BRIGG MAN RECALLS EARLY YEARS OF THE WAR

Cliff Turner, now 91 and living in New Zealand, continues this memories of growing up in Brigg, where he attended the Grammar School. It's now early in the war and he haas  joined the Navy...


With summer came swimming at Whitesands Bay, disregarding an order which prohibited navy personnel from swimming there as it was alleged to be dangerous. On one visit two or three of us saw some Plymouth girls who had got into difficulties. One boy, Ted Hawkins, got them to some rocks and we pulled them out. Afterwards we used to see them at the beach almost every weekend and they always brought sandwiches for us to share. 
Towards evening we used to walk with them to Millbrook where they caught the ferry back to Plymouth, and then we would go for a meal at a canteen for servicemen run by local women, followed by the long walk back to the ATE.
Mid-year 1941 brought an influx of new apprentices; we were no longer the lowest of the low. 
At about that time Britain's largest warship, HMS Hood, was sunk by Germany's battleship Bismarck which was in turn sunk a few days later.
I think it was on my second leave, in the summer of 1941, that I found a hostel for the Women's Land Army had been built across the road from our house. I got to know some of the girls and Mum had three of them to tea one Sunday. On a later leave I met a land girl, Dorothy; we did a bit of walking out during my leave and exchanged a few letters until she told me she was getting engaged.
The boy who had the bed under mine was called Frank Arthur; he was from a hamlet called Foxhole near St Austell. Boys who lived close to the ATE were allowed occasional weekend leave and Frank took me with him once. We hitch-hiked there but returned by train. I knew Frank had attended St Austell Grammar School but at that time did not know that a famous scholar, historian A. L. Rowse, had attended the same school.
After two years in the navy we took an Admiralty exam in maths and science. We were given an afternoon off on the previous day and I am almost certain I went with my friend Stanley Redwood to see the film Holiday Inn which launched the nauseating song I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas. Safely over that hurdle we moved over to the senior side of the ATE and were then required to attend schooling three nights per week from 5:30pm to 7:00pm. An instructor in electrical engineering was called Reeves; he too had been called back from the reserve. In 1958 I was working for the South Western Electricity Board in Torquay when, in a way about which I cannot be sure, I learned that Mr Reeves had worked for the Board's predecessor in Totnes and had returned there after the war. My colleague Leo Horan took me to see him; on his side-board he had pictures of groups of apprentices he had taught and I was in one of them.
At about the same time I became 18 and thus eligible for "tickler", the name for duty free tobacco. It came in hermetically sealed tins each containing half a pound with a choice of tobacco for "roll your own" cigarettes or pipe tobacco; the allowance was two tins per month. In the first World War troops were issued with tinned jam made by a firm called Tickler and there was a song about a soldier having a dream he was "having my tea with Kaiser Bill and Tommy Tickler's jam." It was accepted wisdom that there was a connection between the two tinned products but I do not know if there was any truth in the explanation.
The tickler cost about a shilling a tin; I was a few months older than my friend Redwood so I sold him my tickler at a small profit until he too became 18. It was considered bad form to make more profit than that. It was permissible to take a half pound tin when going on leave so on occasion Redwood missed out and I bought pipe tobacco for my grandad Turner. Reaching 18 also made it permissible to buy beer at the canteen but most of us did not have the money to indulge in that luxury.
It was also about this time that I paid my first visit to a London theatre, and in Plymouth heard a symphony orchestra for the first time. With some other boys who travelled through London when going on leave I saw My Sister Eileen at the Savoy theatre in the Strand. We had got our tickets in advance by post. The only thing I remember is the name of the leading actress - Coral Browne. Going to the theatre meant that instead of taking the 4:00pm train from King's Cross I went home on the mail train which reached Brigg at about 6:00am. The Savoy theatre was built in 1881 by Richard D'Oyly Carte who was closely associated with Gilbert and Sullivan.
The orchestral concert was in a Plymouth cinema and did not start until after the last film show. It was probably our chaplain, with an interest in classical music, who arranged for several boys to go. I cannot recall which orchestra I heard but it was certainly one of the major London orchestras and I was astonished to find that it contained about 80 players. I am almost sure that Cyril Smith and Phyllis Sellick performed a piano concerto for two pianos, and I am certain that the programme included Antonin Dvorak's Ninth Symphony, From the New World, written in America during Dvorak's directorship of the New York Conservatory.
Two boys in my class had old-fashioned wind-up gramophones and a few records; it was from them that I learned of the existence of people such as Beniamino Gigli, Scottish soprano Isobel Baillie, and American tenor Richard Crookes. Talking of singers reminds me that I once performed for my class-mates. At one PT lesson our instructor Petty Officer Muir decided that instead of PT we would have solos from some of the boys. I sang The Rose of Tralee which PO Muir pronounced to be "very nice".
HMS Raleigh had a cinema and occasionally ENSA (Entertainments National Service Association) concerts. I saw a few of the shows but missed Evelyn Leigh who was a big star in the 1930's. To go to the cinema it was necessary to buy tickets, costing three pence, in advance. If a group of us wanted to go one of us would get permission to cross the road to the Raleigh to buy enough tickets. We discovered that used tickets were kept in a bin and one of our number helped himself to a large handful. After that one boy would go to buy a ticket to discover what colour of ticket was to be used that day and we would then select enough tickets of the right colour from our hoard. We were never caught doing this.

MORE MEMORIES FROM CLIFF TO COME ON BRIGG BLOG