Sunday, January 13, 2013

Smalley-Marsh Family History



OTHER CHAPTERS TOP RIGHT


In 1874 Elizabeth Kitchen and her younger brother Harry arrived in Stalybridge from Wisbech in Cambridgeshire where they had been living with a fairly prosperous farmer who had brought them up from birth.  They were the children of one of his daughters who had formed a relationship with a silk merchant in Cambridge, he in turn paid the farmer to bring them up with his own family. Elizabeth was now 18 and the arrangement was brought to an end.

Why Stalybridge was chosen is not known but is possible that a post had been found in service for Elizabeth and Harry was found a place on a farm in Matley. Before long she had met up with Charles Marsh. He had recently lost his wife through illness and was left with 3 young boys, Charles (but not stated in the more detailed story below), Nathan and George. They soon got married and went to live in a cottage in Mately together with the three young boys. Over the years Elizabeth was to give birth to seven children by Charles, James, Grace, Helen, Ervin, Harry, Elizabeth and Alice.

Cotton mills covered the area and this is where Grace Marsh found work in a mill in Stalybridge and also found Sam Smalley.  He was from a family of seven also. He worked for the Co-Operative Society in the grocery department. They were married in St Pauls Church Stalybridge and went to live in Kinders Street in Stalybridge where the first of the children were born, Cyril and Phyllis. Grace left her job as a weaver and continued life as a house wife bringing up her family.

She was very good with the needle and took to making hats and finished up being quite proficient as a milliner. Whether it was due to some estrangement they were going through at this time is down to speculation but Grace decided to move to Lytham St Annes on the coast to start a millinery shop taking the children with her. The shop and business prospered and things started to look up. Cyril recalls some talk about hired help to look after himself and Phyllis in the home. It was at this time that Sam decided to give up the job of manager of the branch of the Co-Op and move to be with Grace at the coast. It turned out to be a poor move for Sam as he failed to find any sort of a job and more over the shop ran into the sand and before long the family was on the move and I arrived by this time as my birth certificate records my place of birth as Lytham St Annes.


MORE DETAILED STORY ABOUT THE MARSH FAMILY (BY A THIRD PARTY ASKED TO WRITE THE STORY)

About the year 1874, ELIZABETH KITCHEN and her younger brother Harry arrived in Stalybridge from Wisbech in Cambridgeshire where they had been living with a fairly prosperous farmer who had brought them up from childbirth. They were the children of one of his daughters who had formed an association with a silk merchant in Cambridge. He in turn paid the farmer to bring them up with his own family but the time had obviously arrived when this arrangement was no longer welcome.

Why Stalybridge was chosen is not known but probably a post in service had been obtained and there they were. The younger brother Harry was found employment on a farm in Matley. Elizabeth was barely eighteen at the time and Harry a year younger. She was a hard-working girl having known no other kind of life, slim with dark hair and brown eyes, hair brushed back from the face and a centre parting. She had a strong sense of fun and never lost her Cambridgeshire accent throughout her life and it must have sounded strange to the Stalybridge people. Soon after arriving she met CHARLES MARSH. He had recently lost his wife leaving him with two sons Nathen and John. Charles's wife had been bedridden for many years with a form of paralysis which had left her with no use of her lower limbs. The doctor who had attended her suggested to Charles, no doubt having Charles' age in mind, that he take another wife and emphasised that she be a young one, no doubt bearing in mind the two young children with which he was left and having in mind also Charles' age for he was then past forty. Tall with blue eyes and a good complexion, he was always good company, a very moderate drinker and he had a remarkable resemblance to the then popular politician William Gladstone. Elizabeth and Charles were eventually married at Church on and went to live in a cottage in Matley together with the two sons of Charles' earlier marriage. In time, Elizabeth gave birth to seven children: JAMES, GRACE, HELEN, IRVIN, MARY, ELIZABETH, AND ALICE. All fine healthy children with dark hair of their mother and brown eyes and although the younger end of the family had not the stamina of the earlier born, they were all fine children and gave no trouble. The boys, being born soon after each other were great friends all fond of nature and the usual escapades of young boys with their mutual interests in birds nesting etc.

[June Parsons added that on Grace's birth on the 29th May, her dad put a bough of oak leaves on the door of the room where she was born. The date is oak apples day but the main reason was that he was so delighted to have a girl.] 

JAMES MARSH the eldest of the children was a bright lad and the only one of the boys to show any interest in the use of his hands. He was eventually apprenticed to a local firm of engineers Taylor and Lang who had big works in Stalybridge at the side of the canal. He was very skilful and had one or two minor inventions to his credit. Elizabeth had a favourite child it was surely Jim; he had her colouring, full of fun and a lovely face but it must be admitted he had a violent temper when roused, but he was always industrious and seldom out of work. He met and married Mary Anna Baxter, the daughter of a local coal merchant Harry Baxter and they went to live in a small house in Stalybridge. There came in quick succession three children, Percy, Alice, and Harry, they too had the colouring of their parents and with the long straight nose of their grandfather Charles.

Jim was very dissatisfied with his poor circumstances and seeing better prospects in South Africa now that the Boer War was finished, tried very hard to obtain a post in his trade in the mining industry in South Africa which at that time was booming but money for the fare was a problem. One wonders why the parent Baxter was not forthcoming for it would have meant comparatively nothing to him for his circumstances were infinitely better than most at the time although the coal business doubtlessly had its ups and downs or it may be that the two had previously been of loggerheads, for Jim would stand no nonsense from anyone. Eventually, Jim approached his mother, not for a loan, for her circumstances were as bad as anyone’s – Charles had lost his employment through a disastrous strike in the weaving trade – but for her to stand guarantor for a loan. Jim himself leaving the country was a poor proposition to repay any loan. Elizabeth tells the story "One day I put on my best apron and went to see Seth Bradbury. He was very kind and I got a loan of twenty pounds for my Jim".

Life for Elizabeth was far from pleasant at this time. After becoming unemployed, Charles never worked again: age and the times were against him. The only family income was that which was brought in by the children so it is easy to see that as the children left home one by one to get married there was a continual diminishing of income and instead of a marriage producing joy for everyone, it was a matter of sorrow.

Grace got married about this time that for months the atmosphere in the home was dreadful, and on the morning of her wedding day after returning home from making one or two purchases of domestic nature from Ashton Market, on enquiring for lunch she was met with the remark "there is some cold rice pudding in the kitchen". Perhaps that is why Grace was often heard to say that "cold rice pudding is good for love-sick folk". So, it is easy to see the burden which was placed on Elizabeth and repaying that loan as there was bound to be an obvious lapse of time before Jim could send money back to his mother so Elizabeth took the only way out which was open to working men’s wives in times of hardship, she took in washing which she attacked with vigour.

Jim duly arrived in South Africa and soon obtained employment in the mining industry at his trade. Gold mining was booming and employment for skilled men was easy and wages were good. Jim sent home money to his wife and to his mother. For his wife to save the money for the eventual journey to South Africa, but Mary Ann had other ideas, for apparently, she had no intention of leaving her parents and friends in Stalybridge for an unknown life in South Africa, and as she one day confided to her sister-in-law Grace, “I have no intention of crossing the water". It would have been far better had she had told Jim this earlier on; why she did not will never be known. It may have been the fear of Jim's bad temper or it may have been a moral weakness for Mary Anna was very easy going (this may have attracted her to Jim in the first place for they were completely opposite to one another) but it was the start of a lot of unhappiness all round. Of course, in a small town like Stalybridge it wasn't long before Jim became aware of what was going on and his wife’s lack of intention of joining him in his new life and the money ceased forthwith. Jim later made a bigamous marriage in Durban and raised another family. This was disclosed after Mary Anna and her son Percy enlisted the services of the SaIvation Army in tracing missing relatives. Much has been made of this distasteful story of Jims apparent desertion of his wife and family, but the tale just unfolded is the hidden story and the truth and it has never been previously told. Mary Ann, ere she died, told the writer that she had no reproaches to Jim for in her own words "he was good to me whilst I had him".

GRACE MARSH married Samuel Smalley, a journey man grocer employed by the Stalybridge Cooperative Society and he eventually became a branch manager. The were married at St. Pauls Church Stalybridge and went first to live in Huddersfield Road and later in Kinder Street before moving to the Fylde Coast. After marriage, Grace never worked at her trade as a weaver but continued to work as a housewife, bringing up her four children Cyril, Phyllis, Grace and Philip. Like all the Marshes, Grace was artistic by nature and particularly skilled in the use of the needle and although entirely self-taught, she could execute the cutting and finishing of all garments. Sam Smalley was, like his wife a child of a family of seven children, all like himself, hard working and of good stock, four brothers and three sisters, all eventually married with the exception of two sisters Amelia and Sara Ann, so named after her mother. Sara Ann was born with one leg shorter than the other and wore a club foot. The two sisters looked together in the family home in Willbrook, working as dressmakers and at this they made a successful business. Father and mother together with the two sisters were all buried at St. James Church Willbrook.

IRVIN MARSH was extremely handsome and a well-known heartbreaker, and it was said that a local girl Lottie Collins died through pining for him, for he married Rhode Hinchcliffe, a girl from Salford. They later went to live in Sale. Irvin worked in the offices of the Manchester Ship Canal until 1917 when he was struck down with consumption from which he never recovered leaving a widow and one son Harry.

HELEN MARSH married Jack Crabtree in 1914 and soon after he had to join the services and served throughout the war, returning home safely. Marriage was never a very happy one and they were later divorced. Helen later married Tom Connely from which there was one daughter Irene.

HARRY MARSH, after a short period fighting in South Africa where he contracted Enteric Fever and was invalided out, married Margaret Stanley, the only daughter of a family builders. There were four children, all independent thinkers. Harry's wife “Maggie” became a school teacher and taught all her working life at Christ Church School Stalybridge where she was well-known and respected. Harry worked as a cashier in the old S.H.M.D. offices. Artistic by nature and an amateur artist of some small distinction, he exhibited many works in pastel at the local Free Library Art Gallery. He was responsible too for that remarkable advertisement which ran for years on the back of "11 tram tickets issued by the S.H.N.D. Tramways which read “A RIDE FOR NOTHING” but a closer scrutiny between the bold words revealed a description of the beauties of the district which could be seen from the tram ride to the outlying parts of the town. Maggie shared her husband’s interests and it was a fairly happy marriage. There was one child Lena. She too inherited the artistic abilities of her parents. Harry was extremely kind to his mother in her later years for he was the only one who was able to contribute a modest sum to ease her aging years and give her a degree of comfort. Harry died of consumption in 1930.

ELIZABETH MARSH married Edward Duxberry, a clerk employed in the Cotton Warehousing in Manchester. He died later of thrombosis early in their married life. There were no children from the union and, as they had never set up a home, they lived with her mother in Crumpsall. She carried on her employment in Warehousing in Manchester until the Slump finished off the business when they moved to a Council House on the Ridge Hill Estate Stalybridge and in this house Elizabeth the Elder died in 1933. There were only the immediate family at the funeral and after a life of continual toil and near poverty, she was buried at New St. Georges. Her daughter Elizabeth shortly after through a mutual acquaintance corresponded with a widower in Canada and in 1935, she set sail for her new life where she married "Bob" and acquired and ready-made son.

ALICE MARSH the youngest child was particularly lucky from birth, always the pretty one she captivated all around her. Unassuming, witty and vivacious even at an early age, she attracted the attention of a young school teacher Patrick Brien who befriended her, bought her a piano and paid for lessons and generally behaved like she was his adopted daughter which suited Alice and the family for there was no guile in Patrick. They went on many holidays together with his friends to Blackpool and elsewhere. When Alice was eighteen old, as pretty as a picture, she met Harold Broderick, a rising Cotton Broker working at the Manchester Exchange and after a whirlwind courtship they were secretly married for almost year before she broke the news to her mother. A son Donald was born soon after but Alice's delicate health prevented further children, soon after she showed symptoms of consumption but a short spell in Switzerland cleared up this disease and they settled for a time in Gatley Cheshire later lived in Church Stretton. Alice died in 1950 after a full and exciting life. She gave pleasure to all who met her.

SMALLEY FAMILY (BY PHILIP)

My memories of Father unfortunately are not all that numerous. I was only 20 years of age when he died in 1941 when I was in the Navy, and prior to that I seemed to see very little of him. He always seemed to be working at the shop and busy with customers and when he was home in the evening, he would fall asleep in the chair. As with Ronnie Barker in "All Hours" the shop was his life and he not only had Ronnie Barker's attitude to shop-keeping, he had his tan coloured overall on as well.

A quiet thoughtful man with his own set of principles, not a man to go out of his way to find trouble, very hard working and popular with his customers and traders and mighty careful with the pennies.

I recall an incident that caused him some disquiet. He had discovered that the gas ring in the back room at the shop could be turned down low and the meter wouldn't tick over and register and so he could simmer and cook his pots of marmalade, boiled beetroot and jam when trade was slack for "free". When the meter was due to be read, he would make sure that a respectful amount of figures showed up on the meter, to allay any query. Unfortunately, he had a short period away from the shop due to either a short holiday or illness, and the meter got read without the "priming" taking place, whereupon with the meter showing almost nil, the meter men did a check on the apparatus and that put an end to Father's joyful free jam making.

Born in 1880, he and Mother married in around 1905, Cyril being born in 1906. He was a senior hand at the Co-Operative store in and around Ashton and Stalybridge for many years and eventually a manager. Mother was an excellent needlewoman and talented in the making of hats.

During the first world war Father was managing a branch in Stalybridge. Certain foodstuffs were in short supply and Sam suspected that some pilfering was taking place among the shop staff. I've always thought it interesting how he dealt with this. Not only were goods in short supply but good shop staff also, and this would have added to his natural reluctance to the job of sacking anyway. One day when all the staff were at lunch, he went through their coat pockets and bags and put all the packets of tea etc. back on the shelves and said nothing to anybody. The guilty ones knew they had been given a warning and another chance and it put a stop to the offence.

I don't know whether it was due to perhaps some estrangement that they were going through at the time or whether it was an ambitious desire on Mother's part, but just before I was due to be born Mother made the decision to rent a shop in St Annes on the coast and start up a Milliners shop. It was I understand a fair success but I don't think it lasted much more than three or four years, during which time I was born. I recall some talk of hired help in the house to look after me and Grace so things were on a slightly different plane than to life in Stalybridge. It was at this time that Sam decided to quit his job at the Co-op and up sticks and join Mother at the coast. I suppose he thought he could get himself a job of some kind and with Mother running a seemingly successful shop in a smart area of "Select" St Annes it could be a nice cruise.

However, the good times weren't to continue as the "Twenties" moved into difficult times and a big recession caused havoc everywhere. So, my first real memories are of Blackpool and of moving house approximately every two years.

I recall Father having a job in the season at a "Penny Arcade" on the promenade and of him doing a job as a chef in a hotel on the front at North shore Blackpool; how true that is I've no idea. He wasn't without some cooking skills but the term "Chef" seems a bit high flown. He was almost driven in desperation to take on the job of a cook on a fishing trawler at Fleetwood at one time. When we were at the third move in Alexandra Road South Shore, Mother took a job selling and canvassing a kind of Lemonade Powder and very nice it was too. She would go from door to door asking people to sample the stuff and then get them to put in an order, this was done usually at the weekends and evenings.

The abode at Alexandra Road was a large flat which ran over three shops and then round the corner to take in another shop. A very nice light airy flat with a good view of the sea and the promenade. The only way into the place was up the side of the building ascending a set of wooden stairs and then a right turn at the top and then through the door and straight into a large living room cum kitchen. When the winter gales were raging once the door was opened, the wind was quite likely to blow pictures off the wall and once in the street below, to get up to the Promenade it would be on hands and knees otherwise there was a great danger of being bowled over by the wind.

At this time Cyril was working away in Birmingham at his joinery job, so the household consisted of Mother and Father, Phyllis, Grace, myself and a lodger. We always seemed to have lodgers, wherever Mother could find a corner she'd get a lodger to fill it up. The chap we had here was a nice polite Jewish hairdresser by the name of Newman. If ever we asked him how business was, he would reply "The Ladies Vonderful, the Gents not so Vonderful".

The flat was laid out as a series of four rooms, each room over one of each of the four shops so it was a biggish place but no corridors at all so one walked from room to room. Mr Newman's room was the very end one.

I recall the tale of an incident of Mr Newman coming in the late evening and on traversing through Grace and Phyllis's bedroom found them both sitting down "doing a penny" and him being a Gentleman raised his hat and with all the aplomb he could muster said "good evening, ladies". To that they both replied "good evening, Mr Newman" as though they were just sitting doing their homework.

One of the shops down below was a Chemist and as what was quite usual in those days, they took in developing and printing and proceeded it themselves on the premises. In the height of the summer we could often hear the "clonk" of the printing apparatus going on late into the evening as they hurried to get the day's intake of films dealt with. Little did I know that in years to come I would be doing the same task. This was in the late "Twenties" just about the time silent movies were being overtaken by the "talkies". I well remember Al Jolson in the "Singing Fool" being on at the local cinema "The Rendezvous".

Somewhere about this time an aunt of Father's left him some money, probably two or three hundred pounds which at that time with a man's weekly Wage being between two and three pounds amounted to an equivalent of thirty thousand pounds in today's money. With this windfall, Sam decided to go into business and took a lock-up shop in Dickson Road North Shore. I forget the number but it was on the corner of Bute Avenue and Dickson. This he would turn into a greengrocers and general provision store. I would imagine from now on he would be a very happy man, at last in charge of his own destiny and from where he would work as hard and as long as he wanted. In the summer, shop would be open from seven in a morning till ten at night seven days a week, just like today's Pakistani corner shops.

Once again, we lived above shops, again three shops and round the corner but this time a much more substantial property with two floors and a total of five or six bedrooms. Here also we had a lodger a Mr Hartley who was a commissionaire at the Winter Gardens who was with us all the year round for the period we were at the dwelling which would have been about three years.

During the summer, Mother "did" what was called at that time "apartments", which was a strange arrangement whereby the client had a Bed & Breakfast deal plus they then brought in their own food for the midday meal which the landlady would then set about cooking. It was the accepted way of doing things and not Mother's idea. As I recall Mother wasn't all great shakes as a cook but she found herself having to deal with several different party’s choice of food which could amount to ten or twelve dinner plates of food produced from the same cooker which in retrospect sounds like a recipe for a frustrating time. However, several people returned the next year so she must have satisfied somebody. I recall she had a couple from Manchester, a middle-aged Jewish couple for who she had to cook everything in butter and I'm not sure if it didn't have to be special butter which they supplied, and this different cooking smell permeated the whole building. I don't think that Mother was built for the hard-working life as a seaside landlady and before long she had had enough of it. Her tummy was beginning to play up and it was back to her diet of tripe and tomatoes and "Scoffa" bread that I used to have to get from Yates wine Lodge in Talbot Square.

She did have a little maid who lived in and helped with the chores and was always dressed when it came to serving at table in a frilly pinafore and head piece a la Lyons Corner House. Ivy was a little gem and would also help father in the shop with me while he went to have some lunch, which in those days and times wasn't called lunch - it was dinner. It was breakfast, dinner, tea and supper, and "lunch" didn't enter the vocabulary at all.

Cyril was by now courting Phyllis and was earning a living as a journeyman joiner. Mother thought she would get Cyril to make a fold-down table to fit on to the kitchen wall as the room was a little narrow and would make for more room when folded down, this was duly done and was a great asset but Mother was a little put out when Cyril "put in" his bill which included "time" as well as materials. The materials cost she could tolerate but the bill for "time" was a bit difficult to swallow. She had assumed that No 1 son would have done it for love perhaps. It was to result in quite a row and it wasn't the last time that they would be in conflict over money.

To father, Phyllis was a fluffy, feather-brain piece but he quite liked her as she fussed and flattered him but nevertheless when one day when she flounced into the shop and said can I have an apple "Pop" and mounted the platform and chose the best she could see, she had a bit of a shock when he said "that'll be a penny, Luv". It was something she never forgot the rest of her life. She was from a quite different kind of family and as a soft, kind, and sentimental kind of girl, it must have been a bit of a culture shock to find herself mixing it with this hard-edged cloud. She came up trumps later on however when Sam was dying and she helped nurse him and help in the shop.

At this time, I would be about ten to thirteen years of age and rarely in the house playing with the local "har'em scar'em" kids, no matter what the weather some mischief would be being perpetrated such as using a burning glass to burn a hole in the hot water bottles in the chemists’ windows, and contemplate with glee the disaster to come to some poor unfortunate when the thing would leak out in someone's bed. Or in the summer to go on the sands fairly early and dig a hole about eighteen inches cubed and then cover it with newspaper sprinkled with a light covering of sand and then sit and wait for some unfortunate to fall into it, - fiendish, no other word for it. To earn a copper or two we would build a sand causeway across the outgoing tidal streams to enable people to get out to the sea without getting their feet wet. In the winter it would be roller skating on the promenade and pestering smokers for their cigarette cards.

It must have been in about 1934 when I was thirteen, my last year at school, Mother decided to move out to Bispham, two miles just out of Blackpool going north towards Fleetwood. The family was a bit smaller by now, Cyril and Phyllis having quit the nest. Things must have been easier financially as this was the first place we had lived in and no lodgers or summer paying visitors. The new dwelling was a detached bungalow at a pound a week plus rates. It meant a fresh set of chums for me but the same school. I remember distinctly that I casually analysed these new chums individually and came to the conclusion that what I had suspected all along was correct, and that I was a "superior being" after all.

Father would on occasions send me to the Bank for change and this would some-times make me late for school. The excuse I offered to the teacher of having to go to the bank was accepted without quibble and was used more than once and sometimes out of desperation. I was of the impression that none of my classmates and possibly even the teacher had a bank account, which seemed to make the excuse unassailable.

Father being in the grocery trade prompted me to do likewise, so on leaving school at 14 years I started work at Redmans in Talbot Road, leaving school on the Friday and starting work on the Monday. The pound a week wage was handed over to Mother at the end of the week and this would go towards the rent of 14 England Avenue, and she would then hand me back half a crown. Normal hours of work were 9.0am till 6.0pm but in the Summer it was 8.0am till 9.0pm but being under age I would have a long break midday of about 3 hours which I would use by going round to Father’s shop and help him and perhaps cycle out to Marton Moss and get a further supply of lettuce and tomatoes.

With the advent and commencement of the war in '39, the thoughts of myself and my contemporaries were turned to which service they would prefer to be in. In the end it seemed to hinge on which service would allow you to smoke all day long or whenever you wanted to. We figured that the trenches would give you all the freedom to do what you wanted. So it was going to be the Army for most of us, - what simpletons, how did we manage to win the war.

Why I chose the Navy, I couldn't say, perhaps I just fancied myself in the uniform. I had been in the Navy just over twelve months and just after returning to Rosyth after being given a thrashing by the Bismark German battleship, I received a telegram to say that Father was dying and to get home if I could. The starboard watch had already gone on leave and we the Port watch would follow in a fortnight. I applied for immediate leave on compassionate grounds and was granted leave to start the next day. Phyllis's husband Fred smoked a pipe and had mentioned in one of the letters that he would like some navy tobacco if I could manage it. Some weeks prior to this I had set about making up what is vulgarly dubbed a "prick" of tobacco, which is several tobacco leaves soaked in rum and then rolled up and then tied as tightly as you can manage into a roll.

The next day this small party of matelots with me making up the party of about ten mustered on the quarter deck and proceeded to go ashore. My "prick" of tobacco which was in excess of my allowance of duty-free allowance was secured with a piece of string to the spare button on the inside of my top coat which was folded over my arm. Ordinarily with the whole of the watch going through the dockyard gates this would have been a reasonable risk but as there was only ten to deal with, we all got pulled into the Customs Office and a search soon revealed my contraband.

I was allowed to proceed on leave but all the goods including my allowance were confiscated.

Father must have been ill for about six months with what turned out to be cancer of the liver. I'm sure I must have been told about the situation so it was not a great shock to me but I arrived home just 2 days too late but was able to be at the funeral.

The following is a short piece from a letter that Mother wrote to Cyril 3 months before he died which I find very poignant. It follows after she had told of her visit to the doctor and hearing of his diagnosis. "Well, my dear boy, from Sat afternoon to Monday morning has been a nightmare to me. So I asked your Father how much he wanted to know and how much would his mentality stand, and his reply was, "all of it". So I said well, you know what your father died of, and he said "yes". So, I as well as I could utter that is what you have got and it is on the liver. He thanked me and said he was quite satisfied and was quite ready when his time came. Strange to say, he has bucked up since and I have often heard him humming a little tune or just a little whistle now and then. He told me this morning that he was glad that he knew the worst and although he was emotional he said they were tears of joy not sadness. I am the one that feels it most, as I daren’t say anything to Grace in her present condition, and I don’t want to upset Phyllis as she is doing so well at the shop. He is so proud of her and it’s his greatest joy to visit the shop and see how she is going on." The letter continues for a little more, it is dated 5 Feb 41. Grace's "condition" was her pregnancy with her first born, June,  who Father would see just 10 days before he died, his first grandchild.

Father’s life at the shop had been the happiest time of his working time, he was in charge of himself, everything was down to him. He suffered the unintended slight that all small shopkeepers have to deal with of his local customers walking past the shop with their shopping bags full having come back from town and market and then having to serve them with a packet of salt for tuppence and with a smile and a pleasant word. His resourcefulness was one of his attributes. Distressed oranges and grapefruit would be made into marmalade. Apples and tomatoes with bruises would finish up as chutney, and unsaleable vegetables would be chopped up and offered for sale as veg. stock for soup; nothing was wasted. It was almost pointless for the Dustbin men to call as most things seemed to get converted to some further use. He even recruited the darkness of the cellar to help him grow mushrooms. Frugality -- Frugality -- he was an excellent manager,

I think that by the end of the year the shop was sold, Mother didn’t have the heart for it. Towards the end of the war, Mother must have felt like a bit of adventure so she sold the bungalow lease and most of the furniture and with the additional money she had from the sale of the shop stock, she bought a wooden chalet bungalow in Hayle Cornwall. Sight unseen from an advert in either the Daltons Weekly or the Exchange & Mart. It turned out to be typical of the kind of place that one would get from that source. It was in a community of similar wooden structures built just after the first world war with running water and electric but no mains drainage. Every week a Polish chap with name of Tizak used to come along with a horse and a two wheeled dung cart and remove the contents of the residents Elsans for a small fee.

Mothers place was called "Duneside" and it was built on the side of a small sand dune. The whole site was quite near the sea and near the estuary of the River Red which flowed into the sea having come through Redruth. Entrance to the dwelling was at ground level but the other side was out on to a veranda on stilts and then down some steps to more sand. The veranda soon showing signs of gently rotting away.

At the same time as Mother made this buy she also bought, again sight unseen, a caravan sighted just outside Paignton, Devon, which seems to show a degree of recklessness. After my demob and before l went to stay with Cyril in London, I stayed with Mother for a while, during which time she despatched me to Paignton to find out the state of the Caravan. I recall it being very damp and leaking in parts, a broken window, bed and bedding all damp and I felt lucky to escape without getting a bad cold. It was never used and I guess its fate was to gradually crumble in the damp Devon weather.

About this time Ted and Grace and the children came to stay at "Duneside" with "Ma" as Ted always called her. All the war work had come to an end in Blackpool and Ted was looking for a job of some kind. He got work with the "Camborne Electric Light Co" who could have been taken over by G.E.C. as I recall red working for them for a spell. The Etherington family used to go to the local Methodist Church of Sunday much to "Ma's" surprise but it became more clear when Ted revealed that the Preacher was the local butcher in Hayle and that Ted was partly praying for some extra meat on top of the weekly ration.

The "Duneside" period could have only lasted about two years and some difficulty arose when it came to a sale as none of these dwellings had any "deeds". The only paperwork Mother had was a bill of sale when she bought the place and so proof of true ownership was always jumped on by anyone who was going to deal through a solicitor. This hadn't deterred Mother but everyone wasn’t as willing to take a gamble as she. However in 1946 she had got, through the "Lady" a post as a seamstress for Lord and Lady Hoare at the historic house "Stourhead" in Wiltshire. The old couple were in there late eighties and were in need of help to get the house linen up to standard having been subject to the neglect of the war years. This job must have been of immense interest to Mother and it’s my regret that I didn't take more note of the tales she told of the place and the old couple. Sadly, the job expired as the Hoares did, both of these ancients died on the same day, and Mother moved on again. The National Trust took on the property in 1947.

From then Mother took a job as an assistant to a housekeeper in a nice big house in Newquay, Cornwall, the owners having a big hotel on the front. At the time I was working in Folkestone as a beach photographer and I took a weekend off to see how she was getting on. At this time reg and I were getting a little "sweet" on each other and I recall making the bold decision to buy a little "Cornish Pixie" brooch for her on my return.

The years '48 to '51 were spent for Mother in visiting and staying with Phyllis and Fred in Blackpool and Poulton-le Fylde and of the buying and selling of a property in Southport. The origins of a story about Mother which used to be re-told time and time again whenever the few of us got together and which was sure to have tears of mirth running down the cheeks probably came from this time. Fred and Phyllis lived in a mews type property and Mother came to call on them quite unannounced, which wasn’t unusual at that time as telephones weren’t all that common. Phyllis happened to meet Mother at the bottom of the stairs and called up to Fred "Mother’s here". Fred’s own Mother was dead by now, and Fred replied with what we always took to be a Freudian slip, "What Mother?", and subconsciously denying that his Mother-in-law existed. Of course, knowing the relationship that passed for an existence between Fred and Mother makes for a better feel for the story.

Peg and I visited Mother when she was in Southport a journey that Peg will never forget. A cheap return from London to Southport by Standerwick bus. Peg’s back was breaking by the time we got half way and I think she spent the first day in bed trying to recover. I recall we took the train back. Mother was in the stage of selling the house at this time, a bitterly cold late November. Mother had the house in the hands of an agent but was having a tussle with him as she had managed to get a buying client and was strongly of the opinion that the agent had no business in asking, nay demanding, his fee.

It was about this time that Cyril, being in the early stages of consolidation with the business at Dawes Road, found himself in need of capital. As Mother had sold the Southport house and had the money in a building society account, Cyril put the proposition forward to her that she take some debentures in the new firm "Touchstone Ltd" and receive better interest than the building society. Mother had no idea what debentures were and neither did I come to that but I wasn't party to the deal. When Cyril had set about to make the firm into a Limited Company he had studied company law and was pretty well versed in the intricacies of raising money of which debentures plays a part. He was quite proud, and quite justifiably so on the extent of his company knowledge, what he didn't know was how Mother's mind was going to work but he would be a lot wiser in that regard before long.

The money changed hands and was soon swallowed up in Cyril’s enterprise, but hardly had the ink dried as it were and any interest had been paid that mother's restless spirit had promoted another idea to her and needed the money back. Cyril couldn't produce the money and neither could he say when it would be produced: he had long term plans for it. Not for the last time had he got himself in a spot that he couldn't get out of easily.

This hiatus between them would never be bridged and was to develop into a tug of war which got hotter and hotter until Cyril had what he could never have imagined would happen, a letter from a solicitor acting on behalf of his Mother of all people. I don't know the real outcome of the dilemma but that was the end as far as Cyril was concerned as to the relationship. He never made any attempt to mend the fence and I don’t think Mother made any great effort.

Cale Street, Chelsea was Mother's next "smart" address. She had negotiated to buy the lease and contents of a ground floor flat consisting of just a sitting room, small kitchen and a bedroom. We still have the rather unusual sideboard that she passed on to us when eventually quit this address and came to Ifield Road early in '55 after we had moved on to "St Goar Cottage" in Putney. Mother enjoyed living in Chelsea and being in the centre of all the smart shops in South Kem, and for a short spell Phyllis and Peter and Dianna parked themselves there either before or after Cresswell Street South Ken where Phyllis took on the tenancy of an enormous property and took in variety of roomers, lodgers, and managed to finally extract herself from there and then finish up in the Brixton area.

Sometime in 1954 I received a beneficence in the form of two legacies from two Aunts, who to my knowledge I had never met. They were two maiden Aunts, sisters of Father and had left the area of Stalybridge to set up in Colwyn Bay and took a Newsagent and Tobacco shop. The died in their eighties within 12 months of each other and left their money to the Nieces and Nephews who numbered about nine. The amount as I recall was firstly about £700 and then to follow a larger amount almost doubling the first legacy. The total amount was the equivalent of the average three bedroomed house at that time and we had been working ourselves up to buy a house and move out of Ifield Road.

We fell in love with "St Goar Cottage" in Putney and spent the next 34 years there. We encouraged Mother to leave Cale St and move into Ifield Road, which she was pleased to do. She settled in quite well and made friends with "Amy", a little single woman across the way who had a leg in irons and a pronounced limp. She was devoted to Mother, and Mother being one of those kind of people who can get and make a submissive, obedient body out of an acquaintance, it worked very well. Mother by now had developed a hip condition and in today’s world it would have been dealt with by a replacement but she got over it with the aid of a wheelchair, which Amy used to push Mother around in. On occasions we would have them both over to the cottage at Putney as well as the wheelchair.

"Banana Skin" happenings can occur to anybody and to the observer even if ironically the victim is your "dear old Mother" can cause hilarity. Amy had taken Mother out in the wheelchair, it was just to be a chance to take some fresh air and a change of scene. She was proceeding down a slight incline in the Upper Richmond Road when Amy must have tripped on a flag stone and involuntarily let go of the chair which resulted in "Ma" proceeding downhill under her own steam with no means of stopping but fortunately with steering control. Happily, it all ended with it coming to a halt outside East Putney Tube station with Mother just as unflustered and serene as she started but with Amy in a "puther" of apologies.

Another occasion when Mother displayed her unflapperbility was when during our courting days and Peg was keen to give Mother a good day out. We all, that is about ten of us boarded the miniature train at Hythe to have a picnic at Dymchurch. We arrived at Dymchurch but "Ma" was absent, having got left on the platform in the rush to get on. When the next train arrived, she was in an open truck surrounded by a bunch of noisy snotty-nosed children with "Ma" in the middle doing her unconscious impersonation of the old Queen Mary complete with wide brimmed hat, or it could have been Lady Bracknell on a day trip to Dymchurch instead of Bognor Regis. Kath's dog and the stone, she insisted on planting in Ma's lap!

Sometime during 1956 Grace and Ted and Family moved to London from Cornwall, Ted either looking for work or being offered a job in Town. With Ifield Road having plenty of spare room it was agreed that they share the flat with Mother until something more suitable turned up. After about 18 months the Etherington Family moved to a house in Barking, and around the same time we decided that Mother should come to St Goar Cottage and live with us as she was now about 77 years of age and her hip problem getting worse. She was with us for several years in the room looking on to the garden.

In 1962 Peg’s Dad became very ill and we had both Peg’s Mum and Dad with us also at the cottage. With Peg’s work load becoming greater we arranged with Ted and Grace to take on the care of looking after Mother. They were by now in a big Leasehold property in Victoria. Peg’s Dad died at St Goar Cottage in 1963 and in the next year her Mum died in Putney Hospital. Mother came back to us again but Peg was feeling the strain of it all and we got her a place in Atney Road Putney were we could visit easy and see she was looked after.

"Louie" now comes into the picture. Louie Pearce was nearly 70 and her dear old Dad was into his 90's. They had a large bungalow dwelling in Steyning with a big garden running wild and this is where Mother would settle for the remainder of her time until she died in 1966. Louie was an artistic type, very unconventional but good hearted and a church-goer and Mother enjoyed the easy atmosphere of the place. Louie wasn't the type to waste her time on house cleaning and the like when she could be doing her water colouring and gardening and a meal would be a "happening". Louie would have made a good Buddhist as she was reluctant to kill anything. In the winter, mice occupied the house with the same proprietorial ease as the rest of the residents. In the summer, fruit flies swarmed in the kitchen around the fruit gathered but not dealt with as Louie would be elsewhere engaged on some joyful job which yet again would no doubt end unfinished.

I recall going to visit them in the winter and finding the open fire in the sitting room being fed by a log from the garden about eight foot long sticking out and resting on the back of a chair with wood smoke filling the room and everyone’s eyes. Mother would be sitting in a corner stoically trying to fan the smoke out of her eyes but quite accepting it all and once again pleased to see us.

During one of these winter days one of Louie's cats took a well-earned rest from catching mice by climbing through the open oven door of her "Rayburn". Who closed the door we never knew but when it was next opened poor pussy was cooked beyond repair.

Louie had a very bad arthritic condition in her back and for all the time we knew her she was almost bent double but never-the-less was possessed of a great energy and for some years after Mother died she would travel up to London to visit the Royal Academy Annual Exhibition in Piccadilly and get Peg to go with her. Peg would be quite worn out with all the traipsing around but Louie would still be steaming along with her bent form being occasionally fuelled with a hand full of nuts and raisins that she kept as "iron rations" in her mac pocket. She would then spend the night with us at the cottage before travelling back to Steyning. Eventually her Xmas cards stopped coming and we had to assume she had gone to visit the "Great Exhibition in the Sky".

Harking back to Father's time at the shop, I recall one of his economy dodges was how to deal with bread that was a few days old and approaching staleness, was to give them a light going over with fine water spray and then a few minutes in a hot oven. Once back on the shelf with the smell of freshness about them a sale might be had.

Also remembering my time at Dawes Road with Cyril. In the setting up of "Touchstone", Cyril was faced with the dilemma of what his newly recruited labour force, which was never more than four, was to call the pair of us. With his new status as "boss" he was now going to have these "workers" calling us Cyril or Philip, that would be far too chummy and if it was going to be "Mr Smalley" nobody would know which one of the two it might be, so we were designated "Mr Cyril' and "Mr Philip". So, whilst the "workers" were not encouraged to be familiar with the "Bosses" it didn't prevent the familiarity working in reverse. Dot Stevens, Molly and Vi were in their turn elevated from worker status to "Mistress" status over the years.

During my time with them at Lynton Road, the Dot Stevens affair leaked out and of course a great upset ensued between the three of them, Dot living in the flat above. Cyril accused me of being a "typical Smalley" as I was apparently quite unaffected by their problems and where all three were in emotional turmoil, I hadn't lost my appetite and was sleeping wonderfully well and immune to the trauma. I don't deny this judgment but would say that he had more of this ability to be detached than myself as he could never have coped with all the problems that were to be visited on him in the next two decades.


OTHER CHAPTERS TOP RIGHT

Tuesday, January 8, 2013

Running Wild

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Perhaps my arrival in 1921 was a bit of a surprise to Sam and Grace when they were by then aged 40 but it never-the-less did not result in me being in any way un-cared for. It was just that they were possibly so busy trying to screw a living out of that era that left little time to keep an eye on my boyhood activities in that period before the war.

One of the earliest memories was being dumped up to my neck in a lime pit. Houses build in the 20’s involved having a big pit containing a ready mixed lot of lime for the business of building with bricks. When the builders had pushed off for the day the site was left unguarded and at the mercy of the local kids. One of the older girls cajoled me to walk to the end of this long plank leading out to the middle of the pit. Being about aged four at the time the outcome never entered my innocent mind but when she stepped off her end I finished up covered in slimy mess.

This was a time of no radio, television and no computers so the big out-doors was where every child finished up to burn of their energy no matter the weather. In the winter the promenade was a roller-skater’s paradise especially the slopes down to the beach. The evenings would be spent racing around until it was time to go home. Adult strangers would be approached in the street or on the promenade and asked if they had any cigarette cards: ”Any cig cards mister?”.

The beach in the summertime provided all sorts of scope for fun and mischief and an opportunity to earn some coppers. One scheme was to dig a bridge of sand across the wet patches between the islands of sand left by the receding tide and then with a cheeky grin hold out a hand for anything the visitor would care to give.

A more devilish scheme was to dig a hole in the sand about a couple of feet deep and then cover the hole with a newspaper and a sprinkling of sand and wait for some unfortunate to fall into the hole. Call it what you will but shear devilment was the uppermost aspect of outdoor life.

Once we found the burning properties of magnifying glasses more havoc remained to be wrought. I could not say whether it was matches or the burning glass that set fire to a large expanse of sand dunes at the wild area that existed at that time south of the Pleasure Beach. However I feel the bit of play was not expected to get beyond our control but it did and the only answer for us was to get on our bikes and hare it back home passing coming in the opposite direction, the fire brigade coming to deal with our mischief.

I am sure I was not alone in finding a more mischievous activity for the burning glass. Sunday afternoons could be pretty quiet along the Dickson Road and I found myself idly focusing the glass on the inside of the local chemist’s window. The item that eventually got me interested was the hot-water bottle being displayed on this sunny autumn day. The smoke from the rubber was soon curling upwards and a sort of brown hole was forming on the target. What thrilled me more than anything was the thought of this bottle eventually leaking out in some unfortunate's bed.

This caper was much better than the practice of tying up a house brick in brown paper and fancy string and placing it in the path of pedestrian traffic. We figured that anyone coming across the 'parcel' would firstly give it a kick followed by a yelp. I can’t say this ever came about but even thinking about these devilish schemes was a scallywag's delight.

We all had bikes of course and a long ride out into the countryside was a Sunday occupation. The foothills of the Pennines was the farthest we would go but plenty of fun was available with the possibility of being able to swim in the lakes and go out to the islands where seagulls were nesting. There we could swim back with eggs and set about eating them raw. We would often be out all day and return home exhausted late in the evening.

I had fitted out my bike with a fairly unique form of lighting. Carbide lamps were quite a novelty and gave a lovely white light. Carbide being a white chemical in powder form which when water is added forms a gas. The lamp was usually on the front of the bike and the container was fixed in the rear with the gas travelling along a rubber tube via the crossbar. By adjusting the drip of water to the powder enough gas was made and the lamp could be lit.

The gas we found could also be used to make minor explosives. An inverted pop bottle filled with gas made a mini projectile. Pop bottles were soon found to be a bit tame and one eventful day was when we filled old oil drum mounted on bricks and waited till we could smell the distinctive gas coming out of the opening. The effect was dramatic, the drum went way up into the air but instead of landing back in the friends garden made its landing known with the sound of tinkling glass. We quickly vanished from the scene and just hoped we could remain in the clear.

I remarked earlier that there was no radio but of course in due time this was to be part of everyday life. Amateur radio was a flourishing hobby for lots of boys who could afford the parts and buy the magazines giving the latest one or two valve circuits. Making up these little radios was a regular pastime among the local chums. As we spent most of our time on bikes it was not long before radios were being made with the batteries in the saddle bag and the radio parts in front to twiddle the knobs and search the airwaves. With a pair of head-phones on and tuned in to the latest popular number life was a breeze.

This new craze could not be funded out of sixpence a week pocket money so other means had to be found. The local golf links were a good source of spare cash. Norbreck Hydro had a links attached to the hotel and a few miles further north was Cleveleys links. Four or five lads used to gather outside the golf pro’s office to await the sign to carry someone's bag. The going rate was 2 shillings for the 18 holes but quite often the chap would make it half a crown. I used to wear a very bright yellow jersey I used to fondly think that it used to nearly blind the pro as quite often he would call out “you with the yellow jersey” regardless of any rota. It was possible to get a round in morning afternoon and evening if the light held out. I remember a time when it cost sixpence to get in the cinema and I had thirty shillings in my pocket. A fondness for money never left me.

When the links were too wet to play the time could be taken up with looking for lost golf balls. This was not really allowed by the golf course but that did not stop us from scouring the roughs and into the ponds knee deep in bare feet trying to locate what had sunk in the mud. A maximum of sixpence for a good ball or much less for balls that the men would use for practice hits. Searching in the deep grass was not with out its hazards. One Sunday afternoon had me walking into the barbed wire fence producing a deep gash in my cheek which scared my face for twenty odd years.

This need for ready cash would lead eventually to an activity which crossed the legal boundaries. Whisky needs soda and soda in those days came in large soda siphons which were quite a solid piece of glass ware. These were a returnable item and from memory the money back was either 2 shillings or half a crown a time. These were returnable to chemist shops as well as off-licences. Who thought up this dodgy activity I fail to recall but I fell in with the scheme. Sunday afternoons were the best time to climb over into the back yards of a chemist shop and see if any of these items were to be had. It was decided that no more that say two were to be filched so as to allay any suspicion. It would have been too much of a cheek to take it in to the same chemist to get the refund so after cleaning them up they would cashed in somewhere else. This stunt was pulled off a few times until the shop owners figured something was amiss and kept the siphons safely doors We were lucky to getaway with this one but one of the group took up serious thieving and finished up in court. The year would be about 1936/7 when the authorities were stepping up the recruiting drive to boost the armed forces as things were looking grim in Europe. The offender was given the choice of either doing some time in a Borstal institution or joining one of the forces. He decided to join the Air Force and we thought that would be the last we would see of him but strangely after the war when Peg and I lived in London we came across this chap on a pitch in the Ideal Homes Exhibition demonstrating a potato peeler. Whether he was one of the few we never found out but he would have had the makings to break a few barriers.

It’s an age-old question, what were the parents doing, did mine know what I was getting up to?  Dad was busy at the shop desperately trying to screw a living wage out of his corner shop. Mother was probably laid low with the dicky tummy that seemed to plague her life. Her diet seemed to consist of tripe, tomatoes and a strange kind of bread that was called scofar bread only obtainable from Yates Wine Lodge in Talbert Square in Blackpool.  Of the rest of the family, Cyril was no doubt away in Birmingham working as a journeyman joiner. Grace and Phyllis were busy trying to make a living in Fleetwood market selling cheap clothing or it could have been cheap jewellery. I am sure if Dad had known of what I was up to I would have been on the end of some physicality. I know of only two occasions when he let fly at me.

When I was about seven we lived in a two roomed basement flat in Station Road South Shore in Blackpool. It had an old type kitchen range fired by coal. What was in the oven at this time I can’t remember, could have been bread or a rice pudding, however Mum and Dad were peering into the open oven to see what was in there was getting on and I said “Let’s 'av a scen then“ --- with that Dad turned round and I finished up on the other side of the room having got a good clout on the head. The word "scen" had really annoyed him. Scen was street talk that I had picked up from other kids and he wasn’t having that word in the house.

The other time was years later when I was in sole charge of the shop whilst Dad was in the flat above having his dinner. Nestle's Milk was sold in a very small size and I had taken a fancy to helping myself to one of these and enjoying the sweet milky contents. One day he confronted me with the empty tin which he had fished out of the dust bin. “What’s this?”. Quick as a flash, “Oh, I saw Jacky Dixon kicking it about on the pavement outside so I fetched it in” … ”Little liar”, followed with hard thump to the head. Bad enough mice eating his cheese or fruit going bad but to have his kid nicking stuff was just too much. Jacky was my local chum and we used to give ourselves electric shocks. The light switches in the house were a brass type with a cover that could be un-screwed revealing the connections. We would stick our fingers on the points and see how much we could stand or hold hands and with the free hand stick a finger on either the plus or minus. Wouldn’t like to try it now.

What remains in my head about school is virtually nil. I do know there were around 42 pupils in the class and I always came somewhere in the middle for marks. The boy next to me was Billy Broadly who became a friend. So it was Broadly & Smalley --- Smalley & Broadly. His family had a pig farm which I used to visit on occasions. One day we were leaping across a dyke near the farm and I misjudged the distance and fell waist deep in what could only be pig slurry from the stink that followed me home. Coming home after school I had to pass a nice house at a corner and one day the Lady of the house stopped me and asked if I would come in the house where she had lots of toys I could play with. Who these toys belonged to I could not say. Could be that they had perhaps lost a son and they wanted to see another boy playing with them. I guess I would have a drink and a bun and then off I would go. What I do remember about school was the caning I had a few times for inattention I guess and the pain and loss of half a front tooth falling in the school playground. Pain would appear to have a lasting effect on me.

At the time we lived in Alexandra Road at the flat above the shops I formed a friendship with a boy further down the road where the houses were quite large. The boy's father was a school master and they were quite well off in relation to my family with mother going out in the evenings selling door to door some rather nice yellow powder to make a refreshing drink.  At the rear of the big house was a garage run commercially. I always assumed it belonged to the school master but I could be wrong. The boy who’s name was Desmond Hough (pronounced Huff) his next door neighbour was his girl playmate Brenda Duff! She always reminded me of Elizabeth in the Just William books probably as she had a pigtail. The Hough family cultivated me no doubt as I made a play-mate for their dear spoilt boy. I had no complaints as I went everywhere with them. One year I joined them for a week in the Lake District and often we would drive out in his big car which had a folding canvas hood.

They were typical middle-class. I can’t recall the mother but the father would be dressed in a tweed double-breasted suit plus deer stalker. A meal at a restaurant after a fun was always Steak and Chips which went well with his florid round face. I made a mistake a decade later in seeking Desmond out. I was just curious to see what had happened to him. They were at a different address by then and he was different too. He didn’t want to know me, I soon got the drift. It was the class thing. By then I had joined up and childhood days were well in the past.

OTHER CHAPTERS TOP RIGHT

Monday, January 7, 2013

War-time Memories

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When the Second World War started I was working at Redman's Grocery Store in Talbot Road Blackpool and it wasn't too long before all my contemporaries were all talking about joining up. The big question was which of the services was it going to be. The Navy wouldn't be too bad providing that one could swim, which I could. The Air force didn't have that much appeal, so it seemed in the end to be the Army. 

I seem to remember that a big factor in all this was the question of which branch of the service had the most liberal attitude to smoking, which we were all addicted to at the time. I suppose we could have been influenced by pictures and cartoons of soldiers in the 1st World War where soldiers were depicted in the trenches with fags in their mouth or "Old Bill" in his "Better 'ole' sitting besides a German unexploded bomb smoking away with his pipe. There were pictures of Pilots in aircraft having a dogfight with the Hun with both hands hanging on to a machine gun blazing away but no sign of any cigarette. However in Feb 1940 I was on my way to Preston to join the Royal Navy so I guess it must have been the uniform that I fancied myself in.

A batch of about 20 of us gathered in a Church Hall and after a bit of paper work, which might have entailed "swearing in" or some such thing we were all entrained for Shotley Barracks near Harwich and Felixstowe in Suffolk.

H.M.S. Ganges is on a very draughty peninsular of land formed by the rivers Stour and Orwell before they merge into one and then into the North Sea.

According to the training manual 12 weeks was the allotted time to get these grocers boys away from bacon slicing machines and delivery bikes and on to rowing and sailing carver/clinker boats, signalling with flags, semaphoring with our arms, Morse coding and generally tying ourselves in knots that weren't supposed to come undone.

Three-quarters of the way through the course it all came to a full stop as the Germans had overrun the Low Countries and the threat of invasion was on everyone's mind. We were all fell in one day and issued with spades and digging gear and detailed off to dig emplacements around the Barracks and the peninsular. After all this was done we had to man these positions day and night, 4 hours on and 4 hours off. The Dunkirk evacuation happened about this time and one day a few of our section was detailed off to train as a firing party for the funeral of a Officer whose body had been washed up onto the shore at Shotley Head and the powers that be decided to have him buried in the establishments cemetery. I think there was 10 in number that were put through this special drill which involved slope arms, present arms and fire arms to be done in such a way that nobody else finished up dead.

The state of things in France at this time were so bad with the German Army over-running the country and the threat that France might capitulate that the British cabinet under Churchill offered France a joint Union where the two countries would become one nation if only France would continue the fight in North Africa where she had considerable troops. This desperate deal came to naught and we were left to carry the fight alone except that De Gaulle left France for U.K.and brought many of his countrymen with him including many Navy and Air Force personnel. 

Eventually after about a month the invasion panic subsided and we were able to resume the training after which we were sent on to H.M.S. Drake at Devonport. Travel by train in Wartime was a very haphazard venture and punctuated with all sorts of delays for unknown reasons so the whole journey via London could have taken all day to complete.

At this time great difficulties were being felt in the Atlantic as German submarines were creating havoc in sinking many cargo ships coming fro America and so it came about that Roosevelt offered a deal to lend on lease among other items 50 Destroyers to help our Navy  deal with the menace in our shipping lanes.  The extra ships have been laid up since the first world war and were in poor shape but we were up against it with our back to the wall and had no option but do the deal it meant that the U.S.A. got bases in the West Indies.

H.M.S. Drake was a huge sprawling barracks spread around a big parade ground and was filled with Navy personal either waiting to be drafted to a ship or undergoing some further training. There is always a percentage of the complement that are anxious not to get sucked in to the work-a-day part of barrack life and all manner of dodges would be thought up to keep out of the way of "falling in" and being "detailed off" for some dreary sweeping or painting task. Some would choose to walk about the barracks in a fairly purposeful way carrying a piece of paper and head in the direction of the various offices and give a good impression of working or to develop a limp and spend hours in the Sick-bay in the hope that they would be blessed by having their name drop off the list of men destined to go to some horrible cold place like the Russian Arctic and the Russian convoys. They were to be dreaded  by me and others as the most horrific assignment. The losses of merchant ships trying to vital supplies to the Russian front were truly great. It was all part of our effort to play some part in carrying the fight to the enemy as were in not state to start a second front in France. 

For some time there had been a "buzz" that a draft was being assembled to join a ship whose name came over to me as "Kay Gee Vee" or sometimes as "Kay Gee 5". In the way of youth I was not about to ask about it further and it remained with me that they had not got around to giving it a proper name. However eventually through the fog that I seemed to be constantly trapped in it came to me that the name was King George the Fifth.  The ship I finally was drafted to was the Prince of Wales, always know in navy circles as the P.O.W. This was berthed in Rosyth in Scotland being got ready for commissioning and ready to join the rest of the Fleet at Scapa Flow.

Work on the ship had got behind schedule and she was unable to take us so we were sent to a holding depot in Bristol for some weeks. Muller's Orphanage was a series of buildings funded by a German philanthropist in the latter part of the 19th century, the orphans all being dispersed to other parts of the country. The very same day that we arrived Bristol received its first major incendiary bombing raid and by night it was all well alight mainly down by the docks area. The next day we were all mustered into different parties and marched down to the docks to help clear the place up. Spare time would be spent playing cards, brag or cribbage. Cribbage would go on for hours and hours and on going to sleep the numbers "15-2" "15-4" would be endlessly going round in the head and then to wake up the next morning and almost straight away start another game. This is I first came in contact with this Northeast crowd from the Newcastle and Middlesbrough area. A hard drinking and gambling bunch that was full of life and fascinating to rub shoulders with. Instead of "yes" to a question it would "way eye man".

Big Ships take a long time to get orientated to, what with the various decks and stairways and "flats" which are the various inboard walkways. As most of the time one can not see the sea or sky it is easy to find oneself going for'ard instead of aft and up instead of down as each side of the ship is identical to the other and even though one was "top-side" unless the ship was underway there were no direction to say which was the pointed end. Some weeks were to pass before this fog was lifted.

Almost a third of the ships complement were Hostilities Only rating of which I was one. Getting this lot fit enough to cope with the day to day running of this new ship was quite a task and the ship itself was going through some teething troubles. Although the Captain had reported to the Admiralty that we had finished our running up trials and so theoretically we were a fighting unit we still had on board three dock yard mateys who were trying to iron out some troubles with the tracking of two of the big guns.

With in a few weeks of beginning our Commission we received a signal from the Admiralty to join up with the Battlecruiser H.M.S. Hood and try and intercept the German Battleship Bismark and Battlecruiser Prince Eugene who had been reported as trying to break out into the Atlantic from a Norwegian fiord. We finally caught up with this formidable pair at dawn on the 24th of May. As Pom-Pom Guns crew we had no part to play in the dramatic sea battle that was to unfold in the next half hour or so. All we could do was watch it as though on a "big screen" and yet live, you couldn't believe it was happening to you. To see the flashes of the enemy ships guns and then the sound from the guns followed by the "Woosh" as the 16-inch diameter shells travelled through the air and then to see them drop into the sea was transfixing.

The Hood and the P.O.W. were not all that far apart from each other at the time of the action, maybe a half mile.  A tactical mistake had been made at this stage, which was acknowledged later on but too late to save the 1,416 men that perished in just a few seconds. The original plan was to engage the enemy from two separate quarters so as to reduce his firepower by half but this plan was ditched at the last minute and whatever the reason for this mistake it cost the Admiral his life too.

When the first shells were fired we didn't know who was going to be the target but soon the water splashes around the Hood revealed that she was considered by the Germans to be the more formidable. The Hood was the pride of the navy, she looked impressive. If you wanted to serve in "big ships" she was the one. She was fast, the reason for that was the fact that she didn't carry the weight of armoured upper deck plating, she had armoured plated sides but she had sacrificed upper deck protection for speed.

The first splashes were on the far side of her, the second were this side and the third and decisive salvo couldn't have been more accurate, right on the quarterdeck. This was textbook gunnery by the German ship. I recall vividly the 6 or 7 spouts of flame shooting up from the holes made in the ships deck, we were that close. After a few seconds a massive explosion which blew the main part of the ship to pieces to leave the fo'castle and bow just moving forward out of this huge cloud of cordite smoke and then to sink out of sight below the waves. Just three crew survived this great sea tragedy: a Boy Seaman aged 16, a Midshipman and a signaller.

Within seconds the Bismark had got her guns trained on to us and we got hit with a salvo of 7 shells. One shell made a shambles of the bridge causing many casualties and 13 dead including two Midshipmen and a Boy Seaman none older than 18 years of age. The Captain was unhurt and realized that if we didn't take evasive action we would quickly suffer the same fate as the Hood. So it was "hard a starboard" and as fast as we could we got out of range. For us the action was now at an end. We had however in the last of our salvos managed to get a hit on the Bismark below the water line which caused an oil leak and that caused the German Admiral to curtail his Atlantic destination and instead make for Brest to get repairs. This was instrumental in altering the German Admiral’s mind to go further into the Atlantic and do some raiding on Allied shipping. Instead he tried to get back to Brest and get his ships damage fixed. Sometime later the oil leak was spotted by Catalina aircraft and her position was reported which was fortunate as the two Cruisers shadowing her had allowed the Bismark to give them the slip in the bad visibility.

We were now running short of oil and badly in need of repairs ourselves and having seen what the Bismark could do we were glad to cut and run. We buried the dead on the way to Reykjavik in Iceland, the nearest oil supply. Here we were to be humiliated by the crews of the destroyers who had been with us in the earlier part of the action but also had to break off due to fuel shortage. As we steamed up the Fiord with the destroyers on both sides we were subjected to boos and catcalls and shouts of "five minute battleship" and "rubbish" and such like derision.

After a few days in Reykjavik we steamed back to Rosyth for more permanent repairs. It was here that I got some compassionate leave as Father was dying of cancer at the age of 61, and it was also the time of the "prick" of tobacco incident and the period in the ships cells. Brother-in-law Fred was a pipe smoker at that time and he had asked if I could get him some Navy tobacco. So over and above the allowance of 200 hundred cigarettes I attempted to smuggle out in the lining of my greatcoat a 4 oz prick of tobacco. Unfortunately our small party of shore leavers were all thoroughly searched at the dockyard gate and I was rumbled. I was however allowed to proceed on leave and the charges were dealt with on my return.

A few days after my return from leave I was on the Quarter Deck with a Royal Marine Guard answering the charge "wilfully concealing on the 6th of June within the folds of his Greatcoat contraband and to proceed ashore etc, etc," … "14 days confinement, first three days on bread and water, on caps, 'bout turn, on the double quick march". Within minutes I was locked up in a cell in the Bows of the ship. I had only had time to sit down on the wooden bench when the door opened with a clang and a large lump of tarry rope was thrown on to the cell floor. Oakum is a tarry hairy mass produced by teasing out from lengths of rope and in the wooden ships of yore was used to calk the seams of the wooden ships decks and this was the task of prisoners in cells to keep them occupied. Not quite mediaeval, but just a flavour of an old navy practice. The first three days bread water part was a bit of a lark as the cells were immediately below a sea-mans mess deck and with the guard turning a blind eye to things someone would be sure to nip down the hatch way and slip the prisoner some spare food from their messing.  Most prisoners were guilty of trivial offences (in the eyes of the lower deck) and support was a matter of honour.

In the cell next to me, they was only 4 in the whole compartment, was a chap named Kennedy and he had the reputation of being the biggest "skate" in the whole of the Devonport Division. Skate being the name for a troublemaker with a bent for violence. Kennedy had from almost the day he had been conscripted schemed to get out of the Navy. General disobedience, thumping officers, absent with out leave and faking insanity had all been tried. He was the most violent case and although he was locked up securely and so was I, the time spent in the same small space was uncomfortable but worse was when we were let out to take exercise on the upper deck. Evan in the company of 2 guards this unpredictable mass of resentment was a worry.  He was later to "jump ship" in either Freetown or Cape Town when the ship made her trip to the Far East.

While we were in Rosyth having the Bridge repaired, the recent action was subject to an enquiry by the Admiralty. A large scale model of the Hood was brought onboard and installed in the Wardroom and a notice put up to the effect that anyone who had observed the recent action or even a part of it was to report to the Duty Officer to take part in the enquiry.  There could not have been much more than 20 or 30 pairs of eyes to have been witness to the action and some of them had been killed on the bridge and some of the wounded were still not back on board including my Divisional Officer the actor Esmond Knight who lost his eyesight in the action but regained it some years later.

The Bridge was in a real gory mess and the Pom-Pom gun crew had the job of cleaning up the carnage that was covering the many instruments on the Bridge and then repairs could be made to the communications systems. All had to be hosed down and washed away.

When the time came for the inquiry I had my story to tell. A lot of Admiralty Top Brass was there around the big table with the model six-foot long model of the Hood on display. I described the action as I saw it. How the first shells fell, and then the fatal third salvo. How I saw the flames spouting up from where they had entered the decking and the explosion that followed, the huge cloud of smoke and debris that completely enveloped the ship and how the ship seemed to still have some "way" on her and how the bows came out of the smoke and then slipped slowly down below the waves. I thought I had done a most excellent job of describing it all until one of the Officers asked me to point out exactly where the shells had fallen and to point it out on the model and at the same time handed me a pointer. "Just here Sir, on the Quarter Deck" and pointed to where the shells had fallen. To my horror and dismay he said. "That's the Fo'csle your pointing to", to which I had to make a quick shift of position which rather wrecked my beautifully explained dramatization of my eye-witness account. I was dismissed and left the room just hoping that they would take my account as valid and put the silly error down to nervousness and inexperience. How had I tripped up so badly with my performance? On addressing the model of the ship I had wrongly assumed that I was looking at the Starboard side of the ship as it was in the action and in my eagerness had pointed to the part of the ship aft of the super structure. How was I to know they had got the thing pointing the wrong way round!! Stupid Boy!!

The sinking of the Hood had shook the whole country and the Navy especially as she was the very symbol of power and strength. It greatly worried the Admiralty  that the ship had been found not to be able to withstand battle conditions and to have vanished in practically three minutes. Several ships had been sunk in the First World War in similar conditions and the Hood had been built and served at that time but had supposedly had extra work done on her with regard to deck protection and for this to have been found wanting was their dilemma. 

We must have spent about 6 weeks in Rosyth getting the ship back in working order and by the first week in August we were on our way across the Atlantic taking with us the Prime Minister Winston Churchill to meet up with the U.S. President Roosevelt. This was to be the Famous Atlantic Charter where the U.S. would unofficially assist the U.K. by patrolling their side of the Atlantic and generally declare solidarity between the two countries. After this meeting the navy started to get some sort of a Fleet together to go to the Far East to challenge the bellicose Japanese. Roosevelt did well to bring this about as the American  in general were not interested in getting involve in another war and although the Charter was signed in August they did not come in to the war until Japan bombed  Pearl Harbour in December.

We dropped anchor in Placentia Bay in Newfoundland on the 9th of August and the next day the U.S. Augusta came alongside and with a gangway slung between the two ships the U.S. President came aboard. The fact that Roosevelt had been crippled since the age of 40 some 20 years earlier had been kept from the public both in America and the world at large. So it was a great surprise to see him aided by his on and another aid to move him about with the help of sticks. It's truly amazing how the general public was able to be kept in ignorance of what was going on in the world. The Charter was signed on the 14th.

After the conference had taken place and the commemorative photos had been taken, a gift to all the crew was made from the President. 200 hundred Lucky Strike cigarettes, an apple and a piece of cheese!! Visits to the U.S. ships were then made on an informal basis and I recall visiting one of the Destroyers and I recall visiting the Mess Deck of one of the Destroyers and being amazed, as all the Royal Navy chaps were at the Iced Water freely available on tap and the lashing of ice-cream that was served up with the Midday meal. We had descended on this particular mess before the U.S. sailors had found time to clear their finished meal away and within minutes anything left on the mess table in the way of food was well and truly scoffed by our lads. It was not that we were hungry; it was just to be part of the American experience to eat what they ate.

The Atlantic Charter having been signed we then steamed back across the North Atlantic and after a couple of days out we came across a large convoy of Merchant Ships and Escorts. Churchill ordered that the ship steam right through the middle of them whereupon all the ships in the convoy were hooting and the crews were cheering Churchill to the skies, a great sight.

Once back in Home Waters we then took part in what was to be called "Operation Halbert". This was a desperate attempt to get supplies to Malta. For company we had the Battleships Nelson and Rodney and the Aircraft carrier Ark-Royal, 5 cruisers and 18 destroyers. A major Naval operation to get desperately needed supplies to the beleaguered island. About a third of the way through the Mediterranean we started to get attacked by aircraft but these were fought off successfully and at least 2 Italian torpedo bombers were shot down but tragically one of the Ark Royal fighter planes was shot down as he had been following too close to the enemy. The P.O.W. and Rodney tried to find the Italian Navy which was supposed to be in the area but we could not local them, so naturally we assumed they did not want to be found!!

Malta was under constant bombardment from both German and Italian planes as it was the only base we had to harass the enemies supply lines getting troops and materials  to the North African campaign. The people on the island suffered greatly from lack of food and supplies as the enemy tightened his grip but the convoys always got through but not without many ships being lost. The most famous and heroic convoy was Pedestal.This was a do or die operation and consisted of 44 navy ships taking 14 merchant shipping with vital supplies of fuel for the few planes that we had flying there at that time and food for the starving Maltese people. Several navy ships went down and of the 14 merchant ships only 4 made it including the Ohio petrol tanker which was towed in finally.

This was our second piece of action and we felt we had come out of it with some credit. We needed some boosting up as we were still suffering from the verbal pasting we had got from the Home Fleet about having to quit the Bismark scrap. I suppose some leave was given when we got back to U.K. as the next thing we knew was that we were at sea again and travelling in a Southerly direction. There had been a number of rumours abroad but it was only when we had been steaming for 24 hours that the announcement was made that we were to proceed to Singapore with a mission in Churchill's words to "have a paralysing effect on the Japs"!!

The ships of the Navy in Wartime were full of a great mix of all types of people from clever intellectuals to the dregs of the slums of the Glasgow Gorbals and the like. The effect of conscription was to tap into every level of society whereas the time serving regular were very much from a certain type of working class type that wanted to make a career out it and so was a steadier type of chap. That isn't to say they were dull, far from it. Every ship has its share of odd characters. The Repulse had on board a three-badge stoker who had finished his time but the War meant that he had to carry on past his 22years service. He had served in all the Naval Stations around the world, Far East, the Med, Bermuda.  And in his time had collected a quite bizarre set of curios and knick-knacks from his travels around the globe.

He had served on the Renown in 1935 when she took the Duke and Duchess of York to Australia for a state visit, the Duchess being the present Queen Mum. His job was to keep the Royal apartment clean and tidy. Every Sailor has two jobs, one is his action station position which he is continually being trained at and the other is his job of keeping the ship as spotless as possible.

The story goes that one-day he was cleaning the "heads" which is the Navy term for W.C. when he fished out a "floater" which he swears belonged to the Duchess. After a suitable amount of drying out time he had it varnished and then mounted on to a choice piece of oak from the "chippy's" store and then a plaque attached with the words "Duchess of York's Turd, circa 1935". This could be viewed on special days along with all sorts of other wonders for a small piece of silver or in exchange for your tot of rum. After the Abdication in '36 when the Duchess was elevated to Queenly status this had to be altered so was now "The Queen's Turd, 1935". Whenever the ships company was given a holiday and shore leave not possible the stoker and others who had something of interest to show would be on the upper deck and a line of "matelots" would line up to have their curiosity satisfied.

We had on board the P.O.W. a chap named Johnny King who was the Manchester born reigning British and Empire Bantamweight Champion. By then he had been in the ring far too long and was a real case of a punch-drunk boxer and we all thought it was quite reckless for him to have been in charge of a Lewis Gun on the Upper Deck. He was inclined to play up somewhat if given any instructions that he was not to keen on carrying out.

Among the 1500 men and Officers on the ship were 180 boy seamen who could have been anything between 16 to 18 years of age. These would be time serving ratings and midshipmen destined to take up Officer rank later on. One of these Midshipmen was the Son of Paymaster Wheeler who as soon as he found out that his Son had been drafted to the same ship as himself put in a request to get the boy put on another ship. This was granted, as the Navy did not encourage members of the same family to serve on the same ship, although my messmates the Bidewell brothers served throughout the commission and survived the sinking.

The voyage to Singapore took 6 weeks to complete, calling first at Freetown on the West coast of Africa, the on to Cape Town for 2 days where the ships company were able to enjoy the by now famous Cape Town hospitality. Here the people of the town would be lining up at the dockside in their cars to take out for the day any rating or Officer that cared to avail themselves of this wonderful generous hospitality. Desertions occurred in both Freetown and Cape Town. I could understand the latter but not Freetown. We took on an extra 39 hands in Cape Town all of whom were deserters from previous ships having been caught and jailed and now dragged back in again. They were all pardoned by the Captain and although their record was stained their deeds were not held against them provided they toe the line from now on.

At Colombo, Ceylon we had more shore leave and I recall going ashore with some ship-mates among whom was a veteran of the Spanish Civil War, he was a fervent Communist named Geordie Thompson. He was quite put out by the locals habit of always addressed us as "Master", "Yes Master", "No Master" and so on. Geordie gave them a good talking to, saying "we are all brothers now" and "you must cut out all this Master rubbish", but all that he got back for his noble efforts was "yes, Master" and "of course Master" complete with this curious swivelling shake of the head which was always to amuse us.  Geordie gave up trying.

Singapore was our next and final, very final destination arriving on the 2nd of December. We were a bit disappointed by the lack of welcome by the Europeans, the lower deck that is, the Officers were feted of course. This was symbolic of the attitude of the Rubber Planter / Ex-pat type of Brit of that era.

In less than a week we were at sea again, the task this time was to investigate reports that Japanese ships were landing troops on the coast of Malaya and although the location was beyond the range of out protective aircraft screen we were to take that risk and so put the Fleet in jeopardy. By the most unfortunate bit of bad luck we were spotted by a Japanese Submarine and they alerted the Jap Air Force.

We were attacked at about midday on the 10th by both torpedo bombers and high level bombers some times separately sometimes together both the P.O.W. and the Repulse being the targets, the Destroyers were not attacked at all. 

During this action which lasted about 2 hours my action station being the Pom-Pom guns experienced plenty of smoke and noise but when we got hit by the first torpedo the electrics failed and the guns were not able to be trained by power and by hand was too difficult as the list that the ship had developed made that too difficult so we were no longer able to train on the incoming aircraft and add to the general confusion. Two thirds of the ships crews were lost in this action. 513 were lost from the Repulse and 327 from the Prince of Wales. A total of 840 lost from the two ships. 

It was only when we found ourselves with nothing to do that a bit of a panicky feeling began to show up. I was suddenly conscious of the fact that the metal lockers that we had been happy to sit on these past months drinking our cocoa and yarning away were jam packed full of high explosive shells and our now useless gun was also packed with shells. It seemed imperative to me that as another wave of Jap bombers were coming towards the ship again that some distance was put between this menace and yours truly. I shifted position from Port to Starboard but the scene was an exact replica of the place I had just left. The Destroyer Express was still alongside taking off non essential personal and important papers and documents but the ships list was getting greater with the danger that men trying to get from one ship to another were in danger of falling into the gap.

"Abandon Ship" came as a relief from all this agony of hesitation and indecision and I made my way for'ard and found a spot where I could get over the side without dropping down onto the shipside and perhaps breaking a leg or some crippling damage.

Now I'm in the water with plenty of other people who were all in the same boat/sea and I'm thankful that all the time I had spent swimming in the sea at Blackpool had not been wasted. For a while we were swimming in oil and made an attempt to get away from this nocuous stuff and into clearer water until someone shouted out something about sharks so we all swam back into the oil again. A large wooden spar had been thrown overboard for anyone to cling to and this was useful until some idiot decided to climb on to it and try to straddle the thing. This had the result of it turning round and round in the water and all the various protuberances affixed to it where quite likely to give one a nasty dig in the ribs so I abandoned that and just trod water till the Electra came in amongst us and we were hauled up and inboard. The decks were crowded with survivors in various states of distress.   

I recall climbing on to a metal locker that could not have been more than 15 inches wide as there was no space on the deck to lie down and then falling asleep. It must have been a quiet run back to base at Singapore as I was still there when someone gave me a shake as we were steaming up the Singapore Straits and back to safety. We now spent some time in the drill sheds giving our name and number to officials which would start the process of informing our next-of-kin that we had survived one of the Second World War's most devastating reversals, the pity of it was that the Admiral in Charge was living in the past and didn't think that aircraft were a match for modern Battleships, he died knowing better but took a lot of good men with him. This action finally convinced the power that be that the day of the battleship was over and aircraft were the master. Of the King George V class The Prince of wales was the second to be lain down and commissioned followed by Duke of York who was involved in dealing with the German ship Scharnhorst. Anson and Howe were built in ’42 and helped with the Russian convoys. Aircraft carriers were to take place of the out dated big ships from now on.

For some unknown reason my folks received the dreaded telegram saying I was Missing and it would be two weeks before they got the second saying that I was safe and on the survivors list. After a couple of weeks in the shore establishment H.M.S. Sultan while the Japs continued their relentless march down the Malayan peninsular towards Singapore and while I observed a couple of our chaps go quietly mad, (no counselling service in those days) I heard with great joy and relief that a number of our names had been called out over the tannoy system on the Parade Ground and that we were to board a ship tomorrow going to Ceylon.

The route we took brought us into the Java Sea and then to go in between Sumatra and Java and pass the volcanic island of Krakatoa, which had blown itself apart in 1883 but there were plenty of explosions going on in the sea around us. We had been lucky to get these first 6oo miles without incident; the next 2,000 would be in the lap of the Gods also. We had very little defence, maybe a four pounder on the stern and no sub detection gear and totally on our own. Our pitiful slow speed of 9 knots would make us an easy target for any enemy craft.

We got the impression, true or false that Jap Subs and Destroyers were loose all over these seas and I don't remember going below decks once through out the whole trip and when I settled down to sleep at night on deck I would put my hand on the deck besides me and just pray that I would be there in the morning.    

As this vessel was intended to carry Indian Troops it was primitive in the extreme. The toilets were a broad plank, sufficiently wide to walk on and this was suspended over the stern and with a taut rope to hang on to. So while one contemplated life's rich pattern one could observe the ship's screws going thump, thump, thump as the ship slowly made her way across the Indian Ocean and the Shite-Hawks made off with your contribution. We could have been a week of 10 days on this escape trip, it naturally seemed longer. The cooking facilities were three big iron pots about 3 feet across, one was for tea, one for rice and the third for stew of curry stew mainly as our bowels didn't need exciting. Tied up on the upper deck were a few live goats and on the other side some live chickens. We had left Singapore on the 29th of December and it would be towards the end of the first week in the New Year when we made Columbo Harbour. It was good to be done with the journey of the S.S. Erinpura and its infamous cockroaches and set foot on Ceylon where I would remain out of danger for the next two years.

We were first billeted in the Barracks belonging to the Celon Naval Reserve right on the sea front and not too far from the famous Galle Face Hotel although I am sure that this would have been out of bounds to the ratings. At the rear of the building with its pleasant front had been built a series of huts hade out of timber and thatch and used as dining and further sleeping accommodation. All the cooking was down by Singhalese locals and I have fond memories of the Banana Fritters that used to be served up at meal times as a sweet course. That was H.M.S. Lanca.

As more and more survivors arrived on the Island from the area of troubled Singapore a much larger holding establishment was sort, this time it was a large boys college at the back of the town, St Josephs College. The building was dominated by a large central tower with a big clock. It was a feature to be remembered by me as when coming back from a nights carousing in the Town, the night often pitch black and possibly no moon, to look directly at the clock face one would have great difficulty in making out the time but to look ever so slightly away and into the blackness of the night the shape of the hands could be made out quite well.        

Every day the hands would be mustered to be given some job to fill in the day. This is where I had fun with a P.O. who couldn't get my name right. "Smelly", he would call out to which I wouldn't answer, again "Smelly" but louder this time, then I would say "Could that be Smalley, Sir?. After a few of these sessions he managed to get it right in the end. He did turn out to be my lucky P.O. however as one day he detailed me off to join a working party to help a group of Divers in the Dockyard.

On Easter Sunday '42 the Japs raided Colombo Harbour with Bombers and sank H.M.S. Tenedos with a small bomb amidships. She sank in about 25 feet of water and managed in going down to partially block the entrance to the Dry Dock, which was of vital importance as it was the largest dry dock in the Far East. The Navy had drafted in a team of Navy Divers to deal with this problem of moving the ship away from this spot and getting the dock operational again.

The job with the divers in the beginning was to help with any heavy work and wash down the gear when the days diving was done. Before long however I was given the job of tending the divers lines and getting instructions about the few signals that are standard for divers. One tug on the line for "come up" and two to "go down", or from the diver "more air" or "haul me up" and so on, nothing complicated. It was turning out to be a very interesting job. There were explosives to learn about, oxy-acetylene under water burning gear for cutting through the ships plate, a complete new world. I recall the pleasant thoughts on waking up in a morning that this was the first time in my life that I had something of real interest to do in the coming day.

Before long I was doing some diving myself and what is more I was getting paid for it, two shillings and three pence an hour for the first 33 feet and extra if you went deeper. The diving gear was simplicity indeed, just a service gas mask fixed to a length of air hose and then to hand manned pump in an 18-foot diving boat and a lead weight slung over the shoulder to help get you down. In the beginning we had 3 qualified divers, Petty Officer "Joe" Forrester, P.O. "Soapy" Watson and Chief Petty Officer Smith who was a very short fellow who rarely went ashore, never spent any money and everyone said he was trying to save up to buy a street of houses to boost his pension when the time came when he had to quit the Service after his 22 years.

When I joined the job they had got the for'ard section afloat with the aid of pumps to keep the compartments dry and these had to be kept going night and day otherwise she would be on the bottom again. The next job was to try and cut the ship in half with the cutting gear or to use explosives to get the floating part to be towed away from in front of the dock.

We had two diving boats with a pump in each giving a maximum capability of 4 divers working at any one time. "Joe" was in charge of "the book" and would make sure that enough time was booked so that we all had extra money in our pay packets. What Joe, Soapy and Smithy got we never knew but this operation was to be a "nice little earner" for the next 12 months despite urgent signals from the Admiralty to get the ship move. The work dragged on and on!!

I hadn't been long on this job when we were joined by 3 young Navy divers who had been working in the Middle East getting mines out of the Suez Canal and the Red Sea. They were, Sam Dooley, Harry Vaughan and Bruce Elsby. What was interesting and had a touch of glamour about this trio was the fact that they were allowed to wear civilian clothes, it was written in their papers. This came about from the fact that had they found themselves ashore in a neutral country around the Gulf area they would not have been turned over to the enemy. However if that wasn't glamour enough they were allowed to live in the town at one of the Hotels in the namely The Globe or it could have been The Bristol. They would take their meals in the Hotel Dining Room and their rooms would be cleaned by the Hotel staff, what a lark!!

It must have been an oversight on the part of some department to allow this jolly time to continue for so long but it came to an end in a most unfortunate manner. The three "Musketeers" managed to buy themselves an old car in which they used to trundle of up country at week-ends for a jaunt. One day they were bowling along the Galle Face road in the dark after one of these little runs with Elsby driving when they felt a bit of a bump. It wasn't the kind of bump that a brick or something hard would have made and Elsby realized that he had hit somebody who perhaps had been sleeping too near the road or in an Arak induced stupor had just dossed down in the road. Elsby was a nice kind of guy, intelligent Grammar School type and a bit of culture about him. I recall just after the War when he had got a job at the Seibe Gormans Diving Equipment factory in Carshalton or thereabouts we went to a Ballet Concert with his girl friend.

Elsby slammed on the brakes with the intention of going back and investigating what had happened. Dooley was made of different stuff, and to-day you would call him at least "street wise". "For Christ Sake, lets get out of here" yells Dooley and attempts to get at the controls. Too late, by now in those few minutes people had appeared from nowhere and there is a crowd round the car. Brown faces everywhere, nothing for it but to get out and see what can be done. The poor victim was helped into some shelter and medical assistance alerted but the Police were not called and neither were the Naval authorities. THe boys eased their way out of the situation by giving the injured man some money but if they thought it was going to be a one off payment they were mistaken. When the chap came out of Hospital he would visit the boys at the Hotel and squeeze a little more cash out of them, the threat of disclosure was always left hanging over them. Something of all this must have leaked out however as before long the "civvy" privileges came to an end and they found themselves in St Josephs with the rest of us.

Dooley, Elsbey and Vaughan would now join us on our morning run down to the Docks in the little private bus that would be driven by a Singhalese driver working the foot controls with his bare brown feet. One of the peculiar habits of the people of that part of the world is the way that everyday greetings are made. The head appears to "wobble" from side to side along the axis of the shoulder line, it isn't shaken or nodded it just "wobbles". It was always a source of great amusement to the bus load of us as we would be going down the hill to the docks to see these hundreds of coolies responding to our Wobble" with theirs and this sea of wobbling heads would ripple away up the hill.

By now we had been joined by "Lofty" Melitas. "Lofty", I can't recall his first name, but over six foot two and with an Adonis like figure complete with a huge tattoo right across his chest, the feet of Christ almost down to his naval.. He was an impressive looking fellow and although he was only just an Ordinary Seaman having not long joined the Andrew he had such charisma and leadership qualities that he almost naturally mixed it with the P.O.'s and C.P.O.'s rather than us ratings. When he went ashore he was always to be found drinking with Joe and Soapy, he was of course a married man with 4 kids and more their age anyway. The P.O.'s and C.P.O.'s had the privilege of “messing" in a large Bungalow outside the town at the back of the Football ground and Lofty would often be invited round to have a meal and join them for drinks. Dooley, Elsbey and Vaughan continued to use the "Bristol" Hotel Bar in the evenings. We would join them at the Hotel for a drink and take in the atmosphere of a Far East Colonial Hotel setting and then perhaps go out into the town and maybe see a Movie, a very apt name "Movie" in that latitude. As well as the movement on the screen there could be movement going on in the cane seat you were at upon ---BUGS. Why cane seats? They were a positive haven for these pests and unless these seats were given a good bang on the floor to dislodge these devils the backs of ones legs would be one continuous line of itchy bumps on leaving. We were of course only 6 degrees from the Equator so it was hot and fans would be whirring overhead all the time.

To get away from the heat we would sometimes take a weekend trip up-country to Kandy. I recall a week-end by train to Kandy with a ship-mate, Don "nobby" Clarke where we paid a visit to the "Temple of the Tooth" (Buddha's Tooth we suppose) and paying a little cash for some Buddhist Text on Papyrus taken from a book by one of the Yellow Robed Priests.

In the Monsoon Season it was a visual treat to see the heavy weather coming across the sea towards the shore in a great dark curtain of water heading for land together with a drop in temperature. Around the Town one could see signs of the Betel Leaf chewing habit which produces a blood red juice which is then spat out on to the pavement and the white lime paste that went with it would also be found wiped of onto the walls of the towns building at shoulder height.

Our non-European labour was the crew of 2 small coastal boats who had managed to get away from Hong-Kong. One was the S.S. Louise fitted out with a canvas awning aft manned by Malay Indians and the other was the ancient Kia Song with a Chinese crew who happily did not have the Betel habit. What they did have was an addiction to the game of Mah-Jong. They also had on board a member of the crew who was "Gay", the term not being currant at the time. He came in for a good bit of leg pulling by our crowd and he would get quite "huffy" which only amused us all the more.

We used to go back and forth to the Dockside in a small skiff which we used to scull with the aid of an oar stuck in the single rowlock at the rear of the skiff and with a one-handed swivelling motion from side to side we would get along at quite a pace.  After months of un-qualified diving it was decided to set up a proper Diving Class. A Warrant Officer arrived to run the class and the three un-qualified divers set about the lessons to get Qualified. These were "Lofty, "Jock" Christie and myself.

Christie was a Glasgow tear-away and bad tempered and un-couth with it and would take delight in kicking or thumping a native just for the sake of it.  He was sandy haired and with a skin that couldn't cope with the Tropical Sun, the tops of his shoulders were burnt to a crisp with a succession of blisters which didn't help his temper. We had to take in the theory of decompression and practice "blowing up" from down below and finishing up on the surface like the "Michelin Man". Then we would have to work out decompression times. Jock Christie wasn't too bright and the theory of the course began to get him down  and he would loose his temper and behave aggressively . This kind of temperament did not go with the job of diving and he never qualified.

Lofty Melitus on the other hand was not the type of guy who threw his weight around, he didn't need to, it was all too obvious looking at him that he could handle himself. Before joining up he had worked in the steel mills in the Darlington area, a tough job and while he wasn't aggressive in manner, he was quite conscious of his size and stature and would never let an opportunity go by without pulling the shoulders back and pushing Jesus Christ forward into someone's face.

The Bungalow bunch had quite a good life away from the general strictures of the main establishment, the only time they went there was to draw their pay. They were looked after by a retinue of servants, cook, a driver, sweepers, someone to do their dhobying and a gardener, all in the Pre-War style of Officers abroad being cosseted by the local minions. The weekends would be devoted to the usual rounds of drinking and occasionally someone banging out a tune on the old piano. One night things got badly out of hand with a fight braking out between Joe Forester and one of the other Chiefs. I can't remember the cause but it finished up on the football pitch in the early hours with these two trying to knock "seven bells" out of each other. Joe finished up very much the worse for wear being the smaller of the two and found himself in Hospital with a broken arm and a bad gash on his nose. This incident had to be covered up in some disguise so as not to alert the Officer Commanding to the wild carousing at the bungalow. The story was put out that Joe had been called out late at night to deal with a fault in one of the pumps in the Tenedos and had tripped over in the dark down the hatchway to the pump site and had been found there when he failed to return.

Whether this story was swallowed by the "Office" I couldn't say but no action was taken and the whole was allowed to dissipate. We visited Joe in Hospital while he was recovering. He was very popular with the crew and had the happy knack of always being able to raise the troops moral by concocting some story that would get us all excited and up-beat again. One of his yarns was to inform us that he had heard a "buzz" that a cargo ship was in some sort of trouble in the port of Panjim in Goa, the Portuguese territory on the Indian Coast just below Bombay. This would mean that we would have to be supplied with civilian clothes and all service identification would have to be left behind. Here we are with this wonderful vision of "civvys" again. This would keep us lively for weeks.

Some time in '43 the "City of Marseilles" bound for Madras got a bit too near the coast just off the small town of Batticaloa on the East side of the Island. To look at her as you approached from another ship you would think she was just stationary in the water perhaps waiting for a Pilot boat to come alongside but she was badly holed after hitting the coral reef and well and truly stuck there. We were given the job of getting all the cargo off her and if possible to recover her ships screws which as they were made out of Phosphor-Bronze were judged to be valuable.

The cargo consisted of machine tools packed in wooden barrels, Barrels of crockery, steel tubular scaffolding and most precious of all, a hold full of Whitbread Pale Ale. The whole ship below decks was flooded so the engine room power had to be supplied by having another ship alongside. We then had steam for the winches and electrics to supply the galley and cabin lighting. All the accommodation was in first class order, the weather was wonderful and we had endless supplies of beer so we could keep this job going nicely as long as nobody complained too loudly. By strange co-incidence the job came to an end when the beer dribbled to an end!! At the end of each working day someone would go down and bring up sufficient cases to supply the various working parties, the two ships alongside, the "City's" officers and ourselves.

The method of getting the contents of the holds was to lower a three sided wooden tray about a metre square which was attached to a wire from the winch and with the diver to weigh it down descend into the gloom of the hold and fish around for anything that one could lay hands and with a tug on the signal line up it would go and over the ships side to the waiting cargo vessel. When one was working at the extreme ends of the hold the winch wire would be at quite an acute angle because of the hatch coming and on giving the signal to haul away one would be "wooshed" along in complete darkness on the bottom of the hold just hoping that you didn't bump into anything.

It was an idyllic situation, only a mile from the shore with its palm trees waiving in the breeze. For recreation we would swim in the sea and study the tropical fish and be astounded at the Barracuda type of fish that which would attack the smaller fish swarming near the waste discharge from the ship. Some times we would go ashore to see what the other side of the palm trees looked lie and walk into Batticaloa for a sweet glass of tea. There didn't seem any hurry and in any case when we got through this job we still had the dear old Tenedos to go back to in Colombo.

One night when the ale was flowing good and frothy one of the Artificer P.O.'s made the grave error of saying that Lofty's job back in U.K. was an unskilled job. Lofty's job back home was that of a "wire drawer" and Lofty was glad to have been in that position which according to his lights was THE most important job in the foundry. A big scap developed over this innocent observation that had to spill out into the gangway, as the cabin was choc-a-bloc with guys and glasses. No permanent damage was done and I suppose the main characters in this little drama felt justified in the morning.

These evening sessions were eagerly looked forward to. We had gathered into our group one of the crew of the "City" who styled himself as the 2nd mate. I suspect he didn't have much in the way of qualifications but what he did have was the gift of the gab. Back in U.K. he had been a habitué of Soho. He could have quite easily been a prostitute's ponce or something on the shady side of London nightlife. He was a never-ending fund of the most bizarre and hair-raising stories which went on and on into the night and used to keep us on the edge of our bunks. The original slippery "wide boy". I saw him some years later after the War on the beach at Torquay where he had latched himself on to a couple of middle aged women --- still getting a living from pleasure!!
The beer finally stopped flowing and the holds were at last emptied and so after about 10 weeks in this amazing place we pushed off to do a bit of surveying of some ships that had suffered a worse fate than the "City of Marseilles" having again struck the reef and sunk. A couple of them were near Trincomalee a big natural harbour at the top of the island. On both of these we would try in vane to get the ships screws off. From memory they were held on with huge nuts about 5 inches in diameter but we could never get enough purchase on them so this precious phosphor bronze had to be left.

Both these ships had been sunk some time past and the seas had yawed and twisted their plates and where gaps had been opened up the swelling sea would move in and out and so would shoals of lovely tropical fish also move back and forth. On this particular run there were only 4 of us and the Navy had charted a Dutch vessel. It was crewed by Dutch Officers and Javanese crew. We had our quarters with the whites and ate in their mess but ate Javanese food cooked to suit the Dutchmen. The meals would be served up by the Javanese stewards and our cabins would be cleaned by these small smiling chaps, quite a novel experience for us. What impressed us was the immaculate state of the ship; everything that could be polished would positively gleam and was a delight to see. In these last few days in this paradise of wonderful weather and idyllic working conditions something happened that put a rift between Lofty and me, I don't recall the cause, it's possible that we just got on each others nerves but I found myself out of favour and seeing the rough side of his character. However it all evened out when we got back to Colombo and drew our pay which had of course mounted up to quit a tidy sum after being away for three months.

We then resumed work back on the Tenedos. We had with us at this time a C.P.O. Diver name of Tom Cox. Tom was a great believer and advocate of the practice of Yoga. he would praise its powers and how one could tackle unbelievable tasks if you were of a mind to. I recall that we suggested that he don a diving suit and go down and we would stop the pump for say 5 mins!! Needless to say the topic was dropped for the while.

Later in '43 a murder was committed in one of the bungalows that skirted the lake at the edge of the town. The murder weapon, a knife, was thought to have been thrown into the lake so a search had to be made. Three of our party including Lofty was detailed off to try and find this grisly item. It was a nasty, muddy, murky job feeling about in and among the rotting tree stumps and vegetation and I'm glad wasn't part of it but Lofty revelled in it but I don't recall the weapon ever coming to the surface.

During '43 I contracted a bout of dengue fever that everybody called "dingy" fever. I spent some time in the hills in a convalescent camp recuperating and while I was there a big effort was made to shift the Tenedos away from the Dry-Dock. A large salvage vessel was brought in to do the job called the "Salviking". The idea was to pass a couple of thick wire hawsers underneath her and strapped to the side of the Salviking they would then pass out through the harbour entrance and dump her outside out of harms way.

The skipper of the Salviking was a small stocky, cocky guy with a Captain Kettle like beard and he was forever shouting orders. I seem to recall he was Irish, we had done one or to jobs with him previously and he was always strutting about like a little bantam cock. Always immaculate in his clean whites everyday, he really was in love with himself.

They got all wired up and then started to move away from the Dry-Dock area, quite slowly at first as the Tenedos was dragged out off the bed she had been settled in these last 18 months. Then slowly towards the harbour entrance and the water becoming muddier still with the mire that constitutes the bottom. As both ships get into slightly deeper water the wires begin to twang and bang as the tension comes on to the hawsers and the slight list that the Salviking had increases. They are approaching the harbour entrance now and the list has got much greater and alarming everyone connected with the operation. Capt Kettle had had the foresight to station two blacks near the wires with oxy-acetylene burners and as it became obvious that the stability and buoyancy of the Salviking was not a match for the weight of the Tenedos he gave the order to cut the wires. With a might bang the wires parted and dear old Tenedos slipped down to the bottom again, this time in a much worse position than before. Right in the Harbour entrance now, all very humiliating, Capt Kettle wasn't so cocky for a few days.

The state of play now was that explosives would have to be used, something that the Harbour Authorities had been against up till now. But now it was urgent, nothing big could get in or out of the harbour. Ships were moved around in the harbour and some small ones went outside until it was all over. Charges were laid and after the explosions the Tenedos bits and pieces were picked over and dumped out at sea. So that was the end of the good ship Tenedos.

My time in the East was coming to an end now, I had been away for two years or more so it was back to Blighty. I arrived back in U.K. in the spring of '44 and was stationed in the main barracks at H.M.S. Drake for a while. What made me put in for a Torpedo-mans course I really could not say. I had no ambition to be an electrician which would have been the advantage of the course to civilian life in fact I had no clear idea what was going to happen after the War except that I did not want to go back to being a Grocers Assistant. The course was of 3 months duration and to my surprise I came out with sufficiently high marks that allowed my to proceed on to the next grade, the Leading Torpedo-mans course. This meant another 3 or 4 months study and all this time the War is managing to proceed without me being at the sharp end of things. By the time all this study was at an end D-Day had been and gone and the Navy's role in the War was getting less demanding. The German subs could no longer operate from Brest and things were getting easier.

Brother Cyril back in London was in his phase of spooling up Ex R.A.F. aircraft film into amateur films and when I would go on leave to Acton I would return with a small suitcase full of films to sell to the guys in the depot. Not necessarily a major contribution to Hitler's downfall but it brought a smile to many a sailor's face when I opened the case and set up my stall. This bit of "Boodle" from the film sales plus the War Service Gratuity which from memory was about £70 together with the money "earned" from the diving escapade amounted to about £400. At that time a Milkman’s wage was £5 a week so that was the equivalent to a year and a half's wage for the average working man and that would enable me to eventually set up in business on my own but that is another story.


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