When I was about five years old, one day after school I went to play in a friends house. At tea time his mother asked me if I would like a drink and some cake. I said yes please, she gave me a cup of tea that was very strong and very, very sweet, the cake was also very sweet with lots of icing on top. Being rather shy, I ate the cake and drank the tea. Then the good lady said, I know little boys like more than one cake and gave me another, which was even sweeter than the first. Next she gave me some biscuits with jam in the middle, I ate one, jumped up and said, I have to go home and ran out!! I managed to get into the street, where I was very sick. Since that day I have never liked anything sweet. I do not eat cakes, jam, toffees or milk chocolates etc. The smell of biscuits or cakes make me feel sick. One thing I would like to thank that lady for, I am a grandfather now and I still have my own teeth.
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When I was eight years old I used to go to Sunday school. We used to play games and the teacher, Miss Davis used to tell us stories. Occasionally the Vicar would come and read a lesson or just talk. We always finished up, singing a hymn, I am not a very good singer, so I just used to mime the words, that is why I always sat on the back row. One Sunday, all the children were all singing as loud as they could, and there was me opening my mouth, nothing coming out. (It was almost 12.0 clock, going home time) When a loud voice boomed out from behind me!! Miss Davis there is a little boy here opening his mouth, but there is no sound coming out!! The Vicar was stood behind me. Fortunately it was home time, however he said, next Sunday I want all the boy's to come out in front of the class and sing on their own, for me. I never went to Sunday school again. I wonder what he would say now, if he knew, I threaten my grandchildren if they are naughty that I will sing to them!! It works.
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I left school in October 1935, finishing on a Friday afternoon, on the Monday morning I started work in the cartage office at LMS Railway, Goods Dept. London Road, Manchester. I used to start work at 5.0 am in the morning, and book on duty at the time office. The time keeper's were very keen, if you were two minutes late they would record it and if you were late three times in a month, you had to go and see the chief clerk. I was very rarely late, because I had a knocker-up. He was a man that used to come to our house at 4.0 am in the morning, with a long pole that had four or five wires fastened to the end. He would reach the pole up to the bedroom window and rattle them on the glass until I woke up and knocked back to let him know I was awake. My job when I first got there in the morning, was to go to what was called the shed yard, this was next to the approach road to London Road passenger station. There I worked in a timber shed, that was used as a office. My job was to make out delivery sheets for the early morning carter's, these were done using the old type pen and ink, blue for the writing, green ink for the weights. (The carter's were the men who delivered goods, with horse drawn carts) The delivery sheet contained the information of what the man had on his vehicle, the number of packages, type of goods, (in the early morning it was usually fruit and vegetables etc) the consignees name and address, the senders details. Then I had to book the man out on his work note, the time and where he was delivering. Fruit and veg, was usually for traders in Smithfield Market, in Manchester. After booking the early morning men out, I returned to the Cartage office, which was underneath the passenger station. There I would have to book the Motor drivers, and carter's out with their loads, which contained various types of goods, that had arrived, mainly over night, from all corners of the country. There was also a considerable amount that came in via the docks, these items were from all over the world. We also had numerous other jobs to do, booking the men to meals and back, making work note's out for the following day etc. There were about two hundred carter's and over one hundred motor drivers, in them days. It was a very busy office, there were six juniors including myself and there were older clerks doing the more important work.
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When war broke out in September 1939, I was too young for the forces. At the time I was working at Hunts Bank, the Railways main office in Manchester. The Civil Defense was well organised, but there were not many air raids for the first twelve months. Then in September 1940, the raids became more frequent, and the public were asked to volunteer, for air raid precautions. I went along, and was asked a lot of questions, when I told them I had passed my third year examination in first aid and I had a driving licence. They asked me if would volunteer to become a ambulance driver, and I agreed. (I still have my ambulance driving licence ) After finishing work at night I used to go to the ambulance depot in Claremont Road, Manchester. (we were issued with, a steel helmet, gas mask and arm band) If there was no air raid, we used to read, play cards or darts, and of course drink Tea! They had a system of warning lights, to let us know when enemy aircraft was approaching our area. When we got the amber, the first ambulance to go, were put on stand by. That meant they were brought out of the garage, and the driver stood by with the engine running. A red light was shown when it was thought we were definitely the target, occasionally the aircraft did turn away, but no chances were taken. When we had a call out, a senior trained ambulance person went with the driver to look after the injured. It was always a hazardous journey, driving in the black-out, with just a glimmer of light from the headlamp's. When you got near to where the bomb had exploded, there was all types of debris to manoeuvre round. We then had to take the injured to the Manchester Royal Infirmary as quickly as possible giving them a smooth ride if we could. Rather awkward in the dark with bombs dropping and the roads littered with bricks etc. On the night of 10th Oct 1940, I had been on duty, there had been a air-raid, with a fair amount of bombs dropped. It was not a very heavy raid and did not last too long, soon after the all clear sounded I walked home, feeling tired. When I got to our street, there was a rope across and a notice on it "Keep out" I was just about to duck under, when a policeman shouted "Where do you think you are going?" “Home” I said, “at No2”. He said “you are not going there tonight, there is a exploded bomb, just yards from your house and all the people have been evacuated.” I said “very good, but I will have to go in and get my clothes and things I need for work in the morning”. He said, “all right but make it very quick”. In the house, I got a shock, there was my father, having a shave, getting ready to go to work, he was on night duty at the railway. He had slept through the air-raid and all the noise of the police and wardens, knocking and shouting. Where he was standing when I went in, to where the bomb was, in a straight line, was about ten yards.
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Just before Christmas 1940, one of my friends said his mother would let us have a Christmas party at their house if all our teenage friends went round before the party and got the room ready, putting the decorations up etc. This we arranged to do on Sunday, 22nd December 1940. A crowd of us arrived there in late afternoon and got on with the job. About 6.30pm the sirens sounded, heralding the commencement of the Manchester blitz. Of course we did not know that at the time and little notice was taken of the sirens, party preparations continued. After a while, the guns opened up and the incendiaries began to rain down. The lady of the house and some of the girls decided it was time they took cover. They went to a nearby air raid shelter under the local Town Hall. There was about eight of us stayed behind and carried on, we all had our different jobs, two of the girls were putting clean curtains up, two people were decorating the tree, I was painting the fire place and the rest were putting streamers up. During a lull some of us had a walk out, there were fires raging all round. We were back in the house when the heavy bombs started to fall, much too close for comfort. One landed nearby and we all saw one of the walls move in, we all agreed it looked as if it was coming in on us. The curtains and a lot of the decorations fell down. We then took shelter in the cellar under the house, the only light was from a bit of candle. Shortly after we got down there, a bomb hit the back of the house. When the bricks and rubble stopped falling, we were all covered in dust and choked with soot. When that settled and there were no more explosions near by, one of the lads tried to open the cellar door, he found we were trapped. When he told us, one of the girls said, thank goodness we are alive and no one is injured. Eventually a warden came along and shouted, is there anyone in there! we shouted back to him! The front door had been blown off so he was able to walk in, he told us that a wall had gone and the bricks were blocking the door. He managed to move some of the bricks and we pushed it sufficiently to enable us to squeeze through. Instead of escaping into the fresh air, out side it was filled with smoke and there was an awful smell of burning, All round there was a red glow, broken in parts by flames leaping up from the burning buildings. It was as if the whole of Manchester was burning.
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On the 8th April 1941, I went for my medical examination for the forces and passed Grade 1. I enlisted in the army on the 19th June 1941, at the Training Battalion, Lanion Barracks, Pembroke, South Wales. This is where I did my initial training, along with hundreds of other recruits. The object was to get civilians to a peak of fitness, for the tough army life to follow and to teach them how to use army weapons. We were there until August 1941, then I was posted to The 2nd Technical Training Centre, Gopsall Hall, Twycross. (Between Ashby-de-La-Zouch and Nuneaton, Warwickshire) I already had a driving license, but we had to drive all types of army vehicles, large, small, tanks and other tracked transport, like the bren-carriers. Then we had to pass a test on them. I was there from August to the end of September, when we were all posted to different units. My posting was to the, 55th Infantry Divisional Workshops, "A" Recovery Section. They were stationed in Heathfield, East Sussex, at the time. We moved from there to Cheltenham, where we stayed until December, our next move was to Bishop Middleham, North East, England. From there the section moved to Craghead, again in the North East. I was with them from September 1941 until near the end of February 1942, when I was posted, this time to a Mobilisation Centre, at Bulwell, Nottingham. (I knew this meant I was going overseas) The draft I was posted to was the 66th HAA W/Shop, Section. On the 19th March 1942, we boarded the SS Orion and sailed in a large convoy a few days later. Our first port of call was Cape Town, in South Africa on the 23rd April 1942. A few days later we boarded the SS Mauretania and sailed through the Indian Ocean to Bombay, arriving at 08.15 hrs, Sunday 10th May 1942. From there we drove our vehicles across India to Calcutta. Where the HAA Regiment placed their guns round the town, in all places of military importance in case of air attack by the Japanese. However the anticipated air-raids did not happen and after a few months we moved again. This time by train and road, through Assam to the jungle in the Naga Hills, on the Burma border. Here are some of the places, where I went to, Dimapur, Kohima, Imphal, Tamu, Jorhat, Golaghat, Sibsagar, Tinsukia, Digboy, Lido Dibrugarh, Jaipur, Gaurisagar and more, I can not remember all off hand. The list is not in any order. (Going there we crossed the Brahmaputra river at Gauhati) I served in the Far East from 1942, until 1945. The Japanese surrendered in August 1945. Our unit came back home to England on the SS Empress Of Scotland in November 1945. Back home I went working in the Railway Offices, where I first started work when I left school in 1935.
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