Norman
A Journey Through Time
By
Alex Askaroff
Smashwords Edition
Copyright Alex Askaroff
Other titles by Alex Askaroff
Random Threads Volume
I
Patches of Heaven
ISBN
0-9539410-4-3
Random Threads Volume
II
Skylark Country
ISBN 0-9539410-2-7
Random Threads Volume
III
High Streets & Hedgerows
ISBN 0-9539410-3-5
Tales
from the Coast
UK ISBN: 978-0-9539410-5-6
Corner of the
Kingdom
ISBN: 978-1-61179-067-2
Sussex Born and
Bred
ISBN: 978-1-935585-22-0
Books published containing the author’s work
A Celebration of
Childhood Rivacre Paperback
Natural Peace Anchor Books
Paperback
Poetry of Kent Millfield Paperback
This Natural
World Arrival Press Hardback
South East Poets Arrival Press
Hardback
Let’s do Lunch Remus new fiction
Paperback
Anchor Poets Anchor Books Hardback
This Vanishing
World Poetry Now Hardback
Web of Thoughts Anchor Books
Hardback
The Good Ol’ Days Arrival Press Hardback
New
Rhymes for Arrival Press Hardback
A Tapestry of Thoughts
Spotlight Paperback
Mixed Musings Poetry Now Hardback
Special Occasions Arrival Press Hardback
WILLINGDON PARK DRIVE
EASTBOURNE
EAST SUSSEX
ENGLAND
BN22 0DG
CIP library reference:
Non-Fiction, Historical, Biography.
First
published in Great Britain in 2011
Paperback (with dozens of pictures) available
Crows Nest Publications www.crowsbooks.com
ISBN: 978-0-9539410-6-3
Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form, including photocopying, recording. No part of this publication may be stored on a retrieval system or be transmitted in any form or by any means without the copyright owner’s permission.
The author asserts his moral and legal rights to be identified as the sole author of this work.
The greatest care has been taken in compiling this book. However, no responsibility can be accepted by the publishers or compilers for the accuracy of the information provided.
Although many events in this book are inspired by true incidents some names and places may have been changed for legal and personal reasons. It would be impossible to recognise any individual from the following pages unless so stated. Any similarities with any people living or dead are purely coincidental.
For more information on Alex’s books visit: www.crowsbooks.com
Dedicated, as always, to my family and friends. Without their help my books would never come to life.
Forward
It has always fascinated me how strange and tangled our lives are. I have known Norman, who this story is about, for many years. He lives in Church Street just up the road from me. For the first few years we just nodded to each other when passing. Eventually we threw in “Good Morning.” Then, “How are you today?” After what seemed like years we would stop and chat. During our chats we found common threads in our lives.
Both his sons had gone to my old school. My favourite teacher there, Rex Lord, was a friend of his. Norman had also been a teacher and had taught one of my brothers at Ratton School. Slowly other threads appeared as we talked, like the love of playing squash in our youth, boxing and one abiding joy that we both had—cycling.
As the years shot by in that annoying but unstoppable way, I learnt more about the small quiet man who now lives alone along the road, and a short 26 years later I had gained a huge amount of knowledge about my neighbour.
The Official Secrets Act had kept many an old fighter quiet. Their lips sealed, sworn to secrecy on royal orders, but with the passing of time and easing of laws those secret days sometimes come to life.
It has been a great privilege to be taken into Norman’s confidence and to join him on his journey, to relive those special moments that make up our limited number of days on planet earth. Some journeys are in the mind and some with the body, his ability to remember events and dates is astounding and we must forgive any inaccuracies in a lifetime’s worth of amazing detail. There is no doubt that had he written down events that occurred during his war years at the time and not 70 years later, they would have been in even more detail.
Like many people who live amongst us Norman had lived a life which he thought of as ordinary. He, like many of us, is almost invisible, a single leaf on a tree in our human forest. For most of the 20th Century Norman had been involved in and witnessed a brave new world, a world in which we live today.
Here is a mini biography of a modest man who was born into a rural time hardly changed for centuries. Where a team of farmers and animals would spend back-breaking days working a field, to a time when one man in an air-conditioned cosy tractor, with music playing on his iPod, guided by satellites in space, could do the same work in a few hours. Norman’s journey has spanned the most interesting century that this planet may ever have, and provides us with a unique portrait of one man’s life.
During Norman’s trip through life I often digress to bring you events and topics that had such an influence on our world. Come with me on a journey through time.
Chapter 1
The Early Years
Norman was born in the picturesque and bustling market town of St Neots, Cambridgeshire, on Nov 28, 1919. The town, centred round the impressive market square, was lit by gas lamps and studded with churches. Dozens of pubs watered the thirsty farmers on market day. It was an idyllic place for a child to grow. He was a ‘demob’ or ‘celebration’ baby after his dad arrived back from serving as a photographer in the Royal Flying Corps during the First World War. Countless happy servicemen returning to their wives produced the first baby boom in Britain. He was christened Harold Norman Albone after his Uncle Harold.
Albone is an old Bedfordshire name and both his mum and dad had been born in Biggleswade. Norman never bonded with his first christian name and, much to his Mum’s annoyance, used Norman so often that she gave up trying to change it back. It did not last however as at school he was nicknamed ‘Ernie’ after his Dad. Dealing with his Mum was no problem but having a whole school call you Ernie was a situation impossible to change, so, for a while anyway, Norman just put up with it.
Norman is one of the last of the Victorians. His parents were Victorian as were most married couples having children during that period. Norman was really attached to a part of the old Empire that today seems like a million years ago, but in reality is just a simple step across the ages. As Norman talked to me about his parents I felt as if I knew them, and yet they had been brought up in a world where electricity had yet to triumph and the loo was a bucket at the bottom of the garden.
Norman nearly never made it to school, as the dreadful influenza pandemic was killing millions just after the war. In Britain nearly 250,000 people died of the dreaded Spanish Flu. Although it was a worldwide pandemic, it was called Spanish Flu after the King of Spain caught it. No one is sure how many millions died, but many more died from Spanish Flu than died during the World War that had just come to an end.
When Norman was just a snippet of a lad, the Great Ouse which snakes its way through the flatlands of Cambridgeshire towards St Neots decided to flood. He was rescued in the nick of time from an upstairs room. He was lifted out of the window into a punt as loaves of bread and half full bottles and pans floated around him.
Later, aged five, he had a brush with the old river again. He fell into the Ouse while horsing around with friends. A tree had fallen, partially across the river, and made a tempting bridge. Norman slipped and was going down to his watery grave. As he slowly sunk he watched the green water slowly darken to black. Suddenly the water lightened again and he was moving upward toward the light. He was dragged to safety by a passing walker who muttered a few words and, soaked, walked on. Unknown to Norman this close proximity to water was to have a huge impact on his later life.
“It’s a funny old business—life.” Norman once told me and how right he is. Norman was born lucky or charmed and through the years, time and time again it played a major part in his life. Norman was blessed with a special gift that Emperor Napoleon always sought out when picking his generals.
On his birthday Norman and his parents would gather around the radio to hear the announcer read out a list of people who had birthdays on that day. Radio was new in the mid 1920’s and just a small concern so you could, for a shilling, write in and have your child’s birthday announced. Norman would be glued to the set and eventually the announcer would say something like, “And young Norman Albone in St Neots is seven today. Norman your present is hidden in the camera box in the studio. Happy birthday.”
He would then excitedly rush off to where his dad had hidden his present.
Years later it made sense why his father would always take the accumulator up the High Street to be recharged before his birthday; it was so the wireless would work perfectly with a fully charged battery.
The Studio in St Neots High Street was also the place they lived above. Ernest earned a meagre living taking wedding photos and portraits. When he first started his shop he only had a bicycle, so he would cycle to weddings with his reflex cameras and tripods balanced and tied around his bike. On more than one occasion strange looks followed him as he arrived at the church.
Next to the shop was his Studio for those all important photos of families and local dignitaries. Ernest kept a glove-puppet handy for the kids and would mesmerise them with one hand working the puppet, while the other deftly opened and closed the lens cover. If a flash was needed, then he would carefully fill a pan with magnesium powder that was triggered by a battery which made the room light up with a whoosh, and smell like some old wizard’s workshop.
At the back of the shop was the dark room where he would spend hours developing his pictures in a laboratory full of chemicals. After developing his pictures he would take them to his framing area and make the frames and cut the glass for them.
Independent and practical, Ernest’s shop was just one of the many small specialist shops that filled St Neots High Street in the 1920’s. Norman knew them all in his high street playground. They were all important men in their day and many families in St Neots will be descended from them. There was Willy the grocer, Wise the chemist. Two butchers, Eays, who displayed turkeys plucked to the neck at Christmas and pigeon, pheasant, rabbit and hare the rest of the year and Neavson the pork butcher. Then there was Hamilton the furniture man, Wren the smelly fishmonger, Plumb’s café where a cuppa cost a penny, which led along to the Picture Palace and the Market Square where the cattle market was held every week.
At the Picture Palace a violinist and pianist would accompany the silent films and play light music during the intervals when ice cream was served up and down the isle. There was the sweet & ‘baccy’ shop, Fairweather’s with a fine selection of pipes displayed in the window. Harrison, Cross & Veitch doctors, Sharp & Griffin the dentists. The ‘gas chamber’ was always to be avoided if possible. Both the doctors surgery and the dentists did more work on market day than the rest of the week combined as farmers from the outlying areas descended on the town. In the early part of the 20th Century people still saved for children’s 21st birthdays to have all their teeth pulled and false teeth fitted. Can you imagine what a present that was!
Ibbett was the local greengrocer who supplied fresh produce in season. A tomato at Christmas was impossible in the 1920’s. Lynn was the powerful ironmonger who made whatever you wanted from a horseshoe to a steel ring to put through a bulls nose.
All legal proceedings, whether buying a horse or selling of land was handled by Wade, Gery & Brakenbury the local solicitors. They would cut up their indentures or contracts between the parties by hand giving each person entitled a piece of the contract. Each piece had a unique cut and so when the paperwork came back as a whole the cut documents came together like a puzzle. Simple but effective.
Finally the smartest building in St Neots was the Cross Keys Hotel, which ran a regular coach service to the railway station to pick up and drop off guests.
Ernie Wise, one of two High Street chemist shops had a sign in his window that read…
Here I lie with my two
daughters,
Died through drinking Cheltenham waters.
Had I stuck
to Epsom Salts,
We wouldn’t be beneath these vaults.
One market day Mr. Wise popped out of his shop and left the young boy in charge. This was not unusual as he would often deliver customers pills. Suddenly a large farmer burst into the shop clutching his belly. “I need some salts boy where is Wise?”
“He has just pooped out sir. He will be back presently.”
“Presently! I need relief now where is the Epsom Salts.”
“I am sorry sir I am not allowed to prescribe drugs.”
“Idiot. Hand me an ounce of the salts and be fast about it.”
The young lad in a state of trepidation measured out the ounce of Epsom Salts and handed it to the country gentleman who rushed out and over the road to the pub. Sometime later Ernie Wise returned and the young lad explained the encounter to him. “My God boy, an ounce will go straight through him I’ll have to track him down and let him know. Which way did he go?”
“No need sir. He went straight into the pub drank the salts and has been gripping the lamppost opposite ever since. I think he’s too scared to move.” The young lad pointed to the farmer on the opposite side of the road and they both burst out laughing.
To make ends meet at the photographic shop and to supplement the shop’s mortgage payments, besides the usual photo frames and pictures, Norman’s parents also sold china and kitchenware. Hilda would also do the washing in an old copper heated on the stove then use the scrubber and mangle before ironing with irons heated by the fire. It was non-stop work.
Ernest’s shop opened six days a week and rarely closed before eight each night. They were long hours and little money but they survived and eventually with help from George Page, the assistant, cycling trips to the weddings became a little more balanced.
When Norman was nearly ten his dad took him up to the steeple of the church near to his shop. They made their way up the winding stairs, passed the bells, to the very top of the parapet. They surveyed the wide open areas and outlying fields from their crows nest. “See over there Norman.” His dad said pointing, far away into the distance towards a large castle. That’s Kimbolton and that’s where you will go to school.”
Chapter 2
Boarding School
Norman’s first day at his new school also coincided with a momentous event in the young boy’s life. He had his first trip in a motor car, something of a novelty as cars were rare in St Neots in 1929. He had seen the odd machine come and go and had run down the street chasing the modern marvel of our time, but had never been in one. It was his trip to boarding school but he was so fascinated by the speed of the car as it drove the seven miles to Kimbolton and the amazing sights that sped by that he had little time to worry.
From September 1929 until July 1936 Norman boarded at the ancient Kimbolton School, which has a proud history dating back to 1530, though not comprehensively recorded until 1600.
Nearby was where Catherine of Aragon spent her last years away from her philandering husband, King Henry. Right up until her early death she fought with Henry to keep her position by his side as the rightful Queen of England. Why anyone would want to be near a man responsible for the murder of thousands is most strange. The charismatic King obviously had two very different sides to him. No one would ever want to be on his bad side as it meant a one way trip to the executioner!
Kimbolton School has taught all classes of people, from dukes to air vice marshals, farmers to successful inventors. The school bred and still breeds that British kind of pupil who goes on to help run the empire. In the playground the kids would sing “When good Queen Bess was on the throne Kimbolton was already brick and bone.”
Norman moved into the long dormitory for his first night with the other boarders. His housemaster, H E Day kept a close eye on him as he settled in. The toilets were buckets and the dining hall was often split in two and used by matron. Norman found that the school was spread out all over the little village with buildings everywhere like Mandeville House, White House or Corner House. Each morning he would set off with his school books to whichever building, like Cyril Gibbard for maths. Only later did the school take over Kimbolton Castle.
Norman’s headmaster was the fearsome and mildly eccentric William Ingram. Ingram was the headmaster from 1913 until 1947. He was admired and feared by the pupils in equal amounts. Norman always remembered him as a willowy formidable man who ruled with gentle strength. If William Ingram entered a room—silence was immediate! Ingram, a passionate headmaster, had a lot of contacts which he called upon when needed.
Ingram was always calling on the services of the local photographer who just happened to be Norman’s dad. Ernest had apprenticed in Evesham before moving to his own shop in St Neots. A deal was eventually struck between the headmaster and the photographer. The photographer’s son got into Kimbolton almost free, and the headmaster got all his school photos—almost free.
The deal between Norman’s father and the school proved to have a huge effect on the whole of Norman’s life. Also years later, inspired by his Dad, he took his own camera with him on his journeys. The pictures he took add thousands of words to his story.
Sports day at
Kimbolton School. One of the many pictures that Ernest took for the
school. The redoubtable William Ingram on the left next to the
imposing figure of local farmer and chairman of the governors,
William Whitehead.
Sports stars of the time were brought in to train the pupils. Tom ‘Dancer’ Parker the Arsenal captain for football, the Welsh Flyweight boxing champion Jimmy Wilde known as ‘The Mighty Atom’ and Jack ‘The Master’ Hobbs, the England cricketer who is still considered the greatest opening batsman of all time. They all came to Kimbolton to train the pupils. Norman excelled at school and as the years raced by he won medals in boxing and football.
Kimbolton Senior School is now based in the grounds of Kimbolton Castle, and the preparatory school is at the other end of the village, connected via a beautiful tree-lined pathway known as The Duchess Walk. The School motto is Spes Durat Avorum (the hope of our ancestors endures).
Ingram cared deeply about his pupil’s future and made huge efforts to find jobs for the leaving young men. His connections in London with the Zurich Insurance Company saw several school leavers obtain jobs there.
All too soon Norman’s school years were over and he would be one of the boys found a job in London.
Chapter 3
A working life
In 1936, after King George V had died and amid rumours that his son, the new King Edward VIII, was having a relationship with an American woman, Norman left home and headed for the smoke filled streets of London.
Later in the year the nation, and world, shuddered when news reached them that the King was intending to run away with the divorcee, Wallis Simpson.
King Edward’s December abdication shook the Empire. Prime Minister, Stanley Baldwin, had made it clear to Edward that it would be impossible for him to remain King if he decided to marry a twice-divorced American of uncertain character. Stanley Baldwin had never liked Edward and never warmed to the young man. His rebellious ways were not in tune with Baldwin’s Victorian ideals of how a monarch should behave.
Edward was head-over-heels in love and made the decision to marry the girl of his dreams. He summoned Baldwin to Buckingham Palace. The Prime Minister rushed there in his big black overcoat and beaver skin top hat to hear Edwards’s terms to stay as King. When they were rejected Edward made the decision that would stun the world.
His abdication announcement reverberated around our planet on wirelesses and in every printed newspaper from Australia to Iceland. The astounding speech was printed over and over again to a disbelieving world. He was the first British king since the time of the Anglo Saxons to voluntarily abdicate.
*****
The speech that shook an empire.
Edward VIII - December 11, 1936
“At long last I am able to say a few words of my own. I have never wanted to withhold anything, but until now it has not been constitutionally possible for me to speak.
A few hours ago I discharged my last duty as King and Emperor, and now that I have been succeeded by my brother, the Duke of York, my first words must be to declare my allegiance to him. This I do with all my heart.
You all know the reasons which have impelled me to renounce the throne. But I want you to understand that in making up my mind I did not forget the country or the empire, which, as Prince of Wales and lately as King, I have for twenty-five years tried to serve.
But you must believe me when I tell you that I have found it impossible to carry the heavy burden of responsibility and to discharge my duties as King as I would wish to do without the help and support of the woman I love.
And I want you to know that the decision I have made has been mine and mine alone. This was a thing I had to judge entirely for myself. The other person most nearly concerned has tried up to the last to persuade me to take a different course.
I have made this, the most serious decision of my life, only upon the single thought of what would, in the end, be best for all.
This decision has been made less difficult to me by the sure knowledge that my brother, with his long training in the public affairs of this country and with his fine qualities, will be able to take my place forthwith without interruption or injury to the life and progress of the empire. And he has one matchless blessing, enjoyed by so many of you, and not bestowed on me — a happy home with his wife and children.
During these hard days I have been comforted by her majesty my mother and by my family. The ministers of the crown, and in particular, Mr. Baldwin, the Prime Minister, have always treated me with full consideration. There has never been any constitutional difference between me and them, and between me and Parliament. Bred in the constitutional tradition by my father, I should never have allowed any such issue to arise.
Ever since I was Prince of Wales, and later on when I occupied the throne, I have been treated with the greatest kindness by all classes of the people wherever I have lived or journeyed throughout the empire. For that I am very grateful.
I now quit altogether public affairs and I lay down my burden. It may be some time before I return to my native land, but I shall always follow the fortunes of the British race and empire with profound interest, and if at any time in the future I can be found of service to his majesty in a private station, I shall not fail.
And now, we all have a new King. I wish him and you, his people, happiness and prosperity with all my heart. God bless you all! God save the King!”
*****
His younger brother, who was to become George VI, was also Edward’s closest confident. He reluctantly became the third monarch from the House of Windsor, King and Emperor. He bestowed the title of Duke of Windsor on his brother.
There was another blow for the new King. His abdicating brother, the boy who had shared so many hardships with him, so many painful years of youth, his closest friend while he was growing up, the man who was the first to lend an ear when needed, packed his bags and ran from England. A warship took him to his lover in France and he married Wallis on 3 June 1937. They stayed together until death.
Norman’s world had also changed from the quiet almost rural life of St Neots and Kimbolton to the mad rush of one of the world’s great capitals, London. The very air was electric with nightclubs, jazz bars, casinos and pubs. London was alive with noise, action and controversy.
Oswald Mosley and his notorious Blackshirts were marching through the East End causing havoc, but Londoners stood shoulder to shoulder to block him and his fascists supporters. All manner of people locked arms together, bearded Orthodox Jews clasped the huge arms of rough Irish Dockers, and Catholics held hands with Protestants, men and women of all creeds and races rallied to stop the march. “They shall not pass,” was the cry that filled the heated air. It became known as the Battle of Cable Street and many from both sides ended up in prison. The Public Order Act was later passed to stop military uniforms being used in marches like Mosley’s.
Mosley was later arrested and spent most of the war in a house in the grounds of Holloway Prison with his beautiful wife the Honourable Lady Mosley, Diana Mitford. They had been married in 1936 at the home of Joseph Goebbels with Adolf Hitler as guest of honour. Diana Mitford was one of the six, often scandalous, Mitford Sisters.
Till her dying day Diana Mitford never renounced her belief in fascism.
It was a huge wrench at 16 to leave home and go to the big city, but Norman’s life had been planned, and lodgings had been arranged at a hostel in South London. Norman worked all week for one pound and five shillings at Zurich Insurance. His lodgings were cramped with four-to-a-room but on the up side the cost of a-pound-a-week rent also included breakfast and an evening meal to boot.
The cost of Norman’s lodgings left him with little to live on. When time and money allowed he would rush off to the cinema to see the latest Errol Flynn or Douglas Fairbanks film. But eating out, even in 1936, unless it was tea and chips, was kept for special occasions.
Singing in the Kazani Club at the time was a pretty young girl called Vera Lynn. Her elocution-perfect voice would drift out into the London night air and was sometimes broadcast over the radio. After the nightclub closed each night she would jump on the bus back to East Ham where she lived with her mum and dad. Before long Vera Lynn would be outselling the greatest stars of the age like Bing Crosby. During the war that was just around the corner, grown men would cry when they heard her sing with her pure voice which tugged straight at the heart strings. She symbolised the girl next door to a nation with her nostalgic songs. She would later become the forces’ sweetheart.
Vera Lynn became the
forces sweetheart with her patriotic and heart-tugging songs.
Chapter 4
Norman’s starting wage was £60 a year with most of it going on lodgings, so he needed a cheap form of transport. One of his older school colleagues who had also found work with Zurich two years earlier, Dixon P Morris, had a superb Hetchins bicycle he no longer needed as, along with his brother J A V Morris, they were buying an Ariel Red Hunter motorcycle. Norman started saving every penny he could. Lunch was milk and a bun and after work straight back to his digs to save for the bicycle.
One night, one of the lads rushed into the digs in Sydenham. “Quick, quick, Crystal Palace has gone up like a tinder box.” Norman and his mates ran to the top of the hill and watched the beautiful old palace burn to the ground. Flames shot hundreds of feet into the sky and it lit up a huge area of London. Over 400 firemen could do nothing to stop its destruction. Among the crowds was Winston Churchill who muttered, “This is the end of an age.”
Crystal Palace
burning in 1936
By 1937 Norman had saved up seven pounds which was enough money to buy the Hetchins from Dixon, for half its original price. From then on Norman used it daily after his work in the city. He would dodge all the taxis and carts off to their evenings work, and cycle through the streets and sometimes out into the countryside to see what was going on. However cycling through London in winter was another matter.
The poor roads of 1930’s London were part pot-hole part cobblestones and a little smooth tarmac. His dad coughed-up the three-pound season ticket to get him to work. He took the 8.17 morning train from Sydenham Penge East to Holborn Viaduct, so that he did not have to risk his life each day riding to work through London in the icy winter months. The three pounds that he paid for Norman’s ticket was just one of the many ways his dad helped over the years.
Norman’s Hetchins was his pride and joy, to be polished and oiled. Little did Norman guess that seven decades later he would still have his bicycle!
*****
Hetchins bicycles were the iconic British bicycles, and I must add a little chapter about them in case they are lost in time.
The fastest man alive on a self-powered bicycle in 1936 was the German, Toni Merkens. He rode into the halls of fame during the 1936 Olympic Championship in Berlin, watched over by Adolf Hitler. Toni received the gold medal for the men’s 1000 meter match sprint event, riding a Hetchins. It was the same Olympics in which Jesse Owens, wearing new Adidas trainers excelled, winning, much to Hitler’s disgust, four gold medals.
Interestingly, Hetchins Bicycles only came into existence because of the Russian Revolution.
Hyman Hetchins ‘Harry’ and his sister had fled Russia after their parents were killed in the Revolution. On arriving in Britain Harry established a music shop in Leyton. Harry was a keen cyclist and so part of his shop was also selling bicycles.
Harry was joined by an expert bicycle frame builder called Jack Denny. Now, some cyclists of that period had accidents due to the snapping of super-lightweight bike frames as frame builders kept trying to make their racing bikes lighter and lighter. All Hetchins frames were made with the best steel tubing available at the time which was Reynolds 531. It has only recently been superseded by special aluminium and titanium.
Up to the 1930’s, just before the mass invasion of the motorcar, the bicycle ruled supreme. Over a million bicycles a year were being built across the country from London to Coventry. Whole suburbs popped up as people could cycle further to work each day. Races like the Tour De France kept the public transfixed by the amazingly versatile invention.
The first road signs were not for cars but for bicycles warning them of the dangers of a steep hill or bend. In the evenings road races were at their height. In London races took place over the bad roads, many Victorian. The rattling and shaking resulted in, not only broken frames but wasted time and speed and plenty of sore bums! “I tell you Alex,” said Norman rubbing his backside. “You have no idea how much we tried to cut down on the bikes to make them lighter and faster. The saddles got smaller and smaller until they were little more than a blade of leather. I can feel the bruises now. When you are racing you don’t have time to avoid many of the potholes, you are peddling as fast as you can keeping an eye on the cyclist coming up behind and, if you have time, trying to avoid the horse muck.”
Jack Denny, the frame builder, believed he could develop a curved frame that would soak up some of the road shocks. He made weird looking curly stays on the rear of the Hetchins frame that absorbed the shocks and even made the bikes more comfortable to ride.
After Toni Merkens won on a Hetchins at the Olympics, the Hetchins name became synonymous with the best money could buy, and every boy-racer dreamed of owning one.
*****
It took Norman nearly eight months to save, scrimping and scraping, but in the end he got his bike. A bike that would stay with him through thick and thin until one summer’s day as he walked with me! I’ll tell you about that later.
At the weekends, because Norman had only paid for six-day-week lodgings, he would cycle home to St Neots for mum’s roast beef and Yorkshire pudding. St Neots was 64 miles from his digs in London!
He worked all week including Saturday mornings at Zurich and every Saturday afternoon Norman would set off on the long cycle journey home with a thermos and packed lunch. Luckily one of his colleagues at the hostel lived in Kimbolton, so Norman and Freddy Wilson would set off on the 128 mile round trip together.
They would head north via Camberwell, across Tower Bridge, Marylebone, Hampstead, up the Edgware Road and into the suburbs of London and then out along the A1 dodging traffic as they went. Because they could go anywhere with their bikes Norman and Freddy eventually knew every shortcut between London and home. They would take turns in the lead to break the wind, 20 minutes each then switching. Norman’s Hetchins had the latest derailleur gears with three speeds! Riding up the A1 they would drop onto the B1428 following the ancient Great North Road to home. Norman would wave goodbye to Freddy as he swung off towards St Neots, always shouting a time to meet up on Sunday to make the return trip.
Hilda, his mum, and the most loving person Norman had ever known, would have his dinner ready and after a good night’s sleep and a filling Sunday lunch, Norman would climb back onto his trusty Hetchins to make the long journey back to London. His dad would slap him on the back, “Go on son,” Ernest would shout to him as he peddled down the road. “Set a new record to London.”
Come rain or shine most weekends Norman made the 128 miles round-journey.
After work at Zurich, with hardly a penny to his name, Norman found that there was not much cheap fun to be had, so he and a few friends from the hostel formed a racing team of their own. There were loads of cyclists at the time and many formed small clubs that survive to this day. Races were regularly held with matches against different clubs and teams. Norman and his pals were as fit as a butcher’s dog. “I’ll tell you Alex it’s probably why I’m still here today at 91. All that exercise did me a lot of good in my youth.”
His team would set up time trials and race around London and Kent as fast as their legs would go. Norman became quite a racer during these ‘burn-up’s’ and set a new record among his group on his Hetchins for the 30 mile sprint, officially timed at 87 minutes. Not since Norman had taken a boxing medal at Kimbolton was he so proud. At his old school the tiny terror had been four-stone seven-pounds of pure fighting machine.
It was during one of these ‘burn-up’s’ that Norman came a cropper. He was racing full speed down the steep Salt Box Hill near Biggin Hill peddling with all his might, with tears streaming down his face, when a gear slipped and Norman fell onto the handlebars of the Hetchins. On such a steep hill he soon lost control and went tumbling off the bike. The bike was hardly scratched and survived reasonably well with a buckled wheel, but Norman was cut and bruised all over with gravel rash on both legs and a cracked elbow joint. He lay on the ground groaning in agony until he was carted off to hospital.
“You’re a lucky lad only breaking your elbow.” Said the nurse bandaging him up.
“I don’t feel lucky!” Norman mumbled as she carried on.
The landlord who ran his hostel got an urgent message from one of the other lads and came out in his tiny three-wheeled Aero Morgan, and strapped Norman’s beloved Hetchins onto the bonnet of his car, and took it back to Sydenham. Norman went to work for a month in a sling.
Along with his cycling Norman found that his evenings raced by in London. He never dreamed of drinking or girls, he never had the spare cash or time for either and it didn’t bother him. However Norman did find God one day on his way home from work when he heard a charismatic preacher who drew large crowds at Holborn Viaduct City Temple.
Leslie Weatherhead was a Methodist minister and Christian theologian who had a different approach to preaching and was controversial, questioning many pillars of the Christian faith. Rather than throwing huge lumps of sermon at his flock he used plain talk that they could empathise with. He sympathised with and engaged with his members. He would relate many of the biblical problems of the past to current and topical issues of the day. It was a breath of fresh air for Norman, who had regularly put up with the daily slog at Kimbolton School of morning and evening prayer, and stuffy Sunday school preaching.
Some weekends when Norman had the spare cash for the extra nights lodgings and did not make the long trip home he would go and listen to the preacher and his astounding interpretation of the bible.
And so Norman’s life settled down and was taking a steady course. However Hitler had other plans for the young man from St Neots.
Chapter 5
War
By 1939 the Summer Olympics, a few years earlier, had long been forgotten and the team spirit of nations had turned to war. Hitler’s unstoppable armies were marching across Europe in their jack-boots with thunder and menace. On September 3rd 1939 Norman was glued to his thermomic-valve radio sipping tea as he heard the powerful words that would change his world. Neville Chamberlain declared “I have to tell you that this country is at war with Germany. You can imagine what a bitter blow it is to me that all my long struggle to win peace has failed”
Shortly after all cinemas, theatres and places of entertainment were officially closed.
Norman was buzzing with excitement as he went to work with his new tin hat and gas mask. He was about to voluntarily enlist when in early 1940, his ‘Call up’ papers to the armed forces arrived. As rationing started for the first time in Britain, Norman jumped on his Hetchins and raced to his enrolment office. Norman was lucky, because he had enlisted early, he was given a choice of which force he would like to join. After queuing for an hour a burly sergeant shouted at him “What force laddy?” Quick-as-a-flash and without too much thought Norman shouted back, “Navy please Sir.” And that was that. Once more Norman would be close to water.
On April Fool’s day 1940, Norman found himself at an old converted Butlins holiday camp at Skegness for naval training. The last time he had been in Skegness was as a child with his dad paddling in the sea. Now he was back to prepare for war.
The camp was renamed HMS Royal Arthur and, to begin with, all seemed quite pleasant as the recruits settled in to their huts. But that soon changed. It was the lull before the storm.
He had become an HO—Hostilities Only—ordinary seaman, the lowest of the low in the Royal Navy. Norman was dragged out of bed each morning by the camp bugle. In the yard, come rain or shine, it was exercise and training. After a few weeks Norman got used to the regimented square bashing and monotonous routine.
When he first arrived and was putting his kit away, an officer came in to the barracks to talk to the new recruits. He made it absolutely clear that the petty officer in charge of drills was God, and to cross him was often painful. He told them of a little incident to explain.
One batch of new recruits, all keen and cockey lined up on the parade ground for their first inspection. The officer, a burly powerful man with a voice that could raise the dead, moved along the row prodding and pushing with his stick. “What’s your name Charlie Boy?” He bellowed, poking one of the young recruits with his stick.
“Smith sir.”
“Smith, Smith. I just called you Charlie, now I’ll ask you again. What’s your name?”
“Charlie sir.” The young lad shouted back.
“Better.” The officer huffed and moved on to one bright-eyed lad. He poked him with the stick. “See this stick ’ere Charlie boy? There’s a bit of shit on the end of it.” Quick as a flash the young lad shouted, “Not on this end sir.”
The whole parade ground burst out laughing. However 10 miles later, running in the rain and missing lunch, while the officer screamed at them, it didn’t seem quite so funny.
Norman in his first
naval uniform at the naval training camp HMS Royal Arthur, Skegness.
Norman and the recruits took that message on board and never gave any officer trouble. He was issued with his ‘Housewife’s kit’ a small round tin full of sewing bits for the repair of his uniform. Square bashing each day replaced Norman’s exercise on his beloved Hetchins. This disciplinary training gave Norman ‘Housemaid’s Knee,’ a painful affliction from stamping on the parade ground hour after hour. A problem that stayed with Norman all his life.
After a period of training, time came for Norman’s first evening’s leave into Skegness. News had come through to the camp that the cinemas, theatres and entertainment halls had reopened. They were needed to promote the government propaganda for the war effort.
Norman excitedly joined the queue for his exit permit. As the queue got smaller and smaller he noticed that the exit permit seemed to be rather a funny shape. He stared hard as he got close. After queuing for ages to get his permit he saw that he was not in the queue for permits at all but he was actually in the queue for condoms! Norman coughed, turned red, mumbled something to his mates in the queue, and made a quick exit, heading for the cinema on his own.
At the cinema Pathé news was showing the full horror of war. Also it showed Norman how vital the Navy was to our little island, and how every man and women should do their part. There was a clip about the Dutch Royal family being rescued from the Nazis at the last moment by a British destroyer, and newsreels from the beaches of France where our retreating army was trapped and desperately waiting for rescue by sea.
Hammock training at Skegness between the Butlins chalets. It would come in handy for Norman getting his hammock up in the dark on a swaying ship.
British Pathé news kept the cinema goers informed of all the war information that the government would allow. All through the war they reported in a very patriotic way with posh cut-glass commentary to go along with all the action. They brought the war in foreign lands alive to all those at home. They mixed the war news with the Home Front, also fashion with glamour and film stars sprinkled throughout, filling the cinemas with images of defiant humour, everyone doing their bit for King and Country. The news reels captured the British spirit in the heat of the action and whatever they were filming, be it sport, movie stars or war, the newsreels were always accompanied by stirring patriotic music.
The papers were also full of the terrible news of the trapped soldiers, as the great Battle of Dunkirk raged on the French coast. Hundreds of thousands of retreating men were trapped on a patch of shoreline as the mighty German army moved in for the kill.
By June of 1940 Norman read of the amazing escape of so many of the Allied forces, and a huge feeling of pride spread among the sailors who had made the impossible a reality. Norman and the crew chatted quietly about events but never openly or loudly. Government officials and spies were supposed to be everywhere and the watch words were always “loose lips sink ships.”
Norman
with his classmates at the converted Butlins, Skegness 1940
Chapter 6
Disaster at sea
After weeks of training Norman was posted for a further six weeks to Chatham Docks, then to his first real ship moored along the Mersey in Liverpool.
As the Royal Air Force was fighting a deadly battle in the skies over southern England that would later become known as the Battle of Britain, a voyage followed for Norman. He set sail on the ill-fated day of Friday the 13th September 1940 into the Battle of the Atlantic. Friday the 13th was traditionally never a day that sailors went to sea but in times of war there was no option.
Friday was traditionally unlucky in the Navy. To combat the reluctance by sailors to go to sea on a Friday a vessel was especially commissioned called HMS Friday. Her keel was laid down on a Friday; she was launched on a Friday, commissioned on a Friday and set out for her sea-trials on a Friday. She sank on her maiden voyage!
Norman was posted to ‘a bucket’ as he called it that had been refitted to carry troops. It was an outdated vessel but along with other new recruits, they boarded the aging hulks. Their kit and hammocks were thrown in a huge pile on deck, so the first few hours were spent trying to find their own numbered kit and then trying to grab a space to put up their hammocks for the night. All of the experiences and noises onboard Norman’s first real ship were exciting, wandering around endless passages trying to find ‘the heads’, or toilets, or the ‘mess hall’ where he could get a bite to eat, and then trying to remember the maze of passageways to get back to where he had strung up his hammock.
Convoy OB213, consisting of 19 ships, slowly raised anchor and headed out of Liverpool along the River Mersey into Liverpool Bay, and then the Irish Sea. The lumbering goliaths pointed their bows toward Canada and blackened the air with their smoke. They were off to Nova Scotia and Quebec to pick up more American destroyers. His ship was crammed with enough extra crew for eight more ships which they would be picking up.
Norman’s war had started. Among the flotilla was the City of Benares carrying children. Norman waved to the excited kids as the ships went by each other, and spread into a line heading for the horizon.
The destroyers wallowed in the heavy seas across the Atlantic and all the new lads, fresh from training camps, spent a lot of time turning green and leaning over the sides of the ships, throwing up their meals and praying for their sea legs. This was much to the amusement of the old sea-dogs who regularly placed bets on which new recruit would throw up first after leaving the mess hall.
In the evening the older sailors played cards and sang local Liverpool songs.
Oh Maggie May, Maggie
May,
They’ve taken you away,
To die on Van Diemen’s
shore,
Cause you robbed so many sailors-
Captains and
whalers,
Now you’ll never dance down-
Lime Street any more.
The convoy kept a keen eye out for the German U-boats that silently stalked the depths looking for easy prey. The children on the City of Benares, just one ship behind Norman’s, were being evacuated to the safety of Canada. Homes had been arranged for them and families were waiting.
The Children’s Overseas Reception Board had carried out several mass evacuations of children out of harm’s way. The Blitz in London was killing one-in-ten children and as many children as possible were being moved out of the reach of Goering’s lethal Luftwaffe. Telegrams were usually sent from Canada House in London telling the lucky parents when and where the ships were leaving. Parents took their children to the docks and bravely waved them off to a safer life away from the bombings. In the parents hearts a desperate choice had to be made. To their children’s faces they acted out a fantasy of brief enjoyable holidays and far away adventures, but as their faces turned away on the dockside the tears fell.
Getting the children on board ship was one problem but getting across the deadly seas was another.
Six hundred miles out at sea HMS Winchelsea and two sloops left to join another eastbound convoy. The remaining ships ploughed on toward the Canadian coast. Orders had been given to disperse the convoy as they were easier to spot in a large group. The orders also contained instructions in case of attack. If a ship is attacked do not congregate or attend the ship that has been hit or your vessel will become another target, carry on regardless of what happens. The ships moved apart but some still kept within visual communication distance in case of trouble. Little did they know that these precautions would be of no use. In the rough North Atlantic waves, death was waiting.
Stalking the convoy was a lone wolf. Under the water with just the periscope showing was one of the most deadly U-boats of the Second World War, U-48. The U-Boats usually hunted in groups known as ‘Wolfpacks,’ stalking by day and attacking at night, but the deadly U-48 was a loner. The German submariners called the shadowing of their prey, ‘rabbit hunts’. During the war the underwater devil sank at least 55 allied ships and took thousands of lives. Many of the crew proudly wore Iron Crosses for their terrible work. Back in Germany they were treated like conquering heroes and hailed as champions glorifying in the death of so many lives.
No one has ever properly explained why a nation became obsessed with dominating the entire world. No one explained how German parents would kiss their own children goodbye and then go and kill others. It was like a mass hypnotic hysteria brought on by a few charismatic lunatics. Throughout the war atrocities became common, though the media tried to hide many of them.
Although the City of Benares had clearly been designated as a refugee ship she was being stalked. Had Norman’s ship been a little slower or the U-Boat a little faster their ship would be the one that was being hunted.
Little did the children onboard know that during the night as they finished their letters to their parents and went to bed, torpedoes were piercing the water towards them. Over a period of hours several torpedoes missed, but at a minute after midnight on the 18th September the U-boat came up really close and fired two more directly at the City of Benares before slipping back in to the black murky depths. The ship, only four years old, took a direct hit to the stern and started to sink almost immediately.
The damage to the City of Benares was devastating, and orders were given, by the master Captain Landles Nicoll, to abandon ship. The children were evacuated first but in the stormy seas several lifeboats capsized and in the ensuing dramatic struggle for survival over half the 406 adults and most of the children lost their lives.
HMS Hurricane, with no thought to her own safety, managed to rescue over 100, but of the 90 children only seven survived. However on the 25th September an S-25 Sunderland flying boat on a routine mission spotted a craft adrift 600 miles from land. A second plane dropped supplies and HMS Anthony was told of their location. She picked up the small group of survivors who had drifted for eight days in the lifeboat. There were six more children aboard.
Captain Nicoll was not among the survivors. He had organised what he could and like many great captains had gone down with his ship. However brave women like Mary Cornish, a music teacher, were aboard. She had done her utmost to rescue the children while the City of Benares was going down. She was later decorated for bravery.
After the tragedy the Overseas Reception Board changed their strategy of sending children abroad, so that the heartbreak could never be repeated.
*****
America was Britain’s lifeline during the war and Commander of the German U-Boat’s, Karl Dönitz, knew this all to well. His orders were clear and simple, destroy all Allied shipping. The Germans were so successful that early on in the Battle of the Atlantic they were sinking nearly 50% of all Allied shipping. The losses were disastrous and kept secret from the worrying public. Over 30,000 seamen went down with their vessels. The fuel tankers were the worst. Easy pickings for the U-Boats they were slow, large and cumbersome and when hit they exploded and set the surrounding sea alight. Few crew escaped alive.
Convoys shuttled constantly between America and Britain escorted by as many armed naval vessels as possible but they were at a disadvantage to the U-Boats stalking them. The Germans waited in their ‘Wolfpacks’ around the mid Atlantic at designated MOMP or Mid Ocean Meeting Points, where the American escort ships would take over from the British and vice-versa. The U-Boats stretched out, constantly searching for signs of Allied shipping. When one was spotted they signalled the other submarines and converged on the convoy. They would wait till nightfall before moving in for the kill.
The War Cabinet was alarmed and poured huge resources into producing equipment to deal with the menace that could lose Britain the war. At one point the Germans were sinking over 50,000 tonnes of shipping a month. In 1940 the Germans sunk over two million tonnes of shipping. Norman was in the middle of the worst struggle for survival that had ever faced the Royal Navy. Churchill spoke words of encouragement to the men, “I have complete confidence in the Royal Navy. I am sure they will be able to meet every changing phase of this truly mortal struggle.”
However U-48 was not done. After sinking the City of Benares they joined their dreaded ‘Wolfpack’ and hunted down convoy SC-7 coming the other way from Nova Scotia. In the ensuing struggle they sank 20 of the 35 cargo vessels bound for Britain and Liverpool.
Luckily the tide of German U-Boat supremacy slowly turned as Britain improved their U-Boat hunting capabilities and their depth charges. They also developed ASDIC the equivalent to the American sonar and fast reaction long range bombers. The deadly U-Boats, so successful during the early part of the war, went from the hunters to the hunted. The U-Boats who had so callously named their foe ‘Rabbits’ found that the rabbits bit back. Over 60% of all frontline U-Boats were eventually sunk.
*****
Norman’s convoy was still desperately making for Halifax. Eventually they made it safely into port. The British forces were under strict instructions to be upbeat and enthusiastic to the Canadians. They were to encourage volunteers and to be positive for the waiting Canadian press. No mention was to be made of the terrible tragedies that were taking place in the cold Atlantic waters.
The crews did exactly what the British do best. They arrived in Halifax with much pomp and circumstance. Norman and the rest of the lads put on their best uniforms and marched down the main street of Halifax with the ship’s band bashing out the tune Roll out the Barrel. The marching men had tears in their eyes from their bitter experience in the Atlantic, but, to the Canadians that cheered them all down Main Street, all was well.