Cyril's Memories

The following is a transcription of a tape-recording made by Sheila Weston on 20th January 1994 at his bungalow in Great Bealings, Suffolk

'What is my first memory? I am not sure which is the first? Either me walking up East Ham High Street, howling my eyes out, because I was lost? Or the other one - these are both when I was in Goldsmith Avenue, because we moved there when I was four - when a sweet van upset loads of acid drops, which were all over the road, and we all rushed out with a colander and collected up all these acid drops and rushed indoors and washed them under the tap, and lived on acid drops for a few days. Other than that also being plonked down beside the pond - I used to like and sit and look at the pond, I suppose that is where I developed my interest in fish and fishing. I must have been under four, because we moved when I was four.

Other memories you're not sure of, are you? I remember looking at this pike in the case, a huge great pike, it wasn't obviously, but my cousin next door had caught it, but did I, or has this fish been mentioned in conversations later in life and having seen loads of fish in glass cases I can sort of picture a fish in a glass case.

There, is that long enough?

SRW - No, you have to go on for another 3/4 of an hour!

Well, I don't want to go on for another three quarters of an hour, because I want to go out and get my secateurs and what-have-yous.

When did you move from East Ham?

Well, I was born in East Ham, moved to [366] Sherrard Road when I was four and lived there until I went in the Navy in '43, came back after the invasion when we were remustered - I took a course to become a Radio Mechanic - I was an officer cadet before then, sort of thing. They didn't want any by then. We were wanted by the dozen to skipper a landing craft to go across the channel. Well, the invasion was over by then and we were all remustered. Anyhow, I did a Radio Mechanic's course. The first six months you did at a Technical College, Walthamstow Tech is where we were billeted, so I spent six months at home [Sherrard Road]. Then back in the navy, I mean away - in London. My mother had died the previous year ['43, a couple of weeks after I came on leave]. My father had married Gladys [1945 or '46] and they then moved out to Southend, so when I came back they were in Southend. So that means that when I go up to East Ham now I recoil with horror and rush out again.

Slight diversion while Cyril asks himself what he thinks of this present government.

'No, we don't want that', say I!

My first day at school? Nothing atall, I can't remember my first day at school at all. Can anybody? Infants - Essex Road Elementary School, Manor Park? A large hall. I can remember the school teacher, but then I have a photograph of us, all sitting at our desks like good little boys, always scrubbed neat and tidy. A typical school hall of the Edwardian-built era, when all the libraries were built by all the philanthropists. Names I am desperately trying to remember. Who were they, two of them? Passmore Edwards and Carnegie, who built so many of the public buildings around Britain in these public buildings of that era.

Other than that I can play in the play-ground in my memory, but I can't picture myself in the school class-room at all, just in the hall and coming home and going [to school]. In the play ground we ran around like billy-o, as I remember, chasing balls and things. One particular memory is coming home one day and there was one of those old Chrysler American cars parked just along the road, very much like those old Volkswagen beetles. They had their ideas of aerodynamics, something which we had never seen in Britain before. How it came to be there in Manor Park heavens knows. I can picture it all now, walking all round it and gazing at it with wonder. [In the '30s].

I don't think that we had school dinners. We didn't have milk until I got to East Ham Grammar. We sat at our desks with our little bottle of milk, with the hole in the middle of the top, where you put the straw in. I remember coming home now, down this side of the railway (Church Road is the other side of the railway), the little shop on the corner where I crossed over, then the bridge over to Church Road. Hoardings of a bit of waste ground, with Sherrard road on the other side of the road.

How did I get to Grammar School? Walking, jogging, cycling or roller-skating. When I got there I had to hide the skates, because it was not approved of, but it was quicker than walking.

Did I have to take an exam to get to Grammar School? Oh yes, of course. You sat your scholarship exam at 11 years of age. The top half dozen went to East Ham Technical College, The next couple of dozen went to an outside Grammar school - that was me. I chose West Ham Grammar School because my brother Bernard had gone to West Ham Grammar. He wasn't particularly clever, just bright like the rest of us [?tongue in cheek]. The next lot would go to the secondary school like West Ham Municipal College and various other places. It is a pity - if I had passed a bit lower down I would have gone to West Ham Municipal College, where I am sure my whole life would have changed, because W. Ham Grammar was a Catholic G.S. and just did the classical subjects, whereas if I had gone to W.H. Municipal College I would have been doing things like Botany and Zoology, and the modern sciences, instead of Latin and French. I was lousy at French - I've failed more French exams than you have had hot dinners. Oh yes, I got a BA in French, but it was at a general level. If you take an honours degree you take another subject at general level the year before. I can't think why I took it - because I had done it at school and I had to do something.

[Cyril once told me that when they were about to be demobbed from the army they were given just one day to decide which subjects they wanted to study at College. An application was then made for a Forces grant.]

When did Bernard [his brother] go to Australia? Bernard went into the Merchant Navy when war broke out, as an Engineer. He used to love motor-bikes and cars, taking them to bits. I don't know if he got any qualifications. He was an Engineer Officer - he was the equivalent of sub-lieutenant to begin with. He is five years older than me. He left school as I started. He played truant a couple of times and he was thrown out. He used to go along to Birkett's second-hand motor-bike showrooms. Probably for nothing, but he was fascinated by bikes. I think he was on the Queen Mary for a couple of trips. And he bought back some bananas! Then he went out East, which is where he got to know Australia. Then he came back at the end of the war and left the navy. He came home, stayed a while, got married (?'47), then back to Australia. About a year later his wife and child came back and we never heard of him since. For a while we kept in touch with her, but Pop was a bit wary of her. I think he could see her unloading herself on him. Nice girl. I don't think it was anything to do with Pop marrying that sent Bernard off to Australia. I don't know what he did there. I know that he would have gone straight into motor-bike and car sales, which was his life. I don't know where it was he went. Quite likely he would have gone on the £10 immigration scheme. But there were all sorts of schemes then - there might have been one for people who had been there in the war and wanted to go back, [quiet mutters about this miserable government, or something!].

What do I remember about the war? Of course I can remember joining up. Our Every Thought Is All For Your Delight. It was blazened across the front of Butlin's Holiday Camp at Skegness, which had been taken over as barracks. Most of Butlins had been taken over as Naval barracks and Skegness was a joining centre. I remember getting out of Skegness Station onto the coach and there it was: Our every thought is all for your delight. We were there for several weeks doing training. I could walk you around the barracks in my memory. Huts in rows, the people I was with, but I can't remember names. Curious, they were all well-mannered, reasonably educated people. One or two were typical Stock-brokers - well-educated professionals. A couple were like that. Everybody else, you know the working-class lads, were all well-mannered. Imagine joining up now with a load of 17 or 18 year olds. Cor Blimey, it is a different nation. We were there for six weeks, square-bashing, learning the basics of who you saluted and who you didn't. That was where we were selected as CW candidates (This was Sept or Oct '43 when I joined up).

After that we had to do two or three months sea service, before we went down to King Alfred's [Portsmouth] to learn to become a sub-lieutenant. Then I went up to Greenock to join HMS Rattlesnake, an Albany class Minesweeper - about the size of a corvette, at that time doing Russian convoys. The next two or three months was Greenock, then Loch Ewe, up to the Western Isles, then picked up the convoy at Loch Ewe, from North ??Wessex 100 miles north of the Faroes. The danger of the first part was from submarines, because of the heavy air cover of Britain and Scapa Flow. When we got up there our air cover ended and the German air power from North Norway came into effect, so they were taken over by a different form of escort, which had a much greater anti-aircraft potential [?]against cruisers and bigger ships. We would then go back into the Faroes and pick up another (homeward) convoy and bring them back. With the Russian Convoys nobody took them all the way from Britain to Russia. I got the Russian Medal because I was on Russian Convoys, and was entitled to it - it has been given by the Soviet Government. (Comment about the quality of the medal being rather like the old Reader's Digest 'tokens'!)

After that a couple of weeks at Scapa Flow, on the Rattlesnake doing bits and pieces. April '44 with the invasion brewing up, minesweepers were wanted so down we came, along the East coast of Britain this time - popped into Aberdeen for a boiler clean for a week - I went to saw the Carla Rosa doing Faust. A couple of nights ashore at a hotel specially reserved for shore-going service staff. ...???... til three. They had table cloths on the tables for breakfast, which made us feel we were living it up! It's funny how these things hit you and you remember them! We saw Faust - I am sure Tudor Davis was singing the leading role. He always was at that time - way past it, quavered like mad, but could just about cope with it.

Then down to Portsmouth for the invasion. I can't remember any air raids. We had such total control of the air then. We only saw about three German aircraft during the invasion. We spent a month practising (minesweeping). I hadn't done any minesweeping since I had joined the ship - it had all been Atlantic escort duties up to that point. We toddled down the channel in the fine spring and summer of '44. We didn't find any mines. The only mine that we knew was the one that blew us up. Whether we cut any I don't know. We went over in front of the invasion on the night of June 5th to go up and down in front of the coast sweeping up the mines, so you couldn't see any you cut. I wasn't on the actual paravane, which was trailed behind cutting the wires. I was on the starboard (?) or port Oerliken most of the time - a quick firing gun. Swedish. You just sat there during the convoy. On the convoy I was usually on the fore 4" gun, in case a submarine popped up. One hoped that they wouldn't because they probably had a bigger gun than we had. But there was always a destroyer around.

So we were going up and down the night before, and dawn broke, and the aircraft were going overhead all night long, and we watched the bombs dropping and the flairs on the coast half a mile away, or less. We got as close to the beach as we could. And next morning we withdrew another half mile or so and the fleet was there steaming up behind us as dawn broke...full of bods piling into their landing craft and toddling off to the shore. We were in between the transport ?marine and around the transports - we weren't anchored, or anything.

I think we saw three aircraft - one came over one day - poor little things - they were by themselves, with our aircraft by the dozen, hundreds of ships there blasting away with anti-aircraft guns, as long as they survived - only a minute or two. One crashed and the other two did scamper back inland.

Well yes, it was terribly noisy. One day we were inside the War Spite, which was a WW1 battleship, probably not anchored, but it was circling its guns round and just blasted away all day. We were moving along all day. It was difficult. We must have cleared the mines close to the beach the night before, along with one or two other minesweepers - we weren't the only one! So we must have worked further out, but we weren't very deep because, was it the eleventh day we set off this acoustic mine which lifted us a couple of feet in the air. It broke lots of crockery and did lots of superficial damage. Enough to have us toddling back to Portsmouth. We were able to sail back because we weren't holed. The sea was deep enough not to actually hole, but it was deeper than the depth of this room, but we weren't very far out.

It did damage to lots of breakable things. If you get a thing like a ship actually lifted bodily up and plonked down, even though it is on water - the engines and whatnot were blocked, but we were still able to steer, but the engines were presumably not working perfectly.

How did they organise the feeding on board? The same as on any ship. We went to lunch when we were off duty. On D-day? I can't remember atall. Presumably we had sandwiches and whatnot brought up. We would have been at action stations, of course. I know we used to get cocoa brought up to us - Kye (naval cocoa) we used to call it.