Evacuee Boys (24 page)

24
October
1942

Dear Everybody,

I got your letter this morning and just after I went to the Hospital to let them know that I had not gone home when I got there I was told to wait for the doctor when he came he had a look at me and said I should have to stay in Hospital and now here I am in the Men’s Ward. The doctor said that I shall be in here for about 10 day to a fortnight. I am feeling quite all right so don’t worry. It is a very nice Hospital with nice nurses and sisters. Please send some more Almás Pite.
34
I am sending my clothes coupons so please try to buy me a pair of pyjamas and I desperately need som[e] trousers and a jacket as this suit needs a wash very badly. I am now pretty well covered with starch poultices which until they are dry are very slimy. Mr. Robbins is in the same ward as I am as he has a poisoned leg and has been in her for over a week. Mts. Robbins will soon be here I suppose and then she will post this letter.

I don’t know anything about this allolution [sic] yet but I shall ask. For the last week I have been sleeping alone. Ruby did have Impetigo just after I did but it was not catching so I don’t think I got it from her.

How are you all getting on? I also enclose my report and you will see that I came 4th, which Dr. Cavell puts down to my absence from school for a while.

I have no more to write now but I am longing to see you all so cheerio for now from your everloving

John

P.S. Please send some money.

Notwithstanding my much-improved school exam results – near the top of my class in which I was the youngest by two years – the following admonishing letter was received by me from Andrew who was then a second year medical student. Of course, my poor English (spelling and punctuation) was self-evident from the letters.

26
October
1942

My dear Johnny,

I am sorry to see from your letter that your impetigo is still not getting better, but hope that with the hospital treatment you are getting, your recovery will not be long delayed. While you are in hospital, I hope you are not wasting your time. It is more essential now than ever before that you should make some progress in your schoolwork which I am afraid is more like the standard of a 12 year old secondary school boy than of a 14 year old.

Your report is not bad, but by no means as good as it might be. I am not worried about your low book-keeping mark, although of course it is desirable that you should be good in everything. On the other hand, great and immediate improvement is needed especially in English and Mathematics, and considering the standard you are working on, in French.

Let us take the subjects one by one. Your English must not be neglected on any account, because whatever you go, whatever job you apply for as good and correct English is a great asset, but a faulty loose Cockney creates a very bad impression. I expect that beside Grammar your spelling let you down badly. I find far too many common words spelt wrongly in your letters. Whenever you read printed matter watch how the words are spelt. After all, you are a Scout and your observation should be quite good. Just remember that next time.

I do not know why you are so weak in Maths. I have told you before that an Engineer must know a great deal of Maths well, and unless you understand the elementary principles thoroughly now, you will never be able to understand more difficult things like calculus. Get an elementary text-book on arithmetic algebra and geometry, and workout as many problems as possible. Do not look at the answer until you have made a
really
honest attempt at working out, & if you still cannot get it right, I am sure Dr. Cavell will be only too pleased to help you. Do not think I am trying to talk you into becoming a ‘swot’ although there are many things far worse than that which you might become. But,
if you want to get on in life you must give up a certain amount of your spare time now
otherwise you will never become anything. Moreover, the more you learn, the greater the fascination will become to learn more. If you do not
try
to become interested you never will. Do you remember when I told you a few things about Biology? How you wanted more and more! You will find it the same with all the other subjects.

I miss you a great deal Johnny. I wish with all my heart that you were in London for good, so that I could guide you and help you in your work, with only 3 of the old masters left in the school you cannot be expected to do much. I am going to Streatham next Wednesday to enquire about getting you to a London secondary school. They are not so terribly expensive & at least you would get a decent education.

By the way, do not kid yourself into thinking that the education you get is anywhere near enough. I was at Westken when nearly all the masters were there, and now that I see the Secondary and Public School boys, I see how deficient
my
education has been. Unfortunately your education is very far from mine, so you can get an idea how behind you are and how hard you will have to work to be better than the rest. So not be discouraged, because that work will be enjoyable and in the end when you have achieved your aims you will appreciate the fruits of your labour far more than if they had been ‘dropped into your mouth’. Don’t forget – there are no roses without thorns.

I expect that if I go on lecturing like this you will feel that you do not want to come back to London at all, but what I said is of the utmost importance to you and I hope you will take my words of concentrated wisdom to heart (i.e. the left and right auricles and ventricles).

As for me, I am getting on quite well now I have dissected the back, the chest, shoulder and armpit, taken the arm off and starting on the arm now. Although we have a fair amount to learn, I am enjoying myself.

At Scouts things are going much the same as usual. I still run parades until Mr. Young comes down on the whole the boys behave themselves. You will see from the bulletin that Les Fielder has been promoted P.L. – and I think you know the rest. I shall ask Mr. Young for your Missioner’s and Cooks Badge when I next see him. I have the green-all-rounds here & will send the whole lot together – or you can come and collect them yourself – I hope soon.

I have not much more to say now so I’d better pack up. Otherwise I shall find myself writing a book to you instead of a letter. In the meanwhile you can be working these out & send me the answers next time:-

Divide 3x +5 into 6x
³
– 5x
²
+ 8x –6

If T=2ω√K/MH find an expression for M

Find the factors of 8a
³
– 1/27b
³

The hypotenuse of a right angled triangle is 8cms. and the base is 3cms. find the perpendicular showing how you work out the square root. (Do not use logarithms for this one)

A, B & C are in partnership. A having a capital of £5,000, B of £4,000 and C of £3,000. If the net profit they make is 17% of the total capital, show how much profit each should receive, if the profit is distributed in ration of the capitals contributed.

In all these problems show working unless you have done it in your head. If you cannot do the algebra, take a book and look the parts considered up. They are not difficult.

Best of luck & speedy recovery & lots of love from

Andrew

28
 
Aunt Edith.

29
 
Andrew’s real question was: is he also to be interned? He never was.

30
 
Uncle Imre, also interned on the Isle of Man.

31
 
Francis Áldor, a friend of Dad’s from Hungary.

32
 
Under-training as a toolmaker – to which Dad was totally unsuited.

33
 
Sheila Christian, Andrew’s girlfriend.

34
 
Hungarian apple pie.

No later ‘evacuation letters’ have survived. I recovered from the impetigo and was able to resume my newspaper deliveries job at W.H. Smith. As air raids seemed to be declining after three years of evacuation, it was agreed that I should finally and permanently return home to London at the end of 1942 – as it turned out, just in time for a resumption of regular night raids.

Labelled by our doctor as a ‘septic child’ on account of recurring boils and similar signs of vitamin C deficiency, he recoiled from my fingers that now reeked of aeroplane ‘dope’ arising from enthusiastic model building. Now 14 and no longer so puny, I was soon issued with the obligatory steel helmet and navy blue ‘Fire Guard’ armband in gold lettering, for duties in the six-storey block of flats, where we now lived. I still had to share a bedroom, sleeping on a mattress while Andrew slept on the base of one divan and my grandmother Noni had a second divan to herself – with her chamber pot close by. Ignoring our proper bathroom, she insisted on treating us to the sounds and odours of her chamber music and it was quite a relief to get up in the night for fireguard duty. This involved patrolling the corridors to check for incendiary bombs and, more interestingly, standing on the flat roof above the sixth floor to watch the search lights pick out bombers and to see the anti-aircraft shells bursting.

John’s original fireguard armband. (Author’s collection)

Regular training and practice in the art of extinguishing incendiary bombs with the piddling jet from a stirrup pump in a bucket of water was quite fun. We were taught to crawl beneath the smoke and to direct the jet, holding the hose over our heads while another pumped, ’til the bucket was empty. I was ready to go to bed one evening some hours before my watch duty time, when a raid was going, ‘ding dong’, as I watched the action over North End Road through the window, with the blackout curtains behind me. A stick of bombs started whistling towards us from the north, each a little nearer, and when the whistling reached shrieking level I ducked back behind the curtain. The bomb fell a short distance away and the window I had been looking through shredded the curtain at stomach level. Soon the chief of our fireguard section was ringing our doorbell:

‘John, take this pink form to the Auxiliary Fire Station at Beaufort Street School and tell them we need them to put out a fire on the corner of Gliddon Road. We already pulled an old lady out – except she insisted on going back for her false teeth. Be quick now.’

By now having my own bike, earned by tilling Uncle Eugene’s allotment for 1/- a day, I donned my ‘tin hat’ and, clutching the pink form sped the half-mile along North End Road, crunched over never-ending broken glass. When I arrived, the school itself was well alight. ‘Go back son, we’re busy putting out our own fire,’ was the disappointing outcome. Miraculously without the tyres going flat, I made the return ride over the glass and the fire in Gliddon Road just continued to burn.

Bombsites were everywhere and they provided free planks, from which I was able to construct my Scout patrol’s own storage cupboard. Screwing them together without the benefit of drills to make way for the screws I had scrounged meant the palms of my hands were covered in blisters. This sturdy piece of furniture was then painted and placed in our St Andrews Hall Scout headquarters. On Scout nights it was brought out to our patrol corner, where my Buffaloes Patrol lined up for ‘colours’ and inspection, before taking out our manuals, ropes and first-aid bandages, for instruction in everything from compass and mapping work, signalling, treating burns and fractures, to the Scout law and the Scout Promise.