The first impact of the war upon our daily lives was the arrival of evacuees. Train loads of them arrived at the railway station and were duly allocated to be billeted in the larger houses of the district. Memories fade of the ordeal for both parties involved, as it did not last long. But to our shame, we did not find it easy to share favourite toys and eventually to lose them to strangers seemingly from another world. Somewhere later I picked up the rumour that one such evacuee to Wells was the gorgeous actress Jean Simmons, but alas she was not allocated to us. Later we took in a dozen or so girls from a school evacuated from Bristol. Thereby at least was provided the amusement of lobbing berries through their windows. There were also schemes to put holly in apple-pie beds, but I doubt if there was bravado enough to carry them out. In recent years one who had been billeted on us remembers well her stay, if not the berries.
Soon sirens were sounding, at first in practice, then for real. It was a stomach- churning sound, the warning note rising and falling, followed by the welcome continuous note of the all clear.
My mother was one of many who donned the green uniform of the WVS - the Women’s Voluntary Service. I remember helping her ‘on the door’ as she helped provide cheap meals in the Town Hall. At home any change of diet was only gradually noticed and it could hardly be said that we were under fed, certainly compared with wartime conditions elsewhere. Yet Mother, as everyone else, began to hoard tins of food in case of emergency, probably to an extent that may have been illegal. I remember secretive cupboards piled high with such. Certainly any occupying power would have had little difficulty in extracting them from us.
At some stage rationing was introduced. I still have my ‘Ration Book’, a pale buff coloured affair with tear-off squares for a week’s allowance of basic items - meat, butter, sugar, eggs, cheese, bacon. I particularly remember that the size of the butter allocation for a week was half an inch off a normal half-pound packet. May-be this is the reason for my treatment of butter as a treat to this day. But the rationing was not harsh, especially as it could be supplemented by procuring from a friendly farmer the occasional rabbit, before the days of myxomatosis, and a few extra eggs. Nor was it difficult for us to accommodate a change of diet. We had never been allowed to be fussy over food. I remember having to swallow sheep’s brain with good grace, and another time we were stood over while it got dark until some other unappetising dish was finished. Certainly our subsequent health has not seemed to suffer. Nevertheless that we managed well was testimony to my mother’s good housekeeping in the face of a challenge, as well no doubt to a good deal of self- sacrifice on her part, quite apart from the unsung heroism of the merchant seamen on the Atlantic crossing.
I have already used the term ‘Mother’, for then it was the accepted form of address by children, as was ‘Father’. Any more modern day intimacy was not contemplated in what was a somewhat Edwardian upbringing. Maybe the war did something to modify this culture and to bring parents and children closer. Similarly children, for example, were not promoted to the adult evening meal until the age of twelve, but again there was a wartime relaxation of the custom, as with so many other traditions. In fact the war brought about a radical change in lifestyles. For example gone was the heavy reliance on domestic help. 1940 saw the end of the employment of three out of four full time staff-cook, parlour maid, nurse, the gardener who had fought in 1914 remaining in his tied cottage - as they went off to the war in some capacity, never to return. It was no secret that this, for my mother, was a massive relief. She became her natural self as ‘Mother’.
What of the war itself? To counter the threat of aircraft landing on one of the few flat areas of the Mendip Hills piles of peat were built on Blackdown, and at Burnham-on-Sea posts were erected on the sands. The Mendips also had the unenviable honour of being a decoy to attract bombing intended for Bristol. Residents lived somewhat perilously, and a few casualties were reported. Bristol would have had barrage balloons flying, to deter low flying aircraft. Pictures of them looking like inflated elephants were familiar but none were visible from home.
Two other features appeared nearer home. One was a line of defence, part of a major line along the southern fringe of the Mendips. There was, and still is as ‘listed’ buildings, a series of pillboxes, placed strategically on the southern edge of woods overlooking Dulcot. More conspicuous was a broad anti-tank trench dug in open land below Tor Woods. One may well wonder how effective all this would have proved, as also the local Home Guard contingent. I once spied it drilling nearby, hopefully bolstering in us a little more confidence than Dad’s Army.
One of the more disconcerting warnings we were given was of booby-trap devices dropped indiscriminately from the air. A toy or innocent looking pen lying around and picked up could prove lethal. Around us we never heard of a fatality, but they were an unpleasant additional danger.
Even so in most of sleepy Somerset the enemy himself seemed a long way off. There was the constant reminder on posters that “Careless Talk Costs Lives”, and we made much of the imagined threat of spies and fifth columnists. Anyone clad in overcoat and trilby hat was an immediate suspect and conjured up all sorts of ideas of fame from single-handed capture. It is true that a German bomber was grounded near Priddy on the Mendips, but I don’t remember inspecting it which surely would have been attempted if it had been allowed by the authorities. Perhaps in any case it was prevented by lack of transport at that time. With petrol severely limited, the car, a 1936 Wolseley 10, was laid up in the garage for a time. Despite these occasional excitements, life continued as usual with the round of term - holidays - term, with little to ruffle it.
At a much later stage in the war we came face to face with the enemy in the form of prisoners of war. Part of the grounds of a nearby big house was commandeered, first for Italians who soon were trusted with farm work, and later for noticeably more surly Germans. I don’t think there were any local feelings of fear from having them so close; we could, and often did, go for walks a few yards outside the perimeter fence. After the war the site became a desirable housing estate, one of what must have been many such prime sites exploited only on account of the war. Such is the occasion for progress, if progress it was, compared with the former glory of the big house. I remember previously having gone up the long drive to deliver something and having met the grand old lady herself. She was living in faded luxury on the first floor, where the elements were penetrating through the floor above. It was not long before it was pulled down as beyond repair, as not a few other relics about that time. Thus it was the war, which further accelerated certain rapid social changes.
Two other small omissions in life must have registered as a result of hostilities. Church bells ceased to be rung, one supposes in case they were taken as a signal of invasion. The eventual victory peal therefore made all the greater impact. Also road signs were uprooted, and any indication of locality was ruthlessly removed, with the object of confusing would-be spies. They were not the only people confused, although we soon learnt to do without them.
Did we hear sounds of war? Familiar to most of us early on were the dreaded drones of aircraft, the German bombers being distinguished by their pulsating sound. The fear they engendered, however unreasonable, was very real to one with a vivid imagination. Once it became too much during a sleepless night and Father moved his bed in as a reassurance to me. He also took his turn as a firewatcher on the roof of the cathedral. Their buckets of water and sand, surely inadequate, were thankfully not required to be used.
The bombing of Bristol must have been audible, and certainly visible as fires lit up the night sky, although Wells itself was not targeted. Of course for this to have been seen by us, our own lights would have had to be turned off, for the blackout was strict, with all windows covered with blackout material from the earliest days. But I don’t remember the glass having to be stuck over with something to reduce the danger of splintering as was common elsewhere I think. Yet I do remember rehearsing a bedding-down under the big dining room table, though it was never needed to be done for real.
All too real however were the bombs, which exploded too near for comfort during my first full term away at Prep School. Somewhat surprisingly Forres School had been evacuated away from Swanage where invasion was feared, to Penn in Buckinghamshire, proving to be rather too near London for comfort. Sure enough a stick of three bombs was dropped by a fleeing plane less than a mile from the school. Being at night it was all the more frightening, with the explosions becoming ever closer. The experience may have been somewhat compensated for by the gleaning of bomb fragments the next day (mine has since been mislaid) yet it was one we could have done without. It was enough for parents to make a rapid application for me to move to another school nearer home and well out of the way of danger. The school in question was none other than Durlston Court, one of Forres’ rivals in Swanage, the hope being that it might return to that matchless site for schools in the near future.
All I remember of hostilities while Forres had been in Swanage during the summer of 1940 is limited to a very cramped bomb shelter that was hastily dug in on the south side of the school. Sometime I must go and check if any signs of it remain. I had not been there the previous year when it was reported that a German fighter had strafed the beach at Swanage, without causing any casualties. Also I missed the bomb, which apparently landed on the doorstep of the chapel at Forres, in which I later preached, causing no more than the loss of some windows. Sadly, well after the war a boy from the school was blown up by a mine on the beach, which had somehow escaped the mine clearing operation. He was not to be the last of delayed action casualties after the ceasefire.
Durlston Court School turned out well, being evacuated to a peaceful Somerset backwater. Earnshill was a large country house at Hambridge, near Langport. We were in our element having the run of a large estate of open fields and woods, complete with its own farm and a river for fishing and swimming. Particularly memorable were the large hollow trees in the parkland. Inside them two or three of us could sit round a fire in the middle. On one occasion I vividly remember the trunk inside caught fire and panic set in as we made a scramble for the narrow exit. It was not an unusual sight to see smoke rising out of the top of several trees during a weekend when we were left very much to our own devices. It meant an early introduction to the habit, or rather the trial, of cigarette smoking, fortunately later dropped in a stricter disciplinary setting. It also meant some daring nocturnal expeditions and not a few ‘dorm feasts’. Thus it was in this somewhat more relaxed atmosphere and in such a rural setting that the necessities of war had a beneficial effect on us.
If however we thought we would not hear something of the war even there we were mistaken. Pat Cox, the epitome of the old type of Founder/Owner Headmasters, who was himself an old soldier in the 1914-18 trenches, was intensely patriotic. He fed us, though judiciously, on gory realities of the trenches. Two stories stand out. His companion fatally peered over the parapet and received a marksman’s bullet. On another occasion he was buried for hours in a trench by a friendly tank, then a recent innovation. He formed us into what I can only suppose was an apology for a Cadet Force, a rare introduction for those so young. I remember being treated to a very loud explosion as part of our education in things military, but only at a safe distance.
Tragically we learnt of the death in action of the owner of Earnshill, leaving fatherless a boy of about the same age as ourselves. Also the Headmaster’s own son was wounded in the D-Day landings. It all helped to bring the realities of war to mind, though we were hardly able to appreciate to any extent its real horror. Rather, in typical fashion, we tended to feed on its glory. In retrospect it is commendable that Pat Cox never expressed to us any feelings of hatred for the enemy, nor any form of vindictiveness, and this was typical of others of his generation with whom we came into contact.
Certainly we failed to understand the significance of the arrival at the school of two German Jews. They shared little of their experience of course, and fitted in well. May-be they should have had a salutary effect on us but the truth was hidden from us. We were however fully introduced to the life of Hitler. All I can now remember from it was that he was born on the river Inn, in Austria, I think. I also remember making a hash of it in an essay for entry to my next school.
Hence by and large life itself was little affected. No doubt restrictions on the use of petrol denied us some away sports fixtures, though nothing was allowed to prevent the Sunday coach ride to Curry Rivel Church. We lived a very closeted and shielded life. It may be thought that the quality of the teaching staff would have suffered when young members went off to the war, or in one case we thought a new master should have gone off to it. Yet we were most fortunate to have some excellent women replacements, and creative and artistic activities flourished. The classics lady, whose name I forget, must be commended for getting some early Greek into me. Similarly a certain Miss Macroix, a French escapee, for persevering with me on the piano. And there was no one like ‘Daddy’ Stanley for enthusing us in carpentry - I still have some of his productions for he did most of the work - although his, and my, maths had something to be desired.
Similarly one might question how good the teaching was in less than ideal conditions, in draughty wooden huts, even in passages, and without many of the normal teaching aids or sports facilities. Yet it is a truism that it is the quality of the teacher, which is paramount, and not the conditions of teaching. Certainly I can bear witness to that in wartime Earnshill. We were fortunate.
The war’s progress was avidly followed. That was to no small extent due to having others with whom to share the news. Even without them, there had been two earlier memories of hostilities, which had remained. One was the Italian attack on Albania in 1939, and the other was Russia’s attack on Finland. In the latter dramatic pictures of Finns in manholes attaching mines to the bottom of Russian tanks were gleefully poured over; we seemed with everyone else easily to be able to switch our allegiances once Russia became an ally. But now in 1942 we were at the stage of presuming, quite unjustifiably, inevitable victory. The war maps in newspapers (remember no television) always had big arrows pointing in the right direction; reverses were hidden or explained away, and the numbers of aircraft downed were always favourable to our side. After all, God, of course, was fighting for us. One of our members kept a scrapbook of cuttings, which if still extant will be of immense interest. We enjoyed being Air Spotters; I still have my manual and can tell you a few of the key features of the main combatants. Competition to identify planes was strong, especially of those occasionally caught in the crossbeams of local searchlights. We prized making models of famous fighters, the kits being skilfully crafted by ‘Daddy’ Stanley. All in all war was fun.
Oddly enough nothing seems to remain in the memory of Stalingrad nor even of El Alamein, although Stalin and Montgomery were clearly seen as heroes throughout. But one event, which seems to have stood out for some reason is the German capture of Rostov, as they turned south beyond the Crimea. One supposes it may have had something to do with their threat to the great oil fields of Baku on the Caspian Sea, so vital to the German war effort. It was very different when the time for D Day came. Surprisingly there were no obvious signs locally of the build up for it, although it may be true that we were rarely in a position to view them. But there was much speculation amongst us as to the selected spot for invasion. There was one called Homer who claimed to have inside information which he guarded jealously with furtive hints, and those who were not his closest confidants failed to extract the secret from him. I forget now if we ever did find out whether he was right.
Winston Churchill? I don’t remember that he particularly stood out. It may be that we had come by then to take him for granted, not having been able to compare him with those who came before him. Nor were we able to appreciate fully his rhetoric. I imagine my parents to have been deeply moved by it. But in 1963 when Churchill died we fully celebrated him at Monkton Combe.
On the other hand VJ Day (victory over the Japs) remains firmly etched in the memory. It was holidays and coincidentally we were having a barbecue on the Mendips, called then a ‘sausage sizzle’. I was told, in true Victorian style, that as the youngest male my task was to propose the toast to the King - “the King, God bless him”. It was something of an ordeal for a stuttering youth, which made a lasting impression. But there is a better reason for VJ Day being memorable for it touched the family directly. Brother Bernard would be returning from Burma.
It may be all the more surprising therefore that the preceding VE Day, signalling the end of the nearer theatre of war in Europe, hardly seems to have registered with me, at least in the long term. It was during term at Marlborough College and the cricket term at that. It is perhaps another illustration of how little the horrors of war had touched us. It is indeed true that school, as well as home, had protected us, so that life was a world away from reality. May-be for the present generation at school, such a culture will never return. Yet such an upbringing is not thereby to be disparaged. The proof of the pudding is in the eating, and one is bold to claim that Durlston Court is one amongst many, which passes the test. I can name not a few of my contemporaries who amply fulfilled the hopes of such a tradition. There was a certain MacMurtrie who was even then mad on military matters and who thereby became the butt of many a prank, yet he if anyone was to be one who would lead an attack over the top. I met him at a reunion recently and it was clear that that impression of him had been fully justified. Also outstanding was a particular friend of mine, Bill Canning, who distinguished himself as the commander of a destroyer in the Falklands conflict. And there are many others in all walks of life whose early inculcation in traditional values has made incalculable contributions, benefiting the world at large. And so one could go on.
