Chapter 3 - Evacuation part 1

Waltham St Lawrence & Cookham
The population of the village of Waltham St Lawrence in Berkshire were rudely awakened by the invasion of Finlay Street JMI children. They should not have been there at all! 'Chub' and I were billeted with a couple who it is kindest not to name.

I wrote to Mum and Dad and said, "When one of us is in bed the other isn't." Dad came down to visit us and was shown a room with a double bed, the master bedroom, but he was not taken in by this, not that we were accustomed to sleeping in palatial conditions or that one bed between two would not have sufficed but the one bed which we were given was much too small. I have tried to be charitable over this since but can only assume that the couple who were quite hard up, hoped to make a reasonable gain from the two billeting allowances. Another memory which should have allowed me to be less charitable was the fact that there was an outside toilet which had a bucket that required regular emptying, the contents being buried in the back garden. The host complained bitterly about having to cope with the extra waste. Dad wrote to the School and alternative 'digs' were found.

'Chub' was moved to an ex jockey who had grown really huge and I was moved to Shirlock Row, into a farm cottage some distance up the Straight Mile. This is a road which, as the name suggests, is virtually straight and is a mile in length.

At some point the various authorities caught up with their mistake and the School was moved to nearby Cookham, where we had been expected in the first place. 'Chub' and I were back together now with Mr and Mrs Kevern of Whyteladyes Lane. (I know that the spelling is correct because I confirmed this on a nostalgia visit). Mr Kevern worked for Walls and cycled to Slough every day. He had a collection of silly expressions which were brought out at what seemed to him to be appropriate moments. The best example of this was when any mention was made of secrecy and he would say, "Hedges have ears and Walls have ices." Another was, "If at first you don't succeed, suck eggs."

Mrs Kevern was a very homely housewife who ran a mail order catalogue club. The Kevern's children had grown up and left home. One son was in the Marines and the other was in the Army. The wife of the son in the Marines lived in Maidenhead, a mere 3 miles distant and was in regular contact. The whole atmosphere was therefore one of a family nature.

The Kevern's hobby was keeping chickens. Both 'Chub' and I often fed them with bran and mash and collected eggs. The family next door were the Eatons which included two small sons and a baby daughter. The baby was born while we lived there and it was therefore quite natural that we should be shown the new treasure and make regular visits to observe progress. One day Mrs Eaton was breast feeding the baby and called, "Come in." I had never seen a baby feeding and was absolutely intrigued. Mr Eaton came in and there was a whispered discussion, the result of which was that it seemed quite natural that I should see baby in action. One day, one of the Eaton lads poked his penis through the chicken wire fencing, presumably to pass water, and one of the chickens jumped up and pecked it. There was no harm done but the plaintive wail of the lad: "Mrs Kevern's chicken bit my doodle-um!" will always be remembered.

Mrs Kevern ran a Littlewoods Club and we could earn 6d by taking her parcel to the railway station. 'Chub' and I both had bicycles at a fairly early stage, both 28 inch wheel machines, and the carriage of a large cardboard carton did not present either of us with any great problems.

For some unknown reason, one or other of us always seemed to have a bent crank. How this happened is a mystery to me, having never had a bent crank since. The solution lay in a visit to Mr Robinson. He was the local Chief Fireman and when Mum came down to Cookham to get away from the blitz, the Robinsons put her up for several months, prior to her moving in with Mr and Mrs Rutland. It seemed quite natural that we should seek Mr Robinson's advice on such matters as dealing with bent cranks and his solution was simply a sharp thump with a club hammer. It worked every time. Another frequent failure was one or other of our chains. The solution was simply the fitting of a spring link. Pending the famous Robinson thump or the purchase of a spring link, the serviceable cycle would be used to tow the other and 'Chub' and I became well known for our towing mode.

Dad visited us at Cookham and memory plus a little guesswork tells me that it was for Christmas 1939. I can recall seeing him off at Maidenhead, and my first sight of the Bear Hotel.

The School met at Pinder Hall, named after a local benefactor, Mr Pinder-Brown. It was quite a large hall and had a thick curtain which could be drawn across the longitudinal centre. The two ends of the hall thus formed each held two classes and there was therefore very little privacy. Two mothers had evacuated with their children and Mrs Pearcy gave out the daily doses of syrup of figs, cod liver oil and malt or Parish's food, according to the patient's needs. The playground was some waste ground alongside the Hall, since developed. The other mother, Mrs Ashley, had a son, Brian, who enticed me out one evening and encoutaged me to help him in putting earth into the filler of a tractor which was left in a field overnight. There was a lengthy enquiry and, his mother being close at had to support him, Brian managed to put the blame on me. However, there seems to have been doubt in several minds because a threatened Court case, the result of which would probably have been a birching, never transpired, much to my relief, and we were only required to apologise to the long suffering farmer.

The local Air Raid Precautions (A R P) Warden was Mr Winterbotham, pronounced by all and sundry as Winterbottom. This offended him (I must say that, in spite of being well liked, he was a bit on the pompous side) and he had his name changed, by deed poll, to Winter. He visited the School quite frequently to do gas mask drill and this caused some hilarity until we had become accustomed to it. The poor man unfortunately had a hair lip and so his instructions, even without his gas mask on, were open to some interpretation. Once he had his gas mask on then it required considerable experience to fully understand what was required. With the curtain drawn back and all the children sitting on the floor with their backs to the wall, the indefatigable Miss Gown would play such popular stirring melodies as 'Land of Hope and Glory' or 'There'll Always be an England' and we all sang. I would love to have a recording of us all singing with our gas masks on. Mr Winter took his duties very seriously.

One of the strange ironies of war was that, of all people, Mr Winter should be affected most by enemy action. It happened that, one Sunday morning, a German aircraft, probably a fighter/bomber, was being chased by an R A F fighter, probably a Hurricane, and the German pilot jettisoned his bombs (two 1Okg) to aid his getaway. One landed in a field and the other in Mr Winter's garden. It was a fine, sunny morning and the entire population of the district turned out to inspect the crater, scouring the area for shrapnel souvenirs. A further irony was that, when the crowd had dispersed, Mrs Winter had not even a tiny fragment of shrapnel and paid me 6d for a piece.

My first job was working for the local butcher. He paid me four shillings (2Op) for delivering meat on a Saturday morning in the Cookham Village, Cookham Rise and Cookham Dean area.

I took an interest in First Aid (nothing formal like St Johns) and carried a box on my carrier when I went to the River at week-ends. The box was only used once 'in anger' when a man asked for help for his son who had been hurt by a fall. The man gave me a shilling (5p) which paid for the entire contents of the box.

We were joined by Kenneth Cohen, who later changed his name by deed poll to Kenneth Curwen, "for business reasons", he said. Ken was the most obvious Jew that I have ever met and the change of name must rank as the thinnest disguise. Ken's twin cousins, Maurice and Lionel Selwyn, also joined us at Cookham. The River was a great attraction, swimming below the weir was in safe, shallow water and boating above the weir was a very pleasant pastime. I helped at Tuck's Boat Yard and was given 'free' use of a boat after the public hirings. Ken once dived in too close to the weir and was caught by the swirling tide. He was saved by a man who jumped in and, when the man stood up with the spluttering, dripping Ken, the water was seen to be only about two feet deep.

One of the most notable events at Cookham must have been the School play in which Miss King and Mr Pinder-Brown both appeared. The play was called 'The Odd Socks Robbery' and was written by 'Chub'.

There was a Polish Spitfire Squadron stationed at R A F White Waltham and the pilots were quartered in a country mansion called Hocketts at Cookham Dean. Mum went to make beds for them every day and it was from her that we heard the story of 'Half and Half'. One of the Poles was half Polish and half English, hence the nickname. One day he was reported missing, having been shot down in the Channel. He had a dinghy but no paddle and used his hands to propel himself back to England, having started fairly near the French coast. His hands took some time to heal but he survived. The pilots were often to be seen on their way to Cookham Village by car. One of the vehicles they had was an MG and they piled on this, probably no fewer than 8 at a time. The speed at which the car was driven was clearly excessive but the local Police had the good sense to take no action.

During the time that we were at Cookham I had learnt to swim and ride a bicycle. On the debit side, 'Arboo' had died but Mum and Dad had received an offer of accommodation from Fulham Borough Council. They had just completed construction of Burne Jones House, a block of flats in West Kensington. If the flats were not occupied then the Government would almost certainly requisition them for refugees and the Council, anxious to avoid this, wrote to offer flats to people who had been on their housing list for some time. Mum and Dad took the offer and number 3O, a second floor flat, became our family home.

The Cavalier family lived at number 24. Mr Cavalier was the foreman plumber at Fulham Borough Council and had been persuaded to take the job of porter in order to see all the new tenants in. He was a gentleman of the old school, and had a wife and four children, Jean, Ken, Sheila and Paul. Our two families quickly grew together and the hospitality of the Cavalier family extended to all of us being invited to sleep in their ground floor flat during air raids.

Previous: Chapter 2 - Four Four Six Next: Chapter 2 - Four Four Six