Machine gunned on the footplate

When I left school I was apprenticed to a motor car paint sprayer in the Devizes Road, getting about 5 bob a week. But when I went drinking with the boys on Saturday night I couldn’t keep up with them — so I joined the railway and my money went up to £2 a week! I worked on the railway all through the War.

When I was a fireman on the Waterloo to Exeter line, through Salisbury, we were machine gunned regularly — we just used to duck! It was just one of those things — we didn’t take any notice. When the sirens first started at the beginning of the War people used to rush, but after a bit they took no notice.

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