War-time Memories

OTHER CHAPTERS TOP RIGHT

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.

OTHER CHAPTERS TOP RIGHT

When the War was Over

OTHER CHAPTERS TOP RIGHT

Looking at my discharge papers I see that it was the 15th January 1946 when I was released into civvy street. I was fitted out with a three piece suit in dark blue with a light grey stripe in it also a trilby hat also blue. I’m not sure whether I went out for a few beers that evening in the suit or whether it went back into the little suit case supplied.

I was due to take the train and go further down the line to Hayle where Mother was living in a wooden chalet type dwelling but this would have to be the next day. Although discharged in Devonport the few beers were had just over the water by ferry at Torpoint and that was where I was to lay my head that night. The house was quite narrow and three stories high. I rolled in after time and quite sober as I found that after 2 to 3 pints I had trouble with feeling dizzy on lying down, this was always the case so I never got in a state.

After a bit of chat with the couple running the B&B I toddled off to the back top room. Whether they told me where the loo was or whether I forgot I could not say but after a time in bed I felt the need. I was reluctant to roam about the house searching and there was no receptacle to be found in the room. Desperate times need desperate measures so it was up with the sash and out with the splash. Relief was swiftly followed by shock as through the blackness came the sound of a cascade of water on glass. How was I to know that there was a glass-house extension two floors below in their backyard? I looked the lady straight in the eye as I paid up the next morning and departed to get to the town of Hayle down the line near Penzance.

Mother’s house was called Duneside and it had been built on some dunes outside the town quite near the sea. The advert she answered in the Exchange and Mart could have described the setting quite romantically: the sea, dunes, near St Ives etc. She did in fact buy it with the proceeds of the sale of Sam’s shop a couple of years after he died and did so without ever going to see it. Within a year she had also bought a caravan sited in a field at the rear of Paignton, Devon again unseen. She must have been bedazzled by the thought of a chalet by the sea and a caravan in Devon; a huge and welcome change from Breezy Blackpool.

There must have been about 70 of these wooden little properties built just after the first would war. Their foundations were not very sound and built on sand were subject slippage also the legal end of things were not very secure as all that Mother had to show she was the owner was a receipt from the seller.

However, Mother was very happy there and it didn’t worry her that the balcony at the rear was gradually rotting away and had to be shored up with a few bricks where a stanchion had lost its foot. The caravan was a total disaster. I hadn’t been settled in long before I was dispatched to see how it was getting on. 100 miles separate Hayle with Paignton and I suppose I did the journey by rail and bus which Mother would have had to do were she to enjoy caravanning. The damp winter air filled the van and although there was bedding I chose to sleep in my clothes and escape as soon as possible the next morning lucky not to get ill.

The stay at Duneside was not a permanent situation for me. I was keen to get to London and join Cyril in what ever venture we could bring about. So 31 Lynton Avenue was the next port of call which lasted about a year till the spring of 1947. This was a very difficult year, we couldn’t get off the ground with anything of a money making scheme. We dabbled in taking photographs of a amateur dramatic society doing a stage production working with extra long length lenses from the town hall balcony which we thought were very good but the returns were most discouraging. I was most reluctant to try and get regular employment as it meant going the labour exchange and at that time the Bevin Boys recruitment was still active and there would have been a good chance that I would have been directed to work in some coal mine which was not at all to my liking. I recall I tried to make children’s toy windmills with dowelling and bent plastic but the plastic would never stay bent. Cyril was managing to stay solvent by making up films from the ex R.A.F. outdated film stock and selling where he could. I suppose he eventually got fed up of me loafing around waiting for him to come up with something and found an advert in the photographic press for a camera man to operate on the beach and prom at Brighton.

The Sunbeam Photographic Company was run by two brothers and they had acquired the operating rights of the beaches and promenades from Ramsgate to Hove and all points in between. After a little practice run with the camera to make sure I could focus on a moving target I was sent out to work a stretch of prom & beach just East of Brighton Pier. I got digs in the town and set to work to get as much as the wage of £5 a week & 5% commission could deliver. It wasn’t difficult to get folks to have their picture taken as regular films were almost unobtainable but nobody was more surprised than me that at the end of the Season I finished up as the highest earner in commission out of 25 operators on the firm. It was great fun and to be earning money made it all the better. I had a nice surprise one sunny morning when I focussed up on a couple walking towards me to find the chap getting sharper in the screen was an old working buddy from diving team in Columbo. I few pleasantries and away they went never to be seen again. I don’t think he bought the picture! 

The firm was keen to keep me on the books so it was arranged that I would spent the coming Winter at Hastings and get things ready for the Spring photo season. The winter of 1947 was the worst for decades. The sea froze all around the south coast. Either the miners were on strike or the railways could not move the coal because of the snow disruption. Taking photos of happy folks on the prom was off the agenda for weeks which left me kicking my heels or just giving some help to get the darkrooms ready to earn my £5 weekly wage. When the spring finally came it was put to me by one of the Worsell brothers who ran the firm that Folkestone was to be opened up as another photo opportunity and would I fancy going there ?. So it was there that destiny awaited me.

I got digs with an Irish family near the station. They had 2 young girls of about 12 and 14 who were jumping up and down with the aspect of this young man being part of the house. Down at the beach the job was to get a pre-fabricated timber hut erected to use as an office to take the orders also to create a little darkroom where the film could be extracted from the camera. For a week or two as I was without anyone to work the office I would both take pictures and take the money at the office but eventually the local advert brought forth a slim young lady who took on the office job.

The summer of 1947 was really glorious but on occasions it did rain and in the shelter of the hut things started to happen between me and the slim young lady. Before long I was introduced to the rest of the Wigens family and my life was changed for ever. Not only had I falled in love with Peg but the whole family were a revelation to me in genuine kindness and consideration. Before long I was calling Peg’s Father “Pop” or “Dad” and he was calling me “Wonderful Wilips” in his funny way of making fun out of words.

The summer was getting towards its end and it was obvious that if my future with Peg was to get any where the job of beach photographer would have to be dumped and something more respectable was expected.

Cyril had by this time had managed to buy 221 Dawes Road in Fulham intending to get further ahead with his free-films idea and intimated I could be of some help. So for the next year I was with Cyril and Phyllis again at 31 Lynton Road. In the spring of ‘48 we registered the trading name of West London Photo Service jointly. It turned out to be not a terribly happy partnership. I was gradually discovering that Cyril was a great one for cutting corners and sailing very close to the wind with any authorities. Although we were using the premises for business Cyril had not informed Fulham council of the fact and so rates were not being applied to the property. It worried me that there would be a knock on the door and trouble would follow. With a staff of three young ladies there was the question of how Cyril and I were to be addressed. Cyril decreed that I should be known as “Mr Philip” and he would be “Mr Cyril”. He must have got this notion out of some Victorian novel.

His wheeze with Purchase Tax was a worry for me. Purchase tax was payable on goods bought tax-free once the goods had been sold to the public. Stocks would be inspected and counted quarterly by tax inspectors and records kept. Our tax-free stocks were cans of Ex RAF film which would get cut up to make amateur film of various sizes. The cans were sealed with taped lids to keep out the light. The dodge was to use the film and replace it with something similar such as off-cut of used film. Cyril figured that the inspector was never going to open cans to see what was inside as the contents would be ruined by the light. I had gone along with all this reluctantly but then one day Cyril came out with a few words which caused a cataclysmic shift in my attitude to what was going on and from then on I knew where I was meant to be. The words he uttered were “It’s a good job your girl is not the school teacher” meaning Betty. It was as good as any that he was up to no good and I was mixed up with it. From that moment on the shutters came down on the partnership and I was looking for a way out.

At that time in the partnership Cyril was marketing the films under the name of Touchstone Films. It was a name given to a slatey kind of stone that had been used for centuries as a means of ascertaining the purity of gold and silver. We thought this was a very clever name but it was eventually realised that it was too clever by half and the general public hadn’t a clue as to what name meant.

Ex RAF film came to an end and the only alternative was to go to highly sensitive paper as the negative which served quite well as long as the camera was not used in poor light. He started a scheme of giving the films away for free and making a charge for processing them. He then dropped Touchstone and called the firm Free Films Ltd. He figured the public would understand the four letter word “Free” without any trouble a thought that fitted in well with his general contempt for the public at large. This would be early 1949 and by then Peg and I were married and living in Queens Gate No 123. Kath made it possible for us to get this basement flat through a connection with a Estate Agent she knew and with the passing over of £25 ‘key money’ we were soon installed in this very nice address all be it that it was in a basement. It had stone flagstones throughout except the large bedroom and living room. The very rear was a covered in glass space at the bottom of this deep well that formed the back of the four story building. This is where we would use as a bedroom when Pegs Mum and Dad came to live with us after selling up in Cheriton. The place took a good bit of keeping warm as the only heating was paraffin stoves and if any of the upper occupant dropped something off the window sills it would clatter down onto the glass roof. We always had a suspicion that the two women who occupied the very top flat were ladies of the night.

I took out a quarterly rental of a basement room in Queens Gate Gardens underneath a four story property occupied by a crazy Polish Dentist and a French Doctor. It occurs to me now that the dentist was on dope as his manner was so odd and erratic. With the help of Cliff we managed one week-end to get a darkroom built in the back room and before long I was in a position to start work on my own.

The next move was to get what working gear I had away from 221 Dawes Road and into the new place. What I had was primitive in the extreme by today’s standards. The film processing consisted of 4 porcelain deep tanks about 3 feet high and about 9 inches square, very heavy and just possible to man-handle. A few dishes for developing the prints and a box printer which looked like an old fashioned sewing machine with a treadle to work the viewing and exposing of the printing paper plus a glazing plate and hot box to put a glaze on the finished prints. I didn’t have any money to spare to hire any transport so I borrowed a hand cart from the builders next door to 221. So one Sunday morning found me trundling this lot of stuff covered with a sheet along the roads between Fulham and South Ken. I had just turned off the Brompton Road and into Harrington Gardens when a Police car came up and stopped just in front of me (to block my escape I suppose). The classic “‘Ello, ‘Ello, what ‘av we got ‘ere?”  did not come out but they wanted to know what I was doing so early in the morning. I remember to this day my reply: ”I’m transferring my place of business“, said in a supercilious tone of voice that I must have caught from Cyril. With that they looked at what was on the wheel-barrow and left me to get on my way.

I had got a credit account with Ilford’s of Essex for photographic paper and one with Johnsons of Hendon for chemicals and so I started to service the 4 customers I brought with me from Dawes Road, Shepherds’ Chemist in Greyhound Road, Fulham. Bob’s Drug store in Shephards Bush Market, Whybrow Drugs in Wandsworth Bridge Road and Hughes Chemist in South Kensington. On an ex policeman’s bike I used to cycle to these outlets everyday to pick up any photographic work that needed developing and printing. In the winter I would do the round perhaps twice a week. So widespread were these shops that it could take an hour and a half to get round so before long I was looking for a quicker solution. The pickings in the winter months were hardly worth the effort. The total take for the first three months of 1949 was 22 pounds 2 shillings and 3½ pennies according to a works’ ledger still extant. The half-penny would feature in the book till 1950 when perhaps it got phased out. In contrast to those figures the August takings were £147-5-9.

The quicker solution was to buy a petrol driven device that you could fix to the rear of the push bike and a revolving drum would help the back wheel go round. In fact we got one each but I can’t remember Peg using hers but this was a big help in getting round the few shops I had without too much effort. With a small satchel over my shoulder I would whiz around and pick up the work. Somehow I managed to lose a packet of work belonging to a valued customer of a large chemist shop at the top of Queens Gate Gardens run by a Jewish guy who was a very difficult guy to deal with. In fact in my time I have 3 Jewish dealers and all were capable of giving us a hard time if things did not suit them. They naturally ran very successful outfits. This packet of missing work was a most distressing time. I even took an add in the Press offering a reward for it’s return so desperate to show that it’s loss was not taken lightly by me. Time healed the incident, they were only missing images after all and not an arm or a leg but you would think otherwise from the yells of anguish issuing forth from the other side.

During the war a miniature motor-bike had been developed I suppose for dispatch riders and these had been modified post-war for road use.   I bought one and cut the round-time down to half. They were quite small and with a little struggle one could get it tucked under your arm. In fact, at the end of the day I used to pick it up and walk down the stone steps to the flat and park it in the coal cellar.

The 4 stone tanks were manoeuvred close to the large butlers sink, 3 on the floor and 1 standing in the sink. The first one was for the developer, the second was a water rinse and the third was full of fixing solution (hypo). The one in the sink was the final wash with running water to get rid of all chemicals. In total darkness, films would be stripped of the backing paper a double sided clip would both hold the customers name and the film and with a bottom clip would get lowered into the developer with several others on a rod to get several minutes development time. Then a water rinse before getting 10 minutes in the fixer. By that time the lights could come on and I could stand on a box to get them in the wash tank standing in the sink.

The fact of dry films going in and wet ones coming out meant that the solution level would drop a little every time. At one stage I had run out of the topping up solution and was waiting for a delivery. I could not allow the level to drop too low otherwise the top negative would not get developed so I would add water and make a little allowance in time to accommodate the weaker mix. There was a limit to this so the next move was to drop a chemical bottle filled with water and on the end of a piece of string. This brought the level up quite a good bit. Still the delivery never came. The final move was to drop another bottle in to the tank.

I could hear the clink of metal clips on the bottles as I agitated the films in the mix but one day I had to develop a 116 film which was a couple of inches longer than normal. The nightmare that followed would haunt me for months.

The bottom clip got jammed in between the two bottles and the  rod of films was impossible to get released from the developer. Their time was up by now and in the dark I managed to get the regular films of the rod and onto another and into the fix. They were safe but the 116 was still stuck. The only answer was to empty the rinse tank and then somehow bale out the developer into the empty rinse. When it was empty enough to lift I managed to tip the contents into the sink with a sickening crash of bottles and clips. Of course by this time the film was not only as black as pots but it was scratched all over and quite irredeemable.

The next difficulty was telling the shop-keeper the bad news that his customer was due for a big disappointment when he came to collect his processed film. These missing images for that’s all they were, could be anything from a daughters wedding (that was the worst) to a round the world never to be forgotten holiday or just a random shot of their backyard. Another poor night’s sleep and then it was ‘unto the breach dear friends’ and get the bad news dealt with as well as I could manage.

          This was a task that had to be done lots of times as films or negatives got lost, mixed up, or damaged whilst in our hands. An incident that remains with me still was the occasion where a customer had sent in a small print of her young son being presented with a trophy of some kind by the Duke of Edinburgh. The print had been bent in the middle and I thought if it was re-washed and re-glazed the blemish would get removed. Foolishly it was put in with a lot more prints to be glazed and was never seen again, Oh Lordy, Lordy here we go again!

Eventually, the work of developing and printing by hand would get highly automated but it would take another 15 years of so before it was reached when the trade could have used Tate & Lyle’s slogan “Untouched by Human Hand”. An early device was to use a light meter to measure the light coming through the negative and so determine how much exposing light to use. This fell down in its inability to know what the point of interest was in the negative as it only gave average reading of the film. Also it could not tell whether the shot was high contrast or low and needed soft or hard paper to get the best result.

After about a year at the basement address Pop Wigens spotted an advert for some premises in Ifield Road. The last 10 years of a head lease was available for £600. It was a four storey building making up shop and basement and a flat above. The only outgoings were £25 ground rent per annum plus rates. With a small loan from Dad I scraped enough to secure the place and so we finished up in Number 61 Ifield Road with the works in the shop and living above. The place had been empty for years after suffering bomb damage and had been made good by some jobbing builder. “Made Good” was a misnomer really as the first night would show. We had gone to bed in the top front room when it started to rain and water started to run down the wall of the bedroom that butted on the Ifield Tavern that was our next door neighbour. The bitumastic shell-back roof missed out on joining the wall at that side, the other side was O.K. Perhaps they just ran out of stuff. Apart from that the bedroom was fine.

Mark was born the following year, our first born. 1953 was a very good year as apart from Mark arriving we were blessed with a legacy from a maiden aunt who I had never known. She had run a sweets and tobacconist together with her sister also a single lady. The amount was about £675 and few months later she died and again left money to nieces and nephews, this time an even larger sum something over £900. 

This benefaction put us in a wonderful position as to a house purchase and St Goar Cottage soon had a new owner. We loved its unique character as an old coach-house and I never failed to be uplifted on coming up Manfred Road and seeing this little haven at the corner.  It was not perfect by any means and Peg’s Dad was very dubious about the buy. It was without a damp course for one thing and in parts the plaster threatened to come off the wall. My solution to that was I suppose typical of my way of dealing with trouble. I put sheets of hardboard up against the offence and then papered over it and hoped it would go away or just forget about it and put it out of my mind. I had other priorities to deal with. It remained like that for the next 33 years. This bodging all stemmed from my pathological brake on parting with money until every possible avenue had been explored.

The central heating was unorthodox too. Instead of the piping returning from the downstairs bathroom via the passage way to the kitchen boiler it went outside and then a right angled turn to get to the boiler. The piping being submerged under 6 inches of soil and topped with a section of crazy paving. Amazingly this crude way of getting over a problem never bothered us until the time it came to sell but the winter before we put it on the market I noticed the ground in that area would give of steam in the cold air. I was always going to do something about it but kept putting it off. However with buyers likely to call I started to dig down and see just what the trouble was. Sure enough the cast iron conduit had corroded and sprung a minute leak, the lagging having almost disappeared. Whilst looking at the situation and pondering as to how to get some replacement piping to fix things to my horror the fresh air got to the damage and before my very eyes the piping stated to crumble and water was starting to spray all over the place. I quickly dashed in the house to get the stop cock switched off and get to damage limitation stage. The job was beyond me so a local plumber fixed that section but I guess the new owners would in time see steam coming out of the ground and wonder. We were very happy at St Goar, Roger was born in 1956 and both boys enjoyed the big garden, especially when I rigged up a pulley on a rope between two trees. When we had the Austin A30 car the boys used to drive right round the house and do three point turns in the big court-yard long before they could drive legally.

A welcome feature of the property was the 7 lock-up garages that formed part of the boundary of the garden. A ‘nice little earner’ but the down side was the daily thud, thud, thud as the local kids played football against the garage doors and then booted the ball into the garden.

About this time the boys made contact with Edward Dixon via the son of the local vicar who had taken Edward under his wing. Ed was almost totally deaf having suffered some early illness and his speach was very difficult to understand but the boys were pals with Edward for years. He was an amusing lad and very brave and venturesome almost reckless. The vision of him riding his bike to go home with a ladder on his shoulders and turning round to say cheerio and the ladder swinging around at right-angles remains with us still. Through Edward we got to know his parents Jo and Hilda and his sister Janet. They were very active in the Labour Party and at election times Hilda would be busy with leaflets and posters in supporters’ windows. Jo was the head of Camberwell Art College and the house in Putney Bridge Road was open house to ex students and Labour fellow travellers. Joe loved wood and painted surface would be scrubbed clean to show either bare floor boards or the grain in treads and banister rails. A great admirer of the Bauhaus style of building and furniture and the bourgeois thing of “roses round the door” was anathema to him. A lunch with them would be well fortified with Jo’s home made wine of which took up a lot of space in the vast cellar. After all the chat and eating both would stretch out on the bare boards in the dining room and with a head rest they would be away but not before inviting everyone to follow suit if space could be found. Jo’s art-work also had an austere and sombre look and seemed to be done in browns and greens. Whilst admiring the man we could not take to his painting. One piece however did appeal and we gladly paid his price of £250. As much as anything was the fact that we could warm to the subject as it was the scene of the main-line rail bridge that crossed Putney Bridge Road not far from Oakhill Road. Some time later we got it over to Holland and to Mark and Marijke’s house.

Hilda was a committed smoker and her early demise at 60 in 1976 was I suspect a direct result of the habit. Jo enjoyed many years living in Italy until 1992 when he passed on. A remarkable couple and we were privileged to have been part of their lives at that time.

Edward’s sister Janet married a bright economist Alan Bell and they look a large house in Earlsfield Road, Wandsworth. Here again Jo’s thing about bare boards would be in evidence. A scrubbed look prevailed and no carpets. Wall-to-wall would have been a no-no. Alan had a good government job working from offices at Millbank on the Embankment whilst Janet had followed her parents into academia and was teaching locally. They had a baby girl Rachel in the year Hilda died 1976. One door closes and another door opens.

The first car we bought was a two door Singer Bantam from Charlie Senter, Kath’s partner who had the nerve to say it had only been used by an old lady to go to church on Sunday. I guess he had pulled that stroke so often in the past he could not resist giving it an airing once more.

We used to go to Welling sometimes to join up with Bet and Cliff who were living there at the time. The route was via Shooters Hill. There was set of traffic lights at the bottom of the hill and as the Singer was so under powered it was always a bit of luck to find the lights a Green so we could crack on a get half way up the other side and keep the revs up till we made the top. A nasty trick it had up it’s sleeve was to get its Bendicks arm jammed in with the starter cog wheel and all you got from the starter pull was a dismal whirring sound. The only way out of trouble was to put the car in gear and rock it back and forth to try and dislodge them back into position.

The joy of the house and garden was that it was so secure and Mark & Roger would have lots of the local kids in to play with. I grew every kind of fruit that it was possible to grow, every berry you could name and all the top fruit plus grapes and figs. We also had a busy time with Peg coping with ailing parents for a period with my Mum in the garden room for a year or more and Pegs Dad in his last days. Mum’s stay finally proved too much for Peg what with the kids and her elderly Dad and we sadly had the job of finding her a furnished room nearby in Atney Road just off Putney Bridge Road. We would be in and out seeing she was O.K. but it was a sad time but we did what we thought was the best for all parties. Peg’s Dad stayed at St Goar till he died in the Autumn of 1961 and then dear old Ethel the following Spring in Putney Hospital: far too young. Atney Road proved to be not to Ma’s liking after a while and she moved again. She moved several times including a spell with Grace and Ted in Vauxhall. Her final resting place was with Louise Pearce in Steyning, East Sussex. Louise was a spinster lady in her late sixties when Ma went there. Her Dad had been a farmer and she was a kind of Hannah Hawkswell, tough but very kind. The house was a nineteen-twenties bungalow. No central heating as I remember and heating in the winter would be the open fire in the big sitting room with generally a large log coming out from the fire four or more feet long with smoke filling the room and Ma in the far corner trying to fan the fumes away but not in any way showing discomfort. She knew Louise was doing her best. Autumn visits would be remembered for the fruit being garnered from the big garden and fruit flies hovering over the abundance of produce waiting to be either bottled or jam preserve. I don’t think the stay was more than 2 years and Ma died without us knowing she was slipping away. After Ma’ death Louise would make the journey to London to see the Art Exhibitions and have Peg join her. By this time Louise was almost bent double with arthritus but regardless she would outpace Peg by a mile existing on a hand full of nuts and raisons from her machintosh pocket. A nights stay at St Goar Cottage and she would be back to Steyning. Peg came to dread these visits as she had such a hard job to match the energy of the art lover.

A disturbing feature of 61 was that the whole the facade was in a slow state of slippage as the large 10x10 timbers that were the support at ground floor and first floor were rotten due to water getting during it’s bombed period. When you looked at the building from the street you could see the dip in the middle and I was never very happy about too many of us gathering in the area by the windows foolishly thinking our weight would make any difference.’

I set up shop as soon as I could by rigging up a partition across the bit by the big shop window and made a counter out of an old low desk. The desk was so low it had to be stood on a quartet of big empty petrol cans.  It gave the effect of a shop counter. I had to be watchful for any customer making a move to lean against it as I would have to quickly lean also to keep things stable and then to step back as he stepped back.

The basement was in very bad shape, the floor was just rough concrete that gave on dust as you walked on it. The best room was the rear back room which could be used as a dark-room. It had a back door that led out into a 10 foot area that was open to the sky 40feet up passed the backs of the 4 floors. An outside toilet occupied one corner, never used. All that was needed to make a darkroom was a blackout arrangement up of the window and a trough and a bit of plumbing. It could then be made light-proof but not fool prove as an event would show much later when I took on staff to help the growing business.

These early days were very exciting and exhilarating. I was totally on my own, getting a small living out of this very competitive trade. At that time there was 70 to 80 developing and printing (D&P) works of various sizes in the city and all trying to keep what customers they had and get some more if the next guy tripped up. Speed of service got to a state where 24 hours turn around was the norm and it was a nerve racking job to keep it up especially in the busy summer months. My day would be from 7am till 7pm. I always was home in the evening going hell for leather all day to maintain that. I knew several firms that had the bosses working right through the night to keep up the service. It didn’t pay to let things slip as there were firms going round the shops canvassing for trade and seeing if the shop was happy with whom was doing the photo work. I loved it, often likening to sailing a small boat in a rough sea, but I was really riding a tiger.

The only rep Ilfords had in my area was a nice old boy quite near to retiring age and although quite deaf had managed to keep in work for the Ilford firm. He was so helpful to me in these early stages. as went round the shop he would find out whether they had a D&P service or whether they wanted to change and he managed to pass over several shops to me in this way.  We got on fine and he even invited us to tea one Sunday. The house was a very fine old vicarage and I got the impression that he had money behind him and the job was to keep him in an interesting daily contact with the trade.

With the extra business I began to take on help. To start with these would be part-time lady helpers with kids at school. The disadvantage with this arrangement was that when the school hols came along they were needed at home with the youngsters so chaps who knew something about the trade would get taken on.

Jerry Caesar was an early helper. Actually christened Gerald Julius Caesar, but in no way at all in the image of his namesake. He was a thin weedy insignificant looking guy but he was married and had 5 kids and living out at Mitcham. He was no stranger to graft and had worked in Birmingham for a while which he hated. Thought Birmingham a terrible place: “Work, Work, Work” were his comment on that city. He had to get to work by public transport which meant several bus changes which naturally resulted in late starts. I must have beefed about this and he said he would learn to drive and get a car and then be able to take his brood out for drives: every ones ambition.

I was able to help him in taking out the van we had at that time and get some experience driving round the streets during the lunch break. He would get himself in such a nervous state before getting in the car that as soon as he got in the car windows would steam up completely and we had to get them clean and dry before getting underway. A lovely man, we got on fine. I can see him now padding round the basement room with his flat feet hanging up the wet films to dry. He had been a waiter. His kids kept rats as pets which I thought most bizarre.

Eventually he got his driving licence and a car, but the start times didn’t seem to improve. I could not see what the difficulty was so I asked him what route he was taking. He said he didn’t know the route ‘cos he followed the trolley bus from Mitcham till he got a bit nearer Fulham. He did eventually cut the umbilical cord between him and the back of the bus and go free.  He must have felt like saying “Look no hands”.

By this time I had got the basement floor bitumised and in good order and mechanisation was well under way. One of the first major innovations was to move from single sheets of paper to a continuous roll of paper in order that it could be processed in a machine. The first were made out of wood. Marine ply I guess in a framework of treated angle iron. It had a thin plastic belt running through the machine that the roll of paper could clip on to and then it would go through the various chemicals and finish up getting glazed on a chromium plated heated drum going round and round and dragging the paper along.  This speeded things up greatly. The routine was to print off a quantity of prints in the roll and then start the roll off on its development cycle. At the end it would finish up in a roll all dried and glazed all ready to be put  into packets with the matching negatives.

One day I realized that this rolling up time could be done away with if instead the printed work went straight into the machine. A bit of slack had to be created to allow for clipping on and then it was a case of printing as fast as you could to keep up with the speed of the machine. At the glazed end someone would cut off the work as it got dried and then into the packets. The reduction of time was fantastic. The dealers could not understand how we could pick up the work in the morning and have it back the same afternoon. It didn’t last. The problem was that quite often a bunch of films would have to be printed that needed extra exposure time and keeping up with the machine was impossible. However it was great fun while it lasted.

This early wonderful machine was to turn into a nasty beast before a year was up. The acid fumy atmosphere coming from the fixer tank section began to eat away the surface of the angle iron and rust dust would sit ominously waiting to drop into the solution helped by the vibration of the machine. This would get carried along on the print and get nicely bedded in as it got glazed the print finishing up with ginger freckled complexion.

The surface of the drum had to be get spotlessly clean and polished otherwise the machine would punish us severely. A slight pitting of the surface could cause the prints to stick and then disaster would occur as the drum would carry on turning and wrapping the wet work around the drum un glazed and also pulling back into the mess the completed stuff.

I suppose marine ply was all that was available to the makers of this quite revolutionary machine but it was prone to leakage and eventually better types were being sold and we moved on.

         

John Trigger lived at Burnham Beeches which has got to be over 20 miles from Fulham. He used to make the trip in a beat-up old Triumph Herald which were well known for being prone to body rust. John’s had caught the complaint badly with wheel arches in danger of coming away in a strong wind. The state of the car and the traffic often caused late starts. The solution we came to was not to go home at all at the days end but to sleep at the lab.

We rigged up a bed in the enlarging room and he would kip down nightly after I guess a few beers in the Ifield Tavern next door. The room took on a different pong after a while but it was John’s work room anyway. A big raw boned lad, very likeable and we got on fine. One day he approached me with a problem, he said he had got his girl in ‘trouble’ and he was going to marry her and he could not manage on the probable pittance I was paying him. He was going to do the honourable thing and so I thought I should back him up with a respectable rise as I did not want to lose him.

Months went by and I began to wonder about how things were panning out. When I broached the subject with John he sheepishly said that it had all been a faults alarm and that he was gratefully relieved. My feelings were different. I couldn’t go back to where we were before so the present wage structure was maintained.

In the 1960’s the Wholesale Photo Finishers Association was formed to try and bring some agreed pricing to the trade and other benefits. At the first meeting Laurie Fedder of Putney was voted as Chairman of the S.W. London branch with me as his vice chairman. It was not a comfortable position for me. I was more at home writing small contributions to the monthly journal which I did for 12 months. A fun junket was arranged every year at the end of the season and the first was a trip to Munich and Cologne. Fedder was not all that keen to go as he was Jewish and although it was 15 years after the war he felt uneasy about it but thought of the jollifications overcame his doubts.

We were feted royally by our German trade counterparts. A memorable dinner in an old Bavarian Hunting lodge and in Cologne a meal in the revolving tower. Before the winter was over a Dinner Dance was held at some London venue and speeches were in order. I had to reply on behalf of the guests. I sweated blood over this never having done public speaking in my life. However, it went down amazingly well and plaudits came thick and fast as I managed to come up with something quite amusing and relevant. The buzz from that was something I had never experienced before. The next year I was chairman and another speech was required. I worked on this but it turned out to be a dummy and that was the end of my after dinner speaking.

These meeting were interesting in that you found out how other firms were operating. I soon found out that many have huge turnover but actual profit at the end was not much more than I was getting and working almost single handed. A revelation at one dinner was to be sitting next to the managing director of Ilford ltd and he said he was quite ready to quit and but himself a sweets and tobacco shop. That was an eye opener.

At some stage having got fully mechanised and seeing that we had spare capacity I fell for a dumb idea of buying out a small firm out at Boston Manor Road Hanwell which were still doing D&P by hand. I thought mechanisation would get some profit out of the deal. In spite of it being a 15 mile round trip I still was keen. The route from Hammersmith was out on the Great West Road. and Cromwell Road extension. The flyover at Hammersmith was just built and they were about to start on the overhead dual carriageway which seemed to be the most amazing road building feat ever. I marvelled at how it could be done.

We had a bubble car at the time with a maximum speed of 56mph. Terrifying to be batting down the dual road and to have a couple of high sided big things either side of you, you felt quite vulnerable. Les Ditch who used to come with me used to close her eyes. Funny little item, the door was at the front and you just stepped out on to the road, starting was fickle and the small tyres were prone to get punctures. I think a mini van followed the Heinkel. I installed a automatic printer and paid off a couple of the small staff and made it pay a little. Eventually I would close it down completely and take all the work back to Fulham to be done. It was a mad move and after a time I dropped the whole Hanwell connection.

It was a mad time in general, work, work, work and no chance of a holiday. I recall we went 7 years before we took a weeks holiday and then it would be at the beginning of November. We used to get away for a day at the week-end and get down to the Isle of Grain. About a 50 mile run from Putney where we had moved to then and with the old London Taxi trundle with picnic stuff and the two boys. A very peaceful area as it was on the road to nowhere in particular. Just a few villages, the Thames estuary looking out to the Isle of Sheppey on one side  and the Essex coast and Canvey Island on the other, plus the oil refinery at Grain. We knew we were near our week-end haven when we could smell the oil, wonderful. The kids would get muddy and we would try kite flying. Perhaps a pub meal or picnic and then it was time to get back.

With a staff of about 6or7 we did eventually get away for a week leaving with some trepidation and went off on a wing and prayer. Les was detailed to develop the films in the basement back room. When we returned I was met by a disconsolate Les. She had ruined a batch of films. On starting the process she had switched off the light and started to strip the films ready to go in the dev tank, she also at the same time closed her eyes so that it was a shock when she finally opened them to find the window not blacked out. Another butt-clenching incident to be dealt with.

Eventually the job of developing films would get mechanized where set of arms would pick up the rods of films and drop them into their respective tanks all time and temperature controlled. Marine ply again used to build them. After some months of use I noted that the floor was wet with Hypo solution and that the tank had sprung a small leak. The simplest thing was to just top up and get the level right. In the nature of things it got worse with me mopping and topping to keep up with it. To renew the machine was quite out of the question at a thousand pounds or thereabouts. The answer came to me to get a firm of plastics to fabricate a lining for the tank. So having taken exact measurements of the inside the plastic sleeve dropped into the empty space and cured the problem. Very satisfactory: £50 as against £1,000.

At a time when Jerry was with us we had the incident the rat. The only way it could have got in the premises was via the toilet which had not been used for years and I think the water in the U-bend had evaporated and he was free to come up from the drains. It was foolish enough to come out of hiding one afternoon and Jerry and I started to try and catch him. He finished up in a built in big cupboard space under the stairs. It had a door at the big end and a tiny door at the sharp end which had a small hole big enough for a rat to get through. With Jerry rattling a broom at one end I waited with foot poised at the hole. Sure enough he immerged and was crushed instantly by my foot. Quite a nasty feeling to crush something even as objectionable as a rat with ones foot and make sure it was well and truly a gonner.

Another nasty episode was the maggot invasion. I don’t think I told anyone about this as it was such a disgusting thing to have happened and especially as it caused by my Mum who was living in the flat above. She had obviously been careless in disposing of some meat product in the bin in the passage way just above the lab. It was high summer and I came in on the Monday morning to find maggots everywhere. The bin was teeming with them. Once I had got that out into the street I set about trying to clear all this objection up. We had girls operating the printers and under any scrap of paper were maggots. Fortunately I was in a hour before anyone would turn up for work but I felt sure if they had got a glimpse of these horrors they would have been off.

242 Fulham Road was in between the wine shop on the corner of Hollywood Road and Fulham Road, on the other side was a little sweets & tobacco shop that had been part of the Fulham Road scene for decades and so had 242. An old couple and a dog lived and worked there. He was an old time photographer who had only just stopped using plate cameras. He would take passport photos and do a bit of copying and get by somehow. He used to get us to do the making of the copy negatives and then he would make enlargements and get whatever the traffic could bare.  The place smelt awful with the constant cooking up of dog food and bad ventilation.

Not sure of the events that brought me to buy them out but that is what happened in about 1965/6. It seemed a good idea and it turned out well. A young lad name of Norman something was with us and he was dead keen. It was his keen attitude that kept me pepped up to get it set up. We got a modern frontage put in with grilling behind the windows as we intended to stock some good quality cameras and West Brompton Cameras as our shop name.

I was amazed later to have done this as we got cine cameras to sell and I had never even opened the back of one and as for loading up the film I had to rely on Norman as the kid seemed able to figure out just how to handle the things. He had such confidence that I could leave him for a spell while I would pop back to the lab and see that things were going on O.K.

We started to take in films for printing and these would go round to the lab and come back finished in quick time. Before long we were doing quite a trade. Eventually the amount of work that we were getting in was equal to half a dozen of the chemist dealers. The fact that the customer could see that the person behind the counter appeared to know what he was talking about inspired confidence and things went from strength to strength.

Norman eventually moved on, too bright a boy to stop at being a shop person and I then had a number of characters help me run the place. A chap came in one day and said he had owned a photo shop in Istanbul in the main souk and wanted to take a part time job to improve his English. Bazhat Aren was his name and he was hot stuff with the enlarger, making excellent prints from mediocre material. His English was good enough to deal with customers and his attitude was of the best. He came in very late one morning and on raising this he said that he had not slept well as the phrase “wrong way round” would not let him go. When one tries it the mouth and lips get quite a bit of exercise.

We had pigeon-holes for the finished work and I generally knew whose work was waiting to be collected. One day a chap went out of the shop empty-handed and as Bazhat had served him I asked why he hadn’t collected his photos. His explanation was that it was always a good idea to get the customer to come to the shop more than once as it made sure the customer knew where the shop was. This made good sense in the souk in Istanbul but it hardly applied to the Fulham Road. I admired his thinking never-the-less. He was not Turkish but Yugoslavian and had worked in Turkey many Years.

The premises at 242 were very old ,the only alterations we made were to put in a new door and smart shop window complete with shatter-proof glass hanging on chains behind the windows. This was a waste of money as when the thieves came it was through the roof and ceiling. I was aghast one morning to open up the shop and find the display de-nuded of all the expensive cameras. Also, true to my method of working, no insurance. However by that time I realized that camera sales were not going to be our salvation. It would be the quick D&P service. We would leave Dixons a clear field!

An indication of how old the place was would be the outside toilet. It was conical in shape with a large wooden board over with the necessary hole in the middle. No hinge, all fixed. One day I paid it a visit and was confronted by two large grubby foot prints either side of the drop. They could not belong to anyone other that Bazhat. I can’t recall making an issue of it and just put it down to his Eastern habit showing up in the right place when faced with this very down market loo. I used to use the Ifield Road one until a modern loo was installed.

We got along with odd part-time help for a while until trade was good enough to support some qualified permanent help to manage the shop with out me having to keep popping in and out. An advert in the trade press brought forth George Scott all the way down from Carlisle. As soon as he walked in the door with his camel haired coat on I knew he was gay. He had the walk too but not too much.

George was a gem, no doubt about it. He had style in spades. Everything he did had his stamp on it. A friend of his came down from the North not really quite sure where the shop was but as soon as he saw the window display he knew George was inside. He was fully conversant with all aspects of the trade. Peg found him a small flat to stay west of Putney High and then later she found him another towards Wandsworth. He was to be part of our team for 18 years.

He was a great fan of Musicals, Theatre, Cinema and the stage in general. He got himself in to an amateur musical comedy group and we would go to Richmond to see “our” George on stage. A treasure to be sure and he soon got a host of people male and female who would just love to come in the shop and chat with him. The Fulham/Chelsea area was full of his kind of arty show biz type and he was in his element. And they loved him. I recall one day that George off and some woman came in the shop looking round for George and then saying to me “Where the nice man?”. I felt like saying “You’ll just have to put up with me darling”.

One of the names in the clientele was a Royal Portrait Painter Leonard Bowden. He needed us to both take photos of his sitters and make prints as an aid to getting a likeness. I think George went to the Palace twice on this caper and needed to take a calming pill the night before every time. On the last occasion he came back in some distress and said “I lied to the Queen!”   He was only supposed to use Black & White film but he could not resist slipping in a colour film for one last take. The Queen who had been a sitter dozens and dozens of over her long reign knew exactly what was afoot and said “Is that a colour film Mr Scott” to which our George replied “ No Ma’am, it’s just a foreign type”. It worried him for days. Leonard Bowden found that the Queen’s hands and fingers which where quite used to handling the reins of a horse were not very elegant so he would use his wife’s hands as a model.

Prince Philip was another trial for George. Not easy and always complaining that too many photos were being taken and when old Bowden tripped over the cable to the flash equipment said “Not surprised with all these wires all over the place”. An American artist took George along to the Palace to take photos of Prince Charles with a horse. Of the various poses that they tried out was Charles with his hand on his hip standing by the horse. Charles would not sanction that one and the finished painting did not feature the horse either. The artist annoyed the Palace authorities by having his mail from America addressed “c/o Buckingham Palace London” until they made a protest. May be he thought they would be worth something.

The short lease at 242 ran out and the opportunity came about to take on a longer lease at 284. These premises were 5 times as big as 242 and George was really able to go to town with designing the shop lay-out and the windows. The basement was turned into a studio and a dark-room in the back rooms. Prior to our taking over the place it had been a ships chandlers which was a strange shop to have in the Fulham Road at first sight but Chelsea Reach was not far away so perhaps that is where the trade came from. The floor above the shop was let as an office later to be turned into a one bedroom flat and above that was a two story maisonette.

Another interesting job that George enjoyed more was to take photos of Mrs Thatcher as she was then at Downing St. He said she was very easy and co-operative to whatever was suggested.

By the time Leonard Bowden died aged 88 he had painted the Queen 10 times and yet never became a household name. Of all the photographers that came to help him he said that the ones with the most equipment turned out the worst work.

George continued to run the shop with the help of his side-kick Gerald Flood till I retired and then a few more years with Roger as the new owner. When finally and reluctantly Roger had to close it down as it was loosing money mainly due to the mail-order free-film opposition George started to collect customers written words of  well wishing and appreciation of the service they had received from this pair. It ran to a 120 separate testimonies of how well the pair had operated the shop. A few ran as follows:

“From your Ladies, Frances & Priscilla. We will miss you & your chats”

“Life will not be the same. Simon”

“You even closed with style. Love Joan E”

“I saw the sign and wept. Ronny”

“The soul of Fulham Road died when Photo Graphics closed. Dot Lenny”.

Peter Spencer was a regular chum of George. He was something of an amateur impresario of light opera and musical comedy. George featured in one or two musicals and we would go along to see him on stage in Richmond. His chum would arrive in the evening just as we were about to close the shop to take George to rehearsals. He would be on a powerful motorbike dressed in leathers and George would ride pillion and then brummm off into Fulham Road’s sunset.

Among George’s talents was the ability to dust and sweep and he turned this to earn him some money after the shop closed. He ‘did’ for 4 or 5 of his ladies for quite a while until an opening came in the shape of a guide at Buckingham Palace when it opened it’s doors to the public. I think he did two seasons there and was hoping to get a similar job at the National Gallery when he died of a heart attack doing what he loved most: shopping in Putney High Street. He was only 56. An indication of how his friends and acquaintances treasured him was his funeral. They were from Carlisle of course, Show-Biz, shop customers and his gay friends. The church was packed.

Life at the shop could be quite fun with the George having the opportunity to chat and gossip with the various notables that frequented the Chelsea/Fulham area. Laurie Lee used to drop in from time to time. I could never be sure whether his lady companion was his wife or his daughter. Tony Britton the actor lived opposite in Netherton Gardens and he often in for a chat with George. The Earl of Pembroke was someone that George was happy to fawn over. He signed his cheques “Pembroke”. The painter/sculptor Alan Jones had a studio round the corner in Hollywood Road and his erotically featured nudes would first see the light of day in the shape of photos at the shop. We would have the chance to see them before Alan did. His most famous piece of sculpting was the table made out of a nude woman on all fours with the table top resting on her back. The celebrated gay of those days in the area was Quentin Crisp who lived nearby before he went to live in New York and it was fun to see him trolling along the Fulham Road. He was connected with photographic but at the other end of the lens as he had earned a living as a model at the Chelsea Art College.

One of the shop helpers was a local lad Mike Wyatt. He was useful but not brilliant. The trouble with brilliant lads was they never stayed very long so we often had to put up with the mediocre. His speech delivery was not wonderful and I had to pull him up one more than one occasion for his habit of asking the customers name; it came out as “sname?”. I said “why don’t you say “What is the name Sir or Madam as the case might be” instead of sname, but it still came out as sname.  Another lad we had with a quirky sense of humour was this lad who I had to reprimand for not having a more respectful attitude to customers.  An example was serving a customer with the name of Hyles. The lad on writing the name in the order pad says “Hiles Sir? As in Piles?”. I had to have him on one side and tell him not to try and take the piss.

We had some wonderful customers but the only ones who were difficult were the bunch of priests from the nearby Catholic Church and the academics from the local school. One lot had little faith and the others lacked trust. They seemed to think we were all out to diddle them somehow. Maud Cecil however was a delight to deal with. She had a studio in Cranley Gardens and although she was only a minor portrait painter the fact that she was connected to THE Cecils made her someone we could gladly faun over. When she died the contents of the studio were sold off and we bought 3 pieces of her work. Two were portraits and the other a reclining nude. The portraits are hanging at Green Pastures and the nude is hidden in the loft.

Mike Wyatt moved on and up popped his younger brother Martin. An exceptionally gifted boy who used to help out in the shop on Saturdays. He was of the same orientation as George and both loved the stage and cinema although Martin was very high-brow and intellectual. His big interest was Wagner, he was crazy about it. Should it come to the naming of parts re the Ring Cycle nothing would be missed out. Amazingly high-brow for a 16-17 year old boy. If he went to a film or a play the whole story would get retailed to me the next day from beginning to the end. Whitty too. The occasion when we had completely re-organized the basement at the lab and we invited him round from the shop to see the improvements his clever response was: “I remember when this was all green fields”.

At this time Mike Joss was working for us at the lab as a printer. The knowledge needed could be acquired in a couple of days with average savvy and one just got better with working the system. Mike was a really bright lad. I knew when I took him on that he would move on before long and eventually he did and emigrated to Canada. He was a really reliable chap and an asset. 

His Dad died in a most unfortunate gliding accident one week-end. The tow-rope parted before his craft reached enough height and the crash was fatal. Mike owned a most unusual car which created much interest, an Austin Champ. Richard Copple who was around at that time recalls its colours as custard yellow and grape purple arranged or deranged in a blotchy psychedelic camouflage pattern. It carried two carbon arc lamps either side of the windscreen which when lit gave a fierce light and a sparky crackle that would burn out a retina if looked at too long. I recall Richard working on the car outside the Ifield Tavern with his head under the bonnet and the rain tippling down but Rich quite oblivious as he was bent on fixing whatever was wrong. Richard was no quitter. He was in at the demise of the Champ having joined Mike to tow it to a braker’s yard in Battersea after stripping it of some of it’s more interesting parts.

Some years after Richard moved to Canada he tried one hot week-end to hitch-hike to see if he could get in touch with Mike but when he found the house Mike was not there. Richard slumped down on the back door step and dropped off to doze. When he woke his hand was still covering his open shirt and all round was sun-burn leaving a splayed hand print on his chest which was to remain there for weeks to remind him of an aborted trek. The farm that Richard had been working paid the casuals off and so the address that was left with Mike lost.

After a while at the lab colour photography came to be the next trend and with that we began to do work for professional photographer which was more of an all year round trade as opposed to the D&P which was seasonal. In the main it was weddings and banquet work. Roger had got busy doing banquet work and brought work in. He teamed up occasionally with a Jewish camera man called Frank Sussman. He was just about the sharpest operator who ever pressed the shutter button. At a function like a University College Ball he would be like shark amongst minnows. After a nights work he could come home in the early hours with up to a thousand pounds stuffed in and around his person with Roger doing quite nicely too. We had several operators doing similar work. Going round the late night restaurants and taking groups at the tables. This was a better paying game and gradually I began to drop the D&P trade and concentrate on this new field.

Sussman was tenacious when he was in action, he was unique in extracting cash from folk and once in his pocket the chances of it being re-funded were very slim indeed. The management of venues saw his methods as harassment and on one occasion he was thrown out three times before he took them seriously. He was welcome at the lab however, without a doubt he was our biggest customer. The trouble with Frank was that he was always reluctant to pay all the bill and would leave say a third un-paid. This led to confusion and if there was a loop hole to exploit he would find it and I was often caught out. He was so clever and manipulative that it was no disgrace to be diddled by him. He was the prototype of the chap who was behind you going through a revolving door but coming out in front and quite impervious to insults too. An example of the man’s chutzpah was the time with Roger in the West-end and wanting a coffee and a burger he pushed ahead of a dozen in a queue and demanded that he be served as the police were threatening to take his car away from the pavement and got away with it.

He was married with two young girls about 12 & 14 at the time when the I.R.A. were putting bombs about in Town. They were near a cinema when it was being evacuated due to a bomb scare but after a half hour they all started to go back in again so Frank and the family went in with them … free. It would not have mattered if they had seen the film before, it was a free do.

Roger tells the story of a very lucrative nights work and driving home with Franks pockets stuffed with money and the cars petrol gauge getting in the red. Looking for an all night fill-up and on finding one in the early hours but no Green Shield Stamps he took off again to seek another.

Doing work for these high rollers was very lucrative but the downside was if films got spoilt or ruined totally with the operator out of pocket on the nights work I felt under an obligation to compensate them for the loss which could a double blow to me.

The free lance photographer was a strange bird and took many forms, one interesting character was Leonard Hamilton who doubled up taking photos with hairdressing and the studio would do duty as a place to get your hair cut unisex or have a portrait done. Leonard liked the hairdressing part but it seemed to me that he was averse to cutting hair so you always felt you came out with more hair than you went in with. Lovely man with a laid back bohemian life style.

    We could not choose who brought work in to the lab and some were quite unsavoury.       A customer called Ken Rose finished up in the News of The World by running a scam in the West End taking photos of young girls with a promise of a job in modelling or show-biz which was completely bogus. Some how we at the lab were named in the affair on what grounds I cannot imagine or remember. He disappeared and we were not sorry to see the back of him, he was a most unpleasant type.

At some stage I had run down the work to such an extent that there was only Roger and myself at the lab. Looking through old records I see that in 1966 we had 24 dealers on the books and by March 1970 we were down to 4 but boosted by the pro’s. At lunch time we would walk to the Earls Court Road and get a meal at The Hot Pot. A quick service eatery run by an Italian family. They had a very successful formula for turning out tasty inexpensive meals, the place was always busy. They had their regulars which we would see daily. One I remember would study the menu for quite a few minutes while the waitress waiting and then with a smile say “I think I’ll have a cheese omelette today” as though it was a new treat. But he had it yesterday and the day before and all last week.

There was an old boy who had a very bad nervous habit of tapping quite sharply his knife against the side of the plate. It would annoy the person at the next table as it was such a sharp crack of a noise. There was no way these nice Italian owners would bar him from coming in so they provided him with a set of plastic tools and plate.

Then there was the man with two enormous Alsatian dogs which used to sit at his feet and make a low growl whilst he ate. Very troubling if you were at the next table.

Peg and I went on holiday to Italy one year and as they had said “drop in if your passing” after we had done Rome we took the train to the other side of Italy and got to Pescara where Pepi and the owner lived. There was no other reason to go to Pescara other than down right curiosity about this family. We had the address but no phone number so the evening before we decided to call on them we set about trying to find their whereabouts. We were walking down this nice avenue and saw this chap in the distance clipping his hedge just about where i thought the house number might be. As we got nearer he turned to see who was approaching and then did a marvellous double take as he recognised me as an old customer from the Earls Court Pot. He was so thrilled that we had sort him out. We had just a little while with him and his wife followed with an invitation to a meal the next day. We were bowled over with the style of the house. Particularly the bathrooms and kitchen with exquisite tiling in abundance. A super lunch followed and then we went to a nearby village where they showed us the house that Pepi and his wife and 3 little girls would live in when they would all come back to Italy for a holiday from their life in London and Pepi’s eventually retirement. We were impressed by the little girls bedroom. 3 beds all in a row, so neat with matching bed linen. It was quite an experience to see how both the families had done well and prospered through hard work in a foreign country.

One day after a Pot lunch Roger and I came back to the lab to find we had locked ourselves out. There was no back entrance easily accessible in fact the back door was at the bottom of the area four floors down from the roof. The only way was to ask the lady at the Ifield if I could go through her back bedroom and get on to our bit of flat roof and open a window on to the half landing. Once inside the flat the only solution was to shin down a drain pipe to get to the bottom and the back door which I knew to be open. What made this desperate measure was the fact that we had chemicals heating up and were timed to be ready by the time we got back from lunch. The drain pipe looked secure enough and I could get a good grip round it. I grabbed hold of the pipe and heaved myself out in the open. It must have been 40 feet down to the bottom and I was working my way down just with the grip round the pipe. What I had not expected was that as my weight took charge my grip had to intensify and my knuckles and the backs of my hand were biting into the rough brickwork at the back of the pipe. There was nothing I could do but grit my teeth and continue down. No damage was done apart from my roughed up hands and we were at last inside and able to carry on working.  It was then “Into the breach dear friends” a phrase I had thought to myself many times in the past. Later   I used to have cold sweats at the thought.

Long before “The Pot” visits was the daily lunch at Bertorelli’s restaurant. I always thought I was doing O.K. by taking time out at lunch time to have a decent meal and a glass of wine. Whilst the gang at the lab were tucking in to sandwiches I was sitting down in what I thought was the luxury of a proper meal. The chef there made the most excellent cannelloni, the toasted cheese topping done to perfection. A single was 1/9 and a double 3/6. Minestrone soup followed by the single plus a glass of red and finish off with wonderful ice cream. What more could I ask. At first the decor was just as they had taken over from Lloyds Dairy who pre-war had shops all over London. The walls were covered in decorative tiles depicting dairy-maids sitting on three-legged stools milking contented cows. The seating arrangements were like stalls. You slid in on fixed long seats and ate off the fixed table with a high back secluding you from next door.  Eventually this was up-dated to accommodate more covers but thankfully the tiles remained.

We favoured another Italian eating place along the Fulham Road just passed St Stephens Hospital. The chef would have preferred to be known as Venetian as he was brought up in Venice and had in his youth been a fine swimmer and partook in the annual swimming gala in the main lagoon. What had us coming back day after day was his Lasagne. The kitchen was below the pavement level and he would come up the wooden steps with a tray of eats and bellow WEE-BAA, WEE-BAA. What it meant we never knew except that our meal was almost there. He was over weight and not a fit man and I guess the steps got the better of him and he retired and things were never the same again.

With the D&P trade at a low ebb we were about to take a new source of income. From an early age Roger had earned money from taking photos of shops and selling them as an OPEN & CLOSED sign to display on front doors. Soon Estate Agents were seeing the benefit of giving out publicity material with colour photos attached and Roger was soon building up a connection of dealers who would contact him to take photos of properties. These would be done at the lab. Agents in the area were made aware of the service we offered and before long we had to engage photographers to do the photography. We had about four chaps who supplied their own motor-bike transport and they would whiz around and get the films back quick enough to enable the lab to turn out the finished work for delivery the next day. Speed and a blue sky in the photos was what the agents liked. Over a few years this got to be quite an established and profitable line. It was not without its problems and by this time I was in my sixties and still going full tilt. However an incident occurred that brought about a change.  I can’t remember the young chap’s name, he was no genius and he was in line to be paid off at a suitable time as he really didn’t measure up. One afternoon he was returning to the lab from his mission, got a hundred yards from our door when he failed to see a car come in from the side road and crashed into it. An ambulance came and took the poor lad off to hospital as he had broken a leg. The whole incident shook me up badly even though I hadn’t seen the crash I had heard it and for well over an hour I could not function properly. I was in shock and it decided me to make a move and shake off the business altogether, I felt it was one hit too many. There had been several occasions when I had to stop and rest for just a few minutes while my heart stopped its erratic thumping and get back to normal. This had been going on for a year or so intermittently so the move to shed the load and take a break was due. A nominal sum was thought up and the business was transferred to Roger fairly quickly. Sadly I had the rotten job of giving the poor guy in hospital his P45 as we could not afford to carry him any longer as a passenger. I gave him some extra wages but his Mother spotted that I had not followed the procedure correctly and I had a solicitor’s letter to cope with. After seeking advice I finished up paying him some compensation money which I was quite happy to do to get the thing settled.

The next big event was to start a new life in the country and shake off the cares of London altogether and house hunting was the excitement for some weeks until Peg went in hospital near Christmas time and it was spring before we got looking for properties again. In the Easter week-end of 1986 we found Green Pastures and a brand new adventure started up in the country. St Goar Cottage went for sale but it was September before we could take up life at Holton. And then it was the fun of the vineyard.

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