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As a child of 10 in September 1939 memories do return to me - hearing Hitler on wireless for the first time in the bottom shop of the Garage where Ron had his wireless and bicycle business. This was some time prewar, from then on Hitler was always in the background, a shadowy persistent menace as also the bombs bursting on Madrid in the cinema. Both the wireless and the Movietone and Pathe news brought his emotional violence and the delirious approval of his audiences. Constant harangues; Danzig, the Polish corridor, Czechoslovakia, Lebensraum, Deutschland, 'I have no more territorial demands' were his themes. How wonderful we thought later to hear Churchill address him as Mr. Shicklegruber. Sunday September 3rd
1939 - we declare war on Germany. Our elders rarely mentioned the Great
War (WWI), but it was there - Mrs. Frank Freeston’s distress was strange but real as she walked away through the garden
on that Sunday when realisation struck home. First knowledge came from an Uncle’s bookshelf in a hidden corner, a far away unimaginable world best forgotten. The news was mostly of the sea. The sinking of the Athenia and the aircraft carrier Courageous and the battleship Royal Oak was bad but our spirits were soon restored by the stirring stories of the merchant cruisers Rawalpindi and Jervis Bay both facing overwhelming odds. Then there was news of the Graf Spee, Exeter, Achilles and Ajax. The cinema shots of the end of Graf Spee with the thrilling news later of the rescue of her merchant navy prisoners from the supply ship Altmark by the destroyer Cossack. The cry ‘The Navy’s Here’ with which the crew of the Cossack greeted the prisoners as their hatch was opened was a catchword among the village boys for some time. All this was very "Boys Own Magazine" adventure, where the magazine no longer seemed to be larger than life - the invasion of Denmark and Norway was, at first, a continuation of the adventures. May 10th 1940 a perfect day, a perfect blue sky - the day of the start of Hitler's Blitzkreig invasion of Holland, Belgium, Luxembourg and France. There was a sense of my mother’s apprehension as we sat alone in a compartment of the local train on the way to Northampton. This soon increased the next week as the Daily Express arrived with maps of Northern France showing big pincer arrows. The adults remembered the memories of their parents and a preceding battle at Sedan in the Franco-Prussian war. There were suddenly Canadian troops in lorries passing through. Hazel Robinson was throwing flowers and there were cheering children. The autographs are still retained: Robert E. Carver of Calgary, Geoffrey D. Alford from Red Deer, Alberta, Sgt. G. H. Blakeney of Vancouver, T. E. Luck from Toronto and “Hy You” Butch. Pte. L. E. McIntyre, 1st Div. Supply Col. RCASC – “best of luck”. Our own Mr. Payler came back from Dunkirk walking home down the High Street. There was a wireless commentary from the Dover cliffs as a channel convoy is bombed. August The month brought the daily score of downed German planes. Then a bomb outside the council school guarded by a soldier, probably an L.D.V. (Local Defense Volunteer). At about the same time a Dornier Flying Pencil machine-gunned the station. The bullets pock marked the walls by the offices but no window was broken. Sheila Stratton was pushing my young cousin Edwin in his pram up the Gayton road. She didn't take shelter but ran all the way home. Home was safety to all of us. This particular Dornier was said to have been shot down later near Cambridge. Telegraph posts were placed in the field to the east of Stoke Road just to the south of the Knock Lane junction to stop gliders from landing. This may have been about this time. The Blitz Sheltering with Mum and sister Sheila under the dining room table. Dad was often away on relief duty on the railway. The distinct wavering whine of the German unsynchronised engines were a dread as we waited for them to pass. We heard the loud explosion of the landmines at Pury End. There were bright parachute flares towards Northampton on the evening of 25th October. There was Coventry glowing on the horizon early at 8o/c on the 14th of November. Memorable was the relief at the ‘All Clear’ siren and contentment and security coming with the light of dawn. There was the glow from London just visible on the night of the fire-raid at the end of January. The whistle of a bomb heard for the first time, and the only time, on the night of 8th/9th of April. Some of these bombs were delayed action and they started going off about eight in the morning. Mother and father had to struggle to get their weary children out of bed. Apparently it was all right in daylight. Crashed Aeroplanes The Wellington, which crashed 25/08/43, was just over the boundary into Roade parish. It had crashed in a flat field on the SW side of Knock Lane and slid through both roadside hedges and come to rest a few yards into the field on the NE side. Our family were returning from a day out in London and probably because the train was bound for Northampton had decided to walk home from Roade when we first became aware of the incident. Next day of course small boys were in attendance. The R.A.F. were in attendance. There are two memories one of the bomb aimer coming back to rescue his bombsite and another of one of the Guards throwing a bunch of bomb safety keys to the crowd hoping no doubt they would then go away. The Rothersthorpe Wellington of 05/04/44 was altogether more tragic spinning out of control from cloud where the trainee pilot had probably failed to cope with flying blind and killing all the crew. We were just finishing our lunch when the loud crash came. The china on the sideboard went up and came down again. Boys being what they are we were off on our bikes but were subdued when we saw the smoking hole and worse. Rothersthorpe had a remarkable escape - the main part of the plane being not far from the houses and I believe the front turret just outside the school some distance away. The Hadrian Glider at Tiffield on 07/07/44 was also tragic. We were not on the scene of that one but American soldiers were killed there. There was a story of one of the lads there taking the wrist watch off a dead soldier and being made to replace it by the adults. A Wellington that crashed at Tiffield 08/06/43 shed a propeller that was found by Donald Miller, I believe, in a hedgerow. It was a prized possession for some time but I think eventually it was reclaimed by the R.A.F. The sound of aircraft engines was nearly always present. Yellow Tiger Moths and Harvard trainers all the time. Avro Ansons also called ‘Faithful Annies’ were seen a lot as was the Airspeed Oxford. The Harvard had a very harsh and loud exhaust. Wellingtons from the OTUs (Operational Training Units) were also plentiful. Remembered was looking down from Gayton road on a Wellington which was flying very low just above the canal. The top of a Wellington was quite a rare sight. Many airmen died in these training planes. My father was often distressed at the number of coffins sent from Northampton Castle Station. Later, the advent of the Stirling, Lancaster and Halifax four-engine heavy bombers transformed the skies some evenings. Stirlings were soon dropped from the raids over Germany and used in secondary rolls such as glider tugs. The Lancasters based in Lincolnshire were often evident. The bomber stream was quite wide as it passed over with the aircraft quite far apart from one another. The Halifaxs based further north in Yorkshire were not so often seen but I do remember one evening having cycled through Roade and halted on the railway bridge on the Ashton road seeing an impressive stream of Halifaxs flying in a southerly direction under a grey sky. One day while playing tennis at the Rectory (the old Rectory now) more than half a dozen Lancaster’s passed very low just clearing the trees. This was not how Lancasters flew normally and they well may have been part of the Dam Buster squadron on a low-level practice flight. The American 8th air-force was based further east but at about eight o’clock one morning a box of Fortresses came over. There were 300 to 350 of them flying high all making condensation trails with their silver wings glinting in the sun. They were high but the noise was memorable. Before D. Day, Dakotas towing gliders became another feature. A train of these passed low directly over Blisworth just prior to D. Day, probably following the railway south. Another subject connected with the USAAF and Blisworth was a box of .5 in. ammunition jettisoned from a fortress presumably in trouble returning from a mission and found by the local boys. Now the smaller British .303 in. was already familiar to them being acquired from various sources. Bill Freeston at the garage showed wisdom in choosing to follow the course of instructing them how safely to put the round in a vice, remove the bullet with a pair of pliers, empty the cordite sticks and then tap the percussion cap with a punch and small hammer. This of course expended itself with a satisfying crack and no harm was done. We were especially warned not to attempt to do this with tracer bullets marked with red at the tip. This we never did and no one came to harm. Left to ourselves there may well have been a less happy outcome. The American .5 in. round would have been even more lethal but we followed the same procedure in extracting the American filling, which was in the form of dark grey crystals. However the authorities in the village inevitably became aware of the existence in their midst of this illegal treasure and some one grassed on the existence of the ammunition box, by this time I expect it was empty. The headmaster, Mr. Cole, demanded the surrender of the box but this embarrassment was hastily disposed of in the canal and no more was heard of the matter. On V.E. Day most of the American cordite was made into heaps and set alight by long trails of British cordite sticks. That was a suitable celebration, we felt. By V J night there was probably none left. A much more lethal weapon which was fortunately limited by lack of supplies was made by placing a quantity of water and carbide, left over from a previous era for lighting vehicle lamps, in a bottle with a screw top. The result was very impressive and it was decided that this experiment must be abandoned. To put these matters in perspective it must be remembered that we had been given demonstrations by the Home Guard of such things as mortar bombs - which had been terrifying. They were playing too, weren’t they? More exciting still was when the village was shot up by
300mph Spitfires that were dropping flour bags from wing mounted bomb
racks. A Bren carrier was hidden under the elm tree that then stood by our house - ‘The Nook’ in Church Lane. A flour bag ‘exploded’ next to it so it should have been recorded as ‘written off’. The Spitfires came extremely low just above the rooftops. Anything was allowable then. The cinema at Towcester that was built by Lord Hesketh for Lady Hesketh, to encourage her to go out, was a very modern cinema and the town and surrounding villages were very fortunate to have it. It was often necessary to cycle there in the blackout with a cycle lamp with a slitted mask which didn’t light up much in front. We were much more aware of the stars and the phases of the moon then and flashlights were an important part of our lives. Films remembered starting with ‘Over the Rainbow’ with Judy Garland and later with Micky Rooney was a great favourite, as was George Formby, Will Hay, Arthur Askey etc. On a more serious theme were ‘Mrs. Miniver”, ‘The Way to the Stars’, Target for Tonight’, and all the other films of the period, lightened by the likes of Carmen Miranda, Bob Hope, and Dorothy Lamour. Westerns and gangster films were still favourites with the boys but had to share their popularity with contemporary wartime films. These films seen on a small screen in the comfort of one’s own home now never seem to have the same impact. The village did not have official evacuees because of the lack of piped water and a proper sewage connection but we had quite a few unofficial ones. I remember John Bennet from Ilford stayed at Asplin’s farm. Manfred Eisenhart who many years later visited George
Freeston, lived with Mrs. Pinfold whose daughter Selina married a Polish refugee later. Jan Hartog came to England by small boat I believe after a life on the run in Holland to avoid deportation to Germany as a forced
labourer. Victor Loveday stayed with the Cowley’s who kept the butchers shop. Another Mrs. Bennet who I think was Mr. Chapman’s daughter from Manchester was at Victoria House with her two daughters Jean and her baby sister.
Victoria House was (I believe but am not sure) the refuge for a very short time of an arrested Canadian soldier who had escaped from a train. Some of the boys from Holloway School in London lived in the village for a time. Towcester Grammar School was loaned to them part time. Looking further back, the ringing of the Blisworth Church bells in celebration of
"Alamein" - when Rommel's North African Corps was put to
flight, being the first great Allied victory - was a pleasanter and abiding recollection. |