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Published in the West Sussex Gazette on 30 September 2004.
In this fifth episode of Roy Green's Angmering memoirs, written in the form of an inspirational letter to his granddaughter Hannah, he describes life in the post war years.
On leaving school at 15, I started work as an apprentice electrician with a firm called George Hammonds. Everything was done on pushbikes and we had to carry our tools and materials on the handlebars. For this job I earned one shilling and three pence an hour. That's about 12 1/2 pence in today's money.
I did have quite a run in with George at one time. We were working in the Midhurst brickworks and had to catch a train there each day. To save on train fares he expected me to cycle to Arundel Station, which was about five miles away when Angmering Station was just down the road. He really was tight but I did get my way and caught the train from Angmering in the end.
Eventually, an old van was purchased, second hand of course. This was called a Jowett. It had two cylinders, sounded like a motorbike, and was an old boneshaker. We managed to get to Midhurst brick works where we were working O.K. but coming back, we had to drive over the Trundle racecourse at Goodwood.
The old van could not get enough petrol to the engine to climb the hill, and I stood on the front bumper to manually pump it so that we could get home. Goodness knows what would happen if I fell off, or if a copper had seen us, but somehow we managed.
Highdown Hill, just above Angmering, was a favorite place for local lads. During the war the army and R.A.F. used it for training: the R.A.F dropped unfused and unprimed magnesium bombs. These bombs were about the size of a small lemonade bottle and were used to start fierce fires.
The magnesium burned like mad when it caught fire and nothing would stop it. We collected these bombs and put them on fires, but of course with hindsight it was a stupid thing to do.
Sweets were one thing that was rationed during the war, and quite scarce. At the end of rationing we spent all the cash we had on sweets, and camped out on Highdown hill and gorged ourselves silly. I remember the first sweets available off ration were Trebor Mints.
There was no such thing as pocket money, if we needed cash we looked for old jam jars which could be returned for a halfpeny, or beer and lemonade bottles, which had two pence return value. I remember we had quite a good thing going at the Lamb pub in Angmering.
The landlord was an old soak and would put his empties out in the backyard. We nicked them from the rear and took them into the front of the pub to get paid our two pence for returns. He never twigged what was going on. Still, my old man spent most of his wages there, so I suppose it was getting some back.
At the age of 18, I was conscripted into the army. I could have been deferred to finish my apprenticeship, but all my mates were going in so I decided to take the king's shilling.
I had tried to join the R.A.F., signing on for three instead of the usual two years, was accepted and given a posting, but the week before I was due to join, the R.A.F. decided they had too many recruits, and so we all had to go into the Army.
I started my army training in Blenheim Barracks at Aldershot. This is not far from Church Crookham (and where, if you remember, Hannah, you went to the nursery school). I did three months at Aldershot wasting my time, and then it was decided that as I had a dodgy right eye, which was needed to aim a rifle, they would discharge me. (SHAME)
My dodgy eye was caused by stopping a stone when I was five years old.
This was in 1952, the year that King George the 6th died and the year of the great floods in Lynmouth. I remember this particular year because the army from Aldershot sent hundreds of troops to rescue the people trapped in Lynmouth.
(Your mum can show you pictures of the Lynmouth flood areas as she worked in a place called Rivers Meet where it all began. Granny and me visited your mum there when you lived in Devon, and I know there are lots of photographs of this place around.)
Published in the West Sussex Gazette on 30 September 2004.
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