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London 1940 and 1944
Crowborough and Tonbridge 1944-5
England and Elsewhere 1940 1945
CROWBOROUGH 1944
My brother-in-law and I were well-known at our local inn, the Half Moon at Withyham and great friends with Mr. Hoath, the dear old character who owned it. My brother-in-law and I had promised to carry out some slight mechanical repair for him one Sunday morning before our pint and, as we required a mass of tools, we went down in my mother's sleek black Talbot saloon and parked directly outside the front door. We were decently dressed in country wear, but wore workshop aprons to carry out the job.
Whilst we-were round the back mending the pump, a company of Ghurkas arrived with three white officers, having lost their commissariat wagon or truck, whatever it might have been. The officers went in for a drink and shortly beckoned the men in. That was when we came in by the back door of the pub with black hands and possibly faces. Poor Hoath! That black-faced avalanche spilling into his tiny bar nearly gave him a heart attack. After a few seconds we decided on action, taking over the bar and sending the old boy out continuously to fetch more crates of ginger beer and what soft drinks and packets of snacks he could find. After ten minutes, the tide started to recede, so we washed our hands and were just coming out through the bar, as we were late for lunch when the officers came in for another one. We served them and took off our aprons and followed them out. As I got into the driving seat of Mother's sleek Talbot, I heard one of the officers comment, "You seem to make a good living, running a country pub."
What is Rosin?TONBRIDGE 1944
Walking across the factory yard to my office one morning, I saw my ex-butcher-gatekeeper, Timmins, in altercation with the occupants of a large khaki-coloured Cadillac, which was behind the barrier, which Timmins was refusing to raise. I walked across to hear two Canadian officers enquiring "Haven't you got a boss around this joint:" Timmins was incensed and, seeing me, called me over. Well, it appeared that the two officers were looking for some rosin. I told them we had some rosin and when they asked me how much we had got, I flattened them by replying that the stock sheets that morning had shown 485 tons. I should explain that we were making amongst other products most of the road-line paint used during those days of blackout. They said they wanted a couple of big handfuls, so I went into the gatehouse to phone instructions for it to be put in a box and brought to the gate. A trunk call kept me in the gatehouse until the rosin was already on the backseat and they were turning round to drive off. They stopped and thanked me profusely and volunteered that they had been to Eastbourne, East Grinstead, Croyden, Gravesend looking for their rosin. "Do you know all these burgs?" Replying in the affirmative, I enquired if it would be wrong to ask them why the army so urgently required the rosin. The answer came, "Pal, thanks to you our divisional boxing championship can now go on." and promptly offered me two seats for the following night. I declined with regret that I had no petrol to spare for a trip to Tunbridge Wells. That did it. Jerricans appeared and they were off in a cloud of dust and petrol fumes rising from the ground near the back of my car. My tank held two months' ration and they spilled another gallon.
image: Cartoon of Workers at the BRP factory.
TONBRIDGE 1944
During the war one could extend one's meat ration legally by joining a Pig Club, a government scheme ran under the auspices of the Ministry of Food. This entailed bringing your household swill to the collecting point each day for which the club was permitted to kill two pigs each year, as long as you sold two more at the controlled price to the local butcher. The number of forms you had to fill in and the regulations that had to be observed were, however, legion.
My friends among the workmen in the factory formed such a club and offered me the job of chairman in exchange for doing all the the paperwork and the accounts. They also let me off cleaning the styes in exchange for closing my eyes to the use of factory bricks etc. for building the styes. It was almost as much work running the Pig Club as the factory and most certainly more trouble.
This latter was due to the female dragon who was in charge of the local food office. We just did not see eye to eye and rowed about everything on every possible occasion. The crunch came when I applied for our license to kill our Christmas lunch. Now my copy of the regulations (probably a first edition and certainly roneoed) stated that "Up to eight pigs could be kept without numbering them." Her copy stated "If eight pigs or over were kept they must be numbered by marking on the ear." We owned eight pigs and I claimed we did not have to number them. Instead they all had names, such as "Sir Graham C.B.E." and "Viscount Vyvyan K.C.V.0." or other members of the governing board of our company and I wrote The Rt. Hon. Francis" in the place for the number on the form. She refused to issue the license, I quoted my copy of the regulations and wrote to Lord Woolton, the Minister of Food in the War Cabinet. At least, she received a copy of the letter by post that I had dictated but did not send. The ruse succeeded and I enjoyed Francis' loin on Christmas Day.
Things were better at the food office after that and my next meeting with the dragon was relatively friendly. She had to leave me in her office for five minutes with the file of our Pig Club on her desk, I thought I would check some point under discussion and reached for the file. On opening it I found pinned to the inside of the front cover a note for anybody who was interested.
"The Chairman of this Club is a horribly difficult character and liable to cause trouble."
So the dragon found this lamb a little indigestible.
image: The BRP Factory in Tonbridge, 1943
TONBRIDGE 1945
The last German plane shot down in Britain in World War II broke up in the air over Tonbridge in 1945. I remember that one engine fell in the parish church precincts and one wing was discovered on the roof of Sainsburys in the High Street. The pilot parachuted down uninjured at the gatehouse of the factory of which I was the technical director, and under the Essential works Order this gatehouse had to be manned night and day. Our guards consisted of three stalwarts - all retired -a crippled gardner, a rotund butcher and a cockney Metropolitan policeman, named Lidlow, who, with his glasses as thick as plateglass, had to act as our spotter during doodlebug attacks.
The German pilot landed alongside Mr. Lidlow and it was some minutes before the Home Guard puffed up to relieve him of his prisoner, to be relieved in turn of him by some Canadians who drove up in style.
Lidlow was on change-over (twelve hour) shift, so he was still there when I came in next morning. The following verbatim conversation took place:
"Good morning, Lidlow, I hear you were very much on the spot last night."
"Good morning, Sir. Yus, Sir, hi hactually hunooked 'is parachute 'arness."
"Congratulations, Lidlow. What sort of fellow was he?"
"Surly little bloke, he was, Sir."
"Did he say anything?"
"Not a word, Sir, 'e just stood there, clicking 'is 'eels, German fashion and saying "Herr Hermann, Herr Hermann, Herr Hermann." Hi didn't 'esitate, Sir, Hi said to 'im straight out, Hi said, "Cocky, you hain't a bloody hairman any longer."
