Exams, Work and Firefighting ( Part 4)

So me, Mum and Peggy (our dog) travelled down to Newquay by train to stay with Mrs Morris. Peggy spent the whole of the journey in the guards van.

For a fifteen year old boy from London, Newquay was one big adventure. I went swimming in the sea every day, no matter what the weather. I met all the fishermen that came in with their catches and became friendly with an old mackerel fisherman called Mr Larne. He owned a boat called Lucky Tom. It had no engine and was a true “sailing” vessel. She was a thing of beauty and if there was a swell in the bay she beat any roller coaster hands down for excitement. All the mackerel I caught I took back to Mrs Morris to cook for all of us. I think we practically lived on mackerel that summer. I also made a grappling hook out of a piece of old iron and would climb down the cliffs at low tide and catch live crabs. Cooked crab was one of Mum’s favourite teas.

I had a “summer” girlfriend in Newquay. I can’t remember her name but she was very pretty and we had a lot of innocent fun. She lived in Fore Street perched right on top of the cliffs overlooking the harbour.

Dad came to join us for a couple of weeks towards the end of the holidays, and it was a magical time for the three of us to be together.

But all good things come to an end and six weeks later I had to return to Midsommer Norton. I said goodbye to Mum and Dad (and Peggy) and got on the train at Newquay station.

The journey back was horrendous. The night before I left there had been an air raid on Plymouth with heavy bombing. The railway lines had been badly damaged.

Newquay to Bristol is not that far as the crow flies. But the journey took over seven hours. The driver had to use “branch” lines that aren’t even on the map. Even when I got to Bristol I still had to get to Radstock (the station for Midsommer). I arrived a very lonely and tired fifteen year old.

But it was quickly back into routine at Midsommer. Exams were just around the corner so it was time to forget the holidays and start some serious studying. In 1943 at the age of sixteen and in my final year of school, it was time for the dreaded exams.

If you went to a grammar school (like me) you sat the General School Certificate/Matriculation. The examining board covering Highbury County was the University of London. It was very difficult to pass the exam as you had to sit at least five compulsory subjects and pass all of them. If you failed one, you failed the lot!

The compulsory subjects were:

Maths, (Three exams, Arithmetic, Algebra and Geometry), English, French, Science, (Two exams, Physics and Chemistry) and History or Geography. Also at Highbury we sat English Literature and Latin.

These all had to be taken and passed or, as I say, you failed the lot.

To pass the General School Certificate you needed a pass mark of fifty percent, but to pass Matriculation you needed sixty percent. By gaining the Matriculation it meant that you were well on your way to University. If you gained a mark of over sixty percent you were given a “distinction” in that subject.

I Matriculated in every subject apart from Physics, where I only got the General School Certificate. I also got a distinction in English and Latin.

After receiving our exam results in 1943, Highbury County School returned to London. It was a shock to see the old building. It had sustained bomb damage and unfortunately our school secretary had been killed. I was invited to join the sixth form. But because of financial reason I had to decline. The Headmaster even wrote to dad asking him to let me join, but it was decided that it was time for me to start earning a living.

As luck would have it, the General Manager of the London and Manchester Assurance company had a connection with the school and was looking for staff. Five of us, including my best friend Ron started work there as junior clerks on the princely weekly wage of one pound and five shillings (£1.25).

So in September 1943, at the age of sixteen, I began my working career with the L & M Assurance Company on the corner of Finsbury Square, Moorgate, London in the “Agency Section”.

The air raids were still going on but not with the intensity of the blitz. I met Ron every morning and we walked together to work picking up lumps of shrapnel along the way. I used to take it home and had a box full of it. I think dad may have thrown it away one day because I can’t remember what happened to it. The air raids had become part of everyday life. It seems strange looking back now, we just all accepted it and hoped you weren’t going to be the one on the receiving end.

But one night, Union Square was very much on the receiving end. We were all in the re-enforced back room at number 31. Mum, Dad, me, Mr and Mrs Bates, Mrs Thomas and her baby son. The warning had gone off and we were sitting there when we heard strange noises. Not explosions but a noise as though a loud tap was dripping. Plop, Plop, Plop.

Dad knew what it was. He told me it was an “Incendiary “raid. Dozens of incendiary bombs were falling around us.Incendiary bombs are a bomb that causes fire. They are filled with napalm or phosphorous or other kinds of flammable liquids. I grabbed our bucket and stirrup pump and was all for going outside and putting out fires in my pyjamas. Fortunately dad was more experienced and made us wait a few minutes as he knew that some of these bombs were timed to explode after impact and shoot out phosphorous.

When we did eventually go outside the whole of Union Square was covered in these burning bombs.

One well-meaning man was trying to stamp out a fire and was getting himself covered in phosphorous. Not a pretty sight.

Our next door neighbour was shouting at us that one of the bombs was lodged in his roof and was on fire. Dad sent me up into the loft with the end of the hose of the stirrup pump while he did the pumping. The bomb was stuck in the rafters and we soon put the fire out. By now the air raid wardens were busy putting out the fires in the street. Me and dad went across the street where a house was well alight. I went up to the second floor spraying water while dad was pumping and refilling the bucket. It was getting very hot inside the house; the building had lathe and plaster walls which meant there was a gap between the plaster and the brickwork. It was obviously burning from inside the wall and our little stirrup pump wasn’t being that effective. Suddenly a fireman appeared and started hacking at the wall with an axe. Flames shot out of the wall and the Fireman shouted for us both to leave. We didn’t argue.

We were out most of that night but apart from being tired and covered in soot and ash we were okay.

I was very proud of my dad that night.