Chapter 5.
My mother used to crotchet, and knit, extensively. We made 'clippy-mats' out of old hessian sacks and cut up old jumpers and even old stockings. Sometimes we used a large wooden frame, and we made wooden 'proggers', though we did have one metal one. These rugs, or mats, were very comfortable. She knitted a lot, often unpicking the better part of old jumpers to make new fair-isle jumpers. We were often required to help gather up the unpicked wool, and if it was a big jumper, then it was an arm aching job. She made us boys Lumber-jackets out of the sound parts of an old blanket.
She also crocheted slippers out of white string, and we had some difficulty obtaining old red rubber car tyre inner-tubing, which was cut out into shapes to use as soles. In some we put inner-soles, which we made from rabbit's hides - these were the 'luxury' models. We dried, and prepared, the rabbit skins ourselves. She also made many shopping baskets, and table-mats out of string. Some went as intended wedding presents. She had a ready market for these items via her sister, who lived in London, and worked at Plesseys, an electronics factory at Ilford, in Essex.
Much later, in 1999, when I visited a museum in Bonn, which was about the aftermath of WW2 in Germany, and its regeneration, I was very surprised to see, what looked exactly like my mother's slippers, and bags, as among the exhibits there. Could her patterns have been purloined through espionage I wonder? Or were they just creative art got down to basics?
When one of my uncles returned home from the war he brought with him a large red flag. When I saw it, it had a large round hole cut out of the middle, and it was later transformed into a smart skirt for one of my aunts. The missing hole, was of course, where the swastika had been!
We virtually did not have any new toys during the war, apart from what we could make ourselves out of scraps and bits and pieces. We had bicycles, but they were only second-hand ones, and we considered ourselves lucky to have those - which we were. We made our own sledges out anything we could find, and we had trolleys using old pram wheels. My brother made trucks with the back part cut out of old tins, and wheels from round-section wood, such as an old broom handle, or from a straight tree branch such as from a Hazel bush. We made the usual bows and arrows, again largely from hazel wood, and catapults. The rubber wasn't always easy to get hold of. We spent a lot of time outdoors, largely up on the hills.
We also played with iron hoops that we may have gleaned from defunct wooden barrels, but they were not easy to come by. We would drive them along and guide them with sticks, and maybe have a few races especially down Childsbridge Lane). Sometimes we might acquire a worn or damaged car tyre. We could race with those to, but they were harder to control. Patches of tyre rubber were cut to make a pad surface to make the handbrake on our homemade trolleys more effective. I can remember that we took a couple of tyres up on the downs to the chalk-pit, and we rolled them over the cliff-like edge. They went bouncing down to the bottom, then we would have to go down and recover our treasures.
We did make kites out of hazel fronds for the frame, and brown wrapping paper. There was no sellotape! The tail was make from basic string, and small 4" x 2" pieces of newspaper. It was very difficult to get hold of suitable cord, especially any length, to provide a control line.
Empty barrels were good fun to walk on, especially steel ones if you could get them. We could have races, and sort of battles, but this was rather a dangerous game, as one could suddenly fly off and maybe land on one's head. It was an activity which was safer played on grass, but then the drums did not roll so easily.
We knew some friends of John Hall's sister who lived at Woodlands, tucked up on the Downs. Their parents (later) owned a small holiday camp. This had quite a bit of land (7 acres), and much of that was woodland. We gained permission to ferret on that, and of course we would give the family a brace of rabbits for their trouble. However, without their knowledge we extended the area of our ferreting from their woods, well into surrounding woods and properties. Technically we were poaching.
Not far a way was The 'Rising Sun' Public House, at Cotman's Ash. We knew the landlord Mr Phil Benstead (always cheerful). He was an amazing man. The Pub also served as the farmhouse of a small-holding with chickens, and some arable farm land. He also ran a newspaper delivery service, which he carried out himself. He delivered our papers in Childsbridge Lane, and as far as I can remember, usually by bicycle. The Rising Sun, and Cotman's Ash, are no mean distance from our home, and it stands on top of the hill. So he ran the farm, the pub, and a huge paper round. The pub had no electricity, just like the Fox p ub in in Romney Street. As I remember it; 'The Fox' as being a dark, and dingy, hole of a place with dim oil lamps. I believe that these pubs were popular at night, that despite being difficult to get to (there being no cars), because they were so tucked away they were a bit of a law unto themselves when it came to opening and particularly; closing times! No policeman was going to get up there on his bicycle late at night. I can't remember what I was doing there, or for what reason I went there, but the place was dingy under the dull yellow light form the oil lamps, and the yellow tobacco-fume stained walls and ceilings. It was a place, which was steeped in 'atmosphere'; and as my brother-in-law would say: all the customers had "Katzenaugen" (cat's eyes), i.e.: it was Scary! That was how I viewed it as a young teenager.
In those days 'Woodlands' was a very quiet backwater indeed. The golf course and club-house were closed for the duration of the war.
Once, on a hot sultry day, I was walking down the footpath from Cotman's Ash, through and via Whitehill Wood, and which down then ran beside the churchyard and cemetery of Woodlands Church. It was very quiet. Then I saw a large, hot and sweaty, man in the churchyard. He wasn't wearing a shirt! "How disgraceful" I thought, and in a churchyard too! Then I realised that he was digging a grave. He paused for a brief rest from his exertions; he hadn't seen me. Then even worse; I saw him lift up a dark brown beer bottle, and take take a long swig out of a bottle; he paused, gasped, and then let out a loud belch! How disgusting, in a churchyard! I was absolutely horrified! He made me think that he could have come straight out a Dickens novel.
AT SCHOOL
At Sevenoaks Preparatory School there was a Morrison shelter in the basement. This had a large rectangular piece of steel plate as a top, and supporting legs made out of angle-iron about 1 metre high - it was a bit like large table - the sides were steel grid mesh. We never used it in earnest; we only went into it once for a practice exercise. It did do some service as a table though.
All glass panes in the school building's windows were covered with strips of sticky tape, which was common practice designed to reduce the chances of flying glass in the event of an explosion. I can't really say that the war affected us at school, except the possibility that it could have affected the availability of teachers, and especially the quality of teachers. There was of course a shortage of books and materials.
Three of our teachers were sacked whilst I was at that school for 'misbehaviour' towards the pupils, but I didn't get to know what form that misbehaviour took.
Whilst at the preparatory school we played cricket on the recreation ground off Holly Bush Lane. The head master, Mr Jukes, was taking a keen interest in my bowling. He placed a sixpence on the ground to indicate where I should pitch the ball, saying that, if I could hit the sixpence on the bounce, then I could keep it - well I did, and, with his full round, and rose-red face, all smiles, he gave me the sixpence. So he did it again, and I hit it again. I thought this is a good lark! However, after the second time this practice was abruptly discontinued. I tried my hardest to persuade him to continue with his sixpenny targeting (I knew when I was onto a good thing), but he steadfastly refused, and he was no longer full of beaming smiles,so I had to be content with the shilling I had gained. I felt cheated. But, Mr Jukes had done me a great favour, because from then on, when I was bowling I always visualised that sixpenny target, and I developed into a very good bowler (but, unfortunately, I was a lousy 'Hit-or-miss' batsman).
We sometimes played 'Battleships' if we could get the square paper. We made 'Tanks' out of a cotton reel, two matchsticks, and an elastic band. These would climb up the sloping desk-top.
There were no photo-copying devices; even carbon paper was scarce. Pencils were plain wood with no paint on them. We would sometimes copy pictures from the newspaper, using a candle. We would rub a sheet of paper with a candle, then place the illustration face down, and then rub the back of the newspaper illustration. It worked, but it wasn't brilliant. The newsprint probably wasn't of the same quality as it is today.
One of my school pals was named Donald Ramsay. He told me (in strict confidence then) that his father was a high ranking officer in the Navy, and I now wonder (if what he had claimed was indeed true) if that person couldn't have been Vice Admiral Bertram Ramsay he was referring to, who was put in charge of the Dunkirk Evacuation in 1940? I did call on Don at his home, and if my memory serves me correctly, I think he lived with his mother in temporary accommodation, at a house at the end of Park Lane, Kemsing.
At Sevenoaks School, where I was until 1950, almost all the male teachers wore their old military uniform. I distinctly remember that our P.E. Teacher, Mr Toser, came to school wearing his R.A.F. uniform with the rank of corporal. Some teachers wore brown tropical kit. But, WE had to wear school uniform (With short trousers! Even in Winter!)! We managed to persuade Mr Fife (farmer, and father of James Fife, a fellow pupil, and good friend at the time) to go on the panel, and we were lucky enough to get Captain Knight who was an ornithologist (and was well known character in Kemsing and around Sevenoaks); I can't remember who the other panellists were. Mr Jukes the head master was the chairman. Now, Captain Knight was an extraordinary flamboyant character. He was a huge man with a beard, and he would be seen walking about Sevenoaks town dressed as if he was on safari. He wore a large broad brimmed trilby, khaki jodhpurs, etc., and quite often he had a large eagle perched on his shoulder. He had a large Rolls Royce car, which was a timber framed hooting-brake. It was beige in colour and the rear of it was a rather box like shape with beech wood trimming (like the old 1960s Morris travelor. Well, I assumed that the wood was beech. When he turned up for the "question time", he arrived true to his fashion, with one of his large Eagles perched on his shoulder. We boys thought he was marvellous.
I was lucky enough to be allowed to pose a question to the panel, which was: "In view of the food shortage, would it be sensible for me to have a dog for Christmas?"
"In view of the food shortage, would it be sensible for me to have a dog for Christmas?"
Captain Knight surprised everybody in the hall by allowing his huge eagle to fly, back and forth, low across the audience. He eventually had to put a stop to it, because the eagle made a grab at one boy's head. Captain Knight explained that his bird was attracted to ginger hair, which this particular boy had. I have a feeling that boy might have been John Hall.
One day, when I arrived at the Prep. School by bicycle, we were prevented from going inside, and we were ordered to assemble in the school playground (back garden). We were told that a pupil had contracted 'infantile-paralysis' (polio) and that the school was under quarantine. We would all have to go home until further notice. Although I had no idea what infantile paralysis was, this was marvelous news to me, it effectively meant that we were on holiday. We were supposed not to mix with other children, but as we tended to play with school friends anyway, this did not present us with too much of a handicap.
I then, joyfully, cycled home, AND I could safely cycle through Seal without having to run the gauntlet of the children from the council houses in Childsbridge Lane, as they would, by then, be safely in incarcerated in their own school classrooms.
As long as I could remember what this "Infertile-per-ally-siss" business" thing was called, because I would have to explain to my mother about it, and that it had been the reason for our being sent home from school. Yippee!
I remember once, or twice, crossing Rochester Bridge over the River Medway on the train, and looking through the lattice steelwork I caught a glimpse of flying boats moored on the river. One was "Piggy-Back" unit, and this attracted my attention the most. There was only one of these units ever built, and so I know that this version must have been the Short's 'composite aircraft' G-ADHJ, 'sitting' on an Empire Flying Boat. This set-up came into being in 1937. Whilst I can remember it quite vividly, I couldn't have been very old when I saw them.
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