Life on the Run

by Stan Eldon

  These were the first livestock I owned, and when I got home, I did get into trouble, when I tried to see if bantams could swim. The little chick was rescued by my mother, wrapped up to keep it warm, and it survived. These bantams were my first pets and I had them for some years; providing their special little eggs. Later I had pet black mice, racing pigeons, rabbits, and when I was married, a large number of chickens and two very special black Labrador dogs, Simon and Berry; one before we had children and one after.

  Our family had many holidays in the little cottage that my mother grew up in with her fourteen brothers and sisters. This was one of a row of five cottages, stone built with two rooms on the ground floor, two bedrooms on the next floor and one attic room that had to be accessed via what was not much more than a ladder. The children slept three up and three down in a double bed. There was no gas, electricity or water in the cottage, and of course no bathroom or other facilities. About thirty feet from the back door, there was a long corrugated shed which spread behind all the whole row. Each of the homes had part of this and in it was a copper (for the washing) and a toilet which needed frequent emptying. My grandfather would carry the slop bucket up to his allotment and he grew some marvellous vegetables and fruit! The water supply was one tap shared by all the occupants of the five cottages. The only hot water came from the range or a Primus stove, that seemed to be forever on the go. The atmosphere in this lovely old cottage was great and I had some of the best holidays of my life there; although I must admit I never stayed there during winter months, when I am sure it lived up to its name of Windwhistle.

  After the war, when I was on holiday at Tisbury, I used to go with my Uncle George, who lived in the family cottage, on his cattle truck taking and collecting cows, mainly from Shaftesbury Market but sometimes Salisbury. I assisted with driving the animals on and off the lorry and I always remember him being very precise as to how this was done, and he always warned me to be very careful because two or three cows could crush you and cause a lot of damage or worse.

  On one of my holiday visits, I had a driving accident, and I was only about eight or nine years old. The crash was in a cousin’s toy pedal car which I had borrowed. I thought I would try and go faster than normal by taking it down a steep hill on a sideroad and down into the High Street in Tisbury, which was also downhill. It started all right, but soon the car was out of control and my feet had to come off the pedals, which was the only way to stop the car. I swept down the first hill, going faster and faster, and took the right-hand turn into the High Street all right, but the little car was totally out of control and I knew that if I did not stop, I would be going downhill for perhaps a half a mile before it would stop on its own. As I reached the Village Hall on the left-hand side, I took a decision that I had to turn into the road alongside, which was flat. I swung to the left and the car rolled over several times throwing me onto the road. A large bump on the head, and then I had to make a return journey up the hill to take the car back. It seems crazy today, not least because taking a toy car down onto any High Street, even in a village, would seem to be mad in today’s world with heavy traffic, but in those days, there were very few cars around. It was good lesson in driving and taught me to be careful of taking corners too fast!

  I sometimes stayed with another uncle, Eric, his wife Marion and family in a small sweet shop in the village. I always enjoyed that stay, and it was not just because it was a sweet shop. I sometimes cycled there from Windsor, and on one occasion, I did travel by train, and for the journey home I had to get the train from Tisbury; but for some reason we were late at the station and my uncle, who ran a car hire business as well as the shop, decided he would get me to Salisbury Station ahead of the train. He had one good leg and one artificial leg, but he could drive and he made it to Salisbury Station after racing around the bending country roads, by seconds, and I ran on the platform and just caught the train.

  In 1944 my father and brother made the journey to Reading for their medical examination, to see if they were fit to be called-up for active service. They went together on the same day and they both came back A1. Dad was the most pleased I think, as he thought he might see active service in his third war. My brother wanted to be a pilot, but neither got the call as the war was coming to an end.

  My youngest sister Judith was born on 5th May 1945, and within a couple of weeks my father received a War Office telegram to say that my elder stepbrother Leslie, a quartermaster sergeant, who was serving on detachment from the Royal Berkshire Regiment with the Africa Rifle Corps had died in Africa on 29th May; just one week after my other brother Bernard’s nineteenth birthday. I had never seen my father so upset and although I got on well with Leslie, I think my main concern was the loss of my regular supply of chocolate when he was on leave. He had only been married a short while before his return to the oversea’s posting and his new wife May had a son David after Leslie’s death and he grew up to be a very successful international banker in the Middle East and Hong Kong.

  I suppose ability in whatever field must come from parents and forebears and I think my running ability must have come from my father who had been an Army Boxing Champion in India and who at the V-E celebrations in Windsor, outsprinted all the opposition, even though he had a broken toe and was sixty years of age. I remember the victory celebrations in Windsor. All school children were entertained in the Holme Park by Uncle Mac of ‘Children’s Hour’ fame and I have never forgotten the singing of ‘Jerusalem’. I remember our own V-E celebrations in Elm Road.

  There were the above ground air-raid shelters spread down the road, one for every four or five houses and the one outside my home was used as the launch pad for a firework display as part of the street’s celebrations, but disaster struck when a firework went off in the box containing the rest of the fireworks; it gave a very spectacular but short display. Although only a small terrace house, we had a flagpole in both the front and back gardens, and the Union Jack was hoisted on both as it was on all royal occasions during my father’s life. We never actually lined up to salute the flag but it came pretty close!

  When I was about eight to ten years old, I used to go to work with my father at the local laundry where he was a van driver. We often travelled over what seemed in those days to be quite long journeys, although in fact they were all within the Windsor/Ascot area. I quite liked loading the bundles and baskets of washing on and off the vans and there was a unique smell about laundries which had a strange attraction.

  There was another attraction at the laundry. It was a ‘what-the-butler-saw’ machine that preceded television; I enjoyed winding the handle and seeing the moving pictures.

  At the end of the war, both my maternal grandparents died, and as my grandmother died when the primroses were out, many of her children (she had fourteen) and grandchildren, including me, went and collected buckets full of the flowers from the local woods. There were masses of them; and then her sons wired the inside of the grave before putting bunches of primroses every few inches around the wire mesh.

  I remember other details of early life in Windsor. On a Saturday the Co-op came round the road with a horse and cart selling bread, cakes and provisions. Most Saturdays I would be given a halfpenny to spend on a very nice little fruit cake that they sold.

  The milkman delivered the milk by churn and my mother would take a jug out to him, and the milk would be scooped out from the churn into the jug.

  On Sunday, a man would come on his cycle cart selling cockles and seafood.

  From school we used to go swimming (not that I could swim), and the swimming ‘pool’ was a backwater of the Thames that was cut off by a wooden pole across the river; but it did have changing rooms, diving boards, and the water was graded by depth. Later we went to proper swimming baths at Maidenhead or Burnham Beeches, although I did not learn to swim until just before I joined up, and then it was thanks to girlfriend Marion who was a very good swimmer. Just as wel
l, as it was pretty essential when I joined the police and I remember having to swim in the sea in early November as part of training.

  About a year after the war ended, ice creams came back on sale and I remember when as a family we were walking along the river and my parents bought a couple of choc ices that were cut in half so that we could have a taste. They cost 4d, which was about the same as a loaf of bread.

  When I was about nine or ten years old, I used to go on the River Thames in my brother’s canvas boat; it was a sort of canoe/kayak but not that stable. On one occasion as we were pulling back into the millstream near Clewer Church in Windsor, we were passing a jetty where there was a small craft tied up. Suddenly we saw a naked boy on the jetty and he jumped off with the intention of landing on the tied-up boat. He missed his footing and pushed the boat away, to end up in the river which was around ten feet deep at this point. I remember seeing him sort of swimming around under the water, almost like a water baby, but he obviously could not swim. My brother knew he was drowning and we pulled over as close as we could to where he was submerged, and as he came up to the surface for the second time, my brother grabbed him while I tried to keep our boat upright. We both succeeded and got the lad, who was about my age, to the bank. I remember the reaction of that boy to this day. It was really quite strange; he thought he had enjoyed the experience floating under the water and did not realise how close he had come to disaster. Somebody collected him from the jetty, and a quick thanks and we were on our way.

  If that was a near-death experience for that young boy, another incident happened much closer to home a little later. My family and I were at home one weekend when there was a knock on our front door. Dad opened the door and the lady next door staggered in covered in blood. I remember my parents getting a bucket of water and towels and tea towels to try and stop the bleeding. We did not have a telephone but someone, probably my older brother, must have gone to the phone box on the corner of the road, because an ambulance came, and later the police. The man next door had tried to kill his wife by hitting her over the head with a hammer, and a little later he was taken away. I remember he was only out of circulation for a short time and seemed to be back with his wife at their home next door very quickly. He was an old soldier from the First World War and had apparently had some temporary mental problem and was not detained for very long.

  I mention elsewhere that I have never been a great fan of football, but as a young boy my father did take me to watch Windsor and Eton FC matches at Stag Meadow on the edge of Windsor Great Park. The club were know as the Royals in those days before the name was somehow highjacked by the county town and Reading Football Club. Windsor had a reasonable team and I will always remember one player, Billy Griffiths, and wonder what modern referees and players would make of him. He was a hard man and in almost every match he would end up knocking a player down with a punch, and I can only very rarely remember him being sent off. He was a good footballer and other players would be going for him, and it was not surprising that he took his revenge in this extreme way. He seemed to get away with it most of the time, and his skill probably helped to keep him on the pitch. He was a sporting character and I did meet him once very much later in life when we were both at an athletic event where one of his family was competing, and like so many sportsmen, he was very much a gentleman off the pitch. Footballers had a lot to put up with in those days; there were the very heavy dangerous football boots with those lethal studs made from leather and nails. Then there was that solid toecap; no soft leather like the modern boot. Tackling was hard but I do not recall seeing any more players injured, in fact probably less than today.

  After the war, there were the 1947 floods in Windsor following a really bad winter. I lived about a mile from the River Thames and one Sunday afternoon we went for a family walk. Someone had told us that the river was high and there was some flooding, but we had only gone about a quarter of a mile towards the river when we found everywhere covered in water. Most of Windsor was underwater and in some areas nearer the river, the water was at first-floor level.

  Quite naturally boys of my age turned the floods into a game, and we took a tin bath down to the flood water, a long way from the river, and paddled around in it, while my brother and others were involved in more serious activities; getting food and supplies to many of the homes underwater, in some cases up to the first floor.

  A couple of years after the war, my family were hit by the plague; or rather it seemed like it. It was in fact scarlet fever. I was the first to go down with it around Christmas, but the doctor called it tonsillitis to avoid me going to hospital. I remember taking some rather large unpleasant pills (that was when someone was watching, otherwise they were hidden under the bed), but the ones I took did eventually improve the condition. But it did not help my mother, brother and sister who all picked it up from me, and all had to have a stay in the isolation hospital at Maidenhead.

  By now I was better, and spent a lot of my time keeping my youngest sister amused. The funny thing I remember about this period, was the way we were partly treated like lepers. A very well-meaning friend and neighbour used to come along and put food she had cooked for us on the windowsill at the front of the house, tap on the window and run away. She had three children of her own, so this was an understandable precaution, although I found it strange at the time. After the scarlet fever had been diagnosed, and after my mother and brother had been removed to hospital, in came the local council to fumigate the house room by room. Each room was completely sealed and given the treatment; it really was like having the plague.

  In September 1947, I had started at the Windsor County Boys’ School, the local Grammar School. I had done reasonably well at the Royal Free School, where only two subjects were put onto the chart showing performance. Blue for Maths where I was always at or near the top, and red for English where I probably hovered below the halfway mark. There was then an interview in the library of the Grammar School and I thought I did OK. This was confirmed when I was awarded a place at the school. There were three classes at entry A, B, and C and I made it to the B class. I always thought, and still do, that I got there on merit, but my mother told me years later that I got there because we lived opposite the town mayor, Fred Fuzzens, and the headmaster thought I was related.

  The cost of new school uniform and other clothes, were out of the reach of my parents, but fortunately we had friends who were quite well-off coal merchants in Windsor. They had two sons and their quality clothing was always passed on to me.

  I started my new school in the September, and I well remember the watermarks in the classrooms where the school had been flooded. It had been rumoured that there were initiation ceremonies connected to the goats that were tethered on the school field, but I never suffered from this or other bullying. I remember just one occasion when someone did approach me on the field at break, but before I knew what was going on, one of the school rugby players gave him a flying tackle and sent him packing. I am not even sure he was going to pick a fight with me but I never had trouble again.

  Rugby was the school game, and at the end of the very first term, I went with a school friend and his father to Twickenham for the Varsity Match. It was packed, standing room only and we were tucked in one corner behind a lot of other people. Fortunately my friend’s dad was a big man and throughout the match he would lift us onto his shoulder in turn so that we could at least see something of the match, as well as soak up the atmosphere. It did something, because I have always enjoyed rugby far more than that other game of “football”.

  At my previous school, I had mostly gone home at lunch time, but at my new school I had dinner most days and it was very good, especially on Fridays; partly because we always had excellent fish and chips and probably jam tart and custard (I might have four or five helpings); but there was another attraction. The wife of my games master would be serving the lunches that day, and she was very attractive, wearing rev
ealing low-cut dresses. In an all-boys’ school this was a big attraction! As was the once-a-week session in the school gym for the girls of a neighbouring school, who came in for their PE lessons in their navy-blue knickers.

  About the same time, my brother Bernard, who had completed his two years’ National Service with the Tank Corps, was now a commissioned officer in the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve. He had always wanted to fly, and was very disappointed not to have had the chance while the war was still on. He became a glider pilot and was very good. I used to go with him to a small airfield at Bray near Maidenhead, and go out on the jeep to bring back the launch cable after it had been dropped from the gliders. He used to do displays and perform some very tricky manoeuvres when he was flying. He never crashed, although I remember one of my jobs was to stick patches on the glider after the outer skin had got torn on occasions. He always promised to take me up, but I was only around twelve years old, and whenever he was going to give me a flight in a two-seater, there was always some ‘top brass’ around, so the promised flight never happened.

  I had been a Wolf Cub since I was eight years old, and had reached the dizzy heights of being a ‘Sixer’. I moved up to the 2nd Windsor Scouts in 1947 and rapidly became a ‘Patrol Leader’ (mainly because I was taller than most).