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In 1922 Sydney Partridge was born in London, a younger brother for Eric. At the age of 2 months he moved with his family to Broadstairs, Kent before starting life in Ventnor, Isle of Wight at the age of 2.
'During 1940 the Government was organising evacuation of children from London to the country towns, to avoid the expected bombing by Germany. The Government also decided to evacuate some of its departments away from London and the Post Office decided to move some of its staff to Harrogate (Yorkshire).
The first 'wave' went in November 1939 and others followed later. In July 1940 they 'posted' me to Harrogate and I was there for about 9 or 10 months. It meant that the journey to my home in Ventnor, Isle of Wight, was even more difficult - a 6 hour journey from Harrogate to Kings Cross, then half an hour or so to cross London. The last boat train left Waterloo at 6.45 p.m., but I couldn't get there in time for that so I caught the next train to Portsmouth and spent the night at Portsmouth Harbour Station, either on the waiting ferry-boat or, later, in a parked railway carriage.
On one occasion I passed through Portsmouth after the town had been 'blitzed' and the train from Waterloo had to be reversed at Portsmouth Town Station, instead of going on to the Harbour. The passengers wanting the harbour had to make their way on foot through the blitzed streets because one bomb had demolished both the railway track and the road beside it. So we walked along the road, picking our way past the bomb crater, then on to the Harbour.
In early 1941 the Government cut down on the leave entitlement of Civil Servants, which reduced even further my opportunities for visiting my home.
I was not happy at Harrogate - 'the natives were not friendly' - and they regarded the Civil Servants with some hostility (after all, we were mostly 'Southerners' who spoke with a different accent). We were 'billeted' on families who were prepared to house us for the sake of the reliable income, but they did not treat us as 'one of the family'.
The weather up there, on the slopes of the Pennines, for many months of winter 1940/41, was atrocious. The snow lay a foot deep for months, it seemed and my 'billet' was two miles away from the office. I therefore trudged 4 miles a day through the snow and the icy winds off the Pennine Hills, which blew so strongly that you actually leant into the wind at a slope, to make any progress!
By April/May 1941 I wasn't old enough to register for National Service, but wanted to volunteer and the Department was then prepared to release staff who wished to volunteer for flying duties in the RAF. So I got permission to volunteer and went to the RAF recruiting office in Leeds. They told me (as I suspected) that my eyesight was not good enough for flying duties, but they thought I would be suitable for a new job which they could not tell me much about, except that it was called 'Radio Operator'. They assured me that it was not Morse (which I thought would drive me barmy, all those 'dots and dashes'), so I volunteered for Radio Operator and was duly 'sworn in for the King's shilling'.'
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