Blitz Boy

by Alf Townsend

  Off the bus and onto the train. (London Metropolitan Archives)

  Suddenly, a big-chested lady in a green uniform came up to my Mum. Even to this very day I can still get the smell of her in my senses. A strong flowery perfume, coupled with an overpowering odour of carbolic soap. ‘And your name my dear?’ she enquired in a funny posh voice that I hadn’t heard before. My Mum gave her the names of us three kids and ‘Mrs Green Uniform’ began flicking through her list. ‘Oh yes, here we are,’ she said, ticking off our names on her list. ‘Would you please go to that lady over there?’ pointing in the direction of another green-uniformed woman who was surrounded by a crowd of kids. ‘She is in charge of your carriage’, she muttered, consulting her list and scribbling down some notes. Again, more name-taking and more peering down at our brown labels by other Green Uniforms followed. ‘You boy, stand over there and let your sisters stand over here’, said one of them. Then, across came another lady with ‘scrambled-egg’ on her hat, clearly denoting a senior officer. All the other Green Uniforms smartly saluted her and she promptly proceeded to put us back in line where we had originally started! Okay, so they WERE volunteers, but it WAS a shambles!

  Take the cat as well! (London Metropolitan Archives)

  Evacuees leaving London. (Author’s collection)

  Eventually, after lots of shouting and screaming, our group was all rounded up. We kissed Mum goodbye and clambered happily aboard the train. I can’t honestly remember crying when the train pulled out of the station. Why should I? It was a great adventure, I was with my two sisters and Mum had said she was coming down to see us in a couple of days. So, I just stood at the window with loads of other kids, waving our arms like mad at all the cameras that were photographing us. These were early days in the war and we were of great media interest. Pictures of the smiling kids were great propaganda for the government’s future evacuation plans. With the benefit of hindsight, many of the evacuees – me included – would have welcomed a follow-up from the authorities after we’d settled in. That would certainly have alleviated an awful lot of heartache for all those kids like me and many years of horrific nightmares!

  The journey to the seaside was pretty grotty. The train was packed to the roof with thousands of screaming kids and flustered service personnel. All I can remember is sitting on my old battered suitcase out in the corridor, right next to an evil-smelling toilet that was in constant use. The ladies in the blue of the RAF were very kind and friendly to me, giving me a cheery ‘hello’ every time they went by. But the army boys started to get a bit rowdy and raucous after drinking lots of beer. I recall, after a long time of steaming at full speed through the beautiful countryside, the train starting to slow down. I stood up and peered out of the window and was fascinated to see we were passing a beach and near enough to the sea to almost touch it. I found out many years later that his was in fact part of Brunel’s Great Western Railway masterpiece at Dawlish in Devon. Bypassing all the hills and the mountains helped save money on the engineering costs. The train picked up speed again and, after all that free lemonade and cheese sandwiches, the queue of kids waiting to use the foul-smelling toilet got bigger and bigger! Again, for some unknown reason, we slowed almost to a halt and there were funny clanking noises coming from underneath the train. I rushed to the window with all the other kids to see what was happening and got the fright of my young life. We were chugging ever so slowly across a gigantic bridge that stretched as far as the eye could see. And, looking down many hundreds of feet to the water below was really scary. I could see lots of warships anchored there, all shapes and sizes, but they all looked so tiny. One of the soldiers told me that this was the famous Saltash Bridge near Plymouth that separated Devon from Cornwall – yet another engineering feat by Brunel. I’ve seen many breathtaking sights in my life since then but that bridge was something else – so huge and so imposing. But little did the good people of Plymouth realise that they would soon be getting an unwelcome visit from Hermann Goering’s Luftwaffe in the very near future and that their docks would get a pasting with many civilian casualties. Sadly, some of the fatalities were evacuees from London who had been shipped down to Plymouth.

  The train started to pick up speed and the regular, repetitive track sounds of ‘de-dah-de-dah, de-dah-de-dah, de-dah-de-dah’, plus the swaying of the coaches, eventually made me nod off because I was quite content. I had never seen real cows or sheep before, or even green fields. This was a super adventure with my two sisters.

  My sleep was fitful and troubled, with the whole of my young life flashing across my brain – almost like a giant cinema screen. I could smell the sickly, sweet aroma of the sweaty parquet floor in my first nursery school and my Mum running off and leaving me with that horrible old lady. This was followed by the excitement and fear of sleeping down the Tube and being petrified by the empty train rushing through in the early hours, not really knowing what was going on. Then there was the acrid smell of burning buildings and the dank, earthy smell of the Anderson shelter. Was it just a bad dream and had it never really happened?

  Suddenly, a man’s stentorian voice on a crackling loudspeaker woke me from my fitful reverie. ‘Pa-r-rr, this be Pa-r-rr,’ boomed a voice in a strange accent. ‘Change ’ere for Lux–u-ly-an, Bu-gle, Roche, St Col-umb Road, Quintr-ell Downs and New-kay.’ My big sister grabbed my suitcase and my hand and shouted: ‘Look sharp Alfie or we’ll get left behind.’ Then, it was sheer pandemonium as hundreds of screaming kids left one train and made a bee-line for the other train on the far side of the platform. All the ladies in green uniforms were fighting a losing battle. They were shouting out for order and safety, but it was the first ones on the new train who got a seat. So their loud shouts of ‘Wait for me’ and ‘slow down’ fell on deaf ears. We managed to grab a seat and leant back in triumph. Little did any of us know that the remainder of the journey was only about an hour down the line and hardly time for a chat!

  ARRIVING AT THE SEASIDE

  As we chugged into a station, I heard someone say that we were now in Cornwall. But what did I know? The farthest I had ever been in my young life was an afternoon out at Highbury Fields and the only interesting things to see there were the massive barrage balloons that supposedly stopped low-flying German aircraft. I found out when I was much older that barrage balloons and ack-ack guns were not much more than a token gesture and almost totally ineffectual!

  It was absolute bedlam getting off the train. Lots of pushing, shoving and screaming and crying – while the big ladies in green uniforms fluttered about shouting in attempts to keep their groups together. I was safe and secure, tightly clutching my big sister’s hand. We filed out of the station to be greeted by more ladies, all wearing green uniforms. They started pushing up to us kids and peering at our brown labels, while in the background I could see a row of dirty grey charabancs – or coaches, as they are called nowadays. After what seemed like an eternity, our ‘chara’ was full up with screaming kids and the inevitable big ladies in green uniforms. So, off we went down the pretty country lanes with all the kids making a terrible racket and larking about. Within a few minutes the chara stopped and the driver yelled out in a funny accent. ‘This be Primrose Farm, missus.’ The big lady holding the clipboard looked down her list and motioned to the two little girls sitting in front of me saying. ‘Will the Smithson gells please follow me?’ So, off they toddled holding hands and when the clipboard lady came back we started off again with a grinding of gears and a jerk forward. This pattern of start and stop, with the driver calling out all the funny names in a funny accent and the big lady with the clipboard calling out the names of the kids carried on until there were only a dozen kids left on board with me and my two sisters. I wasn’t too upset when my youngest sister’s name was called out. She gave us both a big hug and said she would come round to see us soon. Absolute blind panic gripped my young, confused mind when we next stopped outside a pretty white stone farmhouse and my big sister’s name was called. The realisation finally d
awned in my young brain that I was going to be separated from my big sister who always looked after me. I was to be sent to a strange place all on my own. I went absolutely berserk in my blind panic, grabbing my big sister in a vice-like grip and screaming like a mad thing. I yelled pitifully: ‘Please don’t take my Joanie away from me.’ She started crying and held me tight saying: ‘Don’t worry Alfie, I’m only up the road from you.’ But no way would I let go of her. I shouted and I screamed and kicked out in all directions, using the foulest language I knew – even when the driver helped the big lady pull us apart. I distinctly remember the driver’s voice in the background saying to the lady in the green uniform with some concern. ‘This bain’t be right m’dear, you’m splitting up the little fella from his big sister, he be just a baby.’

  It wasn’t all like this! (Author’s collection)

  ‘My dear fellow,’ she snapped back at him, while clutching tightly on to my big sister. ‘There happens to be a war on and everyone has to suffer some discomfort.’

  The last glimpse I had of my big sister through tear-filled eyes was when the chara pulled away. She was waving like mad and standing next to a kind-looking, grey-haired woman. It really was an absolute lottery when you were evacuated. The couple who took in my big sister grew to love her as their own and pleaded with my Mum later on to let them adopt her. Unknowingly, I had drawn the short straw and was heading for a hell-hole with a witch in charge. In life, you win a few and you lose a few, but that’s the luck of the draw!

  THREE

  PENRYN PURGATORY

  I was sobbing inconsolably for the rest of the journey. The dull sound of the driver’s voice calling out the destinations seemed like a bad dream. Suddenly, the chara stopped and through my teary haze I saw the big lady in the green uniform heading purposely towards me. ‘Come along young chappie,’ she said, with a fixed smile on her face. ‘Your new auntie is waiting to say hello to you.’ ‘I ain’t bloomin’ going anywhere without my sister,’ I screamed like a mad person. ‘I’ve ’ad enough of the stupid seaside and I wanna go ’ome to my Mum.’ She let out a sigh of exasperation. ‘Don’t be so tiresome,’ she said, getting a hold of me, ‘it’s been a very long day and we’re all extremely tired.’ With that, she dragged me kicking and screaming out of the chara. I still remember the driver kindly saying: ‘It won’t be for long little fella and then you can go home.’

  It must have been winter, because I felt freezing cold standing outside the chara. The silence of the countryside, apart from my snivelling, was broken by the sound of a woman’s loud voice with a strong accent saying: ‘Who be making them noises like the beasts in the fields?’ I looked up to see a very old, very thin woman with tied-back grey hair and piercing blue eyes, staring out at me angrily through funny steel-rimmed glasses. She grabbed my hand roughly and said in a quiet, threatening voice: ‘We’ll have no more of this silly noise my boy. Just you’me pick up that-there bag and you can wash your face before supper.’ With that, I was dragged screaming into a very dark house out of sight of the lady in the green uniform who hadn’t even bothered to come in and check me out. I was dumped into a very dark bedroom and just left to cry myself to sleep, freezing cold and starving hungry from lack of food and frightened half to death.

  The next morning I woke up after a restless night, still freezing cold and hungrier than ever. I looked around at what would be my home for God-only-knew how long. Just about every single thing in my tiny room was tatty and dirty. The once-white lace curtains at the grubby windows, now took on the appearance of a light, sooty grey, finely peppered with years of bird feathers and droppings. The birds obviously used this particular window ledge for courting and to preen themselves every spring. The sparse furniture in the room, including an antiquated wardrobe and an even more antiquated dressing-table, could be described in today’s parlance as ‘rough-country rustic’. And, when I say ‘rough’ I mean VERY rough! Even my bed, with its rough-hewn ornamental headboard, looked as though it had been carved in anger by a mad Cornishman after a gutful of cider! The wobbly unit in the corner was obviously my ‘bathroom’, a chipped jug and wash basin – full of freezing cold water, just the job for a winter’s morning! My ‘bijou’ toilet facilities consisted of a battered tin potty under the bed on a moth-eaten carpet that must have been running alive with bugs! The whole room smelt of damp, a bit like the Anderson shelter in our garden back in London. The tearful inspection of my ‘cell’ was rudely interrupted by a woman’s loud voice with a strong accent shouting out ‘You boy’ – that was to be my name for the duration of my stay. ‘Get yourself washed in the basin and come down for your porridge – and look sharp about it.’ I did as I was instructed in the freezing cold water and went down the stairs following the smell of food into the kitchen. My tormentor was there, the skinny old woman with the funny glasses and the piercing blue eyes. Sitting next to her was an ugly, podgy boy, a couple of years older than me. I didn’t like the look of him from the start and I was right to be suspicious. This was ‘Young Sidney’, the offspring of the Witch and her husband and, as it turned out farther down the line, he was a right plonker. ‘Sit you down there boy,’ said the Witch.

  ‘Eat your porridge, go to the outside lavvy, then my Sidney will kindly take you to school.’ So, I walked with Sidney to my new school for God knows how far – it certainly took us a good half an hour each way and Sidney wasn’t in the least bit interested in talking to me. And the teacher wasn’t the slightest bit interested in teaching vacs; he knew full well we would all be moving on. And, as for me, I wasn’t the slightest bit interested in mixing with the tight-knit Cornish kids. They didn’t want the likes of me there and I didn’t want to be there either. So, I just sat at the back of the class totally oblivious of what was being taught. Playtimes became a bit of a problem for starters, especially when the brother of the gang-leader of the class decided to dig me out one day in front of a crowd of kids, just because I was a vac.

  He starting taunting me in front of his mates and saying diabolical things like. ‘I do think that your Ma and Pa ’ave been blown up by them-there bombs.’ Anyway, after I had given him a smack on the gob and made his nose bleed, the others hinted that I was in dead trouble because his brother ‘Big Dennis’ would be coming to sort me out! Anyway, Big Dennis arrived with a couple of his minders in the afternoon play break. I might have been a youngster but I was streetwise and I knew my way around the block. I knew exactly what was coming, so I had ‘borrowed’ a large spanner from the garden shed and tucked it down my trousers. Funny that, I wonder why the two minders ‘bottled out’ when I brandished it up their nostrils! As for Big Dennis, he was just a big old softie and told me his brother was a pain in the arse and got what he deserved. We became good mates for the rest of my stay.

  The return walks back to the Witch were much the same. Sidney had been lumbered with me and I had been lumbered with him. The dislike was mutual. But he was a little wary of me, even though he was bigger and older. He’d heard on the school grapevine that I had bloodied someone’s nose and become good mates with one of the school heavies. On top of that, the frustration of my predicament, coupled with my utter dislike of my situation, made me very feisty and likely to throw him some serious verbals. In fact, one time I threatened to break his legs if he grassed me up to his Mum for doing something which was forbidden. I hated my predicament and I hated just about everyone around me. Even as youngster I was still proud to be a London lad from the Angel and determined that these ‘carrot crunchers’ weren’t going to grind me down.

  It’s very difficult to estimate just how long I suffered at the hands of that awful woman in Penryn. It seemed like an eternity, but it was possibly only one winter. I can remember walking to school every day in the thick snow with the Witch’s son; then coming back from school, still walking in the thick snow. My mind recalls passing crossroads that had a petrol station on the corner. Many years later, I became a fan of the American artist Edward Hopper and was drawn into buying a h
uge print of one of his famous paintings called ‘The Gas Station’, simply because it looked exactly like the petrol station at that crossroads. My daily orders were to go into the woods on my way back from school and bring in some small twigs for the fire – or kindling as the Witch called it. Only me, mind you, not her fat, horrible son. Because I didn’t have any kind of gloves or protection for my hands, or even waterproof shoes, this caused me to get severe chilblains on my fingers and toes. Then, she tried teaching me to tie my shoe laces with a bow. But, because of my weeping chilblains and my swollen fingers, I couldn’t do a bow. So, I was punished and locked in a decrepit outside woodshed until, as she so succinctly put it: ‘You’me learn to obey your elders.’

  That woodshed was a nightmare. It was situated downwind, next door to the outside privy, and the attendant noxious smells came wafting in at all times of the day or night. I suppose it was about twice the size of a telephone box with logs piled up to the roof and a small space near the door where I sat on a rickety old chair, sobbing my heart out. It wasn’t quite so scary in the daylight hours because I could see the sky through the gaps in the wood. But I was absolutely petrified at being locked in there at night. Someone had thrown an old army-issue blanket over all the tools lying on the floor and I can still recall the red ‘WD’ stamped on it. So when it was freezing cold – which seemed like the whole time – I’d pick up the old army blanket, shake out all the spiders and ants, then wrap it around me and sit on the rickety old chair and just cry.

  My terror of the darkness in the woodshed led to bed-wetting and instead of realising that I was a frightened, lonely young chap, who was missing his family, this paragon of Cornish virtue threw me into the woodshed yet again for my ‘misdemeanors’. The nightmares and fear of the dark stayed with me into the early years of my marriage. My wife often tells the kids the story about the time I rugby-tackled her late at night when she was heading for the toilet and heavily pregnant. Or of the time when I jumped out of bed in a blind panic, tied our posh Venetian blinds into hideous shapes – not your modern-day plastic ones mind you, but tough aluminium blinds painted in pretty colours – smashed the window with one violent punch and dived out onto the lawn. Luckily for me, it was a ground floor flat!