cyril.

It therefore fell to him to gather wood and light the old rusty stove in the hut nearby, to dry their clothes. It fell to him to distract the two old ladies, gathering firewood, away from the embarrassing nudity displayed in the nearby room, it fell to him to pull Peter’s singeing pants away from the new red-hot stove - a mute testimony to the deeds of the day.

The upper branches of the tall and slender tree swayed gently as the nimble youth scaled into the heights of the canopy of the woods. Aptly nicknamed Squirrel, he ascended higher and higher seeking more precarious hand and footholds until the panoramic view of the access tracks was laid out before him. He was the lookout, the ‘diggy-eye’, entrusted with the task of tracking the movements of the park-keeper, an old man of not so nimble movement, but the wielder of great authority in the form of a heavy gnarled walking stick. It did not do to be caught unawares by this enforcer of the park regulations - No Fires Permitted.

The telltale smoke spiralled it’s way heavenward, wending its way into the leaves and branches until it burst through into the clear blue sky above, an immediate sign of flouted laws.

The habits of the ranger had been studiously examined, the boys knew to a tee how long it would take for him to sight the rising plume of smoke from his hut in the park. How long it would take him to reach them, and how big they could build that fire on the small sandbank in the middle of the stream just out of reach of the ranger’s stick, flailing helplessly in the air, while they laughed and shouted from behind the safety of the ten foot water barrier of the River Dibbin.

It was approaching Christmas again, the year 1940, and the annual search of cupboards and wardrobes, drawers and cubbyholes was on looking for hidden presents. Pete and I pulled open the large drawer of the wardrobe in the girl’s bedroom, heavy and solid.

There, nestling under a layer of summer clothes, packed away for the winter, were two guns. Black barrels and magazines gleaming against the timber brown stocks, we were awestruck, dumb.

"Dad’s going into the Army" we whispered, then called out more loudly racing down the stairs "Mum, dad’s going into the Army, his guns are in the drawer."

"No, he’s just looking after them for somebody" Mum replied. Sure enough, when we continued our toy search the next day, the guns had gone.

Christmas Day dawned, Peter and I woke as normal at Christmas in the dark, feeling for our stuffed stockings and presents. "What is it Pete, what is it?" "It feels like a gun, it is a gun". Rat-tat-a-tat, "Dad’s made us a gun". Our discovery the previous days before were toy guns Dad had just made and hidden from us. Tommy guns that clattered as we turned the handle on the magazine. He was kept busy for weeks after until nearly every kid on the street had one too.

It’s a twenty-niner! The loud boast of the schoolboy as he proudly displayed his prize conker - the horse-chestnut, harvested, soaked in vinegar and slowly heated in the oven to increase its hardness before being threaded onto a piece of string or bootlace.

The trees were laden with the nuts, green and spiky outer case, concealing the shiny round nut inside, inedible to all except horses, but as conkers - status symbols that could outrank all others at this time of year.

The two contestants would face each other, tossing a coin to see who would start. The loser would tentatively hold up his conker, swinging slightly at the end of it’s string, the other contestant would take aim, swing his conker, striking down in an endeavour to smash the other.

If it hit and survived, then it was the other’s turn, until one of them disintegrated into a myriad of pieces. If they were two new conkers, the winner was a ‘one-er’. If either had been in other battles, the scores of the winner and the loser were added together, plus one for this win. A ‘sixer’ smashing a ‘fiver’ became a ‘twelver’. No cheating in this game, status was too important.

The conker season heralded the approach of winter, and the common chestnut. Lumps of wood would be hurled into the huge trees in an endeavour to dislodge the ripening nuts. Collecting and shelling them by the bucketful, we would take them home to store for Christmas, or roast them on the open fires, with potatoes baked in the hot coals. We sat around and swapped tales of adventure, as the flames flickered down and calls from homes drew us away and the night fell silent.

Sunday was a day of devotion and attendance at church, no football to be played, no rough games in the streets. The ruffians of the week became angels - shining faces, slicked hair and a penny for the collection grasped in their hot hands, as they meandered towards the village church for their afternoon Sunday School.

Lunch had been eaten, tables cleared and the children ushered out of homes to give the parents a small respite from their noise and clamouring. Sunday afternoon on this languid summer’s day was the scene of tranquillity far from guile and everyday villainy.

"Let’s get some copra". Cyril and two friends, with nearly an hour to spare before Sunday School was due to start at 3 o’clock, decided to make a profitable investment with the collection money. Scampering onto the ‘bus standing at the terminus by the church hall, they gave up half a penny each to the conductor "Port Sunlight, please".

Port Sunlight, the next village towards the ports of Birkenhead and Liverpool, was the site of Lever Brothers Soap Works, a huge factory complex that had rail tracks and shunting yards full of freight carriages, carriages that went in full of copra - the flesh of coconut crushed for it’s oil content, and came out empty - but not quite!

The full carriages were covered with tarpaulins securely fastened and guarded by security patrols - the empty ones just shunted into the holding yards untended, unheeded, except by these shrewd traders.

Scavenging in and out of the trucks they gleaned piece after piece of the copra until their pockets bulged. Then with a keen sense of timing, raced back to board a return bus, arriving at the church yard in time to sell their ill gotten gains - one penny a handful. The church still got their collection so God wouldn’t mind.

Bows, Arrows and Catapults were our weapons of war.

Constantly searching the woods and hedgerows for suitable materials. A smooth forked branch for the catapult, a long slender springy branch for the bow, short straight sticks for the arrows.

Splitting and binding the shafts, sharpening the points and hardening them in the fire was a necessary part of the craft. Feathers from bird and fowl sought after for the flights. Bending and stringing the bow an art in itself. Did we walk tall when we had perfected the tension and quivered our arrows.

It was spring again and we were about to be invaded.

The woods abounded with bluebells and wild daffodil, the hills were a mass of colour, and the ‘townies’ were going to invade and ravage our territory. Bus after bus, loaded with kids who had no respect for our woods, our flowers, were about to descend and sweep like a flood across the landscape, pulling the bluebells up by the roots until they could carry no more, then, as arms ached on the walk back to the bus, slowly discarding the flowers along the lane-sides, wasted and dying, no longer a proud and a beautiful flower swaying in the breeze, but so much litter rejected and forlorn.

This we determined to defend.

No longer fighting between ourselves, we became bound together against this common enemy - ‘the townie’.

Armed with our newly made weapons, our strength lay in our preparedness and determination. Against vastly superior numbers we could harass and fight a guerrilla war, isolating small groups, capturing and threatening with arrows and catapults, to extract promises to leave our flowers and woods alone. Threats of torture and retribution soon had these invaders whimpering and retreating to the safety of parental supervision, a lesson learned on conservation.

It was den-digging time. The ground had been softened up by the summer rains, time to select new secretive sites, dig into the hillside, avoiding tree roots and create our new den.

Four feet square and three foot deep. Dig out a fireplace and chimney in one wall, a narrow entrance and steps in the opposite one.

The soft heavy clay below the light peaty surface was ideal for digging, our spades cutting cleanly through the plasticine-like material. Light a fire in the bottom to dry out the walls and floor and then line with old sacks and pieces of linoleum rescued from the tip.

Cutting branches to form a roof, we would then pack it with grass and clay before spreading peat and leaf mould on the top to disguise its location. The chimney from the fireplace would be led away from the den site so that any telltale smoke would emerge well away from the entrance. Finally a piece of sacking would cover the access, with dead branches the final disguise.

Secreting candles for lighting we were then ready for the gang meetings held in the early evenings as the warmth of the sun dispersed and the cosiness of fire and companionship drew us together whiling away the eventime before racing home for our beds.

Ears to the ground we lay down on the rail-tracks listening for a distant train. The signals had changed indicating that there would be one along soon.

Several halfpenny pieces were laid out on the rail-track, six inch nails crossed by one inch nails to form the shape of a cross, beside them. We heard the rumble of the train in the distance, the track was flat and straight, the belching smoke of the train appeared on our horizon.

Waiting for as long as we dared we stood at the track-side, then raced half way up the embankment, well clear by the time the train thundered past.

Pouring down the slope as soon as it was past we descended onto our nails and coins, potential miniature daggers to be filed and sharpened, the nails fused together by the weight and heat of the train wheels; a vain hope that the coins may now resemble pennies.

My friend Tommy Sergeant lived next door. He was the youngest in their family with three older sisters. Mrs. Sergeant and mum used to carry pots of tea across the side fence to each other to share, and would often borrow cups of sugar, tea or milk when they ran out.

Tommy’s bedroom window and our bedroom window were only a few feet apart in the terraced council houses, and we would bang on the walls to attract attention and then we would swing comic books across to each other.

The tent was up and Tommy knocked on our back door. Ten-year-old Tommy’s eldest sister was married - and she had a tent that we could use for overnight camping in their garden. Mostly it was for the mischief we could get into. Tonight was such a night.

It was late summer and the apple trees in the various local orchards were dripping with mature, enticing fruit. Watched over by pecuniary-minded owners they were inaccessible by day, but, so we figured, not by night!

Tommy and I had hatched a plan to redistribute the benefits of this plentiful harvest. Camp in the garden, wait until everybody was asleep, and then creep out to raid a small orchard nearby. Foolproof!

After our tea we retired to the tent eagerly going over the details of our plan, impatiently awaiting the setting of the sun on this long summer evening. We were sure we had covered every eventuality and prepared for every need. Torch, hurricane lamp, bags for the apples, warm coats for the chill night-air.

Taking turns to look outside and check the lights in the houses as they went out one by one. Firstly in the downstairs living rooms, then the bedrooms. We lay in silence to ensure that everybody had settled for the night. Slowly, ever so slowly, the world succumbed to the onset of sleep. Silence. And no more so than in that lonely tent in Tommy’s back garden. Silence broken only by the slow measured breathing of two small boys.

 

Prisoners of War - Germans and Italians, climbed out of the army trucks in front of our house. Canteen sheds had been built on the grass patch between the two sides of our avenue. They were here to build new roads and houses taking over the fields as far as the railway, filling in the ponds where the ducks where, levelling the tip which we scavenged for ‘treasure’, destroying forever the fields where we cut and harvested the wheat on the long summer evenings, the old steam engines driving the thresher’s and chaffing machines. The land army girls pitching the harvest into stooks to dry before baling, the children darting in and out playing hide and seek. The field mice scurrying before the machines as their nests were destroyed and exposing them to the marauding cats and dogs.

But we didn’t think of that then, we only saw gangs of men in overalls with big white circular patches on back and legs - ‘Prisoners of War’.

At first there were guards with rifles and tommy guns watching them all the time they worked.

At meal times they queued for their ration - a quarter of a loaf of bread, a piece of cheese, mug of water. Day in day out, the same, until they built some kitchens to cook soups and stews.

"Kinder, Kinder, Kommen Sie", Pete and I hesitated then edged towards the German behind the shed.

"Iron Money, Von brot" repeated to us several times whilst a few coins were thrust into our hands. Gradually we understood, he wanted us to buy him some bread from the shop.

Our errands became more frequent, the guards were lax, until eventually only one guard with a pickaxe handle supervised some hundred or so prisoners.

Every day some of the prisoners would bring photo-frames and other nick-naks they had made from scraps of wood and bits of wire, etchings decorated them formed by hot needles delicately burned into the surface of the wood, selling them door to door for a few coins or a cigarette or two.

Now and again we heard that one or two tried to escape, but they were soon recaptured, we lived on the Wirral Peninsula, water on three sides and narrowing to an easily controlled neck some miles away, not too easy to get away from.

Those nick-naks survived long after the war, pleasant memories and works of art wrought from scraps by sensitive men - our prisoners of war.

Christmas Cards piled through the letter-box in the front door.

Eagerly we ripped them open, helping Mum and Dad to string them across the front of the fireplace or to stand on the sideboard.

"It’s here Dad, can I read it out?" Out of the envelope Cyril had pulled a folded piece of old brown paper with string tied around it to form a bow.

"Here’s wishing you a Merry Christmas

In times that are cruel and hard.

Although this is only brown paper

It’s here with my kindest regard".

Backwards and forwards year after year this ‘card’ went between Dad and his brother, names being crossed out and rewritten. It nearly became a family ritual.

One of the cows had just calved, and was set aside so that it’s milk could be fed to it’s calf. At first the calf fed itself from the mother and then the milk was drawn off, thick and yellow, and fed from the bucket.

After a few days, the milk, still yellow but not quite so thick, the farmer shared it out between several of us lads, telling us to take it home and tell Mum it was the ‘beasting’.

Mum was delighted and made the best egg custard pie I have ever tasted, with it. Years later I have been amazed that most farmers pour this milk down the drain, unused, unwanted, unappreciated.

We had been in camp on the Welsh moors for four days and we could now have a trip into the local town. The war was over but food was still rationed - it was about 1948 and I was thirteen years old. It was my first holiday away from family and relatives.

Six of us kept together in one group, and, after walking around the town we sought a cafe for our tea. Seated around the table in an upstairs room we read the menu with sinking feeling, then pooled all of our money on the table.

The waitress approached for our order. "Please miss, what can we have for six of us for one shilling and ninepence" I asked.

Bread and margarine, sardines on toast, cups of tea and cakes covered our table. I know Jesus fed five thousand with a few loaves and fishes. A miracle occurred in Llangollen that day for six young scouts with one shilling and ninepence.

The Autumn night was cold and bleak and the wind swept through the deserted cemetery. The path from church to hall wound its way past the cenotaph and the headstones, dark and uninviting. Lights twinkled at both ends. It was Friday. Boys in the church for choir practice, girls in the hall for Guides - a lethal combination.

The high sweet tones of singing quietened, the organ playing ceased, and out of the church doors erupted a dozen urchins bent on mischief.

From amongst the graves they retrieved several large turnips, hollowed and carved into sinister masks, secreted there earlier in the evening. Carefully placing candle stubs inside the masks they lit them and spiked the turnips onto the ends of poles, to produce an eerie sight of bodiless beings floating above the graves. Waiting for the girls who had to pass this way after their meeting, when with wailing and gnashing of teeth, they were rewarded with the panic and consternation of fleeing females.

Youth clubs were part of our life, cubs, scouts, junior lads brigade, church lads brigade, St. John’s ambulance, army cadets and others, uniforms of all colours and descriptions, they came and went according to interest, peer pressure and friend’s activities. Each one provided some amusing or untoward incidents in our lives.

The scouts, had activities like jamborees, and camps, kayaking, and ballet dancing! Ballet dancing? It was coming up for Christmas and the scout troop was to put on a concert at the old people’s home, and, you guessed it, a ballet dance was to be an item. Ballerina dresses and headdresses were made out of net curtains and cloth, socks from the girls ankle socks, and music was made. For weeks we practised prancing across the stage, to the musical strains of the record player, until the great night arrived.

Our embarrassment was assuaged as the curtain rose, the music played and the old-people roared with laughter in the aisles. A great night was had by all.

"While Shepherds washed their socks by night,

All seated on the ground

A Bar of Sunlight Soap came down

And they began to....

Christmas was near, it was time to gather into groups of half a dozen or so, both boys and girls, with old rivalries forgotten, bitter feuds put aside. This was the time of goodwill and cheer, the time to see who could sing the loudest and clearest, and collect the most money.

Stand outside a door, two at once if possible and sing a couple of carols, knock discreetly before singing one more, and knock again. If no response sing once more whilst knocking more loudly. Normally a smiling face would appear depositing small coins into our tin mug or boy’s cap, for later distribution among the singers. "Merry Christmas".

A chalked cross would mark the ‘meanies’ there would be no more singers outside their door that night.

In the final week to Christmas, the Church organised our carols. All stood in the middle of the road singing whilst grown-ups knocked on the doors with collecting tins, and others held the storm lanterns. Later we would go to some toff’s house, be invited inside to sing and be given hot mince pies and cordial to finish off the night.

Many a new alliance was built as boys and girls huddled together in these singing groups. Keeping warm was a good excuse.

Grandad Davies was never mentioned in the house - hadn’t been for as long as I could remember. I know I hadn’t met him.

Coming home from school one day I met this old man on the path outside the house, dressed in a very old ragged overcoat and a black hat, asking if Mum was home and saying he was my Grandad. I was confused. I knew about Grandad Pringle, he had died when I was small, I didn’t have any other Grandads, so who was this man?

He asked me what I liked doing? I told him, collecting stamps and helping down on the farm.

"Did I know my great-uncle Fred who had a farm at Childer Thornton some five miles away?"

"No! I had never heard of great-uncle Fred".

When he had left I asked Mum about him. He was Dad’s father, who had deserted Gran and left her to bring up six children by herself. He was reputed to be a miser, living by himself in the village where Dad came from, and not too far from Gran, but never seeing her.

Dad had forbidden him to come to our house, so Mum told me not to say anything just yet.

Some days later he turned up again, and pulled some old stamps out of his pocket and gave them to me, asking me if I wanted to see great-uncle Fred’s farm and then have tea with him. Mum said it was OK so we arranged for him to meet the school bus that went out that way later in the week. I would be on that.

The farm was bigger and more modern that Singletons’ at the bottom of our road, and they had new milking machines, so that they didn’t have to milk by hand. That was fascinating, I watched them wash down the teats and udders, and push the rubber milking cups onto the cows. The compressor chugged away drawing the milk along the lines from all the cows at once, into the vats for cooling and then bottling. It saved a lot of time and carrying of the buckets of milk around in the shippens.

I met great-uncle Fred and then my new Grandad said that it was time for tea, so off we went, visions of cakes and trifles and fruit flashing through my mind. Walking towards the village we came to a chip shop. "Three pennyworth of chips" the old man said. "Here you are lad, there’s you bus now, Goodbye". I cannot recall seeing him again.

Years later I heard that when he died they found his house full of things he had been hoarding, and in a wardrobe stuffed into old tea packets was over one hundred pounds, quite a sum in those days. That went to Gran.

 

The school yard was thronged with uniformed boys, waiting for the bell to clang its message at the end of lunch break.

In one corner of the yard a scene of frantic trading was going on. Sweets three for one penny, no coupons! For years now sweets had been one of the goods that required ration-books, two ounces per week per person. But one smart trader, about twelve years old, had been busily buying up ration coupons, from other boys needing spending money. Investing his savings in sweets, four ounces at a time so as not to draw attention to his activities, he sold to his mates at a good profit.

The school yard provided a good training ground - nobody mentioned the words "black market"!

War was over and the troops were gone, leaving behind gaunt reminders of their stay.

Spital Old Hall, officers mess for the United States Army was one such place. Huge sandstone walls, three stories high towered over the edge of the park which had once been the Lord of the Manor’s estate. Multi-roomed and derelict, it was now a boy’s ideal playground, if you could overcome the tales of ghosts and hauntings.

The years had not been kind to this old house since the Yanks had departed. Stripped of anything useful. The windows within range of hand-thrown stones or catapulted missiles, were all broken. Whatever could be vandalised, was vandalised - and then we found a way through onto the roof. Oh what a storehouse of new treasures to be sought after. Firstly the large weather-vane which took four of us to dislodge to crash fifty feet to the driveway below, then the bell tower, but that was too difficult, defeating all of our efforts.

Lead in the gutters and copings was a real prize to be melted down and poured into moulds, shot for our catapults, slate tiles and coping stones were hurled to the ground below.

Today I could weep at the waste, at the destruction wrought. My only solace can be that it was abandoned property. We did respect the possessions of others (except apples and the like!).

Left, right, left, right, smarten up now, you can’t let the Queen see you like this.

The time was 1948 and the Queen was coming to Birkenhead to launch the new Ark Royal, and we were to provide a guard of honour for her. Twenty proud members of the school army cadet force.

The great day arrived and we marched down to the route the Royal cars would take standing proudly as she swept slowly by close enough for me to touch. My Queen.

"Bruce, where are you Bruce?" Mum was calling out for the dog as she unpacked a large bone she had brought home.

"Cyril, have you seen Bruce?"

My eyes filled with tears, she had forgotten!

Some days before, our pet mongrel dog had snapped at a young child that lived two doors away. The father, very angry, threatened to call the police unless the dog was put down. Bruce was getting old now and a bit temperamental so mum agreed.

That morning she had asked me to take him to the RSPCA when I came home from school.

Realisation came to Mum when she saw my face. We just burst out crying consoling one another. We had lost a friend.

The best fed lad in school! For six years I had volunteered to be a meals monitor. Council prepared meals were brought to the school every day, dished out by kitchen staff, but ably assisted by the meal-monitors, fetching and carrying and clearing tables. Double dinners and triple puddings were the rule rather than the exception for these volunteers - and it was all free. Our lunch money could be spent in the sweet shop over the road, or the fruit shop in the village. We had it made!

Autumn evenings, when the nights started drawing in after the long summer evenings, we still gathered in groups to play together as it got dark, but not too cold. At the bottom of the road, near the edge of the estate was a park where you used to play football, and a park shed where we could change for the games. At night, away from the street lights, this dark green hut did not allow the penetration of even the moonlight, it was so dark, you could not see your hand in front of your face. Ideal for courting couples or those aspiring to be.

A group of ten or twelve of us, more or less of equal sexes, would sometimes go down there to ‘talk’. The fun was when we swapped partners, not knowing who we were ‘talking’ to. Commonly known as ‘snogging sessions’. Truly harmless fun.

When reminiscing, I am glad we had no television. And the only films we saw were the Saturday matinees with ‘Dick Barton - Special Agent’ or Roy Rogers on Flikka. Our morals were untainted, our motivation pure. Fun was fun.

Pocket money was virtually unheard of, we used to get a penny on a Friday night, but that was not always sure. So odd jobs or regular work was much sought after. Pete and I had a Saturday morning job delivering meat for the local butcher. We each had a bicycle with a large basket on the front and a sign at the cross bar proclaiming ‘Jones - Family Butcher’. Now, even today, I can’t tell the difference between beef, and pork, lamb or mutton, so the docket with the description and the delivery address was all critical. Meat was rationed, and an integral ingredient of the Sunday lunch table. We had important jobs. We received a shilling for our mornings work, a small fortune to us, but this was also augmented by the tips we received from some of our customers. That could be as much as a shilling or more extra. Christmas was bountiful, when we received as much as ten shillings. This was a job to be prized and nurtured.

The roads and lanes that we travelled were not the smooth bitumen and concrete of today, but broken gravel and dirt, as well as cobbled lanes. Handling a bicycle with twenty or thirty kilos of meat in a front loaded basket was not always the easiest thing to do, and it was not uncommon, after propping the bike at a gate post, to return to find meat, wrappers, dockets, and gravel in a different state of relationship than when left some minutes before. Brushing gravel off bloodied meat, deciphering smudged dockets, and identifying sizes and types of meat, tested even my ingenuity. Surprisingly, I can’t remember any complaints.

Summer holidays were stretched from mid July to early September. It was a gorgeous time of year, with work to be found. Most of it was unpaid, we did it for the fun, cutting the wheat, stacking it into stooks, feeding the threshing machines powered by the huge steam engines. Then there was the haymaking, bailing and storing in the barns. Cutting kale and harvesting turnips for the farm animals. Milking the cows, bottling the milk, delivering it around the houses with the horse and trap, even ladling it out from the churn into proffered jugs at some houses.

Then there was delivery of bread, the local baker would load up his covered cart, harness the horse in the cobbled yard, and then we would go around the houses delivering those hot fresh loaves and cakes. We had large wicker baskets to carry the bread in, but wrappings, gloves and washing of hands were not part of the routine, until I met Mrs. Postlethwaite. She examined my hands and finger nails before refusing to accept my delivery, going personally to the cart to select her own bread from the farther reaches of the load. Mrs. Postlethwaite reigns.

Our most lucrative work at this time was spud picking. Gathering the potato harvest, was tedious backbreaking work but it paid a shilling a day. It normally lasted two or three weeks, so it was sought after. The days started early, meeting at the farm, and then clambering onto the straw covered trailer as it was hauled by the tractor along the lanes to the field for that day. Break at mid-morning for a cup of tea, and then on again to midday. It was back to the farm then for the packed lunches we had brought, and to make new friendships and renew old ones. Sitting around in the warm barns, among the straw and the animals fostered a feeling of well being that is hard to replicate.

There were days, of course, when rain prevented work in the fields, we would probably wait around the farm for the morning to see if it cleared up, but then sauntered home to await the next day. Wet days were not pay days, so we didn’t want too many of those.

Waking that morning I had not felt too well, upset stomach and a bit of a temperature, so when mum suggested a day in bed I readily agreed. The war was over, the prisoner-of-war workers had gone, and a construction crew were now in the builder’s shed outside, they were building new houses for the people who had been bombed out of their homes during the war.

Bored, I watched the men coming and going carrying materials and rolls of plans. Mid morning approached and one of the engineers came over to ask mum could she boil some water for their billies. He then saw me peering out of the window, and asked why I was not at school. Some time later he returned laden with coloured pencils, graph and tracing paper, an abundance I had never even seen, let alone possessed. I was ‘sick’ for three more days!

 

There was an old upright piano in the living-room, mum used to play a bit, and the older girls went to piano lessons for a while, but it was mainly used when it was our turn to have the ‘Paloni Gang’ in for the evening.

During the war, and immediately after, groups of neighbours got together to provide their own entertainment. A game of cards, darts or dominoes and a singsong around the piano over a cup of tea - and poloni sandwiches, a kind of pressed meat. These weekly get togethers went on for years afterwards, and were instrumental in organising street parties to celebrate the victory in Europe and later over Japan. Friendships were formed and cemented in those days that lasted a lifetime. War, trouble and tribulations may cause havoc and distress, but they often reveal the best as well as the worst in human nature.

Some years later, I decided I would like to learn to play the piano, lessons were arranged with a teacher in the village, and I dutifully attended every week, practising my scales and studying my theory in between. Isn’t it amazing how boring that can be? It was not too long before the irritation of my teacher was apparent, when she caught me looking over her shoulder to my notes when responding to the questions on theory, and the wrapping of my knuckles with a large blue marking pencil when my fingers struck a wrong note. One day, I was so incensed with this treatment that I grabbed the pencil and struck back.

‘Dear Mrs. Davies’ she wrote, ‘I do not think Cyril should pursue his piano studies any further....’

The Anglican church in the village had the finest peel of bells in the county. Bell-ringers came from miles around to enter competitions there, and the sound of their enthusiasm rang forth throughout the village.

Practice night was Friday night, and coincided with choir practice, so when we were finished we would often climb the high spire to the bell chamber. It was a narrow, steep, dark climb up a spiral stairway of dank sandstone. I can’t recall any of the girls venturing up there.

We would sit and watch the rhythmic action of the ringers, as the time was called. Eight men in all each with his own rope, pulling and releasing on queue, as the melody rang out above our heads. At one side, there was also a set of miniature bells with small cords attached. These could be played by one person, but I only ever saw this happen once. I don’t think many people had the skill for those. Hand bells were also available, where each of the ringers had a bell similar to the old school hand bell, and they made tune with those sometimes.

The rhythmic creak of the oars filtered across the surface of the mere on a warm summer afternoon. A dozen or more of the slender row-boats gliding to and fro as courting couples sought solitude.

Mary, Cyril’s new girlfriend of just a week, was enjoying the scenery around her and the by-play in the nearby boats. Not content to be just a passenger, Mary wanted to have a turn at the oars, so pulling over to the side of the lake, Cyril stood and moved down the boat whilst Mary held onto the branch of an overhanging tree to steady the craft.

Crash! The reverberations of two boats colliding echoed across the water, drawing all eyes to the scene of the mishap, eyes which should have noticed the drifting of their own boat away from the bank, and the ever increasingly precarious angle of Mary as she clung to the overhead branch - until gravity took its course - splash!

Betty was a few years older than me. I was about 16 years old at the time, attending the local Methodist church, and had started going out with a new girlfriend, Mary. Mary lived with her father and grandmother. She also had a younger brother, but he was in an orphanage type home or school in Liverpool, and only came back home on odd occasions. We all knew her as Mary Smiley. Her name was really Smellie, but her father had changed it.

Betty was always trying to arrange our lives, encouraging our relationship, fixing up outings, inviting us to her home for tea. I can remember the first time. Betty lived with her mother, I think her father had been killed in the war, and they were in the bigger private houses just outside our village, on the edge of the next village.

When we had walked to her home, she had a small table laid in the garden, with all the cups and plates ready, and then she brought out the sandwiches. At home our sandwiches were jam, or sometimes egg, or tomato. Betty brought out cucumber sandwiches. I think she had been reading girls stories which talked about people in big houses having cucumber sandwiches on the lawn. I had never had cucumber sandwiches before, and didn’t think all that much of them then, but she was so proud, that we ate them all up and said how delicious they were.

We tried to avoid going there again though.

A day trip to the seaside at West Kirby was attempted at lease once a year. It was only seven or eight miles, but no direct route from home, so it was a walk into the village, onto a bus, and then a train from Birkenhead. To see the sea for the first time in a season, with it’s gleaming sand, and the water gently swirling in as the tide rose or fell. The crowds of people picnicking on the beach or along the promenade. Shops displaying their wares of tin buckets and wooden spades, whirling cellophane windmills in striking colours on bamboo sticks, balloons and coloured sun-umbrellas. There were ice-cream vendors and fairy-floss machines, amusement machines, and swingboats, rowing boats and paddle boats in the enclosures by the pier.

A photographer would be walking around taking candid photographs, another with painted wooden cutout caricatures of the fat lady and man, where you put your face through the hole, and made your own humorous post cards. Views of all the buildings and bays around, or comic cards to make you laugh.

There were sweet shops selling sticks of rock or broken lumps with names all through them. Humbugs and toffees, coated apples on sticks, or just plain lolly-pops. But, sadly, none of this was for us. We brought our own picnic, and shared our own buckets and spades. Dad had his Kodak Brownie camera and took a few snaps. And the water in the fountain was free. We changed our clothes, the girls stripping down to the panties, and we boys, who did not even know that underpants existed, would don a pair of the girls ‘keks’. But what you haven’t had, you cannot miss. We still had fun, with beach cricket and sand castles.

Off from the coast was a small island called, Hilbre. It was a rocky outcrop surrounded by sandbanks, and when the tide was out you could walk out to it, but make sure you left before the tide turned. One time, I decided to walk to Hilbre, and set off as the tide was going out so as to give me plenty of time before it turned. I waded across some of the deeper channels, but, being a nonswimmer, avoided any above waist deep. There was one last channel, however, with a couple of small dories, or lifeboats anchored there, and the water swirled around them. The channel was only about twenty metres across and looked quite safe. I decided to chance it.

Just before getting to the middle I was suddenly swept off my feet by a strong tidal surge, the water was suddenly rushing me along, floundering and trying to find a foothold. Nobody appeared to be aware of my predicament as I was swept along. Beginning to panic, I cried out, but no-one heard, and then I was sweeping past one of the dories, I grabbed at the anchor chain, held and managed to pull myself aboard. It was a good half-hour before the tide had dropped sufficiently for me to attempt to leave my sanctuary. I never got to the island, the shoreline was far more attractive.

Sunday was a day of ritual, house cleaning, lunch preparation, roast meals, cooking and baking of cakes and pies, preparation of jellies and trifles, and a salad type evening meal. Mum excelled herself!

The foundation to the meal was the Sunday joint. Ration coupons were preserved to ensure there was meat on the table on the Sunday. Roast and basted in the oven, some of the potatoes put into the juices to roast too, and the rice pudding cooked at the same time so as not to waste the oven heat. Potatoes and vegetables would be cooked on the stove top and then the gravy would be made using the water from the potatoes and the juice from the meat. A truly splendid meal.

Eight plates, heated above the oven, would be spread out on the kitchen table, and dad would come through to carve the meat. Except today! Mum had taken the meat out of the oven, placed it on the kitchen table, and busied herself with the final preparations. Dad was just getting up to come through when, looking out of the window he saw a large cat racing away with what appeared to be our meat in it’s jaws. With a terrible yell he raced through, grabbing his walking stick on the way, and gave chase. The cat, believing that the succulent meal in it’s mouth was no longer worth the danger it brought, dropped it in the garden and disappeared. Meat could not be wasted, cleaned up it was still served at that lunch table.

Did you have a bully in your class or your street? We did, and I was his target! He would waylay me, chase me, beat me, ambush me, there didn’t seem to be any way to avoid him. He was bigger, older, stronger, faster than! What hope did I have.

I got angry, I turned, he turned, I ran, he ran, faster! But he never troubled me again

There were several orchards around the village, named after their nominal owners. Pickering’s and Marshall’s were the two most popular, therefore the two most secure. Marshall had a small lean-to at the side of his house where he sold his fruit and a few other things like, sweets and biscuits.

I was with a few older boys, they were on bicycles, I was on the crossbar of one of them, and they had decided to raid Marshall’s orchard. To get to it we had to cross a field about fifty or sixty yards wide, and two barbed wire fences in between. Because I was the smallest, I was to keep watch and look after the bikes. Suddenly old man Marshall appeared, I yelled out a warning, and the lads came racing across the field, jumped on their bikes and rode off, leaving me standing there and Marshall’s hand descending on the scruff of my neck.

He dragged me off to his shop, trying to decide what to do with me, and asking who my mates were. I stayed dumb. Customers were coming and going, and he was busy, but I was still there petrified as to what he was going to do. Just then a young woman, about the age of mum came in, it was Marshall’s daughter. ‘Aren’t you Vi Davies’ lad?’ She asked. I was shattered, now mum would get to know, and then I would be for it.

‘What are you here for?’

‘Pinching apples’

‘Did you get any?’

‘No’.

‘Here take this’ she said thrusting an apple into my hand, ‘and don’t do it again’.

I raced off thanking my lucky stars.

Soon after the war began, air-raid shelters were built at strategic places, and then at every home. If there was an air-raid when we were at school, there were the three big shelters which could take fifty or sixty people in each. When we left school to go home, however, there weren’t any public shelters available, so we used to walk up the narrow lane behind the houses in the street, as it was closest to the shelters for the houses.

Whenever there was an air-raid, people would take us into their shelter until the ‘all-clear’ siren sounded. We would often be given a biscuit or a sweet by the grown ups, so we would sometimes dawdle on our way home, half hoping that the bombers would come.

We had three pence burning a hole in our grubby hands. Looking in Sweeney’s window we saw these small boxes of chocolate looking squares. ‘Are they on coupons, Mr. Sweeney?’ All sweets and chocolates were rationed and needing coupons. ‘No!’ He said, ‘just threepence a box’. We parted with our coins, took the box, and ran across into the park to share the chocolate squares out. Eight each for the three of us, and they tasted quite good too. It was a pity we did not know what ‘Laxative’ meant.

Old man Sweeney, gross, overweight, with a perpetual smoker’s cough, and cigarette ash down the chest of his apron, ran the local corner store. He sold everything from candles to kerosine, ice-cream to pistol caps. Underneath the shop was a large cellar, accessed by a narrow stairway from inside, but huge iron gratings, positioned under the big display windows, outside. Often small coins would be dropped by would be purchasers falling into the cellar below.

Being enterprising in fund raising, we would tell Mr. Sweeney that we had dropped some money down the grating. He would slowly descend into the cellar searching for the mythical coins. Most times he would find something there and bring it to us, at others he would simply say that he couldn’t find it. He never did catch on that it was always somebody else’s coins he handed over.

Primary schooling at the small local Church of England facility was relatively uneventful. Peter and I had started there shortly after our fifth birthday, and after the first twelve months, it was apparent that he had more intellectual ability than most of our class mates. Four others were also selected to miss the second grade and move directly into the third. But separation of twins was not to be countenanced, so five became six. Some years later, at grade six of course, progression was halted. Age limits constrained the sitting for scholarship examinations and further educational pathways. Repetition of the final year was mandatory, but provided each of us with an educational advantage.

The scholarship examination for the local grammar school was known as the ‘eleven plus’ derived from the age of the participants. Taken at the end of the school year, it determined the educational streams of the students, either grammar school and possible university if successful. Secondary school for the trades and semi skilled professions for others.

The summer school holidays that followed were constantly interrupted by the stream of letters advising the successful candidates, early advice to the high achievers, more slowly as the scale was lowered. Pete’s advice came early, he was well up the ladder. Then Mum waited daily for that second, hoped for letter. Slowly hope was fading, the letters became less frequent, less than one hundred places were available for nearly a thousand aspirants. The holidays were drawing to a close, uniforms had to be bought for the new schools.

‘It’s here, you’ve won!’ She cried, delightedly ripping open the glad tidings, hugging me and swinging me around. In by the skin of my teeth, I must have received the final advice.

It was late October, winter was approaching, and so was bonfire night. November 5th was the night we lit the bonfires that had been built for weeks before. Branches, logs, old furniture and floor coverings, anything that would burn bright and long. The effigy of Guy Fawkes, who had tried to blow up parliament, was to be burned at the stake. But before that it was dragged around the village, ‘Penny for the Guy!’ We would cry, raising money to buy fireworks.

There would be half-a-dozen bonfires around the village and the competition for the biggest and best fireworks display was fierce. We would support our own fire for the lighting, but then race around the others to see their displays. The fires were always built on a spare piece of ground away from houses, but the fireworks would sometimes fly off in the wrong direction and cause trouble.

The fires would burn well into the night, and even be smouldering the next morning. But the waste was soon cleared by avid gardeners seeking the charcoal and potash for their plants.

Television was not available in the war years. It had been invented, but when the war came it stopped the development of it, and it was not until about five years after the war the sets started to appear. You could tell who had a TV because of the ‘H’ shaped aerial that went up fixed to the chimney on the roof. The sets where only nine inches across, about twenty centimetres, and the picture was black and white, quite often fuzzy and would often roll. I didn’t see television until several years later. People used to sit in darkened rooms to watch, and lots of friends and neighbours would go around. It was quite a joke, that people, when answering the door, would say, ‘Come in, sit down, shut up!’ So as not to miss any part of the programme.

Before television there was only the radio. In England there was only the BBC, the government controlled radio station. Commercial radio was not allowed. There would be regular news times, and drama shows and serials. On a Saturday evening, after all of the sports matches had been played, dad would avidly listen to the results that were broadcast of all the league matches. We kids weren’t allowed to even speak while those results were being broadcast, because quite often the reception would fade at crucial moments.

The radio was battery operated. Not the small dry-cell batteries prevalent today, but large, acid filled, wet cell batteries encased in thick glass. These had to be changed every week. The ‘Battery Lady’ used to come around in a small van, and wore a thick leather apron to protect against the acid. Usually the battery would last a full week, but sometimes it would go flat, and we would have to go to her house to get another one. We had to be very careful carrying it, and she made sure that the top was screwed on properly. It had a wooden carrying handle so as to keep our hands away from the acid.

Every Sunday lunch time there were programmes we like to listen to. Archie Andrews, that was a ventriloquist show, and Tony Hancock in Hancock’s half-hour. That was comedy. Later there was a musical request show for the families separated by the war. It was called Family Favourites. After the war, when lots of soldiers were stationed in Germany, it carried on too.

By the early fifties, there was a commercial radio station in Luxembourg which broadcast in English. And then there were ‘pirate’ radio stations which set up in ships off the coast just outside the territorial waters. Three miles offshore at that time. There was even one in an old fort off the coast. It had been built hundreds of years before when Britain was being invaded by the French and the Spanish. It was also used during the war as a fortress, but then abandoned. But radio listening was virtually a religion, and you got news very quickly. You had to have a licence to have one. That was seven shillings and six pence. The money paid for the BBC.

The newspapers would have the news the next day, but there would not be a lot of pictures. So the newsreels at the cinemas were very popular. There would be a half-hour news show between the two main pictures. Yes there were always two films, the main attraction and the second, shorter one. There would also be a short cartoon feature.

With names like Rialto, Ritz, Lyceum, Gaumont, they were the magnet that drew the crowds to their doors. We would go to the Saturday matinee when they showed serials, and westerns. The queues to get in would go right down the side of the cinema, and sometimes round the back to the other side. It was the only affordable entertainment, especially in the winter. By the sixties, television had taken over and the cinemas died. Turned into Bingo halls. Now they have become supermarkets or large restaurants and clubs.

Easter comes at different times every year. We found it very confusing that Christmas, when Jesus was born, was always on December 25th, but Easter, when He died and rose again kept changing. Sometimes late March, sometimes late April, and any date in between.

What we liked about Easter, was Easter eggs. They were just ordinary eggs really, but mum hard-boiled them and we painted patterns on them, and we ate them on the Sunday morning. When we were older, we could save our sweet coupons. Mum would buy some blocks of chocolate and take them around to a lady in the next street who made big chocolate Easter eggs with coloured icing to seal the joins and put our names on them. They were really special.

Mum and dad would come to church with us on Easter Sunday. The girls would all be dressed up in their spring dresses, and hats and bonnets would be worn, or big ribbons in their hair. The church would be crowded, and in the choir we sang special anthems and hymns. Easter Monday was always a holiday, and there would be motorcycle racing in the hills and valleys around Raby Mere. It was better when Easter was in April, because the weather was warmer, and more flowers were out. But it was always good, because Spring was here.

Most of the toys we had as children were made by dad, or handed down from older cousins. That didn’t matter, we still played with them. When ever we were to go to bed, it was always the cry from mum or dad, ‘put your toys away’. Until we got the Mechano set and the Hornby trains for Christmas.

There were two sets of engines and carriages in the box of trains, one lot was a green engine and freight trucks, the other a red engine and passenger carriages. Pete grabbed the passenger set as his, but mine would go faster and could knock his off the track. He didn’t like that too much, but he wasn’t going to back down.

We would lay out the tracks, with dad helping and showing us how. We would make cranes and bridges with the Mechano set so that both lots of toys were used together. It could take hours to set it up, and then it would be time to go to bed. ‘That’s OK dad would say, I’ll put it away for you’ We could then hear the engines racing around the tracks long after we had gone to bed, or a big new crane would be made in Mechano by the next morning. They were the only toys dad would put away for us.

One Christmas we got a game of Monopoly. We always got up very early on Christmas morning and would take our presents into each other’s rooms, and then down stairs to play with them. With this Monopoly game, the two younger girls played with Pete and I, we didn’t read the rules properly and we were putting houses and hotels on properties when we didn’t own the complete set, and we would put several hotels on a property and multiply the rent. It wasn’t in the rules, but we enjoyed the game. I don’t know who won, probably Pete, because he made up the rules as we went along. And he was the banker too!

As Christmas approached we started to make decorations. We would get sheets of wrapping paper from the butcher and cut it into strips, paint them with our water paints and make them into long chains to be strung across the room. From the corners to the light in the centre, and back to the next corner. Then we would make more to hang around the walls in big loops. Dad had a few special shop-bought ones that were kept from year to year, and some big coloured bells and balls.

Pete and I would go out to the woods to collect holly twigs with their dark green leaves and bright red berries. Chestnuts were also our responsibility. We would find the chestnut trees and throw small logs or stones up to knock them down, carry them home in buckets and shell them. Sometimes mum would buy a bit of mistletoe, and we would try to find a Christmas tree that was not too expensive. At night time we would go around the houses singing carols and trying to raise money for presents.

Christmas was a really special time, we had cordial and a soda siphon to put fizz into it, and nuts and fruit, and boxes of dates. Dad would get his tandem out and take Pete or I on a ride around our uncles and aunts while mum and the girls got Christmas dinner ready.

 

Running and jumping were second nature to us as we were growing, you could almost equate it to life itself. An errand to perform, we ran, steps to descend, fences to traverse or streams to cross, we jumped. There was constant rivalry at the specific ‘jumps’ across the stream in the valley. Achievement was based not only on the length of the jump, but it’s approach run, the relative height of the takeoff point to the landing, and other natural impediments or hazards.

If we were being chased by older boys or even adults, we would head for the most difficult jump we were capable of achieving, and hope that the pursuer would baulk. Even in our early teens we could achieve a four to five metre jumps without a second thought, so you might get wet now and again if you slipped on the wet grass on the approach run, or the bank had broken away and the jump was so much wider. That was the luck of the draw. We could always light fires and dry off quickly.

There was one occasion when I attempted a double jump, over the stream and then another short run to jump over a steel spiked fence. On that one you had to put your foot onto one of the stays to give lift, bang your hands down onto the top rail between the spikes, and then vault over. Unfortunately, wet grass caused my foot to slip on the stay, threw me off balance, and my hand came down on top of the spike. I have the scar to this day.

Joyce, at fifteen, and two or three years older than Pete and I, lived next door. She had a job working for a fruiter in the village. On fine days, so as to save the bus fare, I would walk home from school, about three miles, and spend the money in the village. Normally this would provide a couple of apples or an orange, or a small bag of sweets. But when Joyce served me, I could get a bag full. So I would wait to one side until she was free. She had a beautiful smile and a twinkle in her eye. And those apples always tasted so much sweeter.

Pete and I were standing outside the fruiter’s, and there in the window was a huge fruit, the like of which we had never seen. ‘What’s that?’ We asked. We eventually found out that it was a pomegranate. ‘ I want one of those’ said Pete. We counted our money, but could not come up with sufficient coins to cover the cost.

‘Come on’ said Pete, into the crowded store we went, he backed up slowly to the window by the stack of pomegranates, reached behind him and lifted one up, but what to do now, in vain he tried to put it into his pants pocket, and then the pocket of his jacket. In desperation he stuffed it inside his jumper and ran from the store.

When I joined him and we got a knife to cut open the stolen fruit, we were dismayed to find it just a mass of seeds in a kind of jelly. No pleasurable experience there. I can’t recall him looking for pomegranates again. I know I have never had another one.

At the annual cadet camp the usual sports day was arranged where the various troops from different parts of the country competed with one another. This year, however, was a bit different. A team of film-makers was at the camp to make a promotional film to encourage other youths to join. They filmed us at meals, on parade marching around, in training classes, practising stripping down bren-guns and putting them back together, firing on the range, and also at play - on the race track.

The film director was dissatisfied with the racing scenes, so we had to stage the start and the finish of a race. That was alright. A fast sprint when the starting pistol went, turn around and race back, and then grab hold of the winner and ‘chair ‘ him around for the camera.

When that was finished we more or less forgot all about it.

Some months later, one of my older sisters went to the local cinema with her boyfriend when a short film entitled ‘A Cadet in Camp’ was shown. Suddenly, a scene of a race finishing, she stood up pointing at the screen loudly exclaiming ‘there’s our Ciggy!’ Then abruptly sat down embarrassed. But sure enough, the promotional film was being shown, and we all had to go and see it. There my face filled the screen as I chaired the race ‘winner’. Instant fame.

The English oak tree can live for hundreds of years, and provide hiding for kings, shelter from storms, and acorns, the seed of the tree, to make pipes. We would collect the largest acorns we could find, cut off the tops and hollow them out. Then, with a hollow reed or straw we would make a stem. The bowl of the acorn we would them pack with grass and smoke them like the pipes our fathers smoked.

Small whistles could also be made from the small sappy twigs of some trees. We would cut a finger length piece of straight twig, cut around the bark about halfway down its length and tap lightly to loosen it. Carefully removing that piece of bark we would then cut a sliver off the exposed wood. Replace the bark, taper the end for a mouthpiece and cut a ‘V’ at the centre for the air hole. Hey presto, a whistle.

Winter could be long and cold if there was no fuel for the fire. Our coal ration was one bag a week. That would keep a fire going in the evenings, but not all day long, so we tried to augment this by collecting logs. We were quite close to the woods and could gather fallen trees at times, but at others, we would have to take a small bow saw or the larger crosscut so as to fell and cut up some of the smaller trees. The park-keeper was always on the watch for this and would listen for the fall of a tree, so we had to be fast to strip the branches off and carry the trunk away before he found us.

When we got it back to the safety of home we would then cut the trunk up into small logs that could be used in the fireplace, and then stack them along the wall to dry out. Otherwise the sap in the logs would make too much smoke in the fireplace.

My uncle Tom was a signalman. He worked in the signal-box at the railway, and pulled and pushed the levers to change the signals that controlled the trains on the main line from Birkenhead to London. We would sometimes walk to the next village where he worked to watch him. We would sit in the room with windows all around so he had a clear view of the rail lines, the shunting yards, and the crossing gates on the road outside. He would listen to the telegraph bell advising him of approaching trains, and he would go up and down the long rows of levers, pulling or pushing so as to change the signals out on the various tracks.

One day, Pete and I were there, when a large steam engine, with smoke and steam belching, was standing by the level crossing awaiting clearance to move. There was to be a bit of a delay so uncle Tom took us down to the driver and asked could we go up onto the footplate. ‘Of course!’ He said. So we clambered up and had a look at all of the dials and wheels, levers and fire doors.

‘How do you open the door to put the coal on the fire?’ Asked Pete.

With a twinkle in his eye, the stoker said ‘Just pull that lever!’

Pete reached up and pulled the lever, hard. There was an almighty shriek as the steam whistle blew, frightening us out of our wits. We rapidly descended to the loud laughter of the driver and stoker. We still don’t know how to open the fire door.

Walking was always a pastime that I enjoyed, particularly by myself when I could let my mind wander. It was not, therefore any great problem when I found my self faced with long unplanned walks.

When about sixteen or seventeen, an army cadet camp was being held in a place called Cark-in-Cartmel south of the Lake District in northwest England. Not too far away, was the holiday resort of Morecambe, where there were fairgrounds, amusement arcades and shooting galleries, so in the evening transport was arranged to take us there.

By this time, after several years of cadet training, I prided myself on my shooting, so I was keen to display my prowess. I paid my fee at one of the kiosks and won my prize, then my friend asked me to win something for him, paid the fee, and I won another prize. This was great. I was having a good time, and others were paying for me to do it.

The next evening I had a list of prizes to be won, and a pocket full of coins to win them. I got to the kiosk, the man recognised me and tried to give me a different rifle, but I found the one I had used the night before and carried on winning prizes until he wouldn’t accept my money any more.

I had been so engrossed in my activity that I hadn’t noticed the passage of time, or the departure of the one and only truck back to camp. With arms full of stuffed toys and the like, I set off for the long walk back. It became very dark, and I only had a vague notion of where the camp was. I was even climbing up sign posts to feel the indentations to read the names, it was too dark to see them. But eventually I arrived back at the camp with very little time to spare before the breakfast call. I think I lost some of the prizes too on the journey.

There were a couple of times, also, when I was in the army. One time I walked about thirty miles across the Yorkshire moors to get back into camp after missing the bus from Liverpool, and only managing to get half way on another. And once across Salisbury plain after I had fallen asleep on the six hour coach journey, and missed my stop. It is amazing how few people are on those roads at night.

Sixteen years old, final exams taken and school in its last week of the term. Once hundred excited boys to be controlled now that teaching classes were finished.

An Industrial Exhibition on the banks of the River Dee in the nearby county seat of Chester, seemed to be the perfect answer. Transport arranged, the youngsters departed for the day.

"Learn to Drive in Three Minutes" was the placard confronting Cyril and his friend Doug, as they wandered around the exhibits. There in front of them were several small dump trucks being driven around the enclosure. "This will be great," the pair agreed, so in line they stood awaiting their turn.

The instructions were simple, one pedal to go, one to stop. No gears, no clutch, no accelerator, just steer and go. Even a child could do it.

Round and round the pair drove their dump trucks, winding in and out during their allotted three minutes.

"Right, over here!" The instructor called first to Doug, and then to Cyril.

Stamp on the pedal, chug, chug, chug, stamp again - still nothing - chug, chug, chug. The fleeting vision of the instructor and others jumping out of the way, the dump truck heading straight for the river bank - chug, chug, chug.... Frantic stamping on the stop pedal, with the presence of mind to straighten up the machine to avoid it’s tipping over, to no effect, the dumper headed over the edge of the bank, a good drop, chugging into the river below. Feet now raised to avoid the water and wondering how deep the river was, Cyril sighed with relief when the engine cut out with the water swirling around the seat on which he was perched.

Crowds of onlookers thronged the river bank and the bridges up and down stream. Big cheers, as planks were laid out across the mud and water, and an embarrassed schoolboy scuttled to the bank and raced off with his mate to the rail station and home.

"The biggest laugh I’ve had since Charlie Chaplin in City Lights" one man cried".

"What will Mum say? How can I tell her?"

Pointless questions, as, waiting at home were reporters and photographers, who had already appraised her of the exploits of her erstwhile son.

"Boy Launches Barrow" heralded the headlines of the paper lying on the Headmaster’s desk next day, together with several national newspapers with similar reports.

"Davies, I have attempted to get the name of this school into the papers for the past twenty years. You do it in one day! Get Out!"

I can recall the vocational guidance that was given to me at grammar school. For five years I had staggered from one ‘B’ grade classroom to another, and it would have been ‘C’ grade if they had had them. It is no wonder I can’t swim, I just bounced along at the bottom. That is until the fourth year when I rose to an ‘A’ grade but immediately fell again. In the last year or so, mathematics, physics and geography started to make sense, but everything else was still very much a mystery. I was reasonable in the woodwork class, and achieved quite good results in technical drawing. But art, English, Latin, German and chemistry and similar subjects managed to hold my average in the lower reaches.

It was not surprising, therefore that, after taking the matriculation examination at age sixteen, I scraped through in five subjects out of the eight I sat for. I didn’t even sit for the other four which I knew, and my teachers knew more assuredly, that I would fail.

We were in the last few weeks of the final year of school. I was about to launch into the exciting world of a working career.

During the last few months I had made enquiries about various positions, the most promising being that of a police cadet with the local constabulary. A job was necessary to bridge the eighteen-month gap between school and the mandatory two-year stint of National Service when I reached the age of 18. Preferably it would be a job that prepared for a career after army service.

As part of the educational system, an interview with a vocational guidance officer had been arranged for all of the school leavers. Today was the day for form Transitus B, the class that I had been a member of for the past year.

Lined up and marched off to the local education offices, we awaited our turn. Specialist officers, who had access to our school record, would assess our achievements, our aptitudes and interests. Evaluate and ascertain our strengths, our weaknesses. Balance the available job opportunities to each individual and ensure that only square pegs went into square holes.

"Next!"

I started from my reverie, nervously entered the room and sat in the proffered chair.

"Well Davies, what would you like to do?" The interviewer asked.

"Be a police cadet, sir!"

"Good!" He said.

"Next!"

For several weeks I had been employed as a warehouse assistant at the local fruit and vegetable retailer. Operating some thirteen stores around the county and North Wales, this local merchant ran a successful business. Our delivery system was two three-ton and one one-ton flat bed trucks that were loaded for their daily runs to the various stores. Vehicles which were critical to the efficient delivery of product.

I had picked up the fundamentals of driving the trucks around the yard, but today I was on my own and the loaded truck needed to be reversed out of the loading dock so that I could load the next one. Now reversing a truck was just the opposite of driving forward, anybody knows that. Turn the steering wheel in the direction you want to go, simple. Unless you fail to appreciate that you should also reverse your thinking on direction. Crunch.... the truck shuddered to a stop as the right front mudguard mounted and then settled around the mighty warehouse doors, stuck fast!

The boss’s son was irate, berating my overconfidence and lack of any form of human intelligence. Hours of delivery time wasted and dissatisfied customer queues flashing across his mind.

I’d better teach you to drive properly! He said. The start of my driving experience.

When the builders came after the war to build the new houses, the watchman would have his little shed in which he had a potbellied stove for the cold nights. In the winter we would often go in and talk with him and sit by his fire. We would sometimes put so much coke in his stove that it would get red-hot, first the chimney stack which was made of thinner metal, but then the whole top would glow red too.

The watchman was there to protect the building materials on the site. But we could always get the few things we needed for building our dens and other pursuits. One of our prizes, however was using the big steel-cutting guillotine and the steel rod that was used for reinforcing concrete. This we could cut into small, coin-sized pieces and use for shot in our catapults. They would go a lot further than the small pebbles we normally used.

Behind the butcher’s shop in the village where we had our Saturday morning meat delivery run, there was an old shed used by a cobbler. He wasn’t an old man, probably only in his forties, but he appeared old because he was small and always bent over the shoe lasts or the buffing lathes. And he and his benches were always covered in leather dust.

One day we were amazed to see him all smart in a Sunday suit and clean shaven, not in his leather apron and work clothes. Then we were told that a lawyer had come to him the day before and told him that he had inherited a title of Baronet from an Irish peer that had died, and he was the only relative. There was no money or land however, so next day he was back in his normal work clothes. He could put ‘Bart.’ after his name though.

Within a few days of my eighteenth birthday Pete and I were required to register for National Service, a two year stint in the service of the Queen for all medically fit males over the age of eighteen years of age. I reported to the recruiting office in Liverpool and filled in the obligatory forms and undertook the assessment tests, medical examination and interview.

"What would you like to do in the army?" The recruiting sergeant asked.

"Don’t know" I replied.

"Well, if you enlist into the Regular Army for at least three years, you get more pay and you can choose your trade." He handed me a list of all the different Regiments and Corps, together with the trades associated with each.

"With your schooling I’d suggest a cipher operator in the Royal Signals, you get two stripes when you qualify. You can sign on for twenty-two years with the option of coming out at any three year point. That way you get maximum pay and the best opportunities."

One month later I was a private in the Royal Corps of Signals at Catterick Camp on the Yorkshire moors. With about thirty other recruits and National Service conscripts, we were rapidly indoctrinated into our six weeks of basic training and the discipline of army life. Our first lesson was our introduction to the new hierarchy of gods, from the lance-corporal to the demigod, the Regimental Sergeant Major. When they walked the earth shook, when they spoke the heavens thundered.

School, parental control and army cadet training had been the disciplinary reins applied during my life so far. I had never been a social or pack animal, motivated more by the need to be different than to follow the herd.. When, therefore, our new squad was released for the evening and made a beeline for the NAAFI, the soldiers’ general canteen, all of these eighteen year olds, away from home for the first time in their lives and now considered to be ‘men’, queued up and ordered their pints of beer.

"Pint please!" I ordered, "of milk!"

With a beer mug of milk I sat down at the table with my new mates. "Cheers!" I said, drinking it down.

I never suffered any undue pressure from that time on, though many a time my soft-drinks were ‘doctored’. Always detected, always replaced, all in good fun.

Newton Abbot, near Torquay in south west England in November 1953 was unusually mild and sunny, It was Sunday breakfast time at the army camp for young soldiers awaiting their postings overseas, and they drifted into the canteen slowly on a day which would leave them free from duty, a day to rest and relax before another week of drill and training to hone their skills prior to their moves to stations throughout the globe, Hong Kong, Singapore, Africa, Germany and many other places where Britain had the oversight for security or the maintenance of peace.

A local civilian was spreading, on a wooden trestle table, magazines and newspapers for sale. Asking for directions to a local Methodist church I was pleased to be invited by him, to join he and his family in Torquay after breakfast. He was a large man, John by name, probably near thirty years of age, so I was quite surprised when he took me to his transport, a minute three-wheel two-seater van. Putting his unsold stock in the back, we then sped along narrow hedge-lined roads at a speed that I found disconcerting.

It wasn’t too long before we reached his modest home, a small low-ceiling house in a terrace of similar houses, close to the city centre. His wife, small where he was large, in her early twenties and holding a newborn baby welcomed me. I was 18 years old and felt comfortable and completely at home with this hospitable family. Some minutes of general talk and getting to know each other followed, with the baby becoming more demanding.

Suddenly I was embarrassed, red-faced, not knowing where to look as the young mother, without any sign of discomfort, bared her breast to feed the child. I had been brought up with four sisters, but bare breasts were not a part of my experience. Fortunately my hosts did not notice my embarrassment, as I am sure it would have upset them.

Later that morning I was introduced to the mother’s 16 or 17 year old sister who lived with them. There was shyness but no embarrassment as we travelled back to camp that evening in the back of the small van. A van apparently designed for the sole purpose of promoting covert fellowship one with the other. Holding hands in the back of that van was a weekly experience for the next six weeks until I sailed for Kenya. How I regret my failure to keep in contact with such a hospitable family or to even remember their names. I still cherish the thoughts of them half a century later.

January in Kenya, East Africa, was high summer, but in Nairobi, at 5,000 feet above sea level, the weather was perfect. A far cry from the prevailing winter snows in England, which I had left some three weeks earlier.

New Year’s eve was spent on board the ill-fated troopship Empire Windrush, awaiting transportation to Mombasa, the seaport to Kenya. My destination and home for the next two years. I had qualified in my army trade some months before, and had postings allocated and cancelled several times in the intervening weeks.

Fontainebleau, sixty kilometres south of Paris, had been my prize for achieving high results in my cipher course, it was a plum posting and, though I did not speak French, I was looking forward to such an experience. Alas it was not to be, the appointment was changed to Munchen Gladbach with the British army on the Rhine. Well, my lessons in German at which I achieved the remarkable distinction of being consistently bottom of the class, would not go astray.

The Royal Signals depot regiment in Newton Abbot was to be my staging point, and the place I learned of yet another change, this time to Nairobi. Well, Swahili had not been taught at the grammar school I had attended, so the measure of my aptitude for such a posting was open to question. Here I was on African soil after ten days aboard a crowded troopship transporting Her Majesty’s armed forces to the outer reaches of her dominions. Across the storm tossed Bay of Biscay, past the mighty fortress of Gibraltar into the virtual inland sea of the Mediterranean. No luxury cruise, this as the winter storms continued to lash the ship. Eventually we were at Port Said and the Suez canal. Sunny skies and hot sultry weather.

Local traders in ‘bum boats’ swarmed alongside and were then permitted to come on board and trade with the eager soldiers. Quick fingered Arab traders quickly relieved us of our meagre resources for unbelievable treasures that transformed into trash when inspected in our bunks. A treasured crown piece celebrating the Festival of Britain was the price of a glittering ruby and gold ring that magically lost it’s gemstone and turned to brass whilst being wrapped and packaged. Of the trader there was no trace of course. My first lesson in the trading ethics outside of England.

A slow majestic journey down the canal and the Red Sea with a visit to Aden where some of the troops disembarked and then on to Mombasa. Our journey by this time had become a winter cruise along the African coast, across the equator into port. After leaving Mombasa the ship continued to Singapore and Hong Kong, when, on it’s return journey it caught fire and sank near the Italian coast.

Meanwhile, a tedious train journey ensued to Nairobi, pulling into sidings whilst normal trains with a higher priority than ours sped past. One soldier who disembarked at one such stop was able to catch up at the next one by running along the track, such was the pace of our journey.

The unfolding vista of the Kenyan countryside with the ubiquitous flat-topped trees littering the landscape kept our interest and attention as the various tribal forms of dress, personal and bodily adornment changed constantly as we travelled northwards.

Nairobi was a clean city, but presented several cultural shocks to a young teenage soldier. Apartheid, in the form of separated sections of public transport, the triple doored public conveniences, whites, coloureds, and Africans. Learning the ‘rules’ was a traumatic experience.

Some weeks after my arrival, after the morning church service, I was leaving the Anglican cathedral in the city when approached my a diminutive middle-aged white-man. ‘Are you in the forces?’ He asked. On my affirmation he stated that he entertained a few army personnel at his home if I would like to join them. Willing to experience the hospitality of residents, I willingly acceded.

His home was reasonably modest, but located in extensive grounds with several chalets and bungalows around, with what were obviously servants quarters to the rear. His ‘few army personnel’ was about thirty in number, and it transpired that he was the principal surgeon at the local hospital. A Christian in both belief and lifestyle, he opened his home every Wednesday and weekend. It was through these ministrations that I later accepted Jesus Christ as my personal saviour and became a Christian. But that is another story.

I was now working in the cipher office at the GHQ in Nairobi, and still another change in direction. Interviewed and appointed to a position on the island of French speaking Mauritius, this was once again changed to a posting to the forward position of Brigade Headquarters at Nyeri, some 100 kilometres north of Nairobi and just south of the equator.

This base for the repression of Mau Mau activity was to be my canvas home for the rest of my Kenyan experience.

When three years of age, a Sunday School operated by the Liverpool City Mission was my introduction to the Christian faith, though it was a long journey to traverse. My older sister Barbara, had ‘found’ this mission some days before and took us along with her. Week in week out we dutifully attended the classes, collected our attendance stamps, and aspired to the prizes at year end. Encouraged by our parents, who sought a little bit of solitude each Sunday, it became a regular routine.

Several years later, when aged about 7, and attending the local Church of England primary school, I was chosen to be a church choir member. I was also encouraged to attend the Anglican Sunday School, my allegiance changed, and I was now attending three church services every Sunday.

Located between our home on the council housing estate, and the church in the village centre, we constantly passed a small Gospel Hall which held midweek meetings with magic lantern slide shows, with the singing of choruses, and serving cordial and biscuits! We were on a winner, week after week, winter and summer, we attended these meetings more for the physical rewards than the spiritual.

Confirmed in the Anglican faith at age fourteen, by voice began to break soon afterwards, and I retired from the choir, and therefore also from the obligatory church attendance. Such was the depth of my faith.

A few years later I was invited by a school friend to attend the local nonconformist Methodist chapel, and the midweek youth meeting. Here again the Gospel was preached, and I believed I was living the Christian life. Recruitment into the army, church attendance at every opportunity, and the invitation to home meetings in Kenya. My grounding could not have been more secure. But the language that was spoken, the experiences that were shared, did not completely relate to the emotions that I felt within me.

I was now based in Nyeri, had obtained a weekend leave pass and secured a lift in a two seater aircraft operated by the Kenya Police to Nairobi and a weekend stay with my friends the Jarvis family. That weekend there happened to be a Christian convention in town, and I was invited to attend. The speaker was electrifying, he was speaking directly to me. The crowds around me faded into insignificance, I began to realise that all the teaching I had received over the years had been passing over my head, it had not spoken to my heart. There was now an innermost conviction that I was a sinner, in need of a Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ. I committed my life to Him that night.

Unfortunately, the next day I was back in Nyeri. I was given a letter of introduction to a Scottish missionary family who lived near the town, and there met other young Christians. Unable to travel out of the town regularly because of the security measures and restrictions, it was mainly a case of the blind leading the blind, and my Christian growth was very slow and tortuous.

It was not until fifteen years later, in Sydney, Australia that I recommitted my life and experienced the strength and growth that comes from a knowledge of Christ.

An important function of the Signals troop at Brigade headquarters, was the delivery of both official and personal mail. When I was not required to encrypt or decrypt cipher messages I would be employed in overseeing the receipt and delivery of mail.

The Kenya Police provided a daily air service between Nairobi, Nyeri and Nanyuki. They used either a Chipmunk or a Tri-pacer aircraft, and I would go out to meet it at the local grass airstrip on it’s outward and return journey, collecting and delivering our mail.

For delivery to the army and police posts between these places, we provided road transport. Road transport during the day could be by a single vehicle, but three people. Myself, a driver and an escort, each of us armed with either a .303 rifle or a 9 mm sten gun. At night however there should be at least two vehicles, and preferably three because of ambush. The driver and escort could be African or European according to availability, but usually African.

Our route was always the same, Fort Hall, Embu, Meru, Embu, Fort Hall, a round journey of about 350 kilometres. The roads were red dust or jungle track. During the two rainy seasons they became seas of mud, that needed chains on the wheels to keep traction. The vehicles could vary, according to availability, Landrover, Bedford 1 ton, or 3 ton, and one time even the Brigadier’s Austin Champ, a vehicle capable of crossing rivers.

Generally it was routine. One time soon after leaving Nyeri we saw a group of Mau Mau ahead, they spread out and fired at us. We returned the fire but kept on going. Our first priority was to ensure the safety of the mails. At Fort Hall we reported the incident and they sent out a search party. On our return that afternoon we were told they had apprehended a dozen or more Mau Mau.

Another time, on our return journey, we skidded on the slippery road and smashed into the low embankment, overturning and being thrown out of the vehicle. There were no seat belts, and the side panels of the doors had been removed for comfort. Being thrown out was simply a matter of applied forces.

I can remember one of the most unusual feelings of my life. I literally saw stars, feeling as though I was continually falling into a feather mattress. It was a luxuriating and pleasant experience. My subconscious then took over, get up, get up, it was saying. I felt as though I was then climbing out of quicksand, fighting, fighting back to consciousness. Groggily I stood up and looked around, the Landrover was upside down, engine still running, wheels turning, and petrol pouring out of the tank under the driving seat. I staggered across, turned off the engine, and then, apparently believing I was Superman, tried to turn the vehicle back onto it’s wheels.

I looked around for the driver and escort. They too were regaining consciousness, cut and bruised, with a bad facial cut to the driver. We composed ourselves, and then fortunately, after about half an hour or so, another army vehicle approached and stopped. I gave them the mails, loaded the two Africans, and sent them off. I stayed with my sten gun to guard the vehicle. It must have been two hours later when another vehicle approached. It turned out to be my commanding officer and the quartermaster. The quartermaster took my place and the CO took me back to camp and sent me up to the hospital. At the hospital, I showered, changed, got into bed, and lost three days. When the responsibility had gone, the body took over. I had concussion, and two minor injuries, but otherwise alright. The two Africans recovered also.

The normal SDS (Signals Despatch Service) runs delivering the mails were routine. But when an operation against the Mau Mau was imminent the Brigadier would issue operational orders for the various KAR (King’s African Rifles) regiments.. These could be several pages long, and their urgency meant that we could not afford the time to encode the signals, and then have the European officers at the forward regiments decode them. So we had to take the messages out to them by road. This was nearly always at night time, and we did not have enough men or vehicles to travel in convoy, so it was single vehicles, and hope for the best.

The African villages which we had to pass, and which were prone to attack by the Mau Mau seeking recruits, and raiding for food supplies, would be fortified with bamboo fences, and a moat-like ditch filled with sharpened bamboo stakes in the bottom of it. At night the ‘drawbridge’ over the moat would be taken up and the gates closed. They would be patrolled protected by armed locals as a home guard. They wore an armband to distinguish them from the general population, otherwise we wouldn’t know them fro the Mau Mau.

At night, these home guard would be very trigger happy. They would challenge us as we went past, but there was more safety in racing past than in stopping. Our trust was in their poor shooting ability, but now and again a bullet would whistle past or even go through the canopy of the vehicle. Our trust never let us down, there were no untoward incidents.

We had African soldiers on patrol around our camp, but our only other security was a monsoon ditch with a rough plank across it at the entrance to the camp. A sentry stood guard there at night time. Once a week, at the local hotel, they would have a film show, which a few of us would walk up to. About a mile away along unlit roads. We were always armed of course, with our sten guns.

Once, when returning from the hotel, we were engrossed in conversation and failed to hear the challenge of the sentry. What we did hear was the double click of his rifle bolt charging his rifle. We hit the bottom of that monsoon ditch in a hurry, piled on top of each other in the dark, frantically crying ‘Friend!’

The Sergeant in charge of the Signals detachment at Nanyuki was going home on inter-tour leave, and one of our corporals went up to relieve him. The sergeant’s armament was a revolver, normally reserved for officers, and not loaded unless going out. Several of us decided to go and visit Corporal ‘Blackie’ Blackman one weekend, arranged for the hire of an army Landrover and set off.

We had quite a good time sitting and talking away the evening and the next morning. A young lance-corporal ‘Elfie’ Elphic, fancying himself as a western gun-slinger, had strapped on Blackie’s revolver and was practising fast drawing. We weren’t paying much attention leaving him to his dreaming.

‘Blackie, where’s the safety catch on this?’ Elfie asked.

Blackie reached out for the revolver taking it in his hand.

‘No safety catch, Elfie, just watch the cocking action!’ And squeezed the trigger.

There was a huge explosion in the confines of the room, a bullet smashed past my ear into the back of the seat, and pandemonium broke out. Unknown to all, Elfie had loaded the revolver. He was never able to perfect his fast-draw after Blackie had finished with him.

My three year term in the army was almost up, I was to return to England for demobilisation leave and discharge. Flight date Saturday 4th February, 1956. My 21st birthday. What a great present. I packed all of my personal possessions, gave away all that I could not carry, took leave of my mates, and departed for the transit camp to await my flight.

Alarm set for 5 am to ensure getting to the airport on time, the group of us breakfasted, assembled and were transported to the airport. No formal passport controls, simply a check list of passengers. Names called, all correct.

The Hercules transport plane was warming up on the tarmac, air force personnel scurrying around with final preparations. Then in the distance the sound of an ambulance siren, getting closer and closer. Coming to an abrupt halt near the aircraft a stretcher was carried to the waiting aircraft.

Davies, Dawson, Devine! Your flight is cancelled, emergency case needs your seats.

My birthday dream evaporated as we stood and watched the aircraft disappear into the distance before we returned to the transit camp to await the next flight some days later.

Three years of army service was completed, I had learned a trade as a cipher operator, served on active service in the terrorist ravaged areas of Kenya and was now back to civilian life in England. It was spring, and the desire to explore the beautiful countryside of northwest England and North Wales. The years of service abroad had motivated my desire to see more of the land of my birth and heritage.

Army service pay did not permit the accumulation of independent means, and the position I had obtained as a timekeeper and wages clerk with a civil engineering and construction company did not foster a spendthrift attitude. I needed transport, but above all, I needed economy transport. A motorcycle seemed to be the obvious choice. Never having ridden one, my total experience of was nil, zilch, zero. I could not recall even having sat astride one! So the established criteria for definitive selection was purely appeal. Cubic capacity, mileage per gallon, top speed and rate of acceleration were simply the ramblings of another race of beings, the salesmen. I knew the thickness of my wallet, this could be likened to a razor, and I knew the emotion generated by sight, and the maroon BSA 250cc, together with wind-shield, riding gloves and helmet met these conditions. Within 30 minutes I was the proud owner of my new mode of transport, to be delivered the next day.

As I walked down the road to home the next evening I could see her sitting proudly on her stand outside of the house, it took a deal of self-control to prevent a fast sprint towards her, though I must admit to a hurried gait. I touched her, admired her, walked around her and sat on her. I dreamed of the release she would give me. But what to do with her? I knew she had gears, a clutch, an accelerator and brakes. I knew there would be an ignition system and a kick-start to thrust her into life. But where they were and how they worked was a mystery.

So I spent the next half hour exploring her, pulling, pushing, twisting and turning until I felt confident that I knew her basics. With her sitting proudly on her stand, I kicked her into life, feeling the throb of her engine beneath me. Still on her stand, I gingerly depressed the clutch and put her into gear, getting the feel of her. Then, tremulously, easing her off her stand I accelerated slowly and drove around the block. Changing gears smoothly and quietly, accelerating and decelerating gently, I nursed, courted and married her in that one evening. She was mine!

The maroon and silver BSA 250cc motorcycle gleamed in the spring sunlight as I left the church. I had purchased the bike three or four weeks previous, and was slowly expanding my horizons with it. As I gazed and admired it I could imagine the thrill of the freedom it would give with the engine throbbing beneath, and the cool wind striking my face. Today I was striking out into the hill country of North Wales straight from church.

The open road unfolded in front of me as I traversed the winding roads crossing hills, valleys and rivers, passing ruined castles and monolithic mountains, experiencing the dual wonder of God’s creation, on a man-made machine. Time passed, and hunger pains started to gnaw, as I approached a roadside cafe. Just the place for a Sunday lunch.

Enjoying the pleasures of an evolving self-confidence. I was not going to let my normal parsimonious attitude spoil the moment. Not only main course, but soup and dessert with coffee to follow. I luxuriated in the extravagance, and called for the check. Reaching for my wallet, I had a sudden cold feeling of dread, first one pocket then another with increasing alarm. I had come out without my wallet, and my coin pocket had been emptied into the church plate. Credit cards were still twenty years in the future, and cheque books a luxury of the rich. My post office savings book was useless on a Sunday.

With fearful tread and downcast expression I approached the counter to confess my situation. Fifty miles from home without a single coin in my pocket I felt exposed and alone. Happily God smiled on me that day, for the cafe owners accepted my wristwatch as a pledge of good faith until I could redeem it the following weekend, and I had just enough fuel to turn and make my way safely home.

There would have been some excuse if this was the first time for such embarrassment, but it had happened only a few weeks previous when I took a girl out on a first date for a meal and a show, only to find we were scrabbling for coins and notes in my pockets and her purse to pay for the meal. The show was abandoned, and the relationship failed to develop. Slow learner?

It was high summer in England, July 1956. I had returned from army service in Kenya some months earlier just as winter ended, and had enjoyed the rebirth of the countryside throughout a glorious Spring. A Spring when, as a sage once said "young men’s fancies turn to love." I was young, just twenty-one years old, and my fancy turned to love. I had found the girl of my dreams, except that she didn’t know I existed.

I had first seen her some weeks before as she was going to the works canteen. I sat opposite her, I sat next to her, I followed her back to her office on many a day, and yet I was invisible. I talked about her, I dreamed about her, I mooned over her, to no avail.

She came to work in the same office complex as I, and I found many an excuse to visit her work companions, but where she was concerned I was tongue-tied and awestruck.

Then, on Friday 13th July, a day when soothsayers and fortune tellers warn of ill-tides, I plucked up the courage to ask her to come to the cinema with me the following evening, and she said "Yes." With heart pounding, blood racing and face aflush I fled from her presence before she had second thoughts.

The following evening we took the ‘bus to the local city centre for our evening together. Enjoyed each others company and agreed to do the same thing the next evening. Another visit to the cinema.

During the screening on that second evening, with my arm around her, I wrapped my drink-straw (pre-plastic) around her ring finger on the left hand, twisting it into a knot and asked her to marry me. Her reply, "Don’t be daft - I don’t know you!"

It took another six months of courting and separation, hundreds of pages of letters from overseas, and cosy winter evenings by the fireside before she finally said ‘yes’.

It is now over forty years, four children and eight grandchildren later. The straw ring, cherished for many a year, has gone, chewed up by the mechanism of the musical-trinket box it was kept in. But the memories of those magic moments can still be recalled and cherished anew.

A torrid, mercurial relationship had evolved with Ann, my girlfriend of just three weeks. After an electrifying start, where I asked her to marry me within two days, we had had disagreements and reconciliations unnumbered. The company we both worked for had had its annual dinner the Friday before, and though we had gone together, we left with different partners.

The week previous we had booked and paid for a coach trip on the up-coming public holiday, and today was the day, just three days after our latest eruption. I had telephoned her on the Sunday to see what we should do, and had agreed ‘not to waste our money’. So here we were, standing in stony silence, awaiting the arrival of the coach.

Eight hours of enforced companionship on a balmy summer day, in the close confines of a luxury coach, are not conducive to the maintenance of strained relationships. It was not too long before there were murmurings and ‘tut-tuttings’ from adjacent passengers, but love is not only blind but deaf too. Where we went and what we saw that day, I do not know, but our relationship was back on track.

The world news at that time was filled with one Abdul Nasser, president of Egypt, and his threat to nationalise the British and French owned Suez canal. But, after a pleasant finale to our day’s outing, world news was but a backdrop to our bliss, until I arrived home shortly after midnight There awaiting me was a request from Her Majesty, stating her need for my immediate return to her service, and ordering me to be at my regimental depot by 9 am that morning. I came down to earth with a bang. Fortunately the depot regiment had moved from Newton Abbot, some fifteen hours train journey away, to Chester, just an hour from home.

A short sleep, rapid packing of essentials, knowing that all clothing and needs would be issued by the army, I straddled my BSA and departed, detouring slightly via Ann’s home, to acquaint her with the news. For ten days we languished at the depot, being kitted out, and preparing for deployment to unspecified parts, but with vehicles being transformed from khaki green to desert yellow. You cannot hide every detail.

In the meantime, our relationship had returned to its mercurial state, and as Ann was due to go on holiday with a girlfriend and I was going to places unknown for an unspecified period, the low temperature currently prevailing did not anticipate a rapid rise.

Tripoli, on the North African coast was the landfall of the Hercules transport plane that deposited us in the early hours of the morning. The cold desert night winds restricting our adventurous natures, and ensuring we stayed in a huddled group until transported to an abandoned wartime Italian army base that had been hurriedly brought back to life. Ten thousand British troops were transported to those African shores, with tens of thousands more to bases in Malta, Cyprus and Germany. Britain was preparing for war, and a war it intended to win. But times had changed the nature of world politics, with the French amassing in Algiers, and a push towards Egypt almost imminent, meetings and condemnation from the United Nations and the lack of support from the Americans forced the deferment and eventual collapse of the strategy. Israel, meanwhile, had struck towards Egypt and regained control of disputed areas in the Sinai.

Of the thousands of troops now stationed in Tripoli, only a few dozen had any meaningful work to do, and those few, ensuring the transmission of encrypted security and logistic reports, were working double shifts. However, the range of leisure activities was minimal, so letter writing, which kept the censors busy, and the confetti manufacturers, who were the doubtless recipients of the large pieces remove from our correspondence, profitably employed, became the bridge between work and sleep.

A tentative first letter to Ann, shortly after our arrival, escalated to a veritable avalanche approaching twenty to thirty quarto-sized pages a day by the time we returned home some four months later. Letter writing became a plateau, the expression of affection, without the external pressures and calamitous emotions previously experienced. Radio Luxembourg, a commercial station broadcasting throughout Europe, was popular with the younger generations in Britain, and the ‘Top Twenty’ program of latest hits which went to air late on Saturday night was avidly followed. Anne Shelton singing ‘Lay down your arms and surrender to mine’ became ‘our’ song. Ann and I, both listening to the transmission thousands of miles apart, mouthed our good nights to each other as the strains of the music died away and sleep overtook us.

Lay down your arms

sung by Anne Shelton

No.1 in the British hit charts for four weeks September 1956

My sweetheart is a soldier as handsome as can be

But suddenly they sent him away across the sea

So patiently I waited until his leave was due

Then wrote and said my darling, I’ll tell you what to do

CHORUS:

Come to the station jump from the train march at the double down lover’s lane

Then in the glen where the roses en-twine

Lay down your arms (lay down your arms) lay down your arms and surrender to mine

A soldier is a soldier and when he’s on parade

An order is an order and has to be obeyed

You’ve got to do your duty wherever you may be

And now you’re under orders To hurry home to me

CHORUS

The girl who loves a soldier Is either sad or gray

‘Cos first of all he’s with her and then he’s far away

But soldiers have their duty to answer to the call

And that is why I’m calling the loudest of them all

CHORUS

 

Tripoli, peopled by Arabs with a strong affinity to and sympathy with the Egyptians at a time when a virtual state of war existed between Egypt and Britain, was not a safe place to venture off the main streets. The shops all displayed large posters and photographs of Abdul Nasser, President of Egypt, a popular hero of the Arabs. We weren’t permitted to go into town in uniform in case it provoked reaction from the locals.

I was walking through the shopping area one day, grey flannel slacks, open necked shirt and navy blue blazer, pukka English, with a parker pen in my breast pocket. A typical naive 21 year-old British soldier. A small group of smiling young Arabs approached me and went either side of me on the pavement. One raised his hand, still smiling, slapped me on the shoulder and said ‘Hello!’ I responded, then glanced down and saw that my pen had disappeared. I whirled around, saw their smiling faces, and one of the young men holding my pen. I lunged, snatched the pen, and ran. In retrospect, a very foolish thing to have done. Fortunately I got away with it. But I never put my pen in my breast pocket again.

We were engaged in February, just two months after my return from North Africa. Ann had finally succumbed to my persistent requests to marry. In the summer we arranged to have our holidays together and set off for a week in London. I had passed through this capital city, hub of the Commonwealth, during my army service, but had never visited, so this was to be a new experience.

We travelled by train, an eight hour journey in those days, now achieved in a little over two hours. We were tired on our arrival, not having pre-booked our accommodation, we traipsed from door to door of bed and breakfast hotels seeking two single rooms. Constant rejection, ‘Sorry, none available.’ Until one hostess added ‘I have a double though!’ We looked at each other in consternation. A double room had never even been considered, we were both chaste, and intended to marry that way. What to do? In desperation we accepted, determined to sort out the problem in the small room we were ushered to. That night, I donned by pyjama pants back-to-front, and slept on top of the sheets while Ann slept between them. At breakfast she turned her engagement ring around to appear like a wedding ring, and we kept ourselves apart from the other guests, avoiding compromising questions.

Later that day we found a small jeweller and bought a wedding ring. We don’t know if we successfully hid our secret from the other guests, but at the end of the week we were still chaste, and proud of it. The wedding ring is still in it’s box among our treasures.

Another episode during that holiday in London, which epitomised our lack of cultural stature, was our determination to go to a London show. Agatha Christie’s The Mouse Trap was running, and had been for about thirteen years, so we attempted to book seats only to find that the first vacancies were some fifteen months away! We slowly worked through all of the theatres until we came to Lawrence Olivier in a Shakespearean play, Titus Andronicus, I believe it was, where a woodcutter comes out of the forest with his tongue cut out and hands cut off. I cast my head back, let out a fearful wail, and fainted. Carried to the foyer and then to a hospital, I nearly brought the whole show to a standstill. I haven’t been to a London playhouse since.

Ann’s father was so proud of his green Morris Oxford car, that he espoused its virtues at every opportunity, so much so that his brother-in-law bought an identical one. When we were to be married his Oxford was polished and cleaned to perfection, it was the bride’s carriage to the church and our transport away from the reception. One hundred invited guests filled the church and the reception hall. A salad meal on a cold English winter’s day was all the budget could afford, but we couldn’t reduce the guest list to compensate for a hot meal price.

At the reception, the band played, and Ann looked resplendent in her off-the-shoulder red velvet dress, a sharp contrast to the virginal white of her bridal dress of the afternoon ceremony. Dusk came early in winter, so the evening was well advanced when we were due to leave at about 10 pm. Fearing the sabotage of our plans, or at least practical jokes by friends, we had kept our mode of departure a secret, we hoped. So we were pleasantly surprised to depart without incident. Not so the hapless owner of the second green Oxford. He drove off to the clamour of tin cans and smoking exhausts, a clear victim of mistaken identity.

Can you remember the first horse-race meeting you ever attended, or the first track-side bet you placed?

We had been touring Devon and Cornwall during the first so-called summer of our marriage. We were on the BSA motorcycle, loaded to the hilt and swathed in waterproof jackets and leggings, and still the rain penetrated through to the skin. We gave up, turned east and headed towards London. Across the plains of southern England until we arrived at the town of Epsom. It appeared to be a market day, the roads were crowded and the parks full. We then learned that it was the day of the great annual event, the Epsom Derby. Never having attended a race meeting we decided to attend, paid our entrance fee and sauntered around the enclosures.

The bookies, with their colourful attire, where spruiking from their stands to attract custom. I looked at the board behind one. Northern Lad at odds of twenty to one attracting my attention. Knowing nothing about racing form, I selected the name purely from the sentiment of association, I was a northern lad too. So two shillings and six pence each way went on the nose of the horse, which, for all I know is still running. We attempted to get close to the fence to see the race, heard the pound of hooves and the cheers of the crowd, but not even the glimmer of a silk shirt or a riding crop. Our day at the races was not a day to remember.

On our way from Devon to Epsom we had to ride up a steep hill, with a gradient of one in seven, it was a hill to be feared. Our sturdy BSA, laden with luggage at the rear, and Ann on the pillion seat, it started to kick and buck as we attempted the climb, the front wheel lifting off the road as the centre of gravity moved to the rear. A hasty stop, off loading of luggage and carrying it up the hill by hand appeared to be the safest option, with Ann walking up alongside. Porlock hill was not soon forgotten.

Married for just four months, Ann and I were asked to move to a new construction site in East Anglia. Our employer had been successful in obtaining the contract for the construction of Anglo/US Titan rocket bases on the east coast of Britain.

Within days our caravan home was hitched up and we were transported two hundred miles to the wartime airfields that would now be reactivated for the defence of Britain against the perceived enemy Russia. This was 1958 and the cold war was at it’s height.

Ann had tested positive in her pregnancy check. We needed to look for ancillary sources of income. I had avidly read the ‘start your own business’ columns of the national papers, and an advertisement for a hand-operated printing machine attracting my attention. Three available models, the Adana 5x3, the 8x5, and a larger foot operated model. The 5x3 appeared to be little more than a toy, so the 8x5, falling within our price range, became the choice. Full kit of inks, fonts and a choice of invitation and business cards to get us started. We eagerly awaited delivery of our acquisition. Searching our minds for a ready use for the machine. Then I hit on it.

The construction sites, peopled by labourers and tradesmen who were inveterate gamblers, provided a ready market for ‘football tickets’. The idea was simple. You bought a ticket which gave you two teams selected from the twenty two in the first division of the league. If those two teams in the Saturday afternoon games achieved the highest aggregate score, you won the prize. Two shillings and six pence a ticket (one eighth of a pound sterling) for a prize of ten pounds - a week’s wages at that time. Over two hundred tickets in a complete set. A very profitable enterprise if all tickets were sold. A simple statement of fact, printed on the ticket, made the whole operation legal. With a Singer sewing machine and hand scissors cutting and stitching the tickets until we could afford a crimping machine and guillotine, our equipment was soon paid for. The questionable ethics of our enterprise were not immediately apparent. The hand guillotine and numbering stamp are still in use nearly half a century later, the crimping machine residing in the memorabilia drawers.

Transfer back to our home area prior to the birth of our first child ended our questionable venture. It was never re-launched.

Ann, my wife of nine months was heavy with child, and the BSA motorcycle was considered unsuitable as the preferred mode of transport in the prevailing conditions. Evolving children in the womb did not take too kindly to the straddled posture and the hard sprung seating available to a pillion passenger. The purchase of a motor car became a prime agenda item.

We were both working for the same construction company in the flat-lands of East Anglia 200 miles from our hometown, and Ann was a little homesick on her first separation from friends and family. Taking a ride along the local highways one weekend we approached a car dealer’s display yard, and there was a sight to behold, a gun-metal grey soft-top four-seater MG, knock-on wheels, twin carbs. Even a philistine like me could appreciate it’s fine lines, running boards and flip lock bonnet. Yes we would like to take it for a drive, but, though able to drive, I didn’t have a licence for a car. We sat in it whilst the salesman took us for a test run. Prices discussed, motorcycle trade-in valued, decisions made, and delivery arranged. The impetuosity of youth.

‘Where would you like to go?’ We were sitting in our new possession outside our caravan home on a dank miserable afternoon. ‘Home’ she said simply. So home it was. No packing, no driving licence, just a homesick pregnant wife and an eager to please, foolhardy husband.

Two hundred miles of storm ravaged roads, and fogbound lanes, with, at times, the door held open so as to see the centre road markings and ‘cats eyes’. Two hundred miles of bone-chilling wind and rain in a soft-top car, designed for summer days and open roads. Two hundred miles to waken parents in the middle of a dark and rain soaked night.

And then, of course, after a few hours sleep, it was two hundred miles back again in time for work on the Monday morning.

Armed soldiers were pouring through the hospital, dragging the sick and wounded from beds, herding the staff and walking patients along corridors filled with pandemonium, blood, dead bodies and hysterical screaming. It was a wartime nightmare. I awoke with a start, perspiring , trembling and feeling weak with fear. As full consciousness returned I was aware of my surroundings, a hospital bed. I had just cast off the effects of the anaesthetic administered for a minor operation.

My arm had swollen like a barrage balloon. A few days earlier, whilst burning secret waste from the cipher office, I had grazed my elbow on the walls of the incinerator. It had become infected and swelled to enormous size with the accompanying pain. I was rushed into the nearby military hospital at Pasir Panjang on the southern coast of Singapore island. An internal cyst was diagnosed and a routine operation scheduled with painkilling drugs administered in the meantime.

Lying on the operating table, anaesthetics were applied, and I succumbed to their stupefying effects into unconsciousness until the dream-filled awakening.

Questioning hospital staff later I was told that, some twenty years earlier, Japan had brutally invaded and captured the island and the hospital during it’s thrust towards Indonesia and Australia. Subconscious knowledge, an over-active mind, or revelations beyond our understanding were some of the suggested explanations.

 

The ship was swaying gently at anchor in Singapore harbour. A vessel designed for the rapid disbursement of tanks and soldiers, the landing craft was loaded with two communication vehicles, a 3-ton truck and two Landrovers. A dozen or so members of the Royal Signals company stationed at GHQ were being shipped up to Thailand to establish a communications base for the US forces there, providing secure signals traffic between Washington and the Commander in Chief of the Pacific fleet in Hawaii.

Britain had developed an encryption device that gave a reportedly one hundred percent secure method of transmission of classified messages, without any indication of the volume of traffic, or the start and end of actual messages. Important factors in the battle against enemy cryptographers.

Originally designed as a static, on-line system, Signals personnel in Singapore had mounted several pair of these locker-sized machines into a radio truck, creating a mobile cipher office. Bangkok was to be the first field site. US forces were monitoring the developing situations in Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam, and had accepted the services of this elite team from the British army to ensure the secrecy of their operations.

The flat bottomed LCT vessel, designed for ship to shore operations, was not equipped for the three day haul up the Malay peninsula during the monsoon season. With tarpaulins stretched across the well of the ship, a few camp stretchers provided our accommodation for the trip. We need not have worried however, for as soon as we left the security of the harbour, the rising swell and monsoonal conditions soon took it’s toll on the wellbeing of all those on board, soldier and sailor alike. I had made my way to the galley for the afternoon meal, stretched out on the bench seat to ease my queasiness, and was not disturbed until we reached the calmer waters of the Gulf of Thailand and the mouth of Bangkok’s principal river three days later.

A rendezvous with a British trading vessel ensured the rapid and secure off-loading of our vehicles using it’s huge cargo cranes to hoist us to the wharf. Then a traumatic drive through the apparently unregulated traffic of Bangkok to a flat open marshland area alongside of one of the many canals or klongs that crisscross the city environs. Erecting antennae masts in such marshy conditions became a major engineering fete, but the Signals staff-sergeant’s ingenuity and perseverance won the day. I was busy checking out my encryption equipment ready for the establishment of radio communication between the various force headquarters around the world.

Our accommodation was to be the Grand Hotel in downtown Bangkok, and a dozen or so mud-splattered soldiers from a day in the marsh, did not fit well with the sophisticated clientele frequenting it’s imposing lobby. Rapid daily transformations were urged upon us to minimise our environmental impact. Three months of this daily metamorphosis from urchin to gentleman was to be my lot until I was rostered back to Singapore.

Years of army service as a cipher operator, encoding and decoding official messages from the far reaches of the world. In tented camps in Kenya during the Mau Mau uprisings, from the desert city of Tripoli on the North African coast, Singapore, Malaya and Thailand, or the troubled island of Cyprus, were not the experience and training being sought by the employers in northwest England in the mid-sixties, when I took my discharge from Her Majesty, and sought a more rewarding life as a civilian.

Earn £1000 per annum the advertisement proclaimed, an offer more than double what I had been earning in the army. Phoning the number given elicited no information other than a Liverpool office address and an appointment time. What did I have to lose?

Arriving at the due time, I was astonished to see a room full of thirty or more other applicants seated in rows in a classroom type environment.

A few minutes later a smartly dressed stocky man with an aura and demeanour that spelled success, walked to the front and addressed us: "If I wanted people to sample my new toothpaste, I would put it in their letter-box, if I wanted them to sample my ice-cream I would knock on their doors. I don’t want to sell toothpaste, I don’t want to sell ice-cream, but I do want people to knock on doors."

I was deflated, disappointed, but intrigued. And I had made this journey into Liverpool, so I might as well listen to what he had to say.

For three days, I learned all about selling encyclopaedia. I learned a prepared script word perfect, practicing at night so that my wife, Ann knew it as well as I did. Then the survivors of the course, some eight of us, were split into teams and allocated to an experienced team-leader. Out into the suburbs of the city knocking on doors, making appointments for the evening when we could speak with husband and wife together.

Knock-knock on the door of the flat in the high-rise apartment block. I had just left the team-leader who had demonstrated a live sales talk with a customer, and now I was on my own! Palms sweating and palpitations of the heart as I waited for that door to open. I had to stiffen my legs to stop the knocking of the knees. "Too self-effacing... ought to come out of his shell" had been on my school reports. How right they were. And solitary office occupations in the army had not taught me any social or communication skills. I was terrified of that door opening.

The door opened abruptly, and a young smiling face greeted me, but I was so terrified I could hardly remember my name, let alone what I was supposed to say. Three days of training had evaporated into the night. I stammered out my apologies, stated that I had forgotten what to say, and asked if they would mind if I looked at my notes. Completely at ease they invited me in and I read my presentation, and they bought the encyclopedia! I couldn’t believe it, I felt like hugging them, I was walking on air, I had achieved the unachievable.

I was starting to communicate, I was talking to people! ‘Good afternoon, is your husband home?’ ‘No! But come on in’ with a glimmer in her eye. No, that is one appointment I did not make. My philosophy was simple, only talk with people who wanted to talk with me. Any hesitation and I would stand up, proffer my hand, express regrets and leave. I even ripped up a signed contract to ensure that my customers were fully committed. I would not speak on the doorstep, if people wanted to hear what I had to say it would be inside over a cup of tea and a biscuit. One man followed me down the road, trying to get me to say what I was offering, when he had refused me entry to his home, and I had departed.

Three weeks later I was using the same strategy as my first encounter to introduce myself, but now I had the confidence that the script worked, the script’s words were now my words, I used tonal changes and hand gestures to emphasise points, it was me speaking, not the words from a notebook, and I was selling up to three sets of books a night. So they made me a team manager.

Everybody was as successful as I was, right? Wrong! As a team manager, totally dependant on the results of others, I found that I was cajoling, and threatening, pleading and bribing people to get them motivated and selling. They would look at the windows of houses and decide that it was the wrong street to sell, they would congregate in parks and pubs, to discus strategy, and not get out and knock doors. I calculated that if I knocked on twenty-seven doors I would make a sale! So I knocked on doors. And they appointed me branch manager. Now that was really a step in the right direction, if you want the experience of building on quicksand. I floundered, and sank. Completely inexperienced in the skills of man-management I realised that, in the words of the sage, a swallow does not a summer make’. My personal sales did not make me a sales manager.

We had applied for migration to Australia, but I had taken a night shift job at a car manufacturer’s in a nearby town whilst awaiting approval. Unskilled and semiskilled labour was needed for a new production line they had installed.

Three huge machines, known as reamers had been brought from another plant. They were to take the rough cast hubs and brake drums, four at a time and, working through four stations on the machine, cut and finish the parts to within acceptable tolerance levels. Each machine, when operated by a fully trained and experienced operator, was capable of producing one hundred and eighty units in an hour. The union agreed rate at the previous factory, however, was sixty per hour, but because we were untrained and inexperienced this was reduced to an expectancy of forty an hour.

I was allocated to the first machine in the line, showed how to operate it, how to set and adjust the cutting tools, measure the tolerance levels, and maintain a steady flow of output. A fork-lift driver kept me supplied with raw hubs, and took away the finished product. Efficiency increased as the night went on, but well below the expected output levels. The three machines were working at about the same rate, so I was not too concerned.

Efficiency and time management are a fetish with me. The next night I determined to improve, and set my work pattern so that my throughput increased. The forty per hour mark was passed, then the fifty, then the sixty. I was exhilarated.

The next night I was eager to get to work. Back to forty an hour but increasing rapidly throughout the night. Night after night there was improvement until I was touching one hundred and twenty an hour. Too many drums being produced, so the second machine and then the third machine were stopped and the operators put on other work.

Then I had a visit from the union representative. Belligerently, then cajolingly, he remonstrated and pleaded with me to cut back on my production to the agreed forty an hour. ‘I am paid to work by the hour, not by the production rate’ was my response. My work was ‘blacked’ and so was the work of the forklift driver that supplied me. The other two machines were opened up again, but I still don’t know what happened to all of those hubs and drums that I produced. I did hear they were shipped to Australia.

I did join the union on my last night there, in case I needed a union ticket when I got to Australia.

A camp site came into view at the end of a side track off the highway. We had been touring the Atherton Tablelands in North Queensland, had cut down to the coastal highway and were heading south toward Townsville and home. The park area looked great. We parked the old Fiat panel-van that had been our home for the past two weeks, and sauntered down to the creek and swimming hole. It was Boulders, and the place was well named, glacial rocks surrounding a cool stream shaded by giant rainforest trees. It looked ideal, there was a water-tank and picnic-tables under a sturdy timber-framed cooking area. We erected our tarpaulin sheets that served as tents, unpacked our swimming togs, and cooled off in the languid waters of the pool between the rocks. A perfect end to the day, the sun setting. Time to cook our evening meal and settle down for the night.

The fire was burning, the food cooking, the aroma setting our gastric juices running, when suddenly we were invaded. Flies the size of wasps swarmed in towards us, flies the like of which I had never seen before or since, they descended like a huge cloud on us, our food and our clothes.. We bundled the four children into the van, hurriedly decamped, abandoned our food and fled to seek another ‘ideal’ camping spot. Boulders has a place in our memory which will never fade.

 

The bubble had burst, a brave venture into self-employment in Townsville had failed and the alluring promises of Sydney beckoned. We sold our furniture, settled our debts, hitched up our caravan to an old Fiat panel van and set off into the unknown. Two weeks of catastrophe upon catastrophe, breakdowns, burst tyres, depleted resources marked our path south. In some things we were fortunate, the first burst tyre on the caravan occurred right outside a wrecking yard miles from any town. Then a helpful motorist loaned his car jack when the caravan was so low our own jack could not be placed underneath.

A steep climb after a narrow bridge caused us to falter and stall halfway up. No power to proceed. Too dangerous to reverse. It was only by jackknifing the van, off loading Ann and the children, and getting four young men from another vehicle to push that we managed to get sufficient traction to move again.

We arrived in Brisbane at peak traffic time during a bus and tram strike. The policeman controlling a major intersection saw the ideal opportunity to stop traffic as we approached, but rapidly changed his mind as our brakes squealed in protest. He jumped aside and waved us through shaking his fist and head at the same time

A brief stop in the western suburbs with friends and then it was off again, to face Cunningham’s gap and later the Moonby ranges. Boiling radiators, bursting tyres and breakdowns, were regular events. Our worst nightmare was south of Gosford, having crossed the Hawkesbury River and a tyre burst again. We were on the precipitous edge, the caravan jacked up and the wheel removed. I had to unhitch the van and drive into the northern suburbs of Sydney for a repair. Ann and the children were left at the side of the road, with nowhere to go and the constant buffeting of the trucks speeding past threatened the very stability of the caravan. It was a very frightened family that I returned to some hours later.

But at last we where there, mentally and physically frayed and distraught, but safe and well. We arrived outside Ann’s parents’ home with just three dollars left in our pockets.

Camping on their front yard, we sought a suitable caravan park or camping ground. We were amazed to consistently find notices to the effect, ‘No dogs, no children’. What on earth had we come to. Eventually, after ten days of fruitless search we were able to rent half of a house on an acre of land. The house was untenable, but we could park the caravan there until we cleaned the house sufficiently to sleep in. The kitchen was so infested with vermin that we never used it, all of our food preparation was in the caravan. Sydney may have been a dream in Townsville, it was a nightmare when you were there.

We had not been in our new home west of Sydney for many weeks, when a knock of the door brought consternation to our faces. The family we had purchased the house from, a German couple who had since returned to Germany, had bought and erected the adjacent single garage on finance, and had defaulted. The company wanted the garage back. In panic I telephoned the solicitor who had handled our conveyancing.

‘Go to the garage and see if it is nailed or bolted to the concrete slab’ he instructed. It appeared to be an irrelevant request, but I complied, sought out the method of fixing and responded, ‘nailed’.

‘Right, put the debt collector on’.

The debt collector left soon afterwards muttering under his breath. The solicitor then explained that, when bolted, the garage was not a fixture and could be removed, when nailed it was an integral part of the house, and could not be.

In Merrie England, for the want of a nail a kingdom was lost. In Sydney Australia, because of a nail a garage was saved

The western suburbs of Sydney were the low-cost growth area of the city in the late sixties. We had arrived in Sydney early in the year, and had now bought our first Australian home, well, we had put on a deposit borrowed from parents, and paid our first month’s repayment. We could, nominally, claim to be home owners.

I now had three jobs, a salesman for a food manufacturer by day, a petrol station attendant in the evenings, and selling second-hand and new electrical appliances at weekends. It was a hectic lifestyle, and I was concerned about the spiritual grounding of our four children. We had sent them to a Methodist Sunday school when in Townsville, but in these new suburbs, appropriate teaching was not readily available.

It was with pleasure, therefore, on one Saturday morning when I had taken a day off, a small, bespectacled man with an American accent approached me.

‘G’day, my name’s Marvin Matthews, and I’m thinking of starting a Sunday school in the area.’

‘Come in fella’ I invited. That was the start of the establishment of a Baptist church and Sunday school which, one year later, had over a hundred children and adults attending. It led to my recommitment to Christ, the Salvation of my wife Ann and our trusting in God to provide for our family as I gave away my additional jobs to concentrate on serving God in the church environment.

I was born with an itch in my foot, and the open road was a invitation not to be declined. For the past nine months the suburbs of Sydney had been my work-place. Calling on stores, building displays, relaying shelf areas, promoting products. I believed that to sell a product into a store, I also had to sell it out again, so consumer promotions, competitions, and presentation of company product captured my waking moments. From Parramatta to Penrith, Auburn to Cronulla I drove with a street-guide on my lap, a country-boy in a big city. Then it was holiday time. My drives to Penrith had put me at the foot of the Blue Mountains, and the unsatiated urge to keep on going. Now I was free of restraint, the road was open. With the company car available for private travel, we hitched up the caravan and set forth into uncharted territory.

Dots on maps became objectives, Oberon, Janolan Caves, Orange, and Bathurst. It was late afternoon and we wanted to find a campsite for the night, a side road indicating a path to a river, that should be an ideal place. Fools rush in where angels fear to tread, the road narrowed and descended rapidly, uneasiness seeped through my body and mind, but with a one-ton caravan behind and no room to manoeuvre, the only way was down. There was the river bank, devoid of river, a dry bed and no camping spot. We could only turn by unhitching the caravan and rotating it by hand. Then, on loose gravel, it was impossible to get back up the rise that we had so tremulously descended. Time and again, the wheels spun, and the clutch burned, until we could try no longer. We were marooned.

Fortunately, other would-be campers arrived, saw our plight and drove to the nearby town of Oberon to get assistance. The most hair-raising drive of my life followed, towed behind a breakdown truck with the caravan on tow behind me, at a speed that would have been suicidal in daylight. A heartful prayer of thanks went up that night when we settled into the local caravan park. The enforced stay at Oberon, whilst a replacement clutch was shipped in, quietened my quest for the uncharted tracks of country Australia.

The Christmas season was upon us. Settling into our home of three months we luxuriated in the spaciousness of this new possession. Nine months of planning, decision making, decorating and furnishing had reached its fulfilment here, our first new home set in a fringe estate in Townsville, North Queensland.

School was over for the children for the year and the artificial Christmas trees were being decorated with streamers and coloured lights. Christmas presents labelled and placed around the trees, the children happily involved feeling and pressing the packages guessing at the contents. Evening was fast approaching and the wind gusting outside with brief rain squalls now and again. The radio, tuned to a local programme played soft music in the background.

Suddenly a staccato wailing sound broke the near silence and a voice intoned "We interrupt this programme..." Cyclone warning!

Attention was immediately focused onto the words, "..250 kilometres off the coast ...depression moving slowly southwest..." Attention but not concern. This was the season for cyclones, and it was a long way off.

The rain squalls became more frequent, the winds more gusty as the evening wore on.

"Ann, can you check on batteries for the portable radio and the torch. Oh, and get some candles and matches ready incase the power goes off in the night." Perfunctory arrangements ‘just in case’. Cyclone was a word - not an experience.

The rain and wind increased in intensity, no longer gusting, but blowing steadily driving the rain against the windows. We felt snug and secure in our new home. No creaking of timbers, no rattling of window frames, just a low moan as the wind sought gaps in the eaves.

Our four children were now settled and asleep for the night. A final check that all was secure and our ‘preparations’ in place before we retired to bed, the portable radio, tuned to a last minute warning advice before sleep overtook us.

"Cyril, I’m a bit worried!" Ann, my wife, woke me with her words as she anxiously peered out of the bedroom windows. The wind was a constant howl, the rain again squally and intermittent. I switched on the radio to hear the latest cyclone reports, rapidly washing and dressing, mentally checking off areas of concern. A tool shed, recently erected in the yard, now seemed so flimsy in the face of this onslaught. A temporary partition across the end of the patio, that will need attention. Nothing else loose in the yard, we had not been there long enough to accumulate garden furniture or other adornments. Not even a fence was in place yet.

Have some breakfast and then check on the roof of that shed, I’m sure I heard it rattling in the wind last night, then make that partition more secure.

"Dad look at this!" The children were running from room to room looking out of windows at the havoc outside, the debris and sheets of roofing iron being carried past in the now near gale-force winds. A contractors portable shed, cart-wheeling majestically like a ballerina down the road was the latest focus of their attention. I glanced briefly before returning to the task in hand with renewed haste, making all secure.

"Dad, Dad!" Again the cries of the children attracted my attention. "If it doesn’t concern us, don’t bother me!" I cried in frustration.

"But Dad!" With fingers pointing, they were all staring at the gap which had appeared between ceiling and walls as the whole roof rose and fell slowly. The patio was acting as a funnel for the wind, drawing it into a closed vortex where it had nowhere else to go - except up!

Action stations! Furniture and possessions were frantically moved into corridors, bedding stripped and placed in wardrobes and cupboards. Windows away from the wind opened to allow free flow of air. Personal treasures packed into secure areas. I hastily assisted Ann through a window so she could go and advise neighbours of our plight.

The roof was rising further now with each surge of wind, settling back with a crunching and grinding as timbers, torn out of their seatings, sought new supports. Glass doors facing the patio were now bending and screeching in the process, bowing inwards under the pressure of the wind. Only moments to go now before they would crack and shatter. The sound of the telephone, a mere murmur above the sounds of the gale, drew me irritably to it. It was my employer’s secretary in Brisbane. Uncharacteristically I barked "Get off the phone! My roof is going!" And slammed the instrument down. We couldn’t wait for Ann to return, we had to get out.

The children were hastily assembled in the bedroom closest to our neighbours and bundled through the window to race across the gap between. One by one, the youngest first. Ann was in the shelter of the next house, clutching and grasping at each one as they were pushed past by the wind. Finally Shirley, the eldest but slightly built, was caught by the wind gusts, fear on her face as she felt herself caught and buffeted, imagining being swept into the air. Sobs and tears as her mother clutched and clung on to her, pulling her to safety.

One last check around and our new home was abandoned to the elements. Minutes later, from the haven of our neighbour’s home, we saw half of the roof, with joists, ceiling panels and lighting, being ripped in one piece and carried across the road to fall onto a vacant lot, somersaulting and splintering into a myriad of parts as the gale vent it’s fury on all in it’s path.

The cyclone had passed, dissipating into a rain depression. And a feeling of bewildering abandonment had settled over us before the reality of our situation slowly numbed our senses.

Inspection of our once pride and joy revealed the devastation that nature can create. Walls cracked and broken as cyclone bolts had been ripped from their moorings, rooms open to the skies, carpets sodden underfoot, soon to have grass, seeded by the wind and rain, growing in them, electrical cables draped over ceiling joists that forming an unstructured web of timber and lace across the once neat and tidy home. Not even a dry seat to sit on to allow ourselves to succumb to the waves of self-pity that threatened to overcome us.

It was Christmas Day, and we had a dinner to prepare, no power, no cooking appliances. Jack, our neighbour, had a freezer full of meat that was going to go bad, so we had to come up with some ideas.

A search around the flimsy tool shed, which had, beyond all expectations survived the ravages of the storm, revealed a tool-box and two blowlamps. These became our oven and heating for one of the most memorable Christmas dinners we had ever had. Roast chicken and roast potatoes, together with cold ham and boiled vegies, provided a feast fit for a king.

I awoke with a start, gathering my senses I became aware of the urgent banging on the door to our caravan which had been our home since a cyclone had destroyed our new house some months before. Opening it, I was confronted by my friend Ivor, dishevelled and gaunt. ‘I’ve cut a man’ he said simply.

Slowly his story unfolded. He and his wife Faye had separated some weeks before, and she had moved into a small flat of her own. Ivor, believing that Faye was deceiving him, had woken early and decided to visit her. Unable to get a response to his knocking, he peered into her bedroom window, and then into the bedroom of the next-door flat. There he saw his wife asleep with the young man who lived there. Overcome with rage he smashed his way through the window, grabbed a knife and lunged at the young man, apparently cutting him. With blood spurting all over the place he fled the area and came to me.

Realising that he would need legal help, I telephoned a solicitor and appraised him of the situation. ‘Keep him there and talk to no-one until I arrive’ he advised.

Ensconced in private discussions, Ivor recounted his actions, motivations and feelings. A telephone call from the local police seeking Ivor, advised me that the man had died from his wounds. It was now a murder inquiry. Ann was asked to go to the scene to be with Faye, pools of blood and the covered body of the dead man still there. Faye, of course, was distraught. Ivor was arrested and charged with the death. Inquiries, court hearings, police interviews and witness statements were made.

Refused bail and imprisoned in the local jail, Ivor was a shadow of his former self. We visited regularly awaiting his trial. Eventually the time arrived, and the evidence presented. It seemed to be conclusive, his action of driving to the flats, going back to his car to get a hammer and a knife, the smashing into the flat and attacking the man. Witness after witness attesting to the various sequences of the event. The neighbours who saw him leave his home, others to his arrival and departure at the flats. The taxi driver whom he stopped to send medical help to the man, the emergency crews, doctors and pathologists who went to the scene and inspected the body. Finally, I was called.

‘What did he say’

‘I’ve cut a man’ I replied.

No knowledge of fatal wounding, no expression of intention to kill.

The jury returned with their verdict, ‘not guilty’.

The constant racing of a miniature motorcycle in the yard next door was beginning to annoy and exasperate both Ann and I. It was a hot summer afternoon in Toowoomba, too hot to close windows to minimise the noise. I was completing some alterations to our home where I had constructed a small covered verandah. I had cut through the brick wall to enlarge a window and provide access from the kitchen and living room to this new facility. The enlargement, however, also permitted the increase in noise nuisance within the house.

Eventually I called to the youth, remonstrating with him, and requesting that he remove his activities from our immediate vicinity to a place closer to his own home. He was a mere two metres from our home, and fifty from his own. With obvious reluctance he moved away. And we settled down to a more relaxed enjoyment of the day.

I awoke to Ann shaking my shoulder. The clock showed 2.15 am, but the adjacent living room was aglow with a strange light. I rushed through to find a fire on the verandah from an apparent petrol bomb thrown at the kitchen window.

Two fortunate circumstances had minimised the potential hazard and possibly saved our very lives. Because the kitchen window was on the western side of the house and exposed to the heat of the setting sun, I had covered it with a strong shade cloth instead of the normal fly-screening, this prevented the missile from falling inside the house as it broke the glass of the window. I had also had a spare sheet of roofing left over when covering the verandah, and had laid it down, fortuitously, immediately under the kitchen window. The sheet of iron held the spilled petrol as it burned, preventing damage to the timber flooring of the verandah.

God’s protection of his children is mighty to behold. We gave heartfelt thanks that night.

No charges were ever laid.

Back in Brisbane after a trip to England, we had decided to replace both of our aging cars. I had been driving a Mazda 323 for ten or twelve years and it had proved reliable, so I decided to look for another Mazda. The 626 model appealed to us, so we sought and bargained for a used, but not too old one. A two-year old passion-rose coloured hatchback, sleek new lines of the latest model looked ideal.

Test drive, price negotiations, trade-in values and finance were discussed, approved and settled. Final check-over and pre-delivery service and it was ours. We took it for a run of several hundred kilometres. Beautiful.

The next day we had to travel to Toowoomba for a business meeting, so departing in plenty of time we cruised through the busy morning traffic. Traffic lights about to change up ahead so we slowed down, preparing to stop. A four-wheel drive vehicle in the outer lane appeared to be going through the lights on amber, but suddenly braked. Brakes squealed, and an almighty crash, we were spun around and crushed as a semi-trailer, also believing the driver in front was going on, and had decided to do the same, swerved to avoid the four-wheel drive and smashed into us.

Fortunately we had no major injuries, one slight cut, and shaken up. But the car was virtually a write-off. We hadn’t even had twenty four hours of it’s pleasurable company.

It was four months before we had the vehicle back again, fully repaired.

How many weary feet have treked this forest track

In search of soul’s release? Their eyes downcast,

Not for the surety of foot, but burdened by the cares of life

Which turn their inmost souls to doubt

The value of their own self-worth

Within a world that looks to values that are transient.

 

A storm sweeps by, the rain brings forth a life anew

To forest glen, bush, flower, sapling and the mighty tree.

All seem to straighten, stretch heavenward.

Can such a simple act of God give vigour new

To nature’s own when man, the ultimate, born to rule

All that God provides, cries out, defeated,

Not by some created beast but by the inmost soul of self.

Defeated from within.

 

I search not for an exit from life’s woes. But entrance new

I seek, to life abundant, where souls are free

To soar the mountain tops, now shrouded in the mists of gloom,

To cross the creeks and mountain streams,

To scale the insurmountable.

The rugged crags that weather all, shall so expose

The purity within, and rid this self of dross and drudgery.