Reserved Occupations

Another Door Part 2: Our Journey to Disaster

The old man poked his head round the radio room door and indicated that I should leave my post and give a...

Another Door Part 6: Benkulen the Bottleneck

With no compass to be found either on the prauw or in the town navigation would be precarious to say the...

Another Door Part 3: In Beleaguered Singapore

Negotiating Fullerton road and Robinson road and finally Anson road junction we arrived at the mission...

Another Door Part 1: War in the Far East

So, it was with a sigh of relief that we eventually set sail on December 16th, and much to Captain...

Another Door Part 4: Escape to Sea

The 'Pinna's' high-diving Sandy would stay with the 'Makota' and its passengers, George...

Another Door Part 5: The Road to Palembang

Mossie said that upon leaving Bengkalis, the Resident had added that the airfield at Pekam Baru had had...

Another Door Part 7: Another Wrong Island

The main objective being taking Batavia and the docks at Tanjong Priok It wasn't until later that I...

Another Door Part 9: North Africa

We have just learned that Bone is 30 minutes flying time from the Axis base at Cagliary on the tip of...

Another Door Part 8: Colombo and UK

I did that short train journey so many times during my stay in Ceylon that even now the station stops from...

Some Wartime Memories of the Railways and RAF

In 1991 I accompanied George on a trip across Australia from Perth to Sidney in the Gipsy Moth to attend...

Ambulance Driver

Because of the heavy bombing of London, Coventry etc. we were considered a high risk area and if a major...

The London Blitz

In the late afternoon we of the Auxiliary Fire Service, stationed at the London Fire Brigade Station at the...

“My War”

But I was to be excluded from the ‘fighting’ — I was to travel to Burnhope to collect a...

Pride Before The Fall - A Bevin Boy.

When we first got ours I overheard my wife bragging to the next door neighbour one day saying,...

Chemistry and My Recollections of my Father and the War

His materials were also crucial to the success of the bouncing bombs, designed by Barnes Wallis and used by...

Farming and the Blitz

They used the Langsett, Ewden, Bradfield and Derwent Reservoirs for practice runs and Guy Gibson who led...

Missionaries in Skirts

But far worse were the compulsory Olde English dancing classes for boys. According to rumour, she took her...

Young Evacuee: from Bristol to Cornwall

Mum and I were travelling home on the bus from grandmother's house in Oldland Common. An air raid alert...

The Night of the Baked Potatoes

So it came about that May, Jean and I were firewatchers at the automatic telephone exchange on Stubbs Road,...

An Incident in West Africa

Opening a door marked ‘Crew Only’ we descended to a deck from which he found an intact stairway...

From Reserved Occupation to the Royal Navy

I was promptly sent packing, and when I got back to Fairey's I was given another rollicking by the...

RAF Bombing in Dresden

When war broke out I was swimming in Ladywell Baths in South East London, I heard the sirens and they...

a Day's Work in War-torn Britain: A Fireman on Southern Railways

Our instructions were: travel "on the cushions" to Eastleigh Depot, light engine to Southampton...

A Harvest Never to Forget

Don Webb drove this chugging beast which today would make a Health and Safety officer faint with its...

I'd Rather Go To Prison

The agreement was that if you didn't work in the pits you would have to go to prison…so I had a...

Memories of a Hertfordshire Childhood in Wartime

As soon as the bombing started, he was sent to keep the telephone exchanges working - to Liverpool,...