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I was born in 1933, so in September 1939 at the outbreak of war, I was at School in Magdalen Laver, Essex aged six years and eight months. There were two classes at the Church of England school, the junior and senior. The school was run by the Head Teacher, Mrs Connor, who lived on the premises. This was a tiny village school and, I guess, the total number of pupils did not exceed 50 to 60 children.

I had been born in the 'White Cottage' at the junction of the Harlow and Matching roads, opposite a grand, 400 year old, part thatched farm mansion called, Tilegate.
My mother was then 50 years old, having given birth to me in her 45th year! My younger brother, Sydney, followed three years later. My father, Leonard John, was 17 years younger than my mother. He worked on the Tilegate estate as, I suppose, an odd-job man, although he was studying in night school for his builders' qualifications.
Mum had been the District Nurse for Hatfield Heath and the Matching area and she and dad had met when she was caring for him.

Around that time, we moved a few hundred yards into High Laver, into No 1 Spinney Cottage, which was a semi-detached cottage next to the village Post Office - cum shop.

Our house was a typical village two-up two-down dwelling with an outside loo and no running water, but it had a brick-built boiler in the scullery at the back. Water came from a standpipe across the road. Tradesmen delivered bread and milk and our weekly 'shop' was also delivered by order from a shop in Harlow, some four miles away. The next-door shop was also the source of essentials.

At the outbreak of war, the owners of Tilegate decided to move further away from the southwest corner of England and away from London, fearing bombs intended for London. Dad was asked to move into Tilegate as caretaker for the duration of the war. Our living accommodation changed overnight. We had a mansion with fourteen bedrooms, a Billiards room and a choice of elegant rooms throughout the house. An added benefit was a cellar with coke fired central heating boiler, and a sub basement with a fully equipped shelter with 'air conditioning' - actually that was an air pump which required the turning of a handle to pump fresh air into the shelter from the outside.

As far as we were concerned, the war was an inconvenience. We were lucky to have a garden with fresh fruit and vegetables run by a grumpy gardener and fresh meat from chickens, ducks, pigeons, etc, apart from the trips into the countryside on shooting trips. The house boasted a good gunroom and I had the dubious pleasure of using a 28 bore, up-and-over (ladies gun), quite unsuccessfully, I seem to remember.

As a child in Spinney Cottage, the only things I remember about the war was at night when there was bombing of London some 25 miles away. We could hear the explosions and the aircraft coming over; saw the searchlights lighting up the sky and saw the glow of the fires. We had no shelter so Mum, my brother and I went under the stairs during the raids. Dad was an Air Raid Warden so he was out doing Air Raid Warden things!

He had not been called up although at his age 35/6 he should have been apart from the fact that he was in a Reserve Occupation (Farming), looking after Tilegate. He did eventually get called up but never got much further than Brentwood as, after his training, he suffered from some sort of injury (I believe it was his back) and eventually was discharged.

One night in the middle of the war, Syd and I woke up - I was very scared because of a lot of noise and lights - we found that farm had been requisitioned by a battalion of troops. Very exciting for us as we had to have passwords to enter the grounds. There were lots of lorries, bren gun carriers and troops around and they seemed to stay forever. One of the men used to take Syd and me I to school down the road and he showed us his revolver. It was far too heavy for me to even hold. As quickly as they arrived, they disappeared but later I understood they were part of the build-up for the invasion of Europe.

I remember clearly D-Day. We were in school at Magdalen Laver and our teacher - I cannot now remember her name, had the radio on as something important was happening. She told us that the Allies had invaded Europe and her boyfriend was among them. Her tears made a deep impression on me and I felt very sad for her.

Every Sunday, we made the trek across the fields to Magdalen Laver church for the Matins service and we boys went into Sunday School. During our walk across the fields we often saw planes wheeling around high in the sky fighting dogfights. One Sunday we were surprised to have shell cases landing around us after ejection by the planes. Had one of them hit us, it would certainly of had the potential to kill.

One night Dad was standing outside under the porch with his tin hat on when a large lump of shrapnel landed on the porch went straight through and on to his tin hat.

As children, our regular tasks were to find out where bombs had fallen and go and search for shrapnel to add to our collection. This was officially discouraged but it was difficult to stop children doing this. It was so exciting when we found foreign lettering on a piece of metal, knowing it had come from Germany.

Towards the end of the war was probably a more dangerous period for us as V1's and V2's were targeted at SE England and our village had its share. The noise of the Doodlebugs was less frightening than the silence that came when their engines stopped and there was a pause before the explosion when it landed.

When the V2's started, no one really knew what they were. When one of these rockets destroyed the Village Hall at Magdalen Laver, I became temporarily famous and interviewed by the police. I had been playing on the village green when out of the corner of my eye I saw this flash of 'something' before a huge explosion as it landed. I told someone about this and instantly the police were there wanting to know more - unfortunately, I could only tell them what I have related here so my fame lasted all of ten minutes!

During our stay at Tilegate, we had evacuees billeted with us. Let us say that my mother who was a devout Christian tried to do everything for them but it was
very difficult because they had never been to the country and were totally out of their depth, similarly, we knew nothing of their way of life. There was a definite culture void.

More successful was the Austrian and German prisoners of war who were kept in a camp at Hatfield Heath and sent out daily to 'help on the land'. Our first batch were Austrian and they were hard workers and Mum was so sorry for them she looked at their ration for the day and promptly invited them to share our food - they even ate with us. The next lot were German and all but one of those were also polite, hard workers and they too shared our food and ate in the kitchen with us. My biggest impression was the way they stood whenever Mum got up and would never sit until she too sat down. Dad corresponded for some time with one of them, a Walter Scheile (?) from Beilefeld in Germany.

When I was eleven I took my 11+ exams and was taken on by the local (Harlow) Grammar School called Harlow College. That would be about 1944'ish. I cycled to the school or on occasion was taken there by Dad in his car - a treat to use it as petrol was very strictly rationed.

One day we boys at the school - it was a boys only school, half of which were borders, watched a dog fight above North Weald aerodrome which wheeled around in the sky for ages. We saw a spitfire hurtling to the ground and on my way home from school there was a great hole in the ground beside the road at Threshers Bush. Apparently the pilot was Polish and many years after the war the remains of the plane were excavated together with the pilot who, it was said, still had a cigarette lighter in his hand!

Eventually the war ended and I remember the great joy all around. I cannot remember if the village had a celebration but shortly afterwards, the owners of Tilegate came back and we had to move out. But that's another story.

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