|
“LIGHTS OUT, NO
TALKING” |
THE
WAR |
|
On Sunday the 3rd. of September,
we were still waiting for definite news. In terms of current affairs
type news, we were fairly isolated from the rest of the world. We did
not always hear the news on the 'wireless', and had to rely on boys
who worked in special jobs, i.e., house boys, who overheard people talking,
for our news. At 10 AM, when we were sent to dress for church, we were
also told that there would be a special announcement on the wireless
by Mr. Chamberlain at eleven o'clock. Normally, at eleven o'clock, we
would have all been in church waiting for the service to begin. On this
Sunday, we waited, on the terrace, on Church Parade. Mr Sawford, the
teacher of Form Three, and general radio handyman, had rigged up a speaker
by one of the side doors, and facing the terrace. From the moment Mr.Chamberlain declared war, I had that peculiar sensation of fear and excitement inside me. All sorts of thoughts went through my head. Would we have air raids? Would there be gas attacks? Would there be food rationing? Would the Germans invade Britain? Would they try to bomb the very important radio installation which was situated on top of the hill just behind the school? There were about a dozen or so very tall masts in the installation which I felt sure would be one of the first targets of any bombing raids. At the church service, our usual prayers for '...The King,...and those who rule over us...,' was augmented with the addition of the armed services, the Merchant Navy, and '...especially the old boys from this school...' This was to become a regular part of the church service, and also part of the morning prayers that were said each day at Divisions in the gym. Once back at the school, our imagination's ran wild with speculation as to what we thought the Germans would do. We imagined them coming up the channel and landing on the beach in their quest to capture the radio installation. If they weren't after that, then they would come anyway for either the power station at Portishead, or the huge dock complex at Avonmouth. There was no limit to the targets we assigned to them. After supper, as we all went to our dormitories to wash and to bed, came our first brush with wartime regulations. The Blackout. Fortunately, it was not quite dark as we went to bed. It was our practice to leave the dining hall, and wait outside our dormitories for our duty officer to unlock them. They were kept locked during the day to keep boys out of them. As we waited on the landing, the officer came up the stairs carrying a bucket containing a storm lantern. Storm Lanterns are very reliable, and are not easily extinguished by accident. We were overawed. So this is what war time is going to be like. Several buckets containing the storm lanterns were placed around the dormitory, and one in the latchey. The sound of the 'Last Post' that night carried with it more than the usual implied command of 'Lights out, no talking'. As the notes of the last post echoed around the gym, the storm lanterns were extinguished one by one, plunging us into darkness. It was then, I think the realisation that we were at war, really began to sink in. Due mainly to our geographically and sociologically isolated position, we were in some respects, quite distant from the war. Since we had minimal contact with the outside world, we were quite oblivious to many of the day to day war time effects shouldered by the civilian population in general. Although we had a blackout, we didn't really know what it was like to be out in it, apart from the occasional visit to Bristol which occurred for various reasons. Food rationing didn't bother us, because our meals stayed much the same anyway. We did notice a big difference in the shipping which passed the school, to and from Avonmouth and Portishead. Within weeks, all the different coloured hulls of the ships which passed had been painted grey. True, there were different shades of grey, but they were all grey. The Royal Navy ships had always been grey, so they didn't alter much, what did alter, was the frequency at which we saw them. The cargo boats all lost their white superstructures and smart liveried funnels, giving them a look of drab solemnity and urgency as befitted the occasion. Many of the smaller 'coasters' now carried their own barrage balloon, usually secured somewhere near the after deck, and ready to be sent up aloft should the need arise. We became quite used to seeing these huge, often unwieldy objects anchored to the decks of passing ships. They also became a familiar part of the skyline over the docks, and further afield, over Bristol and Avonmouth. In the days and weeks that followed, other war time realities entered our lives. We were issued with gas masks, and given the imperative to have them with us at all times. The issue of gas masks was not unexpected. we had been fitted for them some time before. There were only three sizes, small, medium, and large, so the requisite number of each size was brought to the school and distributed. We wrote our name and 'Big' number on the cardboard box, We learned how to wear them, and clean the window so that it did not 'fog up'. For some time, we carried them with us religiously, but gradually they were relegated to piles of gas masks in the corner of whatever room we were in, and eventually, to our bedside lockers. They were not abandoned entirely, and always slung over the shoulder on church parades, shore leave, and other official occasions and gatherings. Within a few weeks, all the windows in the school were fitted with black out shutters. These were large, plywood shutters, hinged to the sides of each window, so that they could be closed like doors, preventing the light from spilling to the outside. This made our life so much easier, and highlighted the unsophisticated nature of our first rudimentary attempts to come to terms with the blackout with the storm lanterns in buckets. Next came Air Raid Precautions. (A.R.P.) A siren was fitted to the retaining wall, right on the large, sweeping bend of the drive outside Mr. Britton's house. Placed there, all the staff who lived in the houses in the woods could hear it quite plainly, no matter what the weather. We were to learn that there were three states of alert, each corresponding to a colour. Yellow alert was the least threatening, and at the other end of the scale, Red Alert meant 'Air Raid in progress,' in which instance, all boys and staff were to go to the shelters. The shelters in our case, were the boiler rooms, or stoke holds as we called them, under the terrace, and in front of the main entrance. There were two of them, one for each wing of the school. They could be accessed from stairs on each side of the building, and without going outside. They were ideal places from a protective point of view, but considering that they each had huge mounds of coke in them, plus a certain amount of fumes from the furnaces, they were not very sociably agreeable. During the first few months of the war, when there were really no air raids to speak of, all we had to contend with were the regular air raid drills. When the siren sounded, we had to drop whatever we were doing, make sure we had our gas masks, and proceed in an orderly manner to the shelter allocated to us. Some boys were allocated to bring benches from the dining hall, and we 'sat it out' until the 'All clear' went. 'Sitting it out' meant arranging the benches around the edges of the stoke holds, and around each huge mound of coke. There was a small passage which connected the two stokeholds. This had a couple of water circulating pumps in it, but otherwise, it was basically free of obstruction. This passage could house quite a few boys sat on benches. For months we carried on with our ARP drills, coping as best we could. I think some of us thought the 'real thing' would never happen! Then quite suddenly, when the 'Blitz' started in earnest, we found ourselves having to repair to the stoke holds at night, and in our night shirts! Given that most of us resented being dragged from our warm beds, half asleep, at whatever time at night, we mostly sat wherever we could. Unfortunately, 'wherever we could' was as often as not, on the heap of coke! We were emerging, later on looking like Welsh miners! As the bombing of Bristol worsened, we were spending more time in the shelters than we were in the dormitories. Something had to be done. In between the two stoke holds, was Seamanship One, otherwise known as 'The Binnacle' after the housing on a ship's bridge which holds the compass. The Seamanship One room was similar to the other classrooms on the Lower Road. It had a high vaulted roof, but unfortunately, the entire front of the rooms consisted of panes of glass - not very protective! Within a very short space of time, the glass fronts of three of these classrooms - including the binnacle - were replaced with three brick walls. Knocking a hole in either stokehold wall made internal access to the binnacle from either stokehold. This was done so that we could have access to the shelters (as they now were) without going outside. Once the brickwork and other alterations were complete, the relevant portions of the stokeholds, and the three shelters were whitewashed, and we took up permanent residence. Our mattresses were brought down, and we were allocated places on the floor where our beds were to be made. I can't remember just how long we stayed down there, but it was well into 1941, and certainly until the blitz on Bristol eased off. When I left the school in March 1942, we had been back in the dormitories for some months. CIVILIAN A.R.P. PRACTICE AT one time, during 1941, a group of boys (I was one of them) was sent to the First Aid Post in the village. At that time, the First Aid Post was at St.Peters School at the far end of the High Street. I think we must have been selected rather than asked to volunteer. I say this simply because when chances like an afternoon outside the school were on offer, other boys usually got in first! However, I went. We walked down to the centre, and were given instructions to spread ourselves out, in the playground, and one or two inside the school house. I stayed in the playground. We were to lie down as if wounded, when a first aid worker would visit us. He - or she, would tie a label on us explaining the nature of our 'injuries'. Where appropriate, the medic would apply a temporary dressing to 'stem the flow of blood', or immobilise a 'broken leg' or other limb. They would then tell us what our particular injuries were, and how to 'act out' the particular injury when the ambulance called to transport us to hospital. It was all excellent training for the medical people. For us it was a wonderful afternoon, out of the school, and with a reward of tea, and all the cakes and sandwiches we could eat at the conclusion of the exercise. I never went again, but I'm sure that other boys went at other times. ARMISTICE DAY 1941 For over a year or more, I was a bugler. It was a job I liked doing. I learned to play, as did all the other buglers, by pestering the duty bugler into allowing me to carry the bugle when not in use. This was most of the time of course, as the bugle was only required for a few minutes at a time. The duty bugle was a battered old thing, and I would take it into a corner somewhere, and practice. Practice was done by placing one's hand over the horn, so that only minimum amount of sound escaped. However, this was quite an effective way of learning how to create a sound with it. Eventually, the bugler would allow me to blow a call. A simple one at first, then when he saw you had attained a reasonable level of competence, he would allow more and more calls, until eventually one was allowed to attend band practice. I worked quite hard at trying to achieve a certain 'brassy' sound on the instrument. I liked nothing better than playing Last Post and Reveille from the balcony which overlooked the gym, and to hear the sounds echoing around the bare walls. After some months of regular band practice, and one or two inclusions in the band when someone was ill, I was put on the 'Duty Bugler's' list. I was eventually made Band Leader. Band Leader was designated by Mr. Johns, the band instructor who came down from Bristol one night a month to teach us bugling and drumming. The qualification required to be band leader was a mix of skill with the bugle, and seniority within the band. The main job of the band leader was to make sure there were enough buglers each Sunday for the march to church, (usually eight). The band leader also had the privilege of selecting the tunes which would be played during the march. Band practice took place in the 'Tub Room' on the Lower road. The Tub Room was where the boys who wet the bed, washed out their sheets. It was about the third classroom along, on the western side of the Binnacle. On Armistice Day 1941, together with
a few more boys, I was taken to the Congregational Church on the corner
of Nore Road and Battery Point Road for the morning service. The small
squad of boys carried appropriate flags, and was part of the Remembrance
Service. At the appropriate moment during the service, I played 'Last
Post', and then 'Reveille' from the vestibule just within the main entrance.
On the evening of the same day, we were all taken to St.Peters Church
in town to perform the same ceremony. St. Peters was Mr.Windibank's
local church, and he organised our arrival and departures to and from
the school. For my part, I felt quite honoured to be playing for such
an important ceremony. Neither of these ceremonies attracted tea and
cakes afterwards! We did it just for the glory! Some time later, a boy called Ferisay fell into the gym whilst trying to walk along the balcony rail. I think his name was John, but as we didn't generally call boys by their given names, it is sometimes difficult to remember. The rail on the balcony was quite a wide one, and many boys took a chance at balancing on it and walking the width of the gym. John fell off the rail and into the gym, about eight or nine feet below. He died shortly after. John was buried with the same ceremony that Norman Clay had received, with an honour guard, and I played Last Post and Reveille. Their graves are quite close (if not next) to each other, not too far from one of the perimeter walls. I can't remember which wall, although I have looked around the churchyard on one or two occasions since. Since I was the bugler on each occasion, I would think that both funerals took place in 1941, or in the case of Ferisay, possibly early 1942, since I left in March 1942. |