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Everyone awaited the warned danger of bombing raids which we were told to expect at any time but as the weeks passed and they did not materialise, life for a small boy became rather boring.

For me, air raid practice and going down to the shelter was great. Lessons were interrupted, and it all helping to pass the time more quickly. The fact my education was not being helped did not worry me one small bit..

In 1942 small cottage industries were springing up everywhere they produced aircraft parts and military equipment backing up the production in the small factories and workshops everywhere about us. We were often enthralled to see parts of aircraft being towed behind trucks en route to the next stage of their manufacture and assembly. It was inspiring to see these new developments at first hand, for at the time we had little information about technical advances except from the newspaper and radio propaganda put out by the government of the day. To illustrate my point, in 1942, whilst at boarding school in Farnborough, Hampshire, my friends and I watched the first jet aircraft fly above our heads.

We stood and reasoned about this Glouster built mono plane aircraft for what we were witnessing was an aircraft without a propeller but with a large air intake at the front with a jet type pipe blowing gases out of the tail section. What was it? Our deductions were that the engine was driving a large air pump which was blowing air out at the rear which then pushed the plane forward, subsequently we found our childish reasoning was nearer the truth than what was later published in the press at the time.

Within walking distance of our house in Harrow Weald was Bentley Priory, with the outbreak of war it had been taken over by fighter command. One of their first jobs they did was to construct the underground control centres and shelters. As kids we would climb over the outer fences and watch the construction machines preparing and digging in the grounds. There was a short airstrip set out for light aircraft to use. In the Priory grounds was a large lake, which we used to swim and boat in. During one of our visits we found a large sunken rowing boat which with the help of other school friends we beached and dried out.

The boat was a heavy one about 12 foot long and was clearly a lovely vessel in her day but now it was water logged and the planking had opened up allowing water into the hull and making the boat unseaworth. However in an old disused boathouse we found a number of large tins of pitch. With some timber strips we repaired the larger holes. We made up a small campfire and boiled up the tar using old sacks tied on sticks to paint the tarred on and seal up the cracks. By the end of that summer we had our boat dried right out and sea worthy again. True it did require some bailing to keep the water out but only now and again. We managed to load eight of us into the craft and paddle across the lake. We had a really wonderful summer holiday that year and I feel I learnt more about boats and how to handle them than ever I could have read from a book.

With our boat we could row over to the Priory side of the lake where there were no fences to keep us from the wonderful views of the landing strip. We loved to watch the odd Auster come into land or take off with high-ranking R.A.F. personnel.

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