Jaki Woolnough's Family Tree

To help fill in my time I am going to try my hand as composing as many of my memories as I can into a readable, and I hope, an interesting bit of reading for anybody who may work up enough interest to read. So here goes.

Pre 1913

I was born on 3rd October 1913, but some events before that may be of interest to you, particularly if you are as near a relative to me as perhaps a grandchild. My grandfather and grandmother Fifield lived at 3 Alfred St. Battersea, SW11. He was a cab driver, in those days a horse drawn carriage, seating only one or two passengers. Dad was the younger of two children, the other being either a half sister or a step sister, I can't recall ever having known, except for the fact under either circumstances, granddad was married twice. Dad followed his father by trade and also became a cab driver.

My mother's parents, Grandad and Grandma Richardson, lived at 44 Wadhurst Rd, Battersea, mum being the second of four children, namely, Aunt Lizzie, Mum, Aunt Nancy, and Uncle Jack. Aunt Lizzie's husband, uncle John Steadman, was an engine driver on the railway and was, so I have since been told, killed at quite a young age in a railway accident, whether or not they did so at that time, or whether she moved there afterwards I don't know, but when in later years I knew Aunt Lizzie, she lived in a small flat over an oil and ironmongery shop, named Dyers, in Gray's Inn Rd.

Aunt Nancy and uncle Bill Lissemer lived at 32 Campbell Rd., Eastleigh. He also worked on the railway, being an engineer in the engine repair and building sheds at Eastleigh, they had a large family of seven children, unfortunately the second son, Albert, who served in the 14-18 war committed suicide a short time after that war.

Edie and I, for quite a few years after I started school, would spend a considerable part of the school holidays at Eastleigh, I loved it, probably because my two cousins, George and Charley, were very close to my own age and I had plenty of company, but Edie hated it and on many occasions would write a letter to ask Mum to come down and take her home

Uncle Jack and Aunt Polly Richardson lived in Edgware, n. London in 3rd St or 3rd Ave. I am not sure of the name, but I do recall that it ran parallel with Harrow Rd. they also had a large family, eight children, mostly girls. Uncle Jack was an engineer, but not on the railway, but apart from an occasional visit either way, I don't think they kept very much in touch with the rest of the Richardson family.

I think that there may be a reason for the Richardson's to have railway connections, as when I became old enough to understand, probably in the early 1920's, mum told us children that she was a descendant of the Stephenson family, of the "Rocket" invention fame, although she never knew how this came about, obviously through the female line somehow. I don't suppose I shall ever know now but as a small matter of interest, the first engine that he built was called Locomotive No.1 The Rocket wasn't built until 4 years later. G.S was 33 when he built the Rocket and lived 1781-1848, however since writing that last few sentences I have found out that my Granddaughter, Jaquie Woolnough, has researched both the Fifield and the Richardson family trees, and apart from the fact that both the Richardson and the Stevenson families lived at one time in the same village in the North of England, (which leaves the possibility that there might be a connection) she could not at that time find a connection, but will keep trying, so if anything further is found out before I finish this literary attempt, I will insert it at this point.

Dad, Joseph William Fifield, married Margaret Jane Richardson on the 20th Oct. 1896 at All Saint's Church, Battersea. They had various addresses in Battersea over the years but dad was a bit of a wanderer and left home on several occasions, only to return after a very short time. His furthest and longest trip was when he went to Egypt, where he obtained a job in the stables of the Khedive, at that time the ruler of Egypt.

As usual, he came back. At that time there were 6 children, William John, Henry Victor, Laura Jane, Helen Lititia, Frederick Charles and George James, but after the usual short stay Mum conceived again, and dad set off to walk to Southampton where, upon arrival, he found accommodation for the family and having obtained some form of employment, sent Mum the fare to get them down there. They found it very hard to get by and both the elder boys got part time jobs to help household expenses. On the April 1910 Edith Emily was born.

The urge to return to London, however, was not far away and they returned sometime in 1912 and obtained 3 rooms, use of scullery and outside toilet, which was shared with a young couple who occupied the top 2 rooms of the house, a Mr & Mrs Billings. The scullery was at the back of the ground floor with a stone slab sink with one tap, cold only, above it, and in the opposite corner was a big stone boiling copper, which had to be filled with any available pan, by hand from the tap over the sink and a fire lit in the firebox underneath, why a hose was never used, I don't know.

Outside was a small concrete back yard, with a lean-to toilet in one corner, dingy and dark and the only one in the house, where on winter nights Mum would put a candle which, as I have said already was for use by all occupants of the house. The back room of the ground floor was intended to be a kitchen and indeed, Mum did the cooking in one corner where a gas stove was placed, but owing to the size of the family, it had to double up as a bedroom for mum and Edie, so, with a cooker and a double bed in it, being only about 11ft square, there was no room for much other furniture. The front room ground floor was a slightly larger room and served as a sitter/dining room and I presume was transformed into a bedroom at night, probably with mattresses on the floor for the 2 older girls, Laura & Nell, they being 12 and 9 years old respectively. The third room was on a half landing up a flight of about 10 stairs, which was the bedroom for Fred & George aged 8 and 5 respectively. Another flight of about 5 stairs went from the half landing towards the front of the house, at the top of which were the 2 rooms occupied by Mr & Mrs Billings.

Alfred St. itself was situated on the South side of Battersea Park Rd. and the turnigs on the South side, only about 100 yds long each, all led to the various entrances to Battersea Park itself, which in my opinion at that time, was one of the best, and most beautiful parks in London and probably in the whole of England. Approximately a mile further south of Alfred St., a quarter of an hours walk up Queens Rd. and Cedars Rd. was Clapham Common, which ran from Clapham S. U/G station, to Clapham Common station, and about an equal distance in depth, it had many football and cricket pitches, according to the season of the year, a large Bandstand right in the centre of the Common surrounded by deck chairs, where a military or works band would play on Sunday evenings during the Summer months. At Clapham Comm. U/g end was a fairly large oval pond where people of all ages sailed model sail or motorboats, at the Clapham S. end was another pond with a small island in the centre of it, where, when I reached about 7 or 8 years old, my friends and I would roll up our shorts as high as possible, and with one each end of one side of a sack, would drag for fish, of which there were many, but only " to 1 " inches long, which we imprisoned in a jam jar of water with a string handle, only to arrive home with a jar of dead fish.

Dad resumed cab driving for a living, but once more, early in 1913 Mum conceived again. Dad must have been a very difficult man to get on with, and again, during a visit by Aunt Lizzie probably concerned about her younger sister, a row developed between Mum and Dad who, as was apparently normal, became violent to such an extent that Aunt Lizzie ran to the police for help, their arrival did nothing to improve Dad's temper, however, and eventually they took him to the police station and called a doctor in, and because of his continued bad behaviour, the Dr. had him sent to a hospital at Belmont for observation, where he was to stay for some considerable time. His long stay was I think, due to the fact that he found life so much easier and pleasant and never really wanted or pushed for his release, and certainly mum never did, as life was also considerably less troublesome to her. All this occurred early in July and 3 months later on 3-10-13 I was born, but upstairs Mrs Billings had beaten Mum to it by a few weeks and had given birth to a little girl, who they named May. Will and Harry had upon the return from Southampton both left home. Will, I think, must have got a job, and either lived in or gone into lodgings and Harry had applied for and got a job on a shipping line and was a trainee steward on a liner on the England - Australia route.

When I was born, Will was 18 and Harry 16. In 1914 the Allies, England and France, declared war on Germany, over what, I don't know, something resulting from the assassination of a Duke Ferdinand of one of the Balkan States, however, it resulted, due to his age, in a fairly early call up to the army for Will and it wasn't long before he was in France. In the meantime, Harry, who realised that the pay for the Australian army was superior to the English army, when he was getting near to conscription age, volunteered for that army, and he also eventually was sent to France and was able to, like Will, spend his leaves in England, and later on, I should think about 1917, I remember quite well their visits home, when they had leave, Harry started taking out the girl next door, Annie Higgs, who was the second eldest girl of the Higgs family, who had 6 children, 4 girls and 2 boys.

At some time during the last year or so, Mum had got a cleaning job at the R.A.C, in Pall Mall and, to save the 2d, tram fare to Victoria, which was 50% of an hours wages to her, she got up at about 5o/c, made a big saucepan of porridge and left it on a very low gas to keep warm, having given Edie and me some, and strapped us each end of a tin bath, probably about 3ft long, pack cushions round us, and set of to walk, via Chelsea Bridge Rd, Ebury Bridge Rd, across Green Park, Duke of York steps, to Pall Mall, taking her, so I was told, approx, an hour, and started work at 7o/c for four hours, at 4d. p.h. (Today, equal to approx 1&1/2P) and then walk the return journey to arrive home at about 12o/c, all for 1s,/4d p. day. In the meantime, Laura, Nell, Fred, and George would get up, Laura and Nell would give Edie and me a little freedom and a clean up for an hour or so probably a drink of some kind as well, all four of them would have their porridge, Edie and I would be returned to the bath, and they would all leave for school just before 9o/c. At around 10o/c. a neighbour, Mrs. Moore, of No. 62, called in on her way home from a part time cleaning job that she did locally, and did what was needed for Edie and me, plus a few minutes freedom, and return us to the bath for the last short period, when Mum would return from work, and set about the housework, I presume that Laura would have carried on with doing the daily routine with us two young children after she left school, which would be in the summer of 1914, perhaps even, she may not have found a job straight away, which would have been a great help to mum.

In the summer of 1916, Nell would have left school and I think it would have been about then that Laura got a job with a family at Esher, during the week, she lived in, and came home on Friday evening until Monday morning, and on the Saturday, the Esher family being in the Tally business, (weekly payments for clothing, household goods etc.) she would go out collecting the payments from customers in our district, it would be a dangerous job today!

Things went on in a very similar way for a while, I was now three years old, and Edie had started school, so I presume that Nell looked after me while mum was at work, The war went on, with both Will and Harry coming home whenever they got leave, and very soon, the German air-raids started not as we knew them in the war that was to come in 1939, but with Zeppelins taking the role of the invader, the bombs were of a very small size, but black-outs were enforced, and Wardens were used to show people who were about, to shelters, but not many people went out in the black-out.

I vividly remember the procedure at 52 Alfred St. when the siren went, despite the fact that I was only just getting on for four years old, Mum, with Nell, Fred, George, Edie and me, would, with the Billings family from upstairs, now consisting of Mr. and Mrs, May, and another recent addition to the family, Rosie, aged about one year, would all crowd into the passage in the dark, (the lighting being gas would be turned of at the meter by Mum,) and wait for the all clear to go, which usually, was not much longer than about an hour later, but during that time, my imagination was rather inclined to run riot, staring into the dark, and imagining a steel helmeted German soldier, with a deadly looking spike on the top of the helmet, and fully equipped with rifle and bayonet, with, as was depicted in any newspaper cartoon at that time, a fierce moustache, I was scared to death, With regard to the lighting being gas, electricity in a house such as ours, was never known, in fact that house never had electric put in until in later years, Laura took over the house from Mum, and having electricity put in about 1928, the gas lighting was a bit of a nuisance, as the mantle, an upright cone or a suspended rounded bag kind of attachment, made from very fine asbestos that glowed white when heated by the flame, was easily damaged and became non functional and a trip to the oil-shop for a new one, for just a few coppers, was needed, also a very, very careful fitting of it to the burner.

In October 1918, I was five, but I don't know whether I started school straight away, or waited until the war finished, which was, as you probably know, on Nov. 11th, 1918, at 11o/c that morning, I had been to school on one previous occasion, George had, for some reason or other, asked for, and got permission to take me with him one afternoon, where I sat with him at a double desk while the lessons went on, and, to my great pride, on one occasion when the Master had to leave the class, I was told to sit at the teacher's desk and keep order, of course I had nothing to report upon the teacher returning, but from then on, I never had any dread of school, until I was 13, but more of that later. Will and Harry eventually both got de-mobbed from the forces, and Harry and Annie Higgs got married, and lived, temporarily in her parents house at No. 54. from where they arranged to emigrate to Australia, which they found easy to do, as Harry had been in the Australian army, and was very pro Australian. Just prior to their leaving, they held a farewell party for the children of both families, Fred, George, Edie and me of the Fifield's, and Violet and, I believe, Gladys of the Higgs family, it Was a nice party, with a smashing tea, and presents for us all, I remember still what mine was, a conductors set, a small ticket rack, a ticket punch, both with neck straps, and a peaked Conductor's hat, I was over the moon. I should think that this, followed soon, by their departure, which was in late 1919, or early 1920, Harry was never to see England again.

Will was de-mobbed at about the same time as Harry, but I think he must have gone into lodgings, as I have no recollection of him living with us all at 52 Alfred St. However, he had obtained a job with H. Samuel Ltd, the jewellers, and got friendly with another assistant in the shop, and was also introduced to the friend's wife, Daisy, and finally, after a while, introduced to the wife's sister, Ethel, who Will started taking out, and on odd occasions would, having previously informed mum of His intention, bring her to No, 52, for an evening meal, and on those occasions, every room would be, whether needed or not, cleaned and polished from top to bottom, brass ornaments and fire curb cleaned and polished till they shone, but it was worth while, because Ethel always brought us four children a small toy or present, and really was very nice. Meanwhile, Will met another fellow named Cohen, obviously of the Jewish faith, and went into partnership with him in opening a jewellers shop in New Oxford St., which did surprisingly well, enabling them to open another shop in Charing Cross Rd. calling the firm, The West End Watch Co . Will, by now, had of course, met Mr. and Mrs, Herbert, Ethel's parents of Brook St; which was somewhere between Kennington and the Elephant and Castle. Will and Ethel got married early 1922. Meanwhile, in Australia, Harry and Annie had a baby boy in July 1920, who they christened Robert. Nell had now left home, and was in service in Kensington, living-in, as was usual for domestic staff then, and I remember mum taking Edie and me to see her, although it must have been for a special reason. We had to go to the servant's entrance, and ring the bell, and were allowed in for about 15 minutes, While Mum had her little chat with Nell, and then we went home. Nell did of course come home on her day off, which I believe was once a fortnight, Laura still lived and worked at Esher, and came home at weekends, and did her collecting. Fred had left school in 1919, and had got a job at the Ritz Hotel in Piccadilly as an office boy, and George had left school in the summer of 1922, and got a job in a grocer's shop in Battersea Park Rd, a short walk from home.

I had for some time past, been experimenting at how many stairs of the main flight I could jump from to the passage, I think that by the time I was about eight years old, I had successfully managed about six stairs without toppling over upon landing, I don't remember that I ever managed the ten but if so, had probably reached the age of 11 or 12 years old before achieving that, (just a useless piece of information).

At the time of Harry going to Australia, I had been at school about a year, and was really settled in, and liked it. The school was called Raywood St. and was situated in Battersea Park Rd, next door to the Police Station, and nearly opposite the Dog's home at the foot of the bridge that led on to Nine Elms. Raywood St, itself was a little turning at the back of the school. I did, of course, start making friends in the same class, particularly with children that lived in Alfred St. As both my friends and Myself grew older, we were allowed to play out in the street after school hours until possibly 7 or 8o/c and as time went by, the bed time gradually got later, more so in the light evenings of the summer months, and by the time I was eight years old, our group of about five friends, all had home made scooters, made, I should add, with considerable help from a few adults, with a couple of roller bearings, two small, about four inch wide, by 18 or 20 inch planks of wood, 1x4 inch square by 6 inch, block of wood, 4 strong screw eyes, and 1x6 inch bolt and nut, all gathered gratis from sources not known to us children.

Mum was quite a systematic person, and was good at delegating the children to various household jobs as they got to the age of being capable to do it and I was now old enough to take over from George, and with Edie, had the knife board job every Saturday morning, stainless steel was not yet in general use for household goods, and so Edie and I cleaned the knives on a board that had a fine emery paper stuck to it (Replaceable) and with the application of a further sprinkling of a fine abrasive powder, rub the knife blades on it until they shone, the job taking us about half an hour.

I progressed at school fairly well, and seemed to make the average progress up the ladder of classrooms; the school was very conveniently situated close to Battersea Park, only a few minute's walk, and one afternoon a week, the P, T. master took our class to the park to play cricket in the summer, and football in the winter, which I enjoyed very much, especially the cricket, at which, as a bowler, I became quite proficient. During the various school holidays such as Easter, Whitsun and the summer holidays, our little group would have a day out on our scooters to Hampton Court, with a few packed sandwiches for lunch, it was a great adventure to us, we did this a couple of times a year.

Another favourite day out, well, a few hours anyway, was, for 1 1/2 old p. we got a child's day return to Victoria from Battersea Park Station, and wandered around Victoria St., Parliament Square and around that area for a while, and then back home in time for tea. Alfred St, and indeed all the streets off that south side of Battersea Pk. Rd, were very slummy, and street fights between neighbours, mostly between men, were quite frequent, and sometimes even, between a couple of Women, this created a quite appreciated source of entertainment to the spectators, who would offer verbal encouragement to the combatant of their choice, on a Saturday night however, the entertainment was greatly enhanced, after ten thirty, (closing time for the Eagle, on the top corner of the street) when the local police force also entered a team, this team, would of course, usually come out the victors, having superior equipment in the form of truncheons and handcuffs, resulting in a night's free lodging for one or two of Alfred St's; more belligerent residents.

The roads and streets off the north side of the main road, were of a class considerably higher than the south side, very few were called streets, posher names were given them, such as Lurline Gardens, Prince of Wales's Rd. etc, the latter ran the full length of the park, from Chelsea Bridge Rd. to Albert Bridge Rd, and on one side only, (the other side being the park itself were block after block of mansion flats, with names such as Connought Mansions, Cambridge Mansions, York Mansions, Prince of Wales's Mansions, the insides of which in later years, I had good reason to know very well, but I'll come to that in time. There were families in Alfred St. with some very unusual names, such as the Foot's; the Kettels; the Dallimores; and a lot more, less unusual.

My friends were, from No 50, Johnny Rother and his slightly younger brother Arthur, whose family had suffered considerable abuse during the war, as it was rumoured that the father was of German origin, then there was Dennis Trevillion; Dennis Williams; and a lad named Haynes, who lived very nearly opposite us, about two doors up from the little general shop, exactly opposite us, called Jollies, whose owner, Mr Jollie, although pleased to take our halfpennies and pennies from us for a few sweets, would chase us away from his window if we were there making a noise for too long.

On the bottom corner of the street was another small grocery shop, where mum got on well with the lady that owned it, (a Mrs, Reed) and got as much mid week shopping as she could there, I think she must have been a widow, as on the many trips I made on errands for mum, I never saw a man at any time. At the top end of the street, on each corner, were two fruit and veg stalls. On the right, outside the Eagle were two stalls owned and ran by the Mason family, and on the left, two more owned and ran by the Colman family, both families lived in the street, and occupied stables next to their houses for their barrows at night. Mason's at the top end, Colman's at the bottom left of the street and also their horses and carts, which they needed for their trips to market, On Sunday mornings, they both seemed to want to exercise their horses at the same time and would be chasing up and down the street for an hour or more, I think there was quite a bit of rivalry between them, but it caused a bit of interest.

When I was getting on for ten years old, Nell married Jim Varney, whom she had known for a couple of years, at All Saint's Church, Battersea, and Dad's step sister who, since the loss of both my grandparents, had taken over the tenancy of 3 Alfred St., let Nell and Jim rent the top floor of the house.

My little circle of friends was, as I got older, getting larger, and now included Billy Moore, the youngest son of the woman who used to come in to Edie and me in the days when we were strapped in the bath, and another lad named Bert, who was related to the Colman family of the fruit and veg stalls at the top of the street, and one thing that I clearly recall was the trouble we ail got into with our parents on the 5th Nov. of 1922. Five of us, the two Rother boys, Billy Moore, Bert, and me, went out with a guy, unfortunately, it poured with rain all day long, and we all got soaked to the skin, when I got home, I was feeling on top of the world with my share of the take, about 10d, but alas Mum wasn't quite so elated as I had been, and after a good telling off etc. my 10d. was spent at Jollie's for a bottle of camphorated oil, with which my chest and back was given a good saturation, and I was sent off to an early bedtime. I never went guying again. I also remember well our little circle, on the first Wednesday in June, (Derby Day), after school, walking up to and across Clapham Common and joining the crowd on the pavement of Clapham Rd. to watch the race goers returning from Epsom, as I have said, there were very few motor vehicles in those days, and such things as horse drawn, brewers drays, coal lorries, and many other trades would pass, gaily decorated, with all kinds of passengers, including what must have been practically every Pearly King and Queen, with their families, from every part of London, and as they drove past the crowd on the pavement would call ''Throw out your mouldies'' and a shower of copper coins would be thrown to the crowd, causing a scramble by the children to gather as much as they could, this would go on for about an hour or so and with pockets weighted down with 3/- to 4/- of halfpennies and pennies, we would walk the return journey.

Will and his partner had expanded a little by opening a second shop in Charing Cross Rd; and had offered both Fred and George, and also the partner's two sons, Diddy and Harry Cohen, jobs in the shops, Fred left the Ritz, and George left his job to accept, and soon, under the tuition from Will and his partner, became proficient enough to be left to run the two branches. Fred with one of the Cohen boys, and George with the other Cohen boy in the second shop, after a while however, the two partners failed to agree on several points of management, and agreed to split the business down the middle and go their separate ways, Will with his two brothers and Cohen with his sons, and so with one shop and half the stock of the two shops, Will took over the West End Watch Co; and Cohen formed the Geneva Watch Co. now in competition with each other. I think they must have sold New Oxford St, shop, and shared the money.

In 1924, Edie left school and started work as an assistant in a sweet shop in Battersea Pk. Rd called Rainbows, and I sat the school exams, and did well enough to be offered a place at Surrey Lane School, which meant staying at school until I was 16. Will was not in agreement with it being accepted, his argument being that none of the other children had had the opportunity, so why should I, my other brothers and sisters were in favour of me going, and with a little persuasion from my Raywood St. teacher, a Mr.Outrim, Mum agreed to let me go. Surrey Lane itself was a short, fork road off Battersea Bridge Rd, which ran from the Latchmere, (a public house), up to Battersea Bridge and was only about 5 minutes walk from the west extreme of the Park, whereas Raywood St, had been about the same distance from the east end of the Park, so the environment to me was very similar, but the distance from home was greater than Raywood St, and I could not get home at lunch time, and, as a small cafe, nearly opposite the Clock House pub did one sausage and mash and one cup of tea, for boys from the school, for 3d. a little over 1p today's money, I stayed.

After a while, I think it must have been a collective Christmas present, I got a pair of roller skates, which the school allowed me to take in, so I went on them, and so pleased myself whether or not l went home at lunchtime. With Fred, George, and Edie now all working, and at home, finance was probably a little better for Mum, but she still kept on working at the R, A, C; but perhaps now she could afford to get on the tram to Victoria and back, whether or not she did, l don't know, but it wasn't long before she had a mild heart attack, and on Doctor's advice, upon recovery, stopped going out to work.

Will, by now, had done well enough in the business to afford a car, I remember it well, an open sports type of thing, with a canvas hood on a collapsible metal frame that could be put up in bad weather. Alfred St., at that time, was not the kind of place to bring a car, in those days, a very rare possession to have, and to bring and park such a thing in Alfred St. you would have been considered a show off, and a particularly brave man, willing to take the risk of having it seriously damaged and so he would leave the car under the railway bridge in Russell St. whenever he came to Alfred St.

Being mobile now on two feet instead of one, (scooter), and Nell having had a little girl, Renee, I called on her every evening to do any errands that she might want me to do, for which she gave me 6d, per week. and looking back to the few prices that I remember I can hardly resist mentioning them to you, Bread 2d, per quarter loaf, which had to be weighed by the bakery at time of sale, and if it weighed less than the correct weight a makeweight piece was cut from another loaf, (perhaps already cut into 3 to make up the shortage. Tea was 4d 1/2 lb, and butter about the same price, Cigarettes were 4d. for ten, but to counter these very low prices, wages were also very low, the average wage being £1-15-O (£1-75)to £2p.w.

Laura had now, left her job at Esher, and was living at home, and had got a job at a coffee stall in Pimlico, on the embankment between the Chelsea and Vauxhall bridges and so, Harry Wilby, who was soon to get married to Laura, was very nearly a daily visitor to No.52, he had two younger brothers who had joined the boy scouts, and he persisted in tying to get me to join the same Scout troop as his brothers, and eventually I agreed, and so became a member of the 3rd. Westminster troop with headquarters in Pye St, off Strutton Grounds, (a street market) about 300yds, past the Army and Navy stores in Victoria St., on Thursday evenings, we went to a larger hall near by for P.T. and boxing, I got roped in for the boxing team, not with much enthusiasm I must admit, and in my 1st year was entered for the district's boy's clubs and youth organisations championships, held annually both Tommy (Harry's youngest brother) and I got through the prelim ties, and met in the final, at a hall in Lambeth, in which I came second, and had to be satisfied with the runner up certificate, that was the end of my boxing career.

The following summer, the troop went to Datchet, on the river Thames, near Windsor, for two weeks in the summer of 1925 and I thoroughly enjoyed it, we had three Dell tents and about twenty of us went and with trips into Windsor etc, the time went to quickly, Aunt Emm had been poorly for quite a while now, and alas, died, Dad came home from hospital for the funeral, and stayed a couple of days, but I think he preferred it back at the hospital, and was glad to go back. He had for some considerable time now been transferred to a hospital, West Park, at Epsom, and was given the job of gardener. For both the hospital grounds, and the main Doctors private garden I was now getting near to my teens, and was promoted to the visiting list, my turn coming round about once a month, it was a fairly boring event, where you sat in a large hall, full of patients and their visitors, tea and pastries were available, for which of course, you had to pay, and after about an hour we would set of for the half hour's walk back to Epsom station, I was always glad to get home again,

Aunt Emm having passed away, Nell took over the tenancy of No 3, and as Jim's sister Flo. had recently got married, she and her husband, Harry Jones, rented the top floor that Nell had previously, occupied, Will had by 1925, opened a shop at Southend-on-sea, and Edie left the sweet shop job and went down with George to run it, They both obtained lodgings in the same house, with a Mrs Resterick, at the Kurzall end of York Rd; with only Fred and me at home, Mum must have felt a little restless, and wanted to go back to work at the R. A.C. again, but all the family were against it, so Will suggested that we move to Southend, and as Laura and Harry wanted to get married, Mum agreed, providing that the house was large enough to allow her to do a little letting for Bed and Breakfast, during the summer months, and so allow Laura to take over the tenancy of No, 52, and so we finished up at 37 Clarence St. Southend, in the spring of 1926, with Fred lodging with Laura and Harry at the old house. George and Edie both left Mrs. Resterick, and so there was Mum and us three children together again. The spare rooms were let during the summer to holidaymakers at 3s 6p per head B&B.

After we had moved to Southend, Laura's ambition to own her own business in the catering trade induced her to look for a favourable sight for her own coffee stall, which she managed to obtain on the forecourt of a Public house on the Merton Rd. about 200 Yds. past Tooting Broadway U/G station, which was a busy enough position for her to be able to employ someone to help her, and as the coffee stall business got better, she wanted to move closer to it, and so bought and moved into a 3 bedroom house at 125 Ramsden Rd, Balham, of course I had to find a new school at Southend but I didn't want to stay on until I was sixteen, and started at London Rd, school, within a short time of the move, and was put in the top class, where, to be candid, I never really got on with the teacher who was very sarcastic and critical of, to quote, ''the clever London grammar school boy, who considered himself better than the rest of the class,'' and the woodwork, and any other sessions that took me away from his teaching, couldn't come to soon for me every week, but despite this, I liked the school, and got on well with the other masters that I came in contact with, especially the P,T, and sports master, who put me into the school cricket team for the summer of 1926 and in the local school's league, although not winning it, we were quite reasonably placed at the end of the season.

I soon made friends, not so much at school, but particularly with two brothers, named Fred and Ronnie Janes, whose house in Alexandra St., the turning next to ours, had quite a large garden, as did our house in Clarence St., which backed onto each other. They had two older brothers, Toby and Eddie, Toby, with another chap as crew, ran a pleasure motor boat called The Nemo, and Eddie ran a sailing boat named The Monarch with a crew member, Fred, Ron and I spent the whole summer school holiday on the water front, spending our time helping on the two boats and also helping relations of theirs, the Baker Bros. who had about a dozen or so rowing boats that they hired out by the hour. If you know Southend at all, you will know that the tide goes out for about a mile, twice every 24 hours, there is however, a pier 11/2 miles long, and as the tide went out in the daylight hours, neither the Nemo nor the Monarch, could work, but us three lads used to row one rowing boat and tow two more out to the end of the Pier as the tide ebbed, where the Baker brothers would continue to hire them out, until the tide was nearly to the shore again, when we would row them back in again, and business would be back to normal. We spent some time however, in the water, and that is where I learned to swim.

That was a wonderful summer for me, as also was the next one, which was to be the last one before I would be expected to start work in the Oct of 1927. Will was toying with the idea of opening another shop in the High St; which he did in the summer of 1927, and Fred came down, to run it, with a young girl named Wilkinson, who was the daughter of a street trader, who had a fruit stall on the corner of High St. and Clarence St. with whom George, who, with Edie ran No. 39 High St, had become friendly with. I never went back to school after the summer school holiday of that year, and I started working for Will on 4/10/27. The summer trade was well past by then, and we were looking forward to the Christmas trade to begin, my wage was very low at that time, as I was only the shop boy, there to clean the windows, wash the floor, and do any other dirty job that Fred asked me to do and I never really did much serving until the Christmas trade started, but, as I was saying, my wages were 7s,--6d. per week. The shop, I was in, was on the corner High St. and York Rd.

Winters were no hardship to the residents of Southend, in fact it was the time when they had most of their pleasure, with very few visitors about, it was a lot easier to get into the cinemas and theatres, and get quicker service in the restaurants etc, There were three cinemas in the town, The Rivoli in Alexandra St., Garon's, in the top half of the High St. owned by Garons the local family, who also owned several catering and restaurant establishments in the town; and the Strand cinema, also at the top end of the High St. The variety theatre was in Southchurch Rd. and provided very good quality shows, the big band shows, Jack Hylton; Ambrose; Billy Cotton; and other approx, 50 piece bands probably being the most popular.

The Palace Theatre was in London Rd., Westcliff, and did the drama or farce type of show, the farces being the touring companies of the Aldwych farces, and the dramas mostly the detective mystery, the most popular being the Edgar Wallace thrillers. Our little circle of friends were never ever over burdened with money, Freddie Janes, being still at the Grammar school, and Ronnie Janes still, being slightly younger than me, going to London Rd. school, and as I gave mum 5/- p.w from my 7/6, we sometimes had to use a little trickery to get into the cinema. The R�voli, although in Alexandra St. ran right through to Clarence St, at which end of the cinema was a Gent's toilet, with a fire door and exit into Clarence St. I usually paid my 5d, to get in and when the coast was clear and absolutely safe, would let the other two in that way, it was the only one of the three cinemas that was so convenient.

Freddie Janes had an ambition to start a ramblers club, and during the winter he sounded out various other people he knew at school etc. and got quite strong support for it, I knew that although I supported the venture, I would be unable to take much active interest, as during the summer months I would be working seven days a week, however, that first summer, at carnival time, all the members made and wore costumes as students, black gowns and mortar boards, and collected in official collecting boxes from the procession watchers on the pavements, Fred did allow me a few hours off for this one off activity, and I also took part in any after 8pm, activity that was put on during the rest of carnival week.

The following year, the club did a similar programme, this time in white uniforms with broad black arrows stencilled on, and skull caps to match, and turned out in force for the big parade, which was usually in the region of about a mile long, and the other events of the weeks activities, my active part of course being restricted as it was the previous year.

During the time that George had been at Southend, he had made many friends, some of whom were of the gambling fraternity, and some I think, of somewhat dubious characters, the outcome being that George became more or less a compulsive gambler, and would often be absent from the shop he was managing for long periods, only going back to the shop to take more money from the till to return to the card session, wherever it was held, which none of the family ever found out. Will came down fairly regularly during the summer months, and the mismanagement and appropriation of money, caused many a row between them, leading to dismissal, abject apologies, and re-instatement until the next time, only to be repeated all over again a few weeks later. The crunch came, however, when Will paid an unexpected visit to discover that George had on this occasion, even sold the National cash register to get gambling money, and during the row that followed that evening at home, during one little fracas, Mum's finger was put out of joint, and all the noise etc., brought Eddie Janes over, who managed to quieten them both, and got Mum to Southend general hospital, where her finger was reset and bound. This all resulted in George going back to London to work for Will, where an eye would be kept on him, and a local man who lived at Westcliff, and had been travelling to Aldgate branch every day, John Durley, was put in charge or No.39, which he ran with Edie's assistance.

From then on, both business and domestic life for the Fifield's was peaceful and pleasant, and I may add, successful. My salary over the past two years or so, had increased to 17/6 pw, plus 10/- for my half day and �1 for Sunday during the summer, and as soon as I was seventeen I took out a driving license for 5/- and bought a motor bike, the first one being an old 1914 B.S.A. combination, in partnership with Fred, the rear wheel was belt driven and caused many comical moments, especially when it rained, as the belt, which was probably a bit stretched, would slip on the wheel pulley, and many times soil or preferably fine sand, would have to be applied to the belt to make it grip, alas, the life of this tried and trusty steed came to an ignominious end one evening on a county trip to Rayleigh, a small nearby village.

I was a sidecar passenger in a 690cc Zenith twin cylinder combination, belonging to Syd Cates, a friend of Fred's, who worked for his father, who owned a wholesale tobacco business in York Rd; and we had gone for a ride out to Rayliegh for a drink, with Fred and John Durley on the B.S.A. On the way home however, Syd and I were following Fred, and we were amazed to suddenly see flames coming up between Fred's legs, somehow the spark plug on the B,S, A, must have worked lose, and blew out and pierced the petrol tank, and still being connected to the wire and earthing on the cylinder, it ignited the petrol, with the result that we were then witnessing. Fred very quickly decided to abandon ship, and jumped off, landing on his side and sliding along on his shoulder, which apart from bruising and scraping, suffered no severe damage, in the meanwhile the bike had veered to the left and landed in a ditch, where John promptly jumped out from the sidecar. A few passers-by gathered round to watch the bonfire, and from the crowd stepped an elderly lady, slightly inebriated, with two quart bottles of beer in her arms, from which she removed the corks and poured the contents over the bike, fortunately with no ill effects, as we were warning people to keep well clear, as We expected an explosion, but this didn't happen, and fairly soon the petrol was al consumed and the few bits that still burned slightly, were very soon smothered, and all was well. We notified the police that the bike was there, and went with a recovery vehicle next morning to collect it. The bike was a write-off.

My next bike was an old 175cc, run start Chater Lea, a not very well known make, even in those days, when there were many more different makes than there are now. It was quite a reliable little machine, although I never really put it to the test with a long journey, and I only had it for a little over a year, as Mum was getting the itch to move back to London, so I sold it when I had the chance, to an acquaintance, it did however give me valuable driving experience, which I needed, as there was no driving test in those days, in fact I am, at 85, still driving, but I have never passed a test in my life, the only thing that has altered due to my age is that I am now restricted to only driving vehicles that weigh up to 3 ton, whereas before I was 85, I could drive practically anything except P.S.V. I might add that there was no breathalyser test either.

Things went on very calmly and enjoyably for a little while, but despite the fact that Fred, Edie and I all wanted to stay in Southend, as we were all very happy, and had made many good and reliable friends. Mum's urge to go back to London, became a reality, and Will got us a three bed flat in no.1 St. Martins Rd. Stockwell, and at the end of that summer season Mum, Fred and Edie moved back to London, while I went with Syd Cates, on his Zenith to tour Devon and Cornwall for 14 days, so while the family and furniture was going up on the Monday, Sid and I left early on the Sunday the day before. I have remembered that day ever since, we had been on the road for a couple of hours or more, and Sid was driving, when we came to Cantersbuy Hill, a quite steep and notorious one with a deceptive left curve at the bottom, and Sid tried to take it too fast, which made the sidecar lift, forcing him to straighten up, whereupon he struck a wall a glancing blow, but severe enough to bend the front forks, and crack the gear box casing, neither of us suffered any physical damage, but a local garage had to send the forks and the gear box to Swindon for repair, and this took three days, during which time we stayed B and B at a pub in Marlborough. We had quite a pleasant three days there wandering around in Savanake Forest, and visiting Tavistock and various places. The reason I have remembered that day so well, is that the day we had the accident we learned later that day that the R101, a British airship, (dirigible) had crashed that morning at Beauvaise in France, on it's first major flight to the east, with a lot of important politicians etc, on board, with a large loss of life.

Having got the bike back, we went on our way, visiting Porlock, Lynton and Lynmouth, and treating both those hills with a little more respect than Cantisbuy, to Clovelly and Bude in north Devon, round the top of the cliffs (very high) I believe, the Bristol Channel, along the south coast of Cornwall into south Devon, making the Cheddar Caves our last visit which was very well worth while as they are beautiful, and staying the night at another pub, we arrived at Stockwell, about lunch time on Sunday, recounting our experiences to the family, after a good lunch, Syd left for Southend about teatime, and I found out that I was assigned to the shop at Aldgate, situated very near to Petticoat Lane, which of course meant Sunday opening, as the market brought thousands of people there every Sunday morning, until about 2 o/c after which time the staff, with a cup of tea and a bite to eat, would settle down to an afternoon of playing cards, 'kitty nap' if there were five of us, or 'Solo Whist' if only four, packing up playing, and closing up the shop at 5o/c, and so off to our homes having either worked the day for nothing, or possibly with two or three times as much as a days wages, Fred and Edie had already started at a new shop that Will had opened at 27 Oxford St. I learned from the other staff, that the manager, a Laurie Bond, was a Southend-On-Sea man and had jumped at the chance to manage the second shop there, and that Leslie Dove, an ex watchmaker whose hand had started to shake, had been kept on as a shop assistant, and been promoted to manage Aldgate at Laurie Bond's transfer to his home town, and so the Fifield's move back to London, had certainly pleased more people than just Mum. It wasn't so pleasant working in London, as it had been at Southend, firstly, instead of a 100yds walk, I now had further than that to Stockwell U/G. Station, then a 20 min, train ride to London Bridge Station, then a 10 min, bus ride to Aldgate East, and a short walk, very nearly to Gardner's Corner (if you know where that is).

While I was there, we had a visit from the local C.I.D. it appeared that a dustman had been arrested for trying to dispose of watches that he admitted were stolen, and gave the name of one of our staff as his accomplice, a chap that lived out in the Barking, Upton Park region. It had been going on for some time, and between them they must have made quite a bit of money. Our watches used to come in from the head-office at Ludgate Hill in boxes of 6, not strapped, and a short time before the weekly call by the Dustmen, the staff member would put at least one, or probably more boxes of watches under a little bit of rubbish in the bin, which the dustman would put in his pocket before emptying the bin. As a first offender, the staff member got off with a binding over, for which Will had more or less asked for, as he thought sacking him was quite a punishment on it's own, as jobs were very hard to get in those days, but we never saw that particular dustman again, and from then on Leslie Dove (manager) kept a more watchful eye on the rubbish bins. The shortage however, did show up on the annual stocktaking, but it turned out to be not such a huge amount as first thought.

I didn't stay at Aldgate very long after that and was sent to 27 Oxford St., with Fred and Edie, it was a nice shop with about a 20ft. arcade front, and we did considerable business there.

Fred and Elsie had decided in 1933 to get married, but their first child Michael wasn't born until 1936. I cannot recall at all where they went to live after the wedding, I think that they had probably got the Victoria Wine Co job by then, and were at Northwood, anyway in 1937 Rita was born, and that was when Mum was asked to go down and look after Michael, and I travelled to and from my job at Walkers, at Victoria, but I have jumped the gun a little, and will get back to a couple of years before I got the Walker job. At various times, working for Will, I worked in many places in the West End and the City area also, such as Ludgate Circus, Fleet St. Duncannon St. and the Strand, not staying long at any one branch, being used mainly I think, as a relief hand.

In approx, early 1932, Britain, due to the bad financial state of the county, came off the gold standard, which at that time was the foundation of all world currencies, and as Will had for years gone to Germany, to the annual Leipzeig trade fair, where he bought a considerable amount of stock on generous credit terms, for which terms he signed to pay in the German currency of Marks at the end of the credit term, and so the sudden unexpected act of our Government, put him in a very precarious financial position, as most of the stock purchased in Germany several months before, had already been sold, some at very low competitive prices, showing very little profit, and so, having to pay for them at the greatly increased cost of getting less Marks for the pound, the profits for a considerable time past, simply vanished, and although he never actually went bankrupt, he never really recovered, and over the next year or so, closed down shop after shop.

I suppose that in fairness, a family member of staff, had to be included in the first dismissals, and probably because I was the youngest, I was the chosen one, and in the winter of 1932-33, I became a regular visitor to the labour exchange at Tooting, as by this time, Fred had married Elsie, and George had married Joyce, and Mum, Edie, and I, had moved into a smaller, and less expensive flat at the Balham Rd. end of Ramsden Rd. in Battersea, in which road, Laura and Harry, having had a son, Ronald, had recently bought a house at the other end, No, 125. That was a very depressing winter for me, as the dole money was very low, in the region of about 10/- p.w. of which mum had the greater part for my keep, so ending, I hoped only temporarily, my cinema visits, and trips to the dog tracks at Harringay, Stamford Bridge, and others.

After moving into 125 Ramsden Rd. Laura and Harry, to help with the mortgage, which of course was greater than the rent had been at Battersea, had let a room to an ex-service man, a Frank Lott, who was about my age. He had joined the army as a boy apprentice as a bandsman, and was taught to read music and play the Clarinet, and when proficient, put in the Regimental Band, which was Serving in India, where he spent practically all his service life, I believe 7 years in those days, with an option to sign on for longer if you wanted to, however, he took his discharge, and was obligated to go on the reserves for a number of years. I struck up a friendship with him, and he did his best to try to teach me tennis on the public courts on Clapham common, but with little success, and when Laura and Harry moved to Millbank, and let the house on a weekly rental, and we already having moved to Battersea, I lost touch with him and heard no more of him until after the war.

Will had temporarily closed the shops at Southend, for the bad trading winter months, and stood off John Durley and the young girl assistant, with the offer of a start at Easter 1933, when the York Rd./High St. shop would be re-opened, but when the time came John had probably got another job and Will asked me to go down and run it for the summer, with the young girl assistant, which, of course, I accepted, and arranged with my friend Freddie Janes, if his parents didn't mind, to stay at his house, and I was very pleased to not only be working again, but to be at Southend again, even if only for a few months. I wasn't able to go around much with Freddie, as he had started going out with a girl who worked in her parent's sweet shop in Victoria Arcade.

It was early in 1933 that Nell came hurrying over to Ramsden Rd. to tell us that Dad had been discharged from Epsom, and had called on her to ask if she knew of any lodgings available, which she didn't, so Mum went back with Nell to Alfred St. and brought Dad back to the flat at Balham. At that time, George had been back home for some time, so things, in a two bed flat, became a little cramped, I can't clearly remember, but I believe that Dad had a mattress on the floor in the room that George and I shared. The situation was far from ideal, and after a few weeks George, Edie, and I became quite bored with the repetitive stories of Epsom, which to me, was quite understandable, as it had been his life for the past twenty years, however, after quite a few weeks of this, George and Dad had words over it, rather heated words to be exact, which resulted in Dad leaving us and staying at Nell's for a couple of nights, after which he got two rooms in a house in Ebuy Bridge Rd., which was a few hundred yards over and past Chelsea bridge, and with Mum and Nell going over once a month to keep the place clean and tidy, he appeared to be quite content and happy.

I signed on again in the winter of 1933/34, and went to Southend again at Easter 1934. At the end of that season, Will closed the shop permanently, and I have only been back to Southend once since, then, when in later years, I took my two daughters, Margaret and Lindy, when they were very young for a day trip, but I would like to go back for a visit one day, I expect it is completely different now.

l didn't sign on the dole that winter when I returned to London, I thought I would try my hand at getting a living somehow, and tried various things, firstly writing out dog racing tips for the White City meeting, and tying to sell them before racing for 3d. the eight tips. I was lucky enough to give two out of the first three Winners, and had taken about 6/- so I went in for 1/3 entrance fee, and never gave another winner, and lost all except my fare home, failure No,1.

Will had the offer of a temporary weekly let of a shop in Lynn St. Ipswich for the Christmas period of that year, and we both went up to open and make a few window fittings, a counter etc. unpack the stock, and dress the window. He returned to London, and I ran the shop on my own, sleeping on a mattress under the counter, and eating at a nearby cafe, it wasn't a very successful venture, and I was back home again in Januay1935.

A few months prior to me going to Ipswich, Mum had decided that we could not afford to stay in the flat at Ramsden Rd. and had obtained a semi basement flat at No.6 Ravenet St. Battersea, so there we were back at the starting point 1913/26, Mum, George, Edie and I. After a while, George obtained a job in a Carpet shop in the Elephant and Castle area, but soon reverted to his old gambling habits, and found himself in deep trouble financially, and resorted to using the firm's takings to clear himself of debt, which of course, landed him in Prison for three months.

I did at this time manage to get a job, not in my trade, but selling Eldorado Ice- Cream from a three-wheeled tricycle, operating from Tooting depot, and I had a round at Morden, which covered from St. Heliers Ave. to South Wimbledon u/g, station, and from Morden Rd. to Green Lane, Upper Morden, a days work was from 8o/c in the morning until dusk, and if you sold out early, you made a phone call to the depot, and a van would bring more supplies out to you, and for this days work you received 2/- p.d. plus 10% commission on the amount you took, and one bank holiday Monday, after loading up, I got to Morden about 9o/c. and it started to rain, and it was quite chilly, so it was probably Easter, and it stayed like that all day. I rode into the depot at about 8-8.30.in the evening with approx, 2/6 in takings, whereupon I got my 2/- wages, plus immediate dismissal, I think my ice-cream career lasted about two weeks.

It was now late spring of 1935, and there seemed little hope of getting another job, and somebody suggested window cleaning to me, so I hired two ladders from a local hire firm, one that was called a point, only about a 5 rung ladder for doing tops of ground floor windows, and an extending ladder that was enough to clean 1st, floor outsides, and so, with a home made pram, wheeled barrow, a bucket, a chamois leather, and a scrim, I went canvassing, and the project turned out really well, and after a few weeks, for about 30 hours p.then I saw an advert for trainee telephone operators, ( part-time) and applied for it, the average hours per week, after about two weeks training, for which I was sent to Clerkenwell exchange, at 1s, 1d, p.h., was between 12 to 14 p.w. at 1s, 2d. p.h; starting work at either 6pm. or 8pm. to relieve the female day staff. After 8pm, it was all male staff until 8o/c a.m; the all-night staff being full time, for which applications were only accepted from ex-servicemen, as was the case with many jobs in those days, another of which was the corpse of commissionaires. After a few months at Battersea exchange, which was very convenient, as it was only 10mins, cycle ride from home, I was posted to Putney, which took at least an hour return cycling, for perhaps two hours work, so after a few more weeks I packed it in, and was thankful that I had kept my window cleaning round going.

Fred had left Will by now, and had applied for and got a job as branch manager with the Victoria Wine Co. and had been given the branch at Northwood Hills, Middlesex, his application having been greatly assisted by the fact that Elsie, his wife, had worked for the firm for many years, A very nice flat went with the job, over the shop, and so with their son Michael, moved into it.

George had applied for and got a job with H. Samuel, the jewellers, at their Swansea, S. Wales branch, and had moved down there with Joyce, his wife, and their two daughters, Myrtle and Dianne. Will was now running his one shop now left, in Palmer St. (or Court) off Victoria St, Westminster and was now living at S.side, Clapham Common.

Laura had, about 1934, sold the coffee stall at Merton, and taken the corner shop on the corner of Millbank and Ponsonby Terrace, Westminster. It was a very busy cafe, and parking, at that time being allowed along Millbank, it became a recognised pull-up for commercial drivers, and was busy all day from early morning until about 11o/c, at night, and so both Mum and Edie worked for her, and eventually, Harry gave up his job as conductor on London Transport, and also worked in the shop and even with the four of them, Laura still had to employ a woman full time for the washing up only. As there was plenty of living accommodation at Millbank, Laura had let the house at Ramsden Rd., and moved into Millbank.

While I had been working as a telephone operator, I had, on several 6o/c p.m. starts, been put on the position next to a female operator, named Winnie Davis, who lived in Queen's Rd. which ran from the bottom of Ravenet St. up to Lavender Hill, Battersea, and we started seeing each other mostly at week ends, she was a nice girl, and had a nice family, an elder sister, whose boy-friend Neil, lived in Lurline Gardens, only about two m�n's walk from our house in Ravenet St. and after spending an evening with the family this lad and I would walk home together.

It was now the beginning of 1936 and I had never told Winnie that I was a window cleaner (so perhaps I was a bit of a snob in those days) and one day I saw an advert for staff for James Walker, the Jewellers, I applied and went for an interview at Power Works, Chiswick, to see a Mr Hicks, one of the directors of the firm, the interview was successful, and within a very short time, I received a letter to start at 9o/c. Monday, at the branch at Victoria S.W.1.

Victoria was a very convenient branch for me to get to only a five min. walk to Battersea Park Station, and by Southern rail one station only, and a months season ticket was only 7s-6p. The shop itself was on the Station forecourt, with the front window in Witton Rd. and really consisted of two big shops with a covered arcade running between them and leading to the Big Bus terminal in the station forecourt itself. On the right hand side of the arcade as you walked from the Wilton Rd. end was the solid silver, gold, diamond, and costume jewellery departments, also the watch and jewellery repair dept. The overall manager was a Mr. Snazell, and the deputy manager a Mr. Gourley. Mr. Gourley, and his assistant Mr. Watts, ran the repair Dept; with a counter for receipt and despatch of repairs adjoining which was a purpose built enclosure with benches and workspace for two watchmakers.

A Mr. Townsend was i/c. the silver dept; a Miss Clark, assisted by a Miss Harris, was i/c. the costume and fancy jewellery depts. and a Miss Harper was i/c, the gold and diamond depts, a cashier Miss Jolliffe, had a desk and enclosure which was at the apex of the triangular shaped shop.

On the left hand side of the arcade were swing doors, facing the swing doors of the gold etc. depts, opening to the silver plate and pewter, cut glass, pottery, clocks, and cutlery, all ran by a Mr Potter, with the able assistance of Mr. J. Fifield. Also on that side were the pen and pencil, compacts and ladies handbag accessories, and the leather depts, all ran by a Miss Windsor, with the assistance of Miss Tyrrel. In the apex of this, also, triangular shaped side was another cash desk and cashier, and a further enclosure and bench where sat a polisher, a Miss Watts who did nothing else for five and a half days a week, but polish silver and silver plate by the wooden trayful at a time.

Early in 1937, Mr Potter was taken very ill, and notified Mr. Snazell that it was very doubtful that he would ever be able to return to work, I was thereupon promoted i/c. of the depts that Mr. Potter had run, which I did with the aid of a newly employed assistant, a Mr. Darville, for which I was awarded a rise of 2s--6p, p.w. making my wage �2--17-6p, p.w.

The staff had alternating Thursday and Saturday half days, as the traders in the district had the choice of either day to close for the half day, and Walker's chose to close the plate and glass side on Thurs. and the gold side on Sat. but the staff on duty on those half days had access to the keys of the other side and could serve a customer with any goods from the other side, so actually, the shop was readily open six full days a week. Apart from the shop staff, there were two porters and a commissionaire, who although the rules of employment was that the commissionaire did no manual work, the one we had, to help pass the time away, always helped the two porters, the senior one of whom was a Mr. Devlin, to wash and clean all the fronts and windows of both sides every morning, the two porters doing all the internal cleaning and hoover�ng etc, and also do all packing and despatch of post, briefly, it was a considerable sized jewellers. Another advantage I had by working at Victoria, was that I could walk to Laura's Millbank Cafe in 10 minutes and have a good lunch, for which I presume Mum paid as it saved her cooking a meal for me only at night, as both her and Edie had their main meals there also.

George had been back home for some time now, but was of course finding it impossible to get a job, and if I remember correctly, never managed to do so until he was called up for active service in about 1941 or 42 and was trained in the RAF as an Instrument Maker.

I still found a trip to the dog track quite attractive, but was never a big gambler like Fred and George, my average bet being only in the region of 2/-, and to go the whole night without a win, plus the fare and 1/3 entrance money, would only cost about a �1 and although on nine out of ten visits I was a loser, it was still an afternoon out, and so when I was off on every second Thursday afternoon, I would go to the afternoon meeting at Stamford Bridge, and one lucky, for me, afternoon, I got home about �38 to the good, and on the next Sunday morning, I went to Stockwell Rd; where Pride and Clarks were open seven days a week, and bought a 1936 500cc Blue Star B.S.A. combination for �35 it was a beauty.

The following Sunday, I managed to get mum to have a trip to Eastleigh in the sidecar, which must have been the first time she had ever been on a motor bike, and she enjoyed it so much, that she never had any fear of it again, and we had many a trip out.

Later on in that year, Fred and Elsie had a little girl, Rita and for about a month before the birth, Mum was asked to go to Northwood to help Elsie, with Michael, which she gladly agreed to do, this meant that I had to travel to work and back every day from Northwood to Victoria, via the Bakerloo line to Baker St. station, and a bus to Victoria. I quite enjoyed the change, despite the extra hours in travel. Winnie Davis and I had parted company some time back, and while there, I made good friends with the two sisters, Barbara and Betty Horten, whose family, consisting of only the two girls and their parents were Fred's next door neighbours, they were both very nice girls, and quite good looking, but alas, I missed a date with them one Sunday lunch time, in favour of a game of darts with Fred at the local, and that was the end of that friendship.

During the middle and late 1930's, National events were happening one on top of the other. I think it was 1935 that King George the 5th, had his Silver jubilee of 25 years on the Throne. I happened to be in Regent St. as the procession drove up it, and quite spectacular it was, but alas, he was a very sick man at the time and within the year of the Jubilee he was being buried.

The then Prince of Wales succeeded him as King, Edward the 8th, but he was having a very secret affair with an American woman, a three times divorced, Mrs, Simpson, and the expectations of royal behaviour was probably a lot higher than it is now, and so the then Prime Minister, Stanley Baldwin, had the job of trying to persuade the king to give her up, as the County would never accept her as Queen, this the King refused to do, and so a little while before his Crowning was due, a year after his accession, He abdicated his right to be King, and His younger brother, the then Duke of York, succeeded to the Throne, and one year later He was Crowned.

About that time, whether through an election or just a change of Tory Leadership, I cannot recall but Neville Chamberlain succeeded Stanley Baldwin, as Prime Minister.

Hitler had by now, completely taken over the Government of Germany, and being Fascist, became a Dictator, practically a one man Government, who had already slaughtered thousands of Jews, and started the concentration camps, to which he had sent thousands more to do slave labour, and where he had had built gas chambers, where those incapable of work, the sick and the elderly, were exterminated.

He had already, against worldwide criticism, annexed Austria, but being of Austrian origin himself, there was hardly any physical or political resistance to the take over, and so He then, in 1938, laid claim to Czechoslovakia, Mr, Chamberlain went immediately to Berlin, to try and reason with Hitler, but despite much political manoeuvring, upon his return, all he had to show, which he did triumphantly on the steps of the airplane, was a piece of paper that he waved at the crowd, saying, 'from this thorn, I pluck this rose, Peace' and so finally Hitler sent His Army in, and took the territory into German reformed borders, with the promise to the world that he would make no further territorial claims.

Whether or not it was Mr, Baldwin during his term as Prime Minister, or Mr. Chamberlain after the above mentioned meeting with Hitler in Munich, I forget, but a Treaty had been arranged with Poland, and England was now duty bound to go to their assistance in the event of an attack from any of their neighbours, but despite the threat of causing a war, Hitler started his claims to annexe part of Poland.

Soon after the Munich crisis, I had started to think of what would happen in the event of war, and having a preference for the R.A.F. as apposed to the other two Services, and realising that I would not be given a choice if I awaited conscription, I volunteered for the R.A.F.V.R (volunteer reserves) as a Rigger, a Rigger having to do with all the airplane other than the engine or engines, or the armaments or radio, and to be trained for this, I went two evenings a week, Tuesday and Thursday to a school in Wix's Lane, Lavender Hill, Battersea, and one Sunday a month, to Hendon aerodrome for practical experience.

I had been training for about six months, and was nowhere near proficient, when, in late August, Hitler sent his troops into Poland. and on Friday 1st, Sept. 1939, Mobilisation was ordered and directions for reporting of all reserves, was given in the Press and over all radio broadcasts. Meanwhile, Chamberlain had informed Hitler that unless he withdrew all his forces from Polish Territory by 12 noon on Sunday 3rd, Sept, England would declare war against Germany.

On Friday 1st. evening, having read the mobilisation order in the newspaper during my tea break I went immediately to Mr Snazell and told him I was on my way, and also of my assembly place which was at Tavistock Square, at the back of the bottom end of Tottenham Court Rd. and he suggested that instead of going round all the staff then, that I went home and changed into my uniform, and called in on my way to the assembly point, I didn't realise at the time that this was just a ploy to gain time, and so having said a tearful goodbye to Mum, I returned to Victoria, (where I would catch a Bus to Tottenham Ct. Rd.) to say my farewells to the staff, where during my absence Mr Snazell had told the staff of the situation, and a collection had quickly been arranged, and I was presented with a few hundred cigarettes, which during the next few weeks were very acceptable, as supplies seemed to immediately, be harder to get, and so, off I went, after many heartfelt and sincere goodbyes, from a job in which I had been very happy, and in which I had made some very strong friendships, only to return about three times, when on leave. Correspondence was kept with me from some of the staff, but alas during a German bombing raid in the intensive Blitz on London, the Shop suffered a direct hit and was flattened I don't know what happened to the staff, I suppose I should have made enquiries from somewhere, but that kind of event was happening every day, even to my own family, so my excuse is that I had a lot of other things on my mind, but in later years, about 1948, I did run into Miss Windsor at Brixton, who told me that none of the staff had been hurt, as it had been a night raid when it happened.

Getting back to Sept 1st. 1939.after going through the reception area, and registering arriving everybody was assembling in a large hall, to await posting to wherever, I sat waiting from about 6pm, until about 1am, before my name and number was called, when, with a group of about 20 of us were given �3 each, for which we had to sign, and which we believed to be embodiment pay, alas a mistake, as about six weeks later, on pay parade, my 28/- fortnightly pay was cut to 14/-, (7/- per week) and when I enquired at the pay office was informed that the �3 given me upon mobilisation was an advance of pay, and that there was no such thing as embodiment pay, and that instead of 2/ per day, I would receive 1/- per day ( 5d, modern money) for 60 days.

After receiving the �3, we all boarded a lorry (about a 3 tonner) with benches behind the drivers seat, and down each side, and were driven to a railway station, which, if I remember correctly, was Paddington, and were put on a train to Buy St, Edmonds, in Suffolk, and again by lorry, to Honington airdrome, where after being given a meal, we were told that we were not wanted there, and were loaded up once more, and despatched to Stradishall, again in Suffolk, near King's Lynne, and all that travelling had been done in a complete blackout, including the train journey.

At Stradishall, we were accommodated in Bell tents, eight men to a tent, and at 12 noon on Sunday 3rd Sept. heard on the radio the speech by Chamberlain that the time limit given to Hitler to withdraw his troops from Poland, had expired, and that we were now officially at war with Germany.

We didn't stay very long at Stradishall, in fact I only left the place once and went to Bury St. Edmonds for a few hours, and within a week or so, the bunch of about 20 were split up, and about six of us were given travel and route warrants and sent to Harwell, in Hertfordshire. The airdrome was about half way between Oxford and Newbuy, and about 2miles from Didcot, Harwell village itself being only about a mile from the camp, but at that time was a very small place with only one pub and so Didcot became the most frequently visited town for the airmen, particularly. as the Marlborough Club made the airmen from Harwell honary members, and being a fairly big club, with two snooker tables, dartboards, and a dance hall upstairs, where a dance was held every Friday night.

At Harwell I was told that I would finish my technical training as a flight Rigger, attached to one of the flights on the air field, the training didn't consist of anything to deeply technical, mostly consisting of D.I.'s (Daily Inspections) which were carried out every morning of the aircraft and signed that it was airworthy ( form 700) by the tradesman, before it was allowed to fly, of course being u/t. I only assisted a trained flight Rigger and did at that time no responsible signing.

The inspection carried out by a flight Rigger whose title was soon changed to Flight mechanic airframes, was mainly to do with all the aircraft except Engines, (F/M E.) Instruments, (Instrument Mech.) and Armaments, (Armarer) and he was responsible for control surfaces and operation, all hydraulics, aerofoil and airframes. After approx, three months of being u/t, I was given an exam by the flight Sergeant, and was reclassed from Group 5 (general duties and tradesmen u/t) to group 2 (lowest grade of tradesmen) and my pay rose from 2/- to 3/6 p.d and of course, I now had to sign the form 700 for the D/l.

I quite enjoyed my days at Harwell, and made some very good friends, both service and civilian and having taken the B.S.A. Blue star back to camp, on our monthly week-end passes, my friend Albert Johns, (Johnny) either used to go to his home in Merthyr Tydfil, S. Wales. or to my home which, due to a direct hit during an air-raid on the Rvenet St, house while Mum and Edie were in the Anderson shelter, now shared a house with Nell and Jim and the two girls, Renee and Doris, at 22 Airdale Rd, Balham. Nell and Jim had been bombed out in the next St., Alfred St, on the same night as Mum, and the Council had put them into the requisitioned house in Balham. The motorbike was also very useful for getting into Oxford, which was a larger place than Didcot, with theatres and cinemas, we could only do this of course, when we had hoarded enough petrol coupons, but with economical driving, coasting down hills etc, we managed to squeeze a few extra m.p.g

While I was at Harwell, Elsie became pregnant again, and gave birth to a little girl who they christened Joan, Margaret, but alas, she had a very short life, and for what reason or cause I don't know, but she died exactly to the day at one year old, 28th. Jan 1941 to 28th. Jan 1942.

By this time I had been allotted a bed in a two storey barrack block on the edge of the parade square, nearer to the W.A.F.F.I. and a lot more comfortable than a straw palliasse on four wooden planks 4 inches off the floor in a Nissen hut at the dispersal point. There were about 20 men in the dormitory, 10 beds each side, and with electric lighting, providing the black-out curtains were pulled so that not a chink of light could be seen outside, we could at least see to play cards if not going out.

I made pals in the billet, the closest being ''Chick'' Hasty, and ''Blondie'' Alan, and with ''Johny',' Johns, we had some enjoyable excursions out, either to Oxford or to Didcot, and on one occasion even got two in the sidecar, and one on the pillion, got to Fred's place at Northwood for a few hours.

This may read as being a very easy war, but at that period it was what became named ''The phoney war'', nothing was happening apart from the air raids, as far as actual conflict, but believe me we had plenty to do at Harwell, the station being an O.T.U.(Operational training unit), where the aircraft, on this station, Wellington two engined bombers, were given an awful amount of heavy use by the trainee pilots, and a considerable amount of repair work had to be done before signing the D.I. form 700, and on many an occasion a plane would have to be taken out of service for a day or two while more serious damage was repaired by the fitters A or E as the case may be, I will add, however, that despite the war being called phoney, night-time Guard duties seemed to come round very quickly, at which time it was emphasised to us the need to be very alert, as even then a surprise invasion was always expected with the dropping of parachute troops being the likely forerunner of it, that being the reason why all road signs ail over the county were removed.

Despite the apparently ''Phoney war'' in Europe, things had not been so quiet on the oceans, the Allies had been losing a lot of commercial ships in the Atlantic, due to the activity of the German battleship Graf Spee, which was a very large ship fitted with a large number of 11 inch guns, in Dec 1939 the ship was tracked and sighted by three British Light Cruisers, The Ajax; the Essex; and the Achiles, all being considerably outgunned, having, as the largest weapon, only 6 inch guns with a, much shorter range, but they attacked the German outside territorial waters off the Uruguay coast and badly damaged it, whereupon it ran for shelter at Montevideo, ostensibly to carry out repairs. International law, however, only permitted a limited time to any combatant ship to shelter in a neutral country, and when that time elapsed she came out of the harbour, meanwhile many rumour circulated, that large British battleships were sailing towards the area, whether or not this was true, or if the German captain believed them, I don't know, but once on the open sea, before any action took place, he ordered the manning of the lifeboats, and blew the ship up and scuttled it, probably to avoid the disgrace of a defeat. He, at a later date, committed suicide.

Early in 1940 the land operations of the war came to life in France, when the German Army circumnavigated the presumably impregnable French Maginot line, by simply occupying Holland and Belgium, and going round the end of it, of the Allies, the British Army was operating at the northern section of the front, and in very quick time was surrounded on all sides with only the port of Dunkirk at their back, leading finally to the complete evacuation of the troops by the use of every boat that floated in the south of England, even the seaside holiday trip boats such as the Southend's Wemo. There were of course many casualties, and led to much greater fears of an invasion, in a speech after the successful rescue of the thousands and thousands of British troops, Churchill forecast that whenever in the future the evacuation of Dunkirk was referred to or discussed, it would be remembered as ''Our finest hour,'' whether this will be the case, can be judged better in the time of my Grandchildren, than in mine.

At Harwell, due to the invasion fear, we were put on full alert, and had to work non-stop, just snatching a couple of hours sleep on the Flight hut floor over a period of several days, to get every available aircraft serviceable, armed and bombed up, to resist any attempted sea borne invasion despite the fact that they would have been crewed by Trainees, but fortunately an invasion never came.

The immediate panic gradually eased off, and we were once again allowed the freedom of leaving camp for a few hours relaxation. Petrol rationing had been reduced, and only permitted about 80 to100 miles per month, so I sold the B.S.A. sidecar outfit, and bought a 500 solo A.J.S. which was a bit more economical, and allowed Johny and me to go to Merthyr about every third month, as the war progressed, the petrol ration got less.

Goering, (i/c of the German Air force) after Dunkirk, very soon stepped up the intensity of the air raids on Briton, and although all cities had quite a pounding, I think, probably because it was the capital, that London had the most consistently concentrated raids, closely followed by the high production places such as Manchester, Birmingham, Coventry, etc, also the ports of Southampton and Portsmouth, (Naval), I had seen one or two what were called ''Dogfights'' when in London in daylight raids, but due to heavy losses, the Germans stopped the day raids and greatly increased the night raids with several hundreds of aircraft coming in waves, for hour after hour, and at Harwell we could clearly see the glow in the sky, of the fires raging in London, the devastation was vast, this was the period that became known as ''The Battle of Britain'', and again in a National broadcast Churchill's famous lines, ''Never in the field of human conflict, was so much owed by so many, to so few'', referring, of course, to the Pilots of the Spitfires and Hurricane aircraft, that inflicted such high losses on the German ''Luftwaffe, that they had to greatly reduce the intensity and the frequency of the raids.

The production of Aircraft of all types in Britain had greatly increased during the period of the Phoney War, which enabled us to mount that strong resistance to the raiders. A lot of the credit for this increase went to the Minister of production, Lord Beaverbrook, who introduced the music while you work system.

I recall quite vividly the hours when, on weekend passes, spent in the coal cellar, with Mum and Nell's family, at Airedale Rd, also the terrible return journey to camp on Sunday night with a blacked out train slowly pulling out of Paddington Station, and the colossal bang, as the Anti-Aircraft guns opened up from the nearby sidings. The London u/g, stations were used as shelters for the, public, and if you travelled by underground, there was only about 4ft, of platform to walk on, the rest back to the wall, being used as bed space, with the occupants and their Thermos flasks.

It was about the middle of 1940 that I got my Marching Orders, (Posting) to Finningly in Yorkshire, the camp was 7 or so miles south of Doncaster, near Bawty, and I applied for and got a generous extra ration of petrol, as I intended doing the journey on the A.J.S.

Finningly Airdrome was a mile or so from the main A1 road, with Finningly Village about 1/2 a mile further on. It was a long established camp and had good two storey barrack blocks, with clean and well fitted wash, toilet, and shower facilities, This also was a O.T.U. with Hampden Aircraft which were rather smaller than the Wellington, but still two engined, and made by the Handley-Page firm, whereas the Wellington was made by the Vickers firm.

The work was very similar to that at Harwell, D/I's, fuel refilling, parking at dispersal and picketing, as I have said , I didn't like the aircraft as well as the Wellington; but having been teamed with a fellow F/M/A, Stan Wilkinson, a Birkenhead, Lancs. lad, who was in the same billet as me soon learned of the differences and overcame any difficulties that may have arisen from them, and as we seemed to get on ok together, we became friends. He introduced me to Doncaster, which he new quite well, and within a month or so, as I still had the A.J.S. we were spending our alternate weekend monthly passes at each other's family homes. His family lived at Victoria Rd, ( I think) Birkenhead, just a short walk from the station, Stan could play the Piano fairly efficiently, and as both homes had a piano, we had some good times on those visits. We also made friends in a Doncaster pub, with a civilian family, and after a few drinks on a Saturday night would often end up at their place for a bite to eat and a coffee.

To get to London on a weekend pass by road was now a lot further that it had been from Harwell and so the trips became longer between, also those to Birkenhead, and as the prospect of a near rise in the petrol ration was absolutely non existent, I sold the A.J.S. it was hardly worth keeping just for a weekly trip into Doncaster, particularly as a Service bus went there every evening.

The German bombing still went on spasmodically, but not nearly as intense as it had been, this was caused probably by the invention by the Germans of a crewless flying bomb, the range of which was governed by the amount of fuel put in, and was guided and height controlled by automatic pilot, and dived to earth immediately the fuel ran out, this was called the V1, nick-named, when a little later on it was first launched against London, the ''Buzz-bomb'', which was to be replaced at a later date by a weapon much more sophisticated and horrible, but more of that later.

Early in 1941, Wilkie and I were both posted on a fitter Airframe course, to Squires Gate, South Shore, Blackpool. It was a three month course, and we were put into private billets, ours being at No 2, Withnall Rd, an ex boarding house for holiday makers, now holding about 25 Airmen. Wilkie and I shared a room with a Whitehaven, Cambrian lad named Mc.Cullach, (Msc,) and the three of us sampled the amenities of Blackpool together, we had to do no guard duties, and as instruction finished daily at 5o/c,we could take full advantage of them and had some good times at the Tower ballroom, the Wintergarden, and the local pubs, any evening we liked except Friday, that was bath parade night, and our billet was given a certain time to parade and march the short distance to South Shore bathing pool, where although the pool itself was not in use, in fact empty, the showers had all the cubicles taken down , and the entire billet got showered at the same time, whereupon after showering, run, still wet, to a medical orderly, sighted near to the dressing room, for an F.F.I.(if you know what that is.)

Although there was no booking in or out, as you would have to do at the guard room on a camp the time to be in was the same, 11o/c pm, and, if you were late there was a very good chance of being locked out of the billet for the night, during which time the streets were patrolled by R.A.F police, and if you were picked up, that was the end of your nights out for quite a few weeks.

On one occasion, the three of us were a little over the time, and got locked out, but fortunately due to the kindness of the Corporal I/C a garage on the corner of the next turning, which had been requisitioned by the Army, we got a nights kip in a lorry, and were turned out at 7o/c next morning.

At the end of the three months course, we had to take a test, Mac was the most successful of the three of us and passed out L.A.C. (Leading aircraftsman), and Wilkie and I both passed out a/c, 1's the lowest pass being alc2, but the most satisfying thing being that we were now all group 1 tradesmen, (the highest) with a pay increase to 5/6 p.d. Wilkie and I, and 6/- Mac, who had of the three of us the quickest chance of making Corporal, having passed out L.A.C.

The next move was an immediate posting to Filey, in Yorkshire, for what was called a backers up course, which consisted of military type training, to back up the R.A.F. Regiment, originally formed for aerodrome defence. It was a very hard course, consisting of assault courses, full pack road running, and anything that was designed to toughen us in mind and body. One day, after about three times round the assault course, which was really tough, and in one part of which you had to jump over a pole on the edge of the cliff, which, unbeknown to the trainee, had a wide shelf, I should think about 20ft which climbed gradually to the top again, reaching the top about 100yds, further along the cliff, believe me, the first jump was rather awe inspiring, but to return to the occasion, having all gone round about three times, we were fed up, and one man threw his rifle to the ground in disgust for which he could have been put on a very serious charge, but Mac immediately stepped in and in a friendly fashion, challenged the Corporal i/c, to a two man race round it which, give him the credit for, he sportingly accepted, and was very gracious in his acceptance of defeat by a considerable margin.

Our next move, for which we were very thankful, was a posting to Cranwell, in Lincolnshire, quite a few of us were sent there, and fortunately, Mac, Wilkie and I were all in that group. Cranwell, apart from being an Officer training College, was also an F.T.S, (flying training school), where future pilots learned the basics, before going on to an O.T.U. The aircraft in use were Airspeed Oxfords, a small two engined all plywood construction, in which the early part of the training was circuits and bumps, take off, circle and land, time after time, until a landing was accomplished without a 10ft, bounce into the air. Wilkie, Mac and I were all now permanently in the Hanger, which during fine weather, was not so pleasant as being out on the airfield, as we were now doing major inspections. In those days there was a cycle of inspections, apart from the D/I. first a 20 flying hour inspection, followed by a 40 hour, followed by 20 hour inspections up to 180 hour then 20 hours again up to 320 which was the major of majors, when both main planes, tail planes, elevators, ailerons and rudder were removed, inspected for bearing wear etc. and replacing with new where required, u/carriage and Hydraulics were given the same treatment, while the Engine Fitters removed the Engines, and overhauled them completely before re-fitting, after which the same inspection cycle would start all over again.

As you can imagine, the airplanes took some very rough treatment, and the Airmen in the Hangers were working extremely long hours, with very little time off, weekend passes now became a thing of the past, and after about six months of this very hard work, the camp having received an Air Ministry signal asking for Aircrew volunteers, Wilkie and I talked it over, and decided that we would have a go, Mac, being a married man, and father of a young baby, tried to talk us out of it, and for those reasons we never did try to persuade him to our way of thinking. Unfortunately, neither Wilkie nor I took Mac's address, undoubtedly he would have been pleased to hear of our progress through the war, but at that time friendships were made on a very temporary basis, as one terminated, so another started, but I hope you got through it ok. Mac, it is now 2000 A.D. and I think you would be about 90 now.

Wilkie and I went, with about half dozen other volunteers to a selection board, where apart from the medical, we had to pass a fairly severe intelligence test, there was to my knowledge, from our little band from Cranwell, at least one failure, and possibly more, but both Wilkie and I got through ok, and after going back to Cranwell, were soon both posted to St. Athens, S. Wales on a flight Engineers course.

Upon arriving at St. Athens, Wilkie and I were put into two different billets, which again was back to the old Nissen hut type of structure, but slightly longer housing about 20 men, the reason for this very soon became apparent, Wilkie being put on a course for ''Lancaster's'', and I was designated for ''Stirling's'' and the billeting was designed for each class to be billeted together, probably to allow for the days instruction to be discussed among the class in their leisure time, the three makes of Aircraft on the courses were the two I mentioned a short while ago, made by A.V. Roe, and Short Bros. respectively, and the Handley-Page ''Halifax'', the reference of choice in order being, Lancaster, Halifax, and lastly Stirling. The first two being considerably more manoeuvrable than the Stirling, and could also reach a far higher ceiling, also, as apposed to hydraulics, the Stirling was all electric, in the operation of flaps, u/carriage etc; I was of course greatly dissapointed.

St. Athen was about 9 miles past Cardiff, but we didn't go there very often, as there was a nearer place on the coast, seaside, called Penarth, which was far more pleasant, and more social and village like in the entertainment side of things.

Half way through the course, all trainees were given both a written and oral test on the first half instruction, I passed O.K. and carried straight on to the final section, whereas Wilkie fell a little short on one or two bits, and was put back an entry, which meant that he would take his final exam a week after me which meant a final parting of the ways for us, which, as things turned out was a great pity.

During the second half of the course, we were taken by transport every day, to Bridgend near Port Talbot, for Gunney and turret instruction, �n case we had to take the place of an A/G,(Air gunner) at any time I suppose, anyway, we were taught to dismantle, clean and re-assemble Browning 303 machine guns, also how best to clear any jamming or stoppages etc; this took about a week.

After taking and passing the final exam, we were given a day off, and then assembled to hear our final postings, at some time during the previous six days, an A/M signal had been received, (it must have been during that time, or the previous entry would have got the job), for the 10 senior men to be posted to 41 Group H/Q, Andover, Which was the maintenance and supply group for the entire Air force, and we would be used for air-testing and ferrying both modified and new aircraft, and delivering to the designated Operational Squadron. My service number was 747250, and as seniority went by an airman's No., I was probably very close to being the senior man of the entry, and if Wilkie had not been put back a week, he would certainly have been in the top ten, as he was a two year compulsory service man, conscripted pre-war, and still in when war was declared, His number, as all the two year men's numbers did, started the six figures with a 9.

The ten of us, before packing our Kit bag, meticulously sewed our three stripes onto both sleeves of Battle-dress, best blue, and great coats, and collecting our travel warrants, set of for Andover, where, after a meal we were told that although remaining on the strength of 41G H/Q, we would be seconded to various M.U's (Maintenance Units) around the country, and a lad named Whitfield and I were sent to 48 MU. Hawarden, N. Wales, seven miles over the Welsh border from Chester, arriving around the middle of January 1943, where after booking in as new members of the Sergeant's Mess. We reported to the senior test Pilot, in the flight hut on the Airfield, a F/Lt, Marc Lacayo, with other Pilots being F/Lt, Clarke, F/Lt Cruikshanks, F/Lt, Nixon, F/Lt, Chapman, W/O Warwick, and a Flight/eng. F/Sgt. Ted Melan, and after introductions, were told to collect and sign for a Parachute and harness (front wearing model as apposed to the sit on type as used by Pilots).

Back at the Sergeant's mess, the W/O, CMC.(Chairman of the Mess committee) had allotted Whitfield and Me a two bed room in Sergeant's quarters, which was a block of about 12 long huts, partitioned of each into about six rooms, with a coal or log burning stove in each room, and it was very comfortable indeed considering what we had been used to.

F/Lt Lacayo was very soon posted to another station, and was replaced as Chief test Pilot by a F/Lt, Duffy, and unfortunately we heard later, had been killed when, while testing a Mosquito, it burst into flames and blew up in flight.

Within a Short time of getting to Hawarden, F/Lt Duffy arranged for us two new engineers to receive a week's familiarity instruction at Manchester on Lancaster's, so now I was proficient on Stirling's and Lancaster's, but what four engined aircraft were we going to fly in at Hawarden? Halifax's of course, but I will admit that the Lancs., training did come in useful at a later date, but we had to learn Halifax knowledge just from experience.

Meanwhile, Wilkie had passed out on His delayed finals, and had been posted to an operational squadron in Lincolnshire, and had commenced his first 30 opp. tour of raids on Germany, and as Hawarden was only about 15 miles from Birkenhead, he always came over to see me when on weekend or longer leave. When we would have a few drinks in the mess and a chat over old and new times, he would tell me of the superstitions that the operational crews had, and of the various talismans and good luck tokens that most of them put their faith in, even down to wearing the same clothing etc. as got them safely back before.

Chester was the nearest place to go if in free time we wanted a film or to do some serious shopping, but the nearest place for a change from Snooker in the Mess, was a small village named Broughton, a little short of a mile from the camp, which was blessed with a very sociable Pub, and where the Air force personnel well out numbered the local resident clientele. At the other extreme of the camp was another village called Sandycroft, again with only one pub, but was further to walk as it was at the side of the camp away from the billet and mess area, but that village did come in useful to me personally at a later date, of which more later. Another and final village nearby was Hawarden itself, where there was a very fine castle, which was the home of Lord Gladstone but there was very little else there that was of interest to the airmen.

We were kept very busy at the airfield, where there were three hangers, about 200yds between each, defined as sites 1, 2,and 3. Site 1 being a single engined aircraft F.T.S. and had it's own C.O. and was nothing to do with the running of the other two hangers, which came under a different C.O. and was a maintenance unit, No.48. No 2 site being used for fitting Air force modifications to both Halifax, and Wellington aircraft, and No.3 site for the same to Wellingtons only, The Halifax's were mostly flown in from the manufacturers by the A.T.A. (Air transport auxiliary) an organisation of Civilian Pilots who, due to the war, were suspended from the airline for which they had worked, until cessation of hostilities, and site 2 would fit the Modifications, and when completed, one of the Pilots and a flight Engineer would be detailed by the chief Test Pilot to take it up for a thorough Air test. The F/Eng, would be beside the Pilot with a knee board and pad, and a full report would be made of the performance of the four engines and the airframe, including the hydraulics of both u/carriage and flaps, if no snags came to light, then the report was signed by both the Pilot and the Flt/Eng, whereupon Group H/Q. would notify us to which Squadron it was to be sent to, and by whom it was to be flown by, either us or the A.T.A, who also had a flight hut on the airfield, but as we always had plenty of tests to do, A.T.A. did the majority of the delivering.

On the other side of the flying field was a Vicker's factory producing Wellingtons, and 3 site was used mainly for fitting the Air force mods to the part of their production that was destined for service in hotter climates than Europe, and to relieve the test Pilots of some of their work load, as they could at a pinch test Wellingtons on their own, the Flt/Eng's were trained to do the taxiing from the Vickers factory, round the perimeter, to the site that it was going to, I liked that part of the job very much doing about 20mph. round the circuit, steering by the acceleration of one engine, and deceleration of the other, and the use of the pneumatic brakes, which when the pull grips were applied, and the rudder used, only applied brake pressure to the wheel on the inside of the turn, whether a left or right. It didn't take long to settle in and to gain confidence in the job. The Pilots were not as I had expected, rather superior, but were just down to earth lads the same as us sergeants, they liked nothing better than to get an invite from the CMC, to the monthly Sunday night dance in the Sergeants Mess where all non-members of the Mess, had to have an invitation, usually applied for by a Sergeant member for his local girlfriend, either civilian or W.A.A.F. (Women's auxiliary air force,) who were allowed to wear civvy clothes for social, occasions on the camp. It was surprising, however, how many officers asked for an invite, of which I became more aware at a later date, in 1945, when the C/O, appointed me CMC when W/O Black, the senior W/O on the camp requested a rest from the job.

As far as the flying part of the job went, I was now perfectly familiar with, and at ease, with the routine, and although completely against the rules, was occasionally, allowed by the Pilot, but of course under his direction and supervision, to take over the controls for 5 or 10 minutes, but only on a straight and level course and a fine weather day, so I can honestly say that I have piloted a 4 engine Halifax.

The youngest of the Officer pilots was F/Lt Chapman, and Whitfield and I often had his company at the Broughton pub for a drink or four, in fact we became quite close friends, and after the war Whitfield kept in touch with him, and still does as far as I know, even to a point of going up to Derbyshire to stay for a few days, I do keep in contact with them both, and I have met Whitfield a couple of times when I have been at my Daughter, Margaret's, home in Kent, as Whitfield lives in the Maidstone area, but I have never met Jim Chapman since, but always exchange Christmas cards.

Getting back to 1943 however, the three of us were down at Broughton having a drink, and got talking to a party of W.A.A.F's who, during the conversation said that they were all Flight Mechs at the Airdrome, at 3 site, and were all in civvy billets in Private houses in the village. The one that I was mostly talking to, introduced herself as Tess Willoughby, and was billeted with a Mrs. Aspley, who had a couple of young children, and whose husband was an A/C 1,Clerk in the RAF, in the south of England somewhere, and Tess was the one that I saw to the doorstep, and arranged to see again. Tess and I continued seeing each other as often as possible, and throughout that summer, got our leave passes to coincide, and went to each others parents homes, mine in Balham, and Hers in Trimdon Village, a small village in Co Durham, about 12 miles from each of Hartlepool and Darlington.

Tess had been trained as a Hairdresser after leaving school at 16 in 1933. Her elder sister Alice had, in about 1938 started Tess up in her own business in a shop in Heselden, a small mining village, the pit being only about 2 mile from another pit at Blackhall. Alice and Tess's eldest sister Mary, was married to a George Conner, who was a miner at Blackhall, and had a 3 bed house in Heselden, and so both the younger sisters lodged with Mary and George. By the way! Alice was a schoolteacher in Stockton-on-Tees. Apart from those three girls, Tess's family consisted of her Dad, Jim, who looked after the Pit ponies at the Pit at Fishbourn, a village about a mile down the Rd, towards Sedgefield. Her Mother's name was Margaret, and she and Jim lived at Banktop Terrace, Trimdon Village, The eldest child was Billy, who was married to Nance, who had two sons and a daughter, Jessie, Owen and Jim, and they lived at Fishbourn, next in order of age came Mary Alice, then another daughter Meg, who was a Nun in a catholic Convent in the city of Durham, after who came Tess, and finally her brother Owen, who also was in the Air force, in the transport section, but Trimdon Village was, I should guess, populated 20% by relatives of the Willoughby's, named either Grimley or Hoban, in fact Tess's cousin, Tommy Hoban, played, pre-war, football for Crystal Palace.

That summer seemed to pass in no time; the activity of war was mostly taking place in N Africa, the Dessert Rats (British) fighting dessert warfare backward and forward in advance and retreat, against the Germans under the command of F/M, Rommel, nick-named '' The dessert fox'', but earlier, late 1940 I believe, the British Navy attacked and sank the part of the French fleet that had sheltered in the harbour of Mers-El-Kebir at Oran, this was done not in anger in any way against the French, but simply to stop Hitler making use of it against us, in the Atlantic run of our Merchant ships, that were now bringing supplies from the U.S. in vast quantities. After the Dunkirk evacuation, the Germans had rapidly advanced against the French, and to save the destruction of Paris, the French requested the terms of peace that Hitler would demand, and the surrender of the French was accepted by Hitler in the same railway carriage that the surrender of the Germans had been accepted by the Allies in 1918, and so Hitler ruled all of the county that had been occupied by the Germans, and a French subservient Government was formed to rule Free France from Vichy, from then on known as the Vichy Government.

During the summer of 1943, with the increased production of aircraft, the ATA, got rather short of crews, and 41 group H/Q. posted W/O Warwick and me on a 1 month loan to the ATA, at Ringway, Manchester, and that is where that one week Lancaster familiarity course was useful, as the aircraft we flew for them were mostly Lancaster's. We were in separate civvy billets in a nearby village, and one weekend, Tess came over and managed to get a night's B&B, near to my digs. On Sept 4th 1943, Tess and I got married in the school hall of the Catholic school at Blackhall, which served as a church at weekends, with a visiting Priest from W. Hartlepool. I had previously taken instruction from the camp Catholic Priest, and converted from C.of.E. to Catholic. My Mother and sisters Nell and Edie came up for the wedding, and travelled back to London the following day, but Tess and I, after the meal back home, had the Wedding Photo's taken and went directly on to Blackpool for the Honeymoon, where we spent a week, and then it was back to camp.

In Dec. 1941, without any declaration of war, and completely by surprise, Japan had attacked the American naval base at Pearl Harbour, a port on the Hawaiian island of Oahu, in the Pacific, and sank or damaged 2 battleships, 3Cruisers, 3 destroyers, some other shipping and destroyed nearly 500 aircraft on the ground before they could take off. This of course bought an immediate declaration of war by the U.S on both Japan and Germany, since when the aforementioned increase in Atlantic Convoys was taking place, and thousands of U.S Troops had been sent to England. Meanwhile, the majority of the Australian, and New Zealand forces were fighting in the jungles of the Eastern war with the Americans. There were American army camps in dozens of places in the U.K and there was one between our camp and Chester, and very often a phone call from their C.O to our F/Lt. Duffy, asking if we would kindly give half dozen of their G.I's, a flip round while we were testing an Aircraft the answer was always yes, as the G.I's always arrived with several 200 packs of American cigarettes, for us Pilots and Engineers, which were very acceptable, as the English serviceman was rationed to, at the most, 40 per week, and sometimes less and so, after escorting them to the Parachute store, and given them the small amount of information to put their mind at rest, off we would go for about an hour, I can imagine that many a letter went back to the U.S. with a casual reference to the fact that their son had flown in an English 4 engined bomber, perhaps even being enlarged in detail a little bit.

At various times we would also be asked by the ground staff, to give them a trip, and providing that they had their Flt/Sgt's permission, usually received by phone, we did so, and many a time Tess came up with us, perhaps a little more often than the others, as I often sat and had a drink in the Mess with F/USgt, Wyatt, who was Il/C. of the 3 site hanger, where Tess did her plug cleaning, and petrol and oil filling on Wellingtons.

Although Tess was to all intents and purposes already living out, a little before Christmas 1943 we looked around and made a few enquiries regarding renting a place to live out together, and eventually got a bed-sitting room at Sandycroft, with use of kitchen. The rent was very nominal, and well within our reach, as I was on 10/6 p.d Tess on 3/6 p.d. and we would get 12/6 p.w. rent allowance, and 12/6 pw each ration money, altogether about £6/15/- pw, the average wage in civvy street at that time being in the region of £3 pw, also in Jan.1944, I would be promoted to Flt/Sgt, which would make my income 14/- per day.

Wilkie now had completed his first tour of Ops, and had been awarded the D.F.M it appears that on a raid over Germany, they had been heavily attacked by enemy fighters, the Plane had been badly damaged, and several of the crew had received serious bullet wounds including the Pilot, the Navigator, and a couple of others, Wilkie got the Pilot out of his seat, and flew the plane back home and landed successfully, whether or not it was at his own airdrome, I never asked, but I think he would have been very pleased to see any field in that situation. anyway he was now on a three month or more rest period, so that event must have been very close to, if not actually on his last trip of that tour.

We did get the C/O's permission to live out, and only had to pack our Kit-bags, and by Christmas was installed at Sandycroft, we were both issued with Service bicycles, and cycled to and from the camp every morning and evening, and one evening I told Tess that Nixon and I were testing a Wellington at 10o/c the next morning, but we took off a little earlier, and after the test I learned that a A.T.A Pilot had followed us onto the runway and taken off after we cleared, investigation later showed that a fault in the airscrew feathering system on one engine, had feathered the prop at about 4Oft after take-off, and he nose-dived into the ground, and was killed, Tess heard the crash, and jumped to the conclusion that it was Nixon and me, and went into hysterics, and F/USgt Wyatt phoned Airfield control and learned the truth, after which, with the aid of a cup of tea, she recovered. She had been the cause of some concern to the other W.A.A.F's as she had confided to them previously that she was pregnant. I did get my promotion in Jan 44, as expected and this time had someone with a little more sewing experience to sew the crowns above the stripes for me. At about this time, H/Q, again lent me to the ATA, this time I went to their H/Q, at White Waltham, near Andover, but when I got there the rush of work was over, and I was asked where I would like to spend my month loan, and was given various options, one of which was Hawarden, which I promptly chose, and was immediately on a Wellington that a woman pilot was taking up to 3 site, and that was the end of my seconding to ATA.

The Medical Officer and Tess had worked it out that the Baby was due in July, and she immediately got her discharge which also gave her a few weeks pay in lieu of leave, and she decided at about March that she would rather be at home, and book into a maternity home up there, and so we said our goodbyes to our landlady, and gave our thanks for her kindness, and I took her north and settled her in at Trimdon with her Mother, and after a few days returned to camp and the return to a billet on camp.

Tess's mum had said that she would be pleased to give my mum, Elsie and Michael a rest from the air raids, and Mary at Heselden offered to put up Nell and the two girls at the same time, an offer that they gladly accepted, and stayed up there I think for about six weeks.

In the hanger at 2 site was a fitter who lived very near to Wilkie's home at Birkenhead and soon after my return from Trimdon, he came looking for me at the flight hut, and told me that Wilkie had been shot down over Germany, I went over to Birkenhead the following Sunday, and found, as was to be expected, his Mother in a terrible state of distress. His sisters told me the information they had received from the Air Ministry, he was a couple of trips into his second tour, which was always only 20 ops, and was on a big raid on Frankfort, and was shot down, and presumed killed, I didn't say so at the time, but I think that the presumed killed would be based on the evidence of other crews on the same raid, that they did not see any of the crew get out, but poor Wilkie definitely did die and has never been heard of since. It is ironic how such small things as the wrong answer to a question concerning something of very little importance on a trade test, can become a matter of life or death. He could possibly have been with me at Hawarden if he had given the right answer.

In N. Africa the war was practically over, General Montgomery,(later promoted to field Marshal) had taken over command of the eighth army, and as I have previously said, after many fluctuations to and fro he finally completely routed the German and Italian armies, and then invaded Sicily, and the Mainland of Italy. At the end of 1943, he was recalled to England, and with other Allied Brass hats began the planning of the invasion of Europe.

One or two dummy raids were made on the North coast of France, mainly to lead the Germans to believe that if there was an invasion, it would be anywhere except the place that it was planned to happen, the most well remembered of these raids was Dieppe, where mostly Canadian troops were used, and it was probably the worst of these raids, as far as casualties were concerned.

D. Day itself was planned for 5/6/44, but due to very bad weather, the Supremo, the American General Eisenhower, postponed it for 24hours, and so the biggest invasion fleet ever, crossed the Channel on the 6th of June, accompanied by a pre-fabricated concrete harbour, (Mulbury), and a large Naval and Air force armada that blasted the German coastal defences with shells and bombs and so the assault troops landed on the various Normandy beaches, named, Utah, Omaha, (both for U.S, landings), Gold, Juno and Sword, (British and other Commonwealth and Empire troops), and quite quickly, the Allies established bases and airfields in France. As you have probably read, the Allied advance was fairly rapid.

On 16th July 1944, Tess had a little girl, born at the Hardwick Hall Maternity Home, Sedgefield that we named on my hurriedly arranged leave, Margaret, Carmella, both were in excellent health and everybody was very happy. We didn't know how long the war would yet last, and Tess wanted to come back to the camp area again, and so I made enquiries for accommodation, larger than the last place, if possible, and came across an empty house in Broughton, it had two b/rooms, a living room a scullery and an outside toilet, and was used only for sorting out the morning newspapers for the delivery boys, of the little general shop about three doors away, and we arranged that providing I put up a folding trestle in the scullery, and allowed access via the back entrance for the proprietor and the boys between 7 and 8o/c in the morning, we could rent it for 5/6 per week, and so a trip to Chester, the buying of a settee, and the other necessary furniture, and back to Trimdon to collect Tess and Baby.

We were very comfortable and happy there, I had still kept my Service cycle, and we often had friends down for a meal, Jim Chapman and Whitfield would call, and I would go for a drink with them, the pub being only about 50yds along the road, and the baby having been put to bed, Tess would make a supper for us before they walked back to camp. On other occasions, Tess would ask a couple of her WAAF friends down for the evening, to coo and admire the baby mostly I think, I now had the offer of a fairly old AJS motor bike combination, 750 cc, with a heavy saloon sidecar, and we spent many a day off up in the hills at a place called Loggerheads, in fact, Margaret at about 11months took her first step there, on the grass.

Will by this time had gone out of business completely, and was now working at Rossi's factory at Old Town, Clapham Common, manufacturers of lens' for binoculars, telescopes, and bomb sights for the various Services. Fred had got into financial difficulties over his gambling habits, and a fairly large discrepancy was found by the auditors at the wine shop that he managed at Northwood and of course he was sacked, which meant the loss of the flat that went with the job, and so him and his entire family were now living with Mum and Edie at the house in Balham. As there had been no prosecution, Will had been able to get Fred a job with one of his friends, a Sam Maynard, who had a Jewellers shop in Bridge St. Westminster, The Samuel Watch Co. (nothing to do with the big firm of Samuel's).

The German Luftwaffe, meanwhile, had introduced London to their latest weapon of attack, it was a rocket propelled heavy bomb, that travelled in a large loop to a pre selected target at a speed faster than sound, and so could not be detected or heard until the actual explosion on impact. It was a horrible weapon, and each one did considerable damage and caused large loss of lives. British Intelligence had however, known about this weapon for some considerable time, and the RAF had consistently bombed the factory and airfield where it was made and launched, and so the use of it had been greatly delayed until nearly the end of the war.

Tess and I had learned that we were to become parents again, as near as could be judged, Sept/Oct approx, but this time she decided to stay in our home at Broughton until the time, and managed to get a booking at The Cathleen Gladstone Maternity Home at Queensferry, about four miles from Broughton, on the Birkenhead Rd, and along came Linda Anne on 30/9/45.

The Allied troops crossed the Rhine in March 1945, by which time the German air raids on England had ceased, the Luftwaffe now being an ineffective force, and on 4th, May 1945 Montgomery accepted, at Lunenburg Heath, the unconditional surrender of all German forces in Holland, N Germany and Denmark, the same surrender and conditions being accepted by other Allied Generals in other areas, and so, after 5 1/2 years, the war was over; in Europe at least.

In Jan 1945, I was promoted to Warrant Officer, and within a matter of days the C/O. (Wing Commander Goodchild), appointed me CMC, of the Sergeant's mess, I did go to see him in the hope that he would appoint someone else, and pointed out that I was living out, whereupon he replied that if I couldn't do the job living out, then perhaps it would be better if I was brought in again, I of course immediately said that I could do both ok, and was sorry to have bothered him.

The biggest topic of conversation among the Airmen now was "when will I get out", I soon found out that my De-mob number was 20, and that my eight weeks leave would commence early Nov, and end at the end of Dec, and that there would be no need to return to camp.

I did have some leave due to me which I took as soon as possible, and went to London on my own and registered at the housing centre of the Wandsworth Borough Council at Tooting and plagued the life out of them morning, afternoon and evening, and before returning to camp, had the promise of a flat in Ritherdon Rd. Balham, which had been war damaged, been requisitioned and was in the process of being repaired and decorated, and would be ready about the middle of December, which would mean that after demob, we would have to stay at 22, Airdale Rd, for a few weeks. The flat would be a little inconvenient for a family with two young children, as it was two floors up, but a pram could be left in the hallway without inconvenience to other Tenants, so I accepted it and returned to Broughton with the news.

The war against Japan was still going on in the Far East; the Allies had been having considerable success in driving them out of their early gains in Malaysia, and Burma and other eastern places. It was an entirely different kind of war to that fought in Europe, a great deal of it being swamp and jungle warfare, for some time now, years in fact, Allied scientists had been working on the invention of an Atom bomb, and after a successful test in the pacific, dropped the first one ever to be used, on Aug, 6th, 1945 on the city of Hiroshima, the one bomb killing 78000 people. The Japanese showed no signs of suing for an armistice, so a second one was dropped on Aug. 9th, on Nagasaki, some people hold the opinion that this was unnecessary slaughter, but undoubtedly, Japan would never have surrendered otherwise, and a long drawn out war would have cost a lot more lives, a considerable number of whom would have been Allied lives, and also Malay, Burmese, and a lot more of innocent Civilians, as it turned out, the Japanese signed the articles of surrender on the 14th Aug, and was immediately occupied by the Allied forces who quickly organised the formation of a Democratic Government.

Back at Hawarden, now that the war was over, the clearing up had to be done, and the test crew had the job of ferrying 200 old Halifax aircraft to the Handley-Page factory at York for break up, we had a satellite Airfield at Hooten Park, near Birkenhead, where these old Aircraft had been stored after they had been withdrawn from operations, for a few weeks we had been getting a few ex-operational Aircrew sent to us, probably with this job in mind, a fairly young Polish f/Sgt pilot who was only trained to fly up to two engined planes, who would be useful to fly the Avro-Anson plane that we used to ferry the crews to Hooten, and back from York, also an experienced f/Lt. pilot who had been on Halifax's, and a F/Sgt. F/Eng, a lad named Newton who, on his first operational flight, which was called a Nickel raid, why? I don't know, but it was to drop leaflets over Paris, inciting the French to sabotage etc, against the Germans, was shot down, He was aided by the French resistance and finally got to Switzerland where he was interred for 6 months,(one of the many rules of warfare) and then re-patriated, and after some leave, was sent to us.

On one trip, Whitfield was crewed with the new Officer pilot, and after accepting the aircraft started to take off, when nearly at take off speed the undercarriage collapsed, and they ploughed through the field boundary, across a road (fortunately no traffic) and half way across a farmers field near to the satellite field, they were both rushed to Hospital, but suffered very little damage. It appeared that the Pilot was in the habit of muttering to himself, and as the speedometer climbed, so he muttered the speed, and when he got to 100mph, Whitfield thought he said Undercarriage, and whipped the lever up immediately, with the above result. Still, it saved the staff at York the job.

At Hooten Park, a team of Civvy fitters had been sent from York, to make the old Aircraft worthy to fly, I presume they were found civvy billets, but on several occasions, the flying crew had reason to refuse the aircraft, on more than one occasion I did. It must have been sometime in August, and I had been paired with Fl/Lt Cruikshanks, and Newton with Nixon, the four crews all piled into the Anson, with the Polish Pilot at the controls, and so to Hooten, after landing, it was usual for the Anson to taxi round the dispersal points and drop the crews of at their aircraft, this was Newton's first trip for us, as he had had quite a few weeks leave, and when we came to the Cruikshank aircraft he got up to get out of the Anson with Cruikshanks, and to save him embarrassment I let him go, and I went a little further and got out with Nixon, I did the usual acceptance inspection, and as the u/carriage hydraulic accumulator was well below the required pressure, I refused to take it, F/Eng, Melan and his pilot were the first to take off, and got to York first, and went to the Watch tower to see the others coming in, not knowing that Nixon and I were not coming, not even knowing that I wasn't with Cruikshanks. From the Watch tower they saw Cruikshanks coming in with one outer engine feathered, obviously they had had trouble with that engine and as he was running into the runway, a clot of a pilot taxied a Wellington across the end of the runway, and Airfield control gave him a red, (abort landing) and he gave the three engines full power again, to do another circuit, but due to the feathered engine, the aircraft slewed to that side and the wing tip hit a church steeple, and they crashed, and were both killed.

Cruikshank's wife had had a baby only a few weeks before, and what a terrible flying career Newton had had, apart from his training, just two flights. As in Wilkie's case, such a little mistake to be the cause of death, Nobody can say, but if I had been with Cruikshanks, would I have taken the Aircraft in the first place, secondly, with a lot more experience, would I have found it necessary to feather the engine. No information ever came to us from any inquiry made; I must add that Melan was very relieved to see me, as he had visualised that it would be his job to go and break bad news to Tess.

All flying of the obsolete Halifax's was stopped, and as far as I know they were still there when I was de-mobbed, or else they were de-winged and transported on low loader lorries.

After what seemed an age, at last the end of Oct came, and I was sent off to Ruislip for De-mobilisation, where I was issued with a de-mob suit, and a Trilby hat, and a rail warrant to get back to Chester. I also received eight weeks leave, and pay, plus eight weeks for each of, ration money, Wife and two children allowances, and rent allowance, also my gratuity of one days pay, (in my case about 25/-) for each month of service I had, (753 which in total came to nearly £200, which in 1945 was an awful lot of money, and of I went back to home at Broughton, with the new problem of how I was going to get a living to keep four of us.

The day after getting back to Broughton, I arranged with Pickfords, the removal firm, to move our furniture to London, and store it until we had word from the council that the flat at Ritherdon Rd, was ready, my Mother had come up to Broughton to help Tess down to Balham with the two babies, and when the lorry left, they were in a cab to Chester, and by rail to London. After they left, I packed the children's cots, bedclothes, and anything else that I could find into the sidecar of the motorbike, and set off by road to Balham, having saved all my petrol ration for a couple of months, with this journey in mind.

l don't think that there was much difference in the time of our arrival at No, 22, Airdale Rd. and after a meal, prepared by Nell, it was up with the cots, babies to bed, and a couple of hours relaxation, although where we all slept I can't now imagine, as I have previously said, Fred, Elsie and their son Michael, were already installed there, their daughter Rita was still with the people that had taken her at the evacuation time.

Since the defeat of Germany, production at Rossi's was greatly reduced, and as Will had the chance of a lease on a shop and living accommodation in St. Peter St; St. Albans, Herts, his notice was accepted, and having, in anticipation, already put the house at Clapham on the market, a quick sale was arranged, and by the time I was demobbed, he had been open for two or three months, and was well established. With later events in mind, I will point out that it required a Government license to start a business after the war, and that preference was given to anyone who had had a business before the war, and so Will had been readily granted the license for St, Albans.

My little family was only at 22, Airedale Rd. for not much more than a week, when word came from the Council that the flat at 49, Ritherdon Rd, was ready, and could be occupied as soon as we liked, and with hasty arrangements with Pickfords, were able to move in within a couple of days.

I now had to think about getting a living, by law, Walker's were obligated to re-instate me with a job at least equal to, in both pay and position to the one I had pre-war, but after considering the position, and knowing that the Victoria branch had been flattened by bombing, I decided to have a go at starting something on my own, and so, still having the old combination M/bike, I went to the weekly auction sale at the Army and Navy Stores sale rooms, which were in Horseferry Rd; immediately behind the main Store, which was fronted onto Victoria St. and bid and got enough second hand goods, crockery, cutlery, vases etc, and Bric-a-Brac of various kinds, and was off to Watford Market early on the following Saturday, where I rented a stall and set my wares out, and was in business.

After Christmas 1945, I also started to go to Harrods's auction in Knightsbridge, and Watford Tuesday and Saturday, and soon learned that the goods I got at the A&N. were more the class of goods for the market place. The net profit on my weekly turnover, after running costs and stall rental etc, was in the region of £6 per week, but which on a good week could be as much as £8, which at that time was considerably more than the average wage. Early in 1946 however, I heard of a lock-up shop to let at 46 Granville Arcade, Brixton, and went to view it, it was only about 15ft, square, open front (no windows) with a pull down roller shutter, the rent was £4-10-00 p.w, inc of rates, for a 21 year lease, and I decided to sign on the dotted line.

I traded with the S/H goods displayed on trestle tables direct to the arcade for several weeks and then contacted a chap named Dave, who did small jobs for the market traders at reasonable prices, and got a quote for a double front, (two windows and enclosures, 6x2 and 3x2) the larger for cheap jewellery display, and the smaller for clocks and cutlery, and with second hand carpet and counter, I had a proper shop, I think at that time the whole lot only cost in the region of �70. Although I should have applied for a license to start the business, as I had not been registered pre-war, I would not take the risk of being refused, so just took a chance and went ahead, and my right to do so was never queried, and eventually, after several years, the need for a license was abolished.

I hadn't been established more than a couple of months, when to my surprise Frank Lott walked into the shop, it appeared that he had only just been de-mobbed, and was still awaiting his de-mob payments, which upon reflection I should have realised was odd, as I had got mine when de-mobbed, however, after swapping wartime experiences, he later suggested a partnership and that he would put �250 into the business, when he received his pay, and after a day or so considering the offer, and realising that more variety of stock would increase business, I accepted, starting him at the same drawings as me, �6 p.w.

Meanwhile Will had introduced me to a dealer in watches, a Ted Morgan, who was willing to give me quite good credit terms, and with travellers now, because the place looked more like a thriving business, calling and willing to supply, we had a very respectable display of costume jewellery, watches etc. but clocks were still in very short supply, and I was still going to the sales just to get what I could in the way of the old fashioned marble framed clocks, fitted with pre-war French movements, and these sold extremely well at good prices, each of which would today be worth a fortune as an antique.

As the weeks went by, Frank had given assurances that the money he had promised would be forthcoming, but finally confessed that it would not be available as he had had it several weeks past and had lost the lot in a card game with some of his ex-army pals. There was nothing I could do about the situation, and after a few harsh words, it was a parting of the ways, I have never seen him since.

Fred and Elsie had, by now, been given a requisitioned 1st, floor flat in Dorothy Rd, Battersea that ran down from Clapham common South side, to Lavender Hill. His drinking, due to the financial troubles caused by the continued success and prosperity of his Bookmaker, had greatly increased, Elsie was now working for Laura at Millbank, and young Michael, now getting on for 11 years of age had joined The Boys Brigade, which held it's weekly meetings in a hall at the Lavender Hill end of Dorothy Rd.

The work of re-building Laura's house at 125, Ramsden Rd, had been started by the Council and to prevent the Council from making a requisition order, which would have meant that she would probably never get it returned to her, and would only receive a very small rent, as set by the Council she offered it to me at a bargain price of �450, which I accepted knowing that I would have to be very watchful of the of the requisition situation as the repairs got nearer to completion, and when I saw that the inside was practically finished, I asked Nell if she would go round early next morning and put curtains up in the rooms looking onto the front street, and she was waiting to get in when the Builders men arrived. She had got the upstairs windows done, and was doing the sitting room curtains when a noise at the front door attracted her attention, and found the Council man, with the requisition notice in his hand ready to tack it on the front door, she told him that the place was occupied by the owner, her brother. The law was such that if a place was occupied, it could not be requisitioned, and so we got possession by the skin of our teeth, and had moved our furniture in and in residence within a day or two. 125 Ramsden Rd. was a lovely little house, with a large garden, at the bottom of which was a huge peartree, and every summer it was loaded with beautiful big juicy fruit, most of which we had to give away before they went bad. There was also a small apple tree, but I don't remember getting much fruit from that. During the time that the purchase of the house had been going through, Tess had been contacted by an acquaintance in Heselden, who was getting married and wanted to move to London after the wedding, she would then be Mrs, Henson, Tess told her that she could have two rooms upstairs temporarily, as we would be wanting them for the two children as soon as they were old enough to have their own room, as they were now, Mgt 2, and Lyn 10 months old, alas, that temporary arrangement lasted two years.

Fred, as was to be expected with his track record, was in trouble again at his job with Sam Maynard, and was of course sacked, and from then on, nearly a weekly event was a visit by little Michael to 125 with a note from Fred, asking for a small loan, I don't think I ever got any of those loans back. Laura had been persuaded to speak to me on Fred's behalf with a view to me giving him a job, I was of course very doubtful of all his promises to go straight and cut down, and if possible cut out completely his gambling and drinking habits, but as I was now finding it difficult since the Frank Lott affair, to get to the sales, I gave him a start.

Trade was gradually increasing week after week, and I had the offer of a 1936 Morris eight for £240, and sold the old M/cycle combination, and accepted the offer, that was my first car.

Give Fred his due he knew the trade and was a good window dresser, he made watch and jewellery display pads, and the shop really looked nice, and we had bumper Christmas 1946 trading figures, and the future looked bright.

Getting to about mid-summer in 1947, a shop became available in Market Row, Brixton, it had been a lady's hat shop, but the proprietor had retired, and wanted £200 for the remaining 14 years of the lease, at the same rent as Granville Arcade shop, £4-10-0 p.w rent and as it already had a nicely enclosed window already in, with the s/h purchase of a carpet, a counter and a wall show-case, was ready to stock out, dress the window, and start trading, I already knew that Edie would like to get back to the Jewellery trade, and if Elsie would take Edie's place at the Cafe, Laura would not be offended at Edie leaving, which is what happened, and I put Edie in with Fred, and I went to Market Row, and started Tommy Watts, who had been Mr. Gourley's assistant at Walkers, to be with me, so we had two in each shop.

Things went on very nicely for a couple of months, but one day, I had gone straight from home to a sale at the A&N, and got to the shop shortly before Tommy was to go to lunch, while he was at lunch, a customer came in with a complaint, he had had a glass fitted to his watch by Tommy that morning, but it had sprung out again, so I looked in the sales book, but found no entry for a watch glass at 3/6, and on counting the takings found that there was no money surplus to the recorded sales in the book, so I asked the customer if he was sure that it had been that morning, and he affirmed that it had been, and that while he had been waiting to be served, Tommy had sold a £3-10-0 canteen of cutlery, (24 piece), but again there was no entry in the book. When he returned from lunch I told him what had happened, and asked him for an explanation, he gave a load of poppycock, which was entirely unacceptable, said he was sorry, and admitted having pilfered money on previous occasions. I insisted that he gave me back the £3-13-6, and told him to go home and that I would post his Employment and Nat/Health cards on to him with one weeks wages at the week-end, and that was the end of Tommy Watts in Brixton. . I had been giving repair work to 3 outside watchmakers, a lad named Bill Finch, who lived next door to the Telegraph pub on Brixton Hill; and who was dating Edie, another lad named Tim France who lived with his wife and child in a side turning off the Brixton Rd, near to The White Horse pub and an ex Polish serviceman who had got out of Poland when Germany invaded it, and like so many free Polish, free French, free Czechoslovaks and many others, fought alongside the Allies against Germany. He had been a watchmaker in Poland, and was now in lodgings at Norbuy, about three miles from Brixton, and had started up a small connection to do trade work, he turned out to be a very good watchmaker, his name was Bernard Ringwelski, Tim France was negotiating for a shop with living accommodation at Tulse Hill, and did not anticipate being able to do work for me once he was established, and Bill Finch was considering doing likewise with a shop that was empty next door to where he lived, so I suggested to Bernard on his next call, that I could offer him a full time job doing the repair work for both shops, but that I hardly thought that it would be enough to fill 5 1/2 days, and that he could spend any surplus time in the shop, learning the other aspects of the trade, and for the fairly generous wage that I offered him, he accepted, and between us we built a workshop at the back end of the shop with a work bench and spot light, if at times he put in extra time in the shop such as at Christmas or other busy times, I would give him some work to take home and do at trade prices and all went well under this system.

Things were going along quite successfully, trade wise we had had a good Christmas, but after the Tommy Watts episode, I had introduced a fairly reliable stock-keeping system and on the stocktaking at the introduction of the system, the profit had not been what it should have Been, and so revealed to what extent the pilfering had affected the profit ratio, although it would be wrong to attribute it all to Tommy.

It was probably about July or August 1948 that Edie came over to market row during one lunch time and asked if she could talk to me privately, and I took her for a coffee, and she said she was very worried about the situation at Granville Arcade, but as I was as much her brother as Fred, she considered it was right that I knew of the trouble that was going on there, customers were coming in for their repairs, and Fred was telling them that the job was not quite ready, when in actual fact Edie knew that the job was done and should be awaiting collection, and when she checked, found that it was not there, and she had made the same discovery on several occasions, and so had come to me.

That evening, when we had closed the shops up, I asked Fred to come for a drink as I wanted to discuss something with him, and asked him what was going on as I had had quite a few customers coming to Market Row to complain about the repair service at the other shop, and as I had checked up on the date that they had been invoiced back to Granville Arcade, and that some of them had been back as long as three weeks before the complaint, could he give me a really acceptable reason for these occurrences. He broke down and told me the truth, which I believe he was glad to get off his chest.

It was the old story, gambling on the horses, chasing his losses, and getting into deeper and deeper trouble, and drowning his sorrows in the evening with eight or ten pints, and had started of pawning two or three customers repairs, then pawning more to pay the interest and the loan to get the earlier ones out again to return to the customer, and of course, it got worse and worse, and now was out of control involving in the region of 50 jobs, and couldn't be covered up any longer, I had no alternative but to sack him there and then, and went home with him to collect all the pawn tickets.

That night I went round to Airdale Rd, and explained to Mum and Nell what had happened, and asked them if they would go round redeeming the repairs next morning, so that Edie could definitely promise the customers that the job would be ready for the following day, they said they would, and after counting up from the tickets how much cash they would need, and an amount to cover interest and fares, off they went next morning to visit most of the Pawnshops in S, London, even some north of the river.

Of course, the cash situation as far as trade creditors was concerned was adversely affected by the recent events, and so I had to carry on with no replacement for Fred, and I was flitting between the two shops, and Nell volunteered to help out on a part time basis, which was a great help. Laura helped out a little in the financial side of things with the occasional loan, when things did get a little precarious, and I was really looking forward to a good Christmas to get out of trouble, and although the stock holding was not as I would have liked it, things did not turn out to badly, and the financial position was greatly improved by Jan 1949.

On one of my visits to see Laura, probably to thank her for her past help, and to clear of the loan situation, Fred was in the cafe, probably seeking a hand out from her, and he asked if there was any way he could get his job back, it appeared that he had discussed the situation with Laura, and had made all kinds of promises regarding his future behaviour, regarding both drinking and gambling, which he repeated to me, and after a couple of days considering the matter, and with a little cohesion from Laura, I agreed to let him start the following Monday, leaving very little doubt in his mind of the finality of any future indiscretion on his part, I will add however that I had very little confidence in the sanity of my decision, and was determined to watch him with eagle eyes.

Things now seemed to be going ok the debts were all back to normal with just trade creditors to the amount that, as previously, could be covered by receipt of the average monthly turnover, and Fred showed no sign of knowing of Edie's involvement in the events of the previous year, and were getting on well together, and the shop seemed to be on the mend.

Christmas trade in 1949 turned out to be quite good and immediately after Christmas, Mary, Tess's eldest sister came down to help Tess, as she was expecting our third child very soon, and on 5-1-1950, James Joseph Fifield was born.

By giving fair prices, we had worked up quite a good side to the business, by buying in second hand jewellery, reconditioning it and re-selling as second hand. We did have to by law, keep a record of the name and address of the person offering the goods, for which they had to sign that it was their own property to dispose of, for which they had received such a sum of money. We also received, from the police, a weekly list of stolen property, for which to keep an eye open for. While I was over at Granville Arcade on one occasion, I bought in a nice diamond ring, single stone, for about £20, and sent it to the jewellery repairer for claw re-tipping and a new half shank, this being caused usually by rubbing against another ring on the same finger, usually a wedding ring.

After the improvement in trade, and a little more affluence for the housekeeping, Tess and I made enquiries from the local Priest as to the possibility of getting a young person to live in and help look after the children and the housework to allow us a little more leisure time, and he took us to a Catholic orphanage at Orpington, Kent, where we arranged with the Matron to take a young 16 year old girl on a month's trial, to be terminated by either party if unsuccessful, and so Jean Hall became part of the household occupancy. She was a nice girl, and being an Albino, had perfectly white hair and was soon very capable and good with the two girls.

Tess and I were now able to develop a bit of social life on a couple of evenings a week, and without wanting to go very far afield at this early stage, we just made use of the local, The Nightingale, in Nightingale lane, which was frequented by quite a few of the members of the local Bowling Club in Ramsden Rd. which held it's annual dinner/dance at the Ardington Rooms of the Arding and Hobbs store at Clapham Junction, to which we were invited for that year and several ensuing years.

Yorkie, (because he was a Yorkshireman) who with his wife had been quite friendly with us, did ask me for suggestions for his wife's birthday, and as the figure he mentioned was in the region of what I would be asking for the ring I had bought in, I suggested it to him and promised to let him see it, and early the next morning went over to Granville Arcade and asked Fred to get me the re-conditioned ring, he said it was out on appro to a friend of his, and that he would ask him for it back that evening, I said nothing at that time, but intended going down to his local that evening and finding out the truth, if the ring was not immediately available, and of course it wasn't, and neither was the so-called friend, and out came the truth, the friend had bought and paid for it a couple of weeks previous, but Fred had meant to pay it into the shop, but had never got round to it, and of course, he now hadn't got it, so that was the end of that, he was out for ever as far as I was concerned, I will add that I satisfied Yorkie with a good deal, and his wife was over the moon with it.

I am fairly certain that Fred never worked again, as in Dec, of that year 13 year old Michael was playing outside the hall in which the Boy's Brigade held their meetings, and ran into the road into the side of a lorry, went under the wheels and was instantly killed, this on top of losing little Joan 7 years earlier, and all his financial worries, also his continual over drinking, will have had a considerable influence on the cause of a series of strokes that he suffered over a period of several years, which affected both his speech and his mobility, and eventually his death in 1954 aged 48.

After sacking Fred, I realised that it was time to do some very serious thinking regarding the staff situation, also realising that a stock system only revealed a discrepancy after a physical stocktaking had been carried out, and also could only be reliable if carried out by a person not on the staff, and so, with the publicity that was being put out about the forthcoming festival of Britain scheduled for 1951, I decided, after talking it over with Tess, to sell one shop, also Ramsden Rd, house and buy larger property with the idea of opening a guest house, run by Tess, for Bed & Breakfast.

When I told Ted Morgan of my intention, he said he would be very interested in buying the lease and goodwill of the shop in Granville Arcade, and the accountancy firm that did my annual balance sheet and audit, assessed the value upon the yearly profit, plus the stock value, and I think we came to an agreement in the region of �2500.

l started making enquiries about a house for sale in the next turning to Ramsden Rd. and after viewing, both Tess and I were happy to go ahead with the idea, and put Ramsden Rd. in the same agent's hands as had the selling of 6 Endlesham Rd. for which we offered £3400, and they sold our old house for £850, and as we would need a great deal of capital for furnishing etc, raised a mortgage of £2250 on the endowment system, and was installed, furnished, and ready to get cracking, by the Autumn of 1950, about 6 months before the festival was due to be officially started.

1950 was a very busy year for the Government, and anyone else who was making any special arrangements for the Festival, Battersea Park was a hive of industry, flower beds were appearing where there had never been any before, railings and fences were all freshly painted, and a huge area on the South bank of the River Thames was being prepared for the huge fanfare planned to open on the first day of the festival, as was every other project, including the newly built festival hall, sighted further along the south bank of the River.

That year went by in a flash, but I had been advertising in Midland, and Scotch local papers, with terms for B&B, and had a good response, and was very soon fully booked for the whole of the summer of 51.