September 1939

Lionel Lightman, who provided the obituary of Ralph Sacks on page
21, writes: ‘A few years ago Ralph sent me an article he wrote about
his first few days at School in September 1939. I think it would
interest your readers.’We feel sure it will.
Friday 1 September 1939 was a cloudless, warm day.At 5.45 that
morning German troops entered Poland, and that same
afternoon some 600 schoolboys invaded Marlborough, a small
quiet village on the Wiltshire Downs, 20 miles north of Salisbury
Plain and Stonehenge.
It had been an exciting day for me, the journey from home on
the Tube, the Northern Line, with its gleaming silver and red
cylindrical carriages, their brightly coloured upholstered seats
reflecting the overhead incandescent lights and their rubberedged
sliding automatic doors hissing open at every station.Then
the change to the rattling, ill-lit open carriages of the old Circle
Line, their box-like compartments lined with grubby, dark brown
benches, entered on each side by a large manually operated door
with shiny brass handles. Finally the arrival at Blackfriars Station,
the walk along the Embankment to the imposing entrance of the
School, and the brief, brutal farewell to my parents. My mother,
to my embarrassment, embraced me and wept. I still recall her
aroma, a warm mixture of talcum powder and perfume, and I feel
the softness of her fur cape against my cheek as I wiped at my
watery eyes. My father shook my hand and, holding mother’s
arm, turned and walked away. It was not a good thing, he had
often told me, to wear your heart upon your sleeve.
I recall writing my name and the name of my class, Form New
2A, on three brown cardboard luggage labels, each with a hole at
one end. I remember cutting a long piece of string into short
pieces with which to tie each label: one to my gas mask, one to
my luggage – a large brown suitcase carrying all my worldly
goods – and one to myself. But better remembered, for food
seems a major part of my memories, I recall the laden brown
paper carrier bags with which we were issued, one to each boy.
They contained, it was explained, our iron rations, to be
consumed only in an emergency, consisting of one apple, one
pear, one orange, one tin of Libby’s evaporated milk, one tin of
Nestlé’s condensed milk, and one bar, the largest I had ever seen,
of Milk Tray chocolate.
For those of you who are unfamiliar with these latter items,
let me explain. Evaporated milk was thin and syrupy, rather like
tinned cream; condensed milk was thick, the consistency of
treacle, and very, very sweet. My mouth waters now even to
think of it.The Milk Tray chocolate bar was an oblong chocolate
bar divided into 24 sections or squares, each of which had a
different top and a different centre, some hard and some soft.On
the back of the wrapper of the bar was the key diagram so that
one could identify and know what filling would be met when the
square was bitten open.The hard toffee centres could be stored
in your cheek, to be chewed at a later time, whereas the creamy
soft centres could be carefully opened and cleaned out with
one’s tongue, leaving a hollow case of chocolate to be devoured
at one’s leisure.
We were sorted into groups and set off, a long crocodile of
black-jacketed boys, back to Blackfriars and thence by train to
Paddington Station, the rail terminus for the Great Western
Railway Line. It was closed that day to the general public but
packed with children being evacuated from the Capital, including
the 600 of us who were to board our special train for the 75-mile journey to Marlborough.The whole station was a sea of
schoolchildren, the shoals of different schools distinguished by
their uniforms and caps eddying about the platforms following
their leaders, teachers waving placards showing which group was
to assemble where. Thoroughly confused by the crowds, the
shouting adults, the steaming engines and the packed carriages, I
clung to my case of worldly possessions,my cardboard-boxed gas
mask and, most importantly,my emergency rations.
Finally our train was loaded, the guard waved his green flag,
there was a hiss of steam and a shrill whistle from the engine, the
carriage gave a great jolt and judder, and we were off. Within
minutes we were settled, some boys valiantly trying to get ash
out of their eyes, the usual result of looking out of the window
towards the engine, while the rest of us were soon investigating
our emergency rations. Within a short time the chocolate bars
were opened and a barter system soon developed between the
different sorts of confection, for not all of us had the same sort
of chocolate bar. Brazil nut chocolate was the gold standard of
the system; one piece of Brazil nut chocolate containing a
sizeable piece of nut was worth three soft-centred Milk Tray
pieces and at least half a Mars bar.
As the train travelled westward, past Windsor and Slough
towards Reading and Newbury, mutual shyness – together with
our rations – melted away, and friendships were made that lasted
for many years.A few hours earlier, lacking a pocket-knife of my
own, I had borrowed one from another boy to cut the string for
my labels.The knife, I recalled, had a tin opener attached, and so I
sought out the owner to help me attack my tins of milk. His name
was Henry Gray, and for some reason, perhaps because of his
white hair, we always called him Gray Gray. He left the Fourth
Form some two years later; I know not what became of him in
later life.The creamy evaporated milk was soon drunk, and the
thick and glutinous condensed variety was shared out by dipping
fingers into the opened tin and then sucking the white, sticky
mixture from our gummy digits. My new black jacket bore the
stains of dried condensed milk for the rest of the school term.
The train, now decorated with white streamers of toilet
paper, purloined from the carriage lavatories, fluttering from the
windows, steamed on towards Marlborough. Passing through
Reading, a main rail junction, we saw other trains, some going in
our direction with more evacuees, and some going east and
south full of soldiers in khaki off to some adventure greater than
ours. I envied them the accident of being born some nine or ten
years before me.How I wished I were a few years older, for then
I could have been on that train going the other way to become a
hero in the war that was to come. At my age, death and dying
were not a consideration.
It must have been about lunchtime that we arrived at
Marlborough, for I recollect watery lemonade and large
sandwiches of potted meat and fish paste, which sat ill with the
sweet things on which I had gorged. I felt distinctly unwell as we
set off, two by two, in a long procession led by a teacher, Mr
Brown, who was to become my hero and role model in later
years, and a grey-haired, grey-overcoated official from the Town
Hall.We walked down the approach road which led up to the
station, past high mountains of coal, stacked railway sleepers and
rails, and railway carriages. The carriages were painted in
chocolate and cream livery, now faded by the weather, the
golden-curlicued letters painted on their sides,‘G.W.R.’ for Great
Western Railway, peeling in the afternoon sun.We walked on, the
long crocodile wending down the hill towards the town, turned
left before the bridge and so along George Lane, the meandering
Kennet river on our right and fine large detached houses, hidden
behind high hedges of yew and privet, on our left.At almost every house, the grey official would consult his list.Two or three boys
would be detached from the head of the file, taken through the
front gate of a house, there to be lost to our sight as they were
introduced into the home where they were to be billeted.
Never one to be first at anything, I was at the back of the long
formation of small boys. As we alternately walked and waited, I
fell into conversation with the boy at my side, John Pinches. He
had an artificial eye, due I suppose to some childhood injury,
although it never occurred to me to ask, and because of this he
acquired some stature in our group. He could always be relied
upon, when times were tedious and entertainment was lacking,
to extract his eye and place it, staring seriously, in some
inappropriate spot such as an empty inkwell.When we got to the
end of George Lane and only four of us were left we turned left,
away from the river, up a narrow path.A little timorous now, led
by the two adults, we climbed over a stile and onto a short
gravelled road: on our right was a tin shed, the local Scout hall,
from which a grassy slope led down to George Lane and the
river, and on our left were two red brick bungalows.They were
identical in appearance, each with a central porched front door, a
bay window on each side and a gabled tiled roof capping each
single-storeyed dwelling.Mr Brown led me up a gravel path to the
shiny green-painted front door of the further bungalow. I stood
beside his towering form as he raised and let drop the shining
brass knocker.The hollow thud sounded loud in my ears as the
door opened, and dim against the dark central corridor behind
her stood the lady with whom I was to live for the next three
years, Mrs Shepherd.
She was a tall, angular woman with iron grey hair pulled hard
back into a bun. Her back was sharply bowed, so that her head
sat forward, and with her sharp aquiline nose she seemed to the
child before her like some bird of prey about to pounce upon its
victim. Atop the beak of that proboscis perched steel-rimmed
spectacles framing sharp blue eyes, and below it her thin-lipped
mouth opened in some grimace of greeting. She wore a long dark
dress, in front of which was fastened a floral apron. I discovered
later that she always wore her apron, except to go to church or
when there was a visit of some important person such as the
vicar. She took my sticky, dirty hand in her cold, knobbly fingers
and said,‘Welcome.’ I doubted that she meant it, and I didn’t like
one little bit the look of this lady, who was to be my surrogate
mother.
I guess she felt the same about me. At the age of eleven I
never thought of others, but now I wonder how she felt that
Friday afternoon. Early in 1938 her house, like the others in the
town, had been inspected by officials from the Town Hall. They
had ascertained that only she and Mr Shepherd lived in their twobedroom
bungalow, and had told her that in the event of war she
would have to take two evacuee children for the duration of
hostilities. Imagine a 65-year-old couple, living in peace and
tranquillity, faced with such a threat. Their parenting days were
long past, and they had no wish to introduce two strange, townbred
cuckoos into their small nest.This warning hung over them
for a year or more, and then, that first day of September 1939,
the threat materialised. She heard the doorknocker fall with a
threatening thud. She walked down the corridor and opened the
door to see a strange man; beside him a small boy, cap awry,
chocolate stains around his mouth, and the drying marks of
condensed milk upon his jacket. No wonder her welcome was
less than effusive.
That evening I met Mr Shepherd. He was a short, thickset,
ruddy faced man with thinning straw-coloured hair flattened
across his shiny skull. His eyes were blue like his wife’s, but more
often smiling than were hers. He sported a straw-coloured,
drooping walrus moustache, nicotine stained from the cigarette that seemed to live permanently in the corner of his mouth. He
wore brown corduroy trousers; a blue striped shirt, the
detachable collar missing and the white collar band open at the
neck, sleeves rolled up; and a dark waistcoat across his ample
front, crossed by a large brass watch chain from which dangled
an ornate metal seal. He impressed me greatly, mainly by his
silence. He would sit for long periods puffing at his cigarette
while his wife chattered on, saying nothing except for an
occasional ‘Hrrumph’.This seemed to mean ‘yes’,‘no’ or ‘maybe’,
whichever the occasion demanded; occasionally, for emphasis
perhaps, he would vary his conversation with a ‘Hrrumph,
Hrrumph.’ I guess we were all apprehensive of each other that
first night. I declined Mrs Shepherd’s offer of something to eat,
for I still felt uneasy in the stomach and, after a cup of cocoa,
retired to my new bed to cry myself to sleep.
Saturday was another fine, warm day. The sky was a cloudless,
cerulean blue, and a night’s sleep had cured my homesickness. I
was awake early, and dressed swiftly and quietly.Through the thin
walls of Fairview – for that was the name of the bungalow where
I was to live – I heard the rhythmic snores of Mr and Mrs
Shepherd. Fearful of waking them, I tiptoed out the back door
and walked along to John Pinches’ cottage next door. He was
outside, pensively chewing on a piece of grass; so together we set
off to explore the town and the College buildings.The boys of
Marlborough College, whose buildings we were to share, had not
yet returned for the autumn term, and we made our way to the
dining hall for our first communal breakfast.
The dining hall, now long since demolished and replaced by a
modern glass and chrome monstrosity, was a long, imposing
building forming the western side of the main quadrangle of the
school. It was made of red sandstone bricks with many high
Gothic windows.The roof, a high long gable, was set with greenstained
tiles, and one entered the imposing building through
great, studded wooden double doors. The interior of the Hall
was panelled in dark timber, decorated with gold-framed
portraits of long dead Masters of Marlborough, gazing sternly
down at the boys below. I remember the larger-than-life portrait
that looked down upon our table.The gentleman, whose name I
forget, stood, his right hand holding some sort of rolled scroll, his
left resting on the back of a chair. His expression was of fierce
disdain, as he looked forever down on the young hoi polloi
beneath, day boys from some minor school, intruders in his
august College. At the northern end of the Hall were the
hatchways opening into the steaming, odoriferous kitchens. At
the southern end across the long axis of the hall, set on a high
dais, was High Table, a place of fear and mystery to junior boys
such as us. It was set on each side with carved, high-backed
chairs.At the centre of the High Table, facing the hall, was a large
wooden throne that, later, we discovered was the Headmaster’s
Chair. I remember John sat in it, but he was speedily removed by
Mr Brown and came to share our communal table. Below High
Table and set parallel to it were 20 or more long tables, backless
wooden benches on each side. At the end of each table was a
high-backed, ornately carved armchair, and at the foot a smaller,
less ornamented chair of similar design. At the top chair sat a
Master and at the bottom chair a Prefect. On either side along
the benches sat we boys, and woe betide anyone who
misbehaved.
Ignoring the disapproving portraits that looked down upon
us we hungrily and excitedly ate our first meal in this hallowed
hall. Several boys from each table were deputed to go to the
kitchen hatches; they returned bearing huge silver tureens of
steaming porridge, jugs of milk, plates heaped with slabs of toast,
and jars of jam – red, yellow and green.The green jam, allegedly greengage but tasting more chemical than fruity, was my
favourite. Breakfast was soon over, for we speedily learnt that, at
boarding school, the faster you eat, the more you can eat and the
sooner you can be away to comparative freedom.We escaped,
John and I, and had a great day discovering the playing fields, the
squash courts and the fives courts, the gymnasium with its shiny
parallel bars against the walls and thick long ropes hanging from
the beams high overhead, the libraries, the Chapel, and a secret
rose garden. This we later discovered was out of bounds to all
but sixth formers and, on one occasion,we were soundly beaten,
four of the best with a malacca cane, by one of the prefects who
found us playing there.
Sunday 3 September seemed to us small boys to be just
another day. It was a fine, warm morning again and we walked
down to the school dining hall for breakfast. As we ate our
porridge and toast that Sunday morning we were unaware that in
the outside world an era was about to end.At nine o’clock that
morning Sir Neville Henderson, the British Ambassador in Berlin,
handed a final ultimatum to the German Foreign Minister,Von
Ribbentrop:‘Unless the German Government were prepared to
inform His Majesty’s Government by 11 a.m. that they would give
satisfactory assurances that they had suspended all aggressive
action against Poland, and were prepared promptly to withdraw
their forces from Polish territory, a state of war would exist
between Great Britain and Germany as from that hour.’
Our breakfast eaten, our group of new junior boys walked
back from the school, across the Kennet bridge, up the cinder
track beside the Scout hall to the greensward below the
bungalows. Someone produced a pack of cards, and I began to
learn the intricacies of solo whist. In spite of its name it was
played by four people, and as there were five of us I soon became
bored. It must have been nearly a quarter past eleven when I
went indoors to the Shepherds’ kitchen to get a glass of water.
They and their only son, the local postmaster, a man enormous in
all dimensions, were seated at the kitchen table listening to the
wireless.They hushed me to be still, and with them I listened to
that famous broadcast. I heard the Prime Minister, Neville
Chamberlain, recite in sad and solemn tones the events of the
preceding hours. He spoke of seeking assurances of withdrawal
by the Germans, and of having not received such assurances by
11 am, so that therefore ‘this country is now at war with
Germany’. His words expressed his deep emotion: ‘I cannot
believe that there is anything more, or anything different, that I
could have done . . . It is evil things that we shall be fighting against,
brute force, bad faith, injustice, oppression and persecution.And
against them I am certain that the right will prevail.’
Mrs Shepherd turned to her husband, who put his arm
around her. She rested her head against his shoulder, and I
thought I heard her sobbing while their son was silent, looking
moodily into the glass of beer held in his large red hand.
Somewhat embarrassed by this adult show of emotion, I tiptoed
out to where the others were playing cards under the cerulean
sky and, as I rejoined them, we heard the wailing warble of the
air raid siren. With excitement tinged with trepidation we put
down our cards and scanned the skies for the fleets of German
dive bombers that were supposed to be coming but, alas, none
were to be seen. One solitary biplane, its wings bright yellow
shining in the noonday sun, put-putted its way from east to west
where lay its home, the flying training school at Yatesbury, and as
we watched it disappear behind the trees we heard the long
steady note of the all clear.We were at war, and as we walked
back down the hill towards the school we talked and wondered
what would be for lunch.