|
 | |  | |
Harold Taylor lived in Chichester with his 5 siblings and parents at no. 10 Alexandra Road. Harold's father worked for the local council and here Harold reminisces about the days when he would have been in the last years at school.
Dad was a great entertainer. As well as performing at talent nights at the local cinemas, he also attended three buffalo lodges in the town; The Wellington; St. Martin's Brewery and The Fleece. He performed with the White Rose Concert Party, and was a member of the British Legion. In fact, he drew up the plans for the conversion of the Half Moon Pub in the Hornet, to the British Legion Club. This is now a motorcycle salesroom.
He did fall foul of that group after the war, though. It was nothing to do with the members, but the wife of the Steward, Mrs Bowditch, a misery of a woman. I think her husband was frightened of her.
It had to do partially with the fact that when we were on leave he would take us down to the club for a drink, but she took exception to this for some reason. Club members were only entitled to take guests a certain number of times, although service personnel were honorary members. Whether it was because I was Merchant Navy I do not really know. However the upshot of it was, they banned him for a year, and he never went back on a regular basis.
I really believe that a lot of her hostility was based upon the late hours that my father, and a few others, caused her husband to keep. My father was one of those who was always the last to leave a pub, even though he had drunk the last dregs. At the Legion towards the end of the evening, they would play Poker Dice and this would cause Mr Bowditch to be late closing, as he would also be involved.
I had a good relationship with Mr Bowditch; in fact from soon after starting work, I had gone to the Legion to learn billiards and snooker. After the bar had closed on a Saturday afternoon I would go into the snooker room, a wooden building in the yard. There were two tables and I would either play with Mr Bowditch, or anyone else who wanted a game.
Before the war, (it may have been in 1937) the German equivalent of the Legion came over on a visit. For the purpose, my brother Henry, who was taking the language at school, was asked to transcribe both the games and darts for their benefit, so that there could be some light hearted competition. Henry used to wonder after the war started, how these translations may have been used for training spies in the funny quirks of English nature.
This knowledge of German was also used during the war, as all bodies of German planes were taken to the public mortuary. My father would call upon the services of my brother for translations for identity purposes. This also led him probably to see papers that he would otherwise be refused access to.
| |  | |  |
To add a comment you must first login or join for free, up in the top left corner.
|
|
