Wartime

I have various memories of wartime - hiding behind the blackout curtains at our home, "The Hut", and recollections of being annoyed at the length of the conversation my mother was having while I was sitting in my pram, half-way back from Cranleigh village. There was a field on the right with a coil of barbed wire blaocking access to it. I also recall setting off one day to walk to the Studio at the other end of the village, where my mother was working. There are all hard to date, but must have been during the war years. Other things also come to mind, even less dateable - like getting my arm stuck in the letterbox of the Westminster Bank, or falling out of the apple tree in the garden and being taken to the doctor (I still have the scar). And other things I associate with Cranleigh, but which must have taken place on visits, like going to the optician's (next to the post office) to take a piece of metal out of my eye which had "fallen from the Skylon" at the Festival of Britain.

1944 - The Doodlebug that fell on Cranleigh Gasworks

On 16 August 1944, a V-1 rocket fell on the gasholder south of Cranleigh Common, causing a large explosion. Only one person was killed, Emily Ede, who lived in the gasworks cottage.

We were having a picnic at the Warrens', along the road, and I remember being pulled down behind the garden wall. My mother than took me to Auntie Wo-wo at Southview Cottage, the other half of our semi-detached house. I have a clear picture of her garden path, which was covered with glass (and have recalled ever since that bombs work by suction as much as by pressure!)

'Auntie Wo-wo' was Annie Jane Clapham. She died on 30 March 1958 at the age of 79 while attending Cranleigh Methodist Church. In her will, she left me £50 when I reached the age of 21. I used the sum to buy a Philips reel-to-reel four-track tape recorder. (I was very proud of it, but my pride was eclipsed by lodging a few rooms away from Fr. Martin Chadwick, who had a professional recorder that ran at 15 inches per second. We joined forces to record Geoffrey Beaumont and Simon Phipps playing Original Sin, Botticelli Angel and other snatches from a past Cambridge Footlights revue.)

This page was last modified on 4 September 2017 by Hector Davie.