Roger Stanley's Story
|
Roger Stanley's Story |
|
|
Where I was evacuated - 30 miles west of London - Knowl Hill, we could see the red glow of the bombing in London. At that time, I wasn't even aware that I came from London. I was just THAT evacuee kid. If anything was damaged in the village, it was THAT evacuee kid. Fires, broken windows, even damaged birds' nests - has to be that evacuee kid. Despite all that, the person who looked after me was very supportive and looked after me, defending me against the prejudice that was there. I only saw and heard ONE V1 rocket. Waiting for someone I heard the noise that almost a gurgle, throaty noise, like a car with a broken muffler, looked up, saw it; felt a tingle in my coccyx and yelled out, "keep going. Please keep going!" The motor stopped, and I dived into some bushes. Couple of minutes later I heard the explosion. It blew up in a field at a place called Crazies Hill. Quite appropriate name I reckon. Weeks later, at night, hiding under the stairs after the siren went, I heard the shrill screaming of incendiary bombs (I was told that later), they landed again without damage in fields at a farm near White Waltham. The only other bomb, which landed near us, did not explode. It was a big 500 lb. bomb. It was reputed to have a message from Adolph, saying this was a warning. We had British and American troops stationed near us at Kiln Green barracks. We always asked the "YANKS" - "got any gum, chum." Never realized that few of them would still be alive in just a couple of months. I am a confirmed pacifist now and hope that my children grow up that way. Better nick orf nah. Roger Stanley aka Yates - Dinsdale- Scanlon.
I tried to avoid National Service in 1952 by going to Jersey (Channel Isles not New Jersey). Would've stayed but I was advised that THEY would get you until you were 38 years old. What a terrible thought. So I went back to the mainland and registered for the RAF. They gave me many tests and said I was a POM. (Here in Aussie that means a 10 quid migrant from UK) Then it meant - potential officer material! Wow. I was advised that I would have a better choice of careers if I were a regular and not National Service, so I agreed to do three years. Ha! I got me shilling of the realm, signed and eventually failed the officer tests. Maths and hearing. Do what? I hear you say. So there I was off to square bashing as a FIVE-year regular. FIVE YEARS?? Yep, the mongrels said it was 3 years on top of the 2 NS; I argued, but nuffink. I was the only RAF recruit to go on strike. True story. Enough for now, AC2 Stanley R. Storeman. 2575583…Sir!
Where I was evacuated (Knowl Hill my Foster - Gran a widow, did all the gardening and had a dozen chooks for eggs and one for Xmas dinner. As a six-year-old, I was encouraged to help in the garden. Usually to collect eggs, tomatoes, berries and rhubarb. (Ah! I smell rhubarb pie now!) As there were no modern toilet facilities, there was also in the garden, a NO GO area for planting, because of THE pit area. A new one was dug every few months and I still marvel at Gran carrying the bucket from the outhouse in the early mornings, down the path to the forbidden area. In the 1960's I stood at a distance from the old house (modernised to yuppie level) and wondered if the new owners "discovered" those many pits. The memory lingers on... Roger the Dodger
I'm not too sure how long into the war it was when the rest of the evacuees left the house, and I was the only one with "Gran" who was a widow. I'm sure it less than a year. There were two evacuee sisters next door, and the other dozen or so were dispersed at the other end of the village. I was a loner except at school where the locals called us names, and I was taught the adage, "Sticks and stones etc." If anything like a broken window, a scrub fire, birds' nests damaged, stones thrown at cars; it was always the evacuees who were blamed. I was par ticularly singled out later as all but three of us had gone back to London. Gran's house had no electricity/gas/flush toilet/wireless etc. There were never any visitors and if I had been playing in the village with somebody, they never ventured beyond the "Big gates" where the cottage was.
I read a lot, stared at the stars a lot. I made little bricks out of clay and built houses .I occasionally swapped an apple for a toy car/soldier/aeroplane.
I lay out in the sun for hours on end with just my jox on. I learned to recognizes every bird song and flower and weed. When I got a tattered comic I read every word,studied every picture and I drew them and wrote my own little stories. One local kid, very obese, always had a big packed lunch for school, compared eo our little sandwich and apple (healthy at least). He also always had threepenny bits strange shaped goldy collared ones, to put into his National Savings book each Friday. He would flaunt his wealth, and his food to us evacuees in particular, and one snowy day, I went out to the toilet (outside in a shed) and I came back with a snowball and shoved it into this guys school bag and into his wrapped sandwiches. I never told anybody, but we all jeered when he opened the soggy mess at lunch time. When I was in UK 1999, I was told that he had grown extremely fat and had died at aged 55. It was after the war, when I came back and was fostered by Gran, that I was really ostracized until I was about 12 and had explained to me what an inferiority complex was; from then on I became so self-confident I must have been a pain in the arse and got punched up many times by boys who told me to stop yapping and showing off all the time. Cheers Roger the Dodger
My 2nd evacuee home, with "Gran" was on a Posh property, which I'm sure gave me delusions of grandeur as I got older. It also made me a confirmed socialist for most of my life. (Now I'm a political cynicist) The little cottage where gran lived was the original servants/gamekeeper's cottage. Gran had been a housemaid of the Purser family who owned the Georgian mansion and when Gran's husband died in a motor cycle accident, she was allowed to stay on. The "House" was called Thornwood and the cottage, Yep! That's right, Thornwood Cottage. There are many tales I could tell about the well known visitors, the balls and parties even in wartime. The tennis matches/crocquet/cocktails on the vast terrace. The most outstanding memory is Gran telling/advising me, "Now then, you remember to touch your forehead when you sees the master or his lady. You better do it to the young miss too. She's as like to tell the master if you don't." This action of course is the "Touching the forelock." to show respect! Subservience more likely. But of course I did it for several years, out of fear or else by custom and practice. When Gran had to go into hospital I had to stay in the Big House. The young Miss Purser (about 14 years old?) had to,"Run a bath for the little evacuee child. Tell him to wash his hair." The girl ran the bath, the first I'd ever seen and stood there waiting for me (aged 9ish?) to get undressed and get in this large steaming bath. I stood there. She stood there. This went on for ages. She said, "Well what are you waiting for?" "You to leave the room, please.....miss." I will never forget the look on her face - absolute amazement I think it was. She left and I had what was probably my first ever bath that wasn't in a tin tub in front of the fire. My bed was in an ante-room sort of place. I was scared of the vastness of the house and not having Gran there. I was well fed and tolerated. Lots of other comments about living on the estate can wait until another time. Cheers
TThe War Effort. There were just three of us evacuees left with, Gran Andrews and I guess it was probably about 1942 when we were encouraged to become part of the War Effort. A few activities were suggested to us: searching for and collecting acorns, gathering up horse chestnuts (conkers) and of course, knitting scarves for our Men at the Front.‚ Gran encouraged me to do all three and during the double summertime evenings (still light at eleven pm) I would be searching for acorns among the colourful autumn leaves beneath the massive spread of the oak trees. I just loved to kick and scuffle the piles of crackling leaves and smell the moldy moisture before pouncing on every acorn. I shucked each one out of its base cup and stem and used that as an imaginary pipe to smoke. I had a small canvas sack to put the acorns in and as soon as it got so heavy to carry, that it was a struggle; I proudly carried it back to Gran for the weigh-in. That's nearly ten pounds, Roger. Well done! Ten pounds at threepence a pound is ...? Maths never was a strong subject of mine and at eight years old I'm sure I never got it right. Collecting conkers was different. I was always pleased to go out gathering horse chestnuts. They were big and shiny, easy to find AND I could always choose the biggest and best for later use in playing, conkers‚ There were two massive conker trees on the property and as the days passed I would watch the small bunches of spiky green balls high up among the beautiful shaped chestnut leaves change. They got bigger, and bigger and I even witnessed several of these strange things burst apart to release a bronze-coloured, shiny conker It was quite easy to fill a bag with these wonderful fruit, although when full it would weigh only five or six pounds. Gran noted down our earnings, and filled large sacks (probably one cwt. 112 lbs.) and she used a large curved needle, threaded with twine to sew up the tops. During the week someone who had a van collected these. The acorns I am led to believe, were roasted, ground-up and mixed with chicory to make a substitute for coffee, whereas the conkers, were ground-up and used as a very valuable vitamin supplement in pig's food. Gran would buy us Savings Certificates with the money earned and I really do remember having this money transferred into a Savings Book for me to take with me at the end of the war. There was a sum of four pounds and some shillings and pence in it. My mother commandeered that immediately I returned to London, and I never saw the money or the book again. The knitting was for free and was achieved during the long, cold, winter evenings sitting around the cooker with only an oil lamp for lighting. The skeins of wool appeared from I know not where; they were all colours and of various thicknesses of wool. The first job was to spread the skein between one child outstretched hands, which were about a foot apart, and then another person would find the loose end of the wool and started winding it into a ball. The fun part was to see how quickly the ball would grow and the skein shrink to nothing. Out-stretched hands would rock up and down, swinging from side to side, to make it easy for the winder to undo the wool. When all the skeins had been transformed into various sized and multi-coloured balls, the knitting would start. Large wooden knitting needles about a foot long and half an inch thick were used to knit very loose stitches. Each row was supposed to be about nine inches wide, the optimum width of a scarf I presume in retrospect. However, with dropped stitches, added stitches and a variable tension, the scarf often resembled a piece of material which had been hacked at by some demented cloth trimmer; some parts a foot wide and further along, often just about four inches across. We loved doing the knitting; it was to make scarves for soldiers who would otherwise be freezing cold. The colours of the scarves made with this recycled wool were like furry rainbows with many large spaces across the width and along the length. Sitting around the stove, often with chestnuts popping and bursting on the hob, we proudly stretched out our achievements until Gran would say, Right then, that's about six feet long, you can cast off now Oh. What a magical moment that was. Each child was given recognition at school for the number of scarves they knitted, and I think we had a certificate of some sorts. I often wonder if the scarves ever got to the front line soldiers and if they did, whether they were of any use. Roger Stanley
|