En route to Brandon
My mother died when she was
only 29 and left four children aged 3, 5, 7 (me) and 8. My brother
and I entered a Dr Barnardos home at Cardiff during October
1939. This was a small family home and usually in peacetime when it became full
the boys were sent to the Boy's Garden City at
Woodford Bridge in Essex and the girls went to a girls home at
Barkingside. However because
of the war these two homes were to be evacuated to various places
around the country although my brother and I did spend a few day sat
Woodford Bridge. My memory of London as we travelled through it was
of the
enormous number of barrage balloons filling the skyline. Soon we
were put onto a train and me and my brother were now totally unaware of our
destination. We finally alighted at a little place just outside of
Thetford in Norfolk and I recall it being a very hot day. We then had to
walk to Wretham Hall and to meet us at the Hall was a very stern lady named
Mrs. Allan. She then proceeded to warn us that she knew how to deal with
any misbehaviour and I believe that this created an attitude in the
children, who were up to that point reasonably well behaved, a mistrust of those in
authority and a desire to flout the iron discipline imposed upon them
merely because they had no parents. This may well explain some of
the boy's behaviour at school in Brandon.
Barnardos were allocated the
top floor of what I believe was a three-storied Georgian hall and the
walls were lined with various pieces of armour and shooting trophies
which were a little scary when going to the bathroom in the dark
night. I remember that the local village was named West Wretham
and the village school was very small which meant that the village hall
which was just a tin building was then used for the older
children. I can also recall going for a ramble with some of the other
lads and coming across a group of Czechoslovakian airmen and I have
often wondered what they were doing there. Perhaps there an airfield
nearby? We were at West Wretham only a few months before the Army
requisitioned the Hall and, as I later learned, took over the whole area
for use as a training battleground. We were then relocated to
Wangford Hall and I remember well travelling there on the back of an
open lorry.
Life at Wangford Hall
It
was shortly after our arrival at Wangford that contractors began
constructing what is now Lakenheath airfield. It was very exciting
to see the Wellington and four-engine Short Stirling bombers
arrive. We used to watch the bombers take off on their bombing
raids in the early evenings and then we would lie awake waiting for
their return. There were times when the sky lit up because a plane
returning and on fire would crash into Elveden forest and explode.
On one occasion a plane crashed into Wangford churchyard and as soon as
we were able to we would run to the crash site to get window Perspex
from which we would carve rings, etc.
I remember a coloured lad being invited
into a lady's home and his surname was Morrison, but known to his
friends as 'Darkie' Morrison and he was the most popular lad at
Wangford.
Christmas at Wangford Hall
Like
most other people during the war we made the best of what we had and we
had very little and there was very little room for individuality at
Wangford Hall. Few of the boys had any contact with relatives, so
there was very few presents to be given out at Christmas and the only correspondence
I had was with my maternal grandmother. Now the only present I
remember receiving at Wangford was a pair of football boots and those
boots were to give me an enormous pleasure in the days ahead. Another
pleasure we had at Christmas was going into Brandon in the evening to go
carol singing, although I also remember one year when we received
chocolate bars from the USA. There was one year we received an
invitation to spend Christmas at an American airbase but there was
tremendous disappointment among the boys when the invite was rejected by
Mrs. Allan on the grounds of, would you believe it ... patriotism!
To be honest when you realise that Christmas is meant to be a time of
love and joy it was a bit of a farce in the Dr Barnardos home at that
time. Its only since my wife and I have had children and
grandchildren that the true meaning of Jesus Christ coming into the
world becomes a reality. A very sad incident occurred one
Christmas when the Women's Land Army, based at Lakenheath, invited us to
a tea party. When we arrived we found a group of sad and tearful
young ladies and it appeared that many of their boyfriends had just been
killed during a raid on Germany. Needless to say it was quite a
dismal party.
School
My memories of
Brandon school are a
little hazy but speaking personally I have no recollection of a bad
reception to us by the pupils or staff at the school. Obviously there
were individual skirmishes between the lads and sometimes even among
the Barnardo boys themselves. However on one occasion I do
remember a fight being arranged between us and the town boys. This
mass battle was to take place on a Saturday afternoon at the Sandpits
on Wangford Warren. We made great preparations for the fight,
arming ourselves with fencing staves, etc, however it was a bit of
an anti-climax when the Brandon boys didn't turn up. On reflection
it was probably just as well for all of us. We used to travel to
the Brandon school by bus and sometimes
we went via Santon Downham where we could see the piles of ammunition
stacked high on the roadsides.
Among the teachers I
remember are Mr. Lumsden, the headmaster, Mr. Baldock, who came with us
from Wretham and who I suspect was a strong Socialist because his pet
subject was the Trade Union movement and there was also a rather elderly
teacher named Mr. Jackson who taught us maths. I suspect he may have been
the same Mr. Jackson who lost his son during the war.
The lessons I remember most with greatest affection were the singing
lessons taken by a lady teacher whose name I have forgotten. She
must have made a good impact because I still remember the songs she
taught us.
The school dinners were fairly
wholesome and there was
plenty of sago, tapioca and chocolate pudding. Perhaps my happiest
memories of Brandon school were the dinner breaks when we were free to go
into the town. It was an opportunity to go into a world of comparative
normality and not be surrounded by hoardes of other boys. It was during one of
those dinner breaks when I was just
leaving the school that I heard a tremendously loud noise
overhead. Looking up I was amazed to see this large plane with
Luftwaffe markings on it and it was low enough for me to see one of
the crew looking at me. Although I didn't realise it at the time
this must have been the same plane that strafed the school.
In the summer we would go swimming in the
river and on one occasion my
younger brother Gerald had gone on ahead of me when someone came
dashing over to tell me that he had fallen in. To my great
relief by the time I got there someone had fished him out and I am
glad to say that Gerry is now happily married and living on the Isle of
Wight. Maybe one of your contributors remember him, because
being younger than me he was at Brandon longer than I was.
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