Life Is Now! - How to Make It Happen: An Autobiography by John Eaton a Simple Countryboy Makes Good

By John Eaton

This story of The Author's unconventional lifestyle gives valuable lessons to the many people who leave school and University with no plans for their careers, and are just content to be buffetted along life's highways, waiting for the miracle which will never happen. For the many people who have probably wasted their time at school and University, it is never too late to take charge of their life by positive thinking. Henry Ford was 40 years old when he formed the Ford Motor Company . John Eaton was 26 years old when he decided to throw off the shackles of a comfortable and conventional career as a Design Engineer and ventured into the world of Show Business by opening up a closed down Dance hall. The newfound exctasy of being in charge of his own destiny drove him on to success in other business ventures and a period on the fringes of The Political Scene where he came into contact with Members Of The Cabinet. In addition, the detailed descriptions of of life during his childhood provide an intriguing insight into a way of life which has now become history and will fascinate readers who are accustomed to everyday use of Telephones,TVs, Computers and Motor Vehicles. The lessons learned by The Author about the complexities of human nature, as he navigated through The University Of Life, are well illustrated and invaluable to the reader who wants to "Make Life Happen" rather than let it wash over him. If this book can upgrade the chances of success in a career or improve the quality of life of a reader,then his work will not have been in vain.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Feb 25, 2011
• ISBN: 9781496996367

John Eaton

Born in Widnes between the Wars, JOHN EATON spent most of his professional life teaching in the Department of Old Testament at Birmingham University in the UK. A respected and well-known scholar, he wrote many books on the Old Testament, and particularly on the Psalms. He died in 2007, just after completing A Lantern to My Feet.

Book preview

LIFE IS NOW! –

How To Make It Happen!

John Eaton

AuthorHouse™ UK

500 Avebury Boulevard

Central Milton Keynes, MK9 2BE

www.authorhouse.co.uk

Phone: [phone]

© 2011 John Eaton. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

First published by AuthorHouse 06/28/2011

ISBN: 978-1-4520-8683-5 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4969-9636-7 (e)

16279.png

Contents

FOREWORD

CHAPTER 1 – The Misty Past

CHAPTER 2 – Early Days.

CHAPTER 3 – Early Wartime.

CHAPTER 4 – Schooldays In The 1940’S

CHAPTER 5 – The Beginning Of The End

CHAPTER 6 – Dad’s Early Life On Merseyside

CHAPTER 7 – Life In Northwich

CHAPTER 8 – Granddad’s Memories

CHAPTER 9 – The End Of World War II

CHAPTER 10 – Peace – The Hidden Dangers

CHAPTER 11 – Post War Schooldays

CHAPTER 12 – Hello! Real World

CHAPTER 13 – A Long Bike Ride

CHAPTER 14 – Early Teenage Thrills

CHAPTER 15 – The Eatons Have Wheels

CHAPTER 16 – Unlucky Albert

CHAPTER 17 – John Gets Wheels

CHAPTER 18 – All Work & No Play Makes Jack A Dull Boy!

CHAPTER 19 – The Grand Tour – On Shank’s Pony

CHAPTER 20 – It’s Good To Be Alive

CHAPTER 21 – Hello Sailor!

CHAPTER 22 – Full Steam Ahead

CHAPTER 23 – Bootlegging In Chittagong

CHAPTER 24 – Homeward Bound

CHAPTER 25 – Back In The Social Whirlpool

CHAPTER 26 – A Showbiz Gamble

CHAPTER 27 – John Gets Hitched

CHAPTER 28 – Rock N Roll Becomes Respectable!

CHAPTER 29 – THE FAMILY COMES FIRST

CHAPTER 30 – Back To Mecca (Northwich)

CHAPTER 31 – Viva Espana

CHAPTER 32 – The Sweet Life At Morningside

CHAPTER 33 – The Socialist Disease

CHAPTER 34 – Farewell Northwich Hello Lymm

CHAPTER 35 – Establishing Roots In Lymm

CHAPTER 36 – Group Sales Takes Off

CHAPTER 37 – Anne’s Difficulties

CHAPTER 38 – Political Interludes

CHAPTER 39 – The Family’s Torment

CHAPTER 40 – The Healing Process

CHAPTER 41 – John Meets Maureen

CHAPTER 42 – Maureen Settles In Lymm & Takes Up Tennis

CHAPTER 43 – Problems With Jane

CHAPTER 44 – Goodbye Brookfield House

CHAPTER 45 – A Fresh Start

CHAPTER 46 – Trouble At Group Sales

CHAPTER 47 – Florida

CHAPTER 48 – Hawaii, Las Vegas, New York, Plymouth Rock

CHAPTER 49 – Pause For Thought

CHAPTER 50 – The End Game

FOREWORD

The purposes served by the writing of this book are quite vague, but I had an overwhelming compulsion to do so after only being able to give inadequate answers to questions from my children about our ancestry. In addition I have been fascinated by a very common human frailty which causes people to insist on making their own mistakes rather than learning from other peoples’ mistakes. If this book can improve the success rate in a career, or improve the quality of life of a reader then my work will not have been in vain.

I believe that there are lessons to be learned for all of us each day.

Much more infrequently as we go through life, all of us are confronted by crossroads which require us to make important decisions which will drastically effect our future. At the time, the importance of these decisions is often not recognised, until it is too late.

In spite of a religious upbringing which included Sunday School, Church and singing in the Church Choir, I threw myself into my life in a rather unconventional way which produced a very unusual lifestyle. This was probably due in the main to my not being convinced that there was an afterlife. From an early age it seemed to me that the more you put into life, the more you would get out of it.

I hope that readers will be able to learn from my mistakes and from my unorthodox lifestyle and conclude that it was a worthwhile read.

CHAPTER 1 –

The Misty Past

When Baron Peter de Eton of Normandy and his Men at Arms joined forces with William The Conqueror in 1066, and crossed the English Channel to invade King Harold’s England, little did he realise that his name and influence would be indelibly stamped upon the Society of this country for ever.

The English resistance crumbled rapidly when brave King Harold took a French arrow in his eye and was mortally wounded at the Battle of Hastings.

1.jpg

As reward for distinguished service Baron Peter De Eton was given various plots of land which included large parts of arable farmland in what is now known as Cheshire, and as the village of Eaton was established, close to Tarporley, the descendants and serfs of Baron Peter, farmed and developed the area, under the protection of a large fortified building, which was the forerunner of the present Seat of the Duke of Westminster, namely Eaton Hall.

2.jpg

A PICTURE OF AN EARLIER EATON HALL (NOW DEMOLISHED)

You may well ask what Baron Peter De Eton has to do with our family, and the answer may well be-Nothing!. But I clearly recall my dear grandfather Eaton (John) telling me that one of our early ancestors had run away to sea from the village of Eaton near Tarporley, and settled in Merseyside when his seafaring days were over. This was why a family with such an original Cheshire name was to be found at 43 Gladstone Road, Seacombe, Wallasey.

It is known that William, the son of William de Eton was living in this area of Cheshire in the 12th Century. This William had 2 sons who died childless, and a daughter Sybil , who married Richard de Pulford. Their grandson Richard married Cicely de Huxley and succeeded to a portion of Eaton. One of their sons, another Richard married Agnes Lenginow, and died before his father. He had 4 sons and Robert who succeeded him., married Isobel, the daughter and heiress of William de Stockton, early in the 14th Century and was the first of the family to use the name Eaton. Their son Richard de Eaton was Lord of Eaton in 1365 and died in 1377, being succeeded by his son John who acquired further lands in Eaton, Chester, Tushingham and Bursley.

He was commanded to clear The River Dee of illegally placed fishing nets.

John had no sons, and his granddaughter married Ralph de Grosvenor and the Eaton estates passed to this family, which was destined to become the wealthiest in the Country. Currently the income of the Duke of Westminster is in excess of One Million Pounds per day!! The crucial event which precipitated this vast explosion of wealth occurred when a 17th Century descendant of Ralph de Grosvenor married the daughter of a Mayfair sheep farmer in London. Already very wealthy, he went on to own many acres of farmland which was to become the most expensive Real Estate in Europe and included the prestigious Eaton Square. To this day the Shepherds Market area of Mayfair still exists. The arranged marriage occurred in 1677 between Sir Thomas Grosvenor aged 21 and Mary Davies aged 12. She had inherited from her father ,the farmland areas of London which are now known as Mayfair (After the annual country fair each May), Westminster, Belgravia and Pimblico.

There were many descendants of the younger sons of the Eaton family, and it would take a great deal of time, to find out exactly which Eaton ran away to sea. After spending many hours researching the Eaton Family Tree I traced Charles Eaton who was born in Walton on the Hill, Liverpool in 1795 and if time will allow, I intend to go back further. Most of my relatives have a copy of this family tree which also traces the early Houghton ancestors back to James Houghton of Northwich , born in 1815, the year of the Battle of Waterloo.

CHAPTER 2 –

Early Days.

John Eaton, my paternal Grandfather had huge hands. He had worked very hard all his life as a Cooper, making wooden barrels. He loved music and delighted in playing the piano for me in the parlour. I used to marvel at the way he managed to only hit one note at a time with such thick fingers. He had never had a lesson in his life and the only piece he could play properly was The Bells of St. Mary’s which impressed me immensely.

3.jpg

GRANDAD and GRANDMA EATON with MOTHER and ME.

There was never much to do at my Grandparents’ house in Gladstone Road, but I still enjoyed visiting, especially as they did not object to me listening to the adult conversations, and these gave me a feel for what life was about in those tough times when there were no social workers and anyone who really could not do without a doctor, would have to sell something, like the piano, to pay for treatment. One of my earliest memories of my father conversing with my Granddad was concerning all the problems they had had with my Great Granddad who had recently died. Apparently he was an extremely strong and vigorous man even in retirement, and my Grandmother had spent a lot of time tracking him down, when he used to disappear for a whole day. Apparently on two occasions she had found him boxing against tough boxers half his age in the evening Boxing Booths in New Brighton and after promising to stop this activity she found him working for the people who owned the Children’s’ Roundabouts, turning the large wheel in the centre of the Roundabout which propelled it round for approximately 4 minutes at a time. This was obviously in the days before the roundabouts had been converted to Steam Drive, and then later on to Electric Drive.

Another of the problems I recall my father discussing with my Grandfather was concerning the rowdy weekend parties which were held next door, and which went on into the early hours of Sunday mornings. Despite complaints, the parties became wilder and noisier until one night the parlour floor collapsed and fell through into the foundations, depositing the Irish partygoers and the furniture (Including the piano) in an untidy heap. There were no more parties after that.

4.jpg

GREAT UNCLE JIM,CHIEF ENGINEER, SS. SHUJA, CALCUTTA, NEW YEARS DAY 1931

I remember meeting my great uncle Jim (My grandfather’s brother) at 43 Gladstone Road.. He was carrying on the tradition of the Eaton seafarers. He was a Chief Engineer and his periods of leave were apparently becoming shorter by intention, simply because he spent so much time in warmer climates that he was invariably ill when exposed to the relevantly cold and damp climate of the U.K.

My father and grandfather waved him goodbye as he steamed out of the Port of Liverpool and he shouted from the deck, Don’t worry about me, as soon as I feel the Sun in the Med, I’ll be fine. He never returned to England. He married a beautiful Anglo-Indian girl and lived the rest of his life based in India. Unless he produced a son who became a sailor, he would be the last in the line of seafaring Eaton’s. (Ignoring my own short spell as a seagoing Engineer with T&J. Brocklebank, the oldest shipping line in the world and early slave traders).

My father lived at 43 Gladstone Road Seacombe, all his early life right up to the time when he had to move to Northwich to find work. His childhood had been difficult because he had pneumonia three times, and in those days the third dose was usually fatal. He also had trouble with his ears, and on one occasion his mother had to go to school in a very warlike frame of mind, because a teacher had hit him on his ears and caused excruciating pain which caused him to run out of the school and head for home.

He always tried to be at home when the paper boy delivered the Liverpool Echo in the late afternoon. The paper boy was always given a piece of cake by a kind hearted lady earlier on his paper round.. He didn’t like cake, and so he used to put it under his cap and give it to Dad each day. Virtually every man and boy wore caps in those days and they would often put things under their cap for safe keeping. Hence the saying Keep it under your hat.

Dad’s maturing years seemed to be dominated by swimming and soccer and looking after younger brother Albert who’d had a difficult childhood, having been born without a roof in his mouth. The first two operations he had were unsuccessful because he cried so much that he tore out the stitches, but the third operation was reasonably successful although his face always made him look like a prize fighter, and he talked as if his nose was blocked all the time.

He was an extremely pleasant and mild mannered person in spite of a run of bad luck which never seemed to end, and which I will expand on, later in this account.

CHAPTER 3 –

Early Wartime.

One of the most moving memories of those visits to Wallasey concerns the early days of World War 2 in 1941.

My father woke me at about 11 p.m. one night and I was aware that virtually every house in Gladstone Road was emptying of people. There was an eerie silence.. Hundreds of people were converging on the Seacombe waterfront where we could look across the River Mersey and see the long line of Liverpool Docks. There were enormous fires raging virtually along the length of the Docklands caused by German bombers.. The huge flames lit up the night sky even at the distance of approximately 1 mile and it was just as if daylight had broken early. I sat on my father’s shoulders looking on in awe and suddenly there was an enormous explosion as the flames reached an armament ship full of bombs and ammunition. There was no conversation; simply hundreds of people staring at the devastation. After about twenty minutes people had seen enough and they quietly filed back to their houses. To this day I will go out of my way to avoid looking at firework displays. It must be some sort of sub conscious reaction.

The next morning my father and I walked down Brighton Street towards the Seacombe Ferry Terminal and there were a number of houses completely reduced to a pile of bricks. My father pointed out that in all the wrecked houses, the only thing left partially standing was the staircase, and so when we returned home, the first thing my father did was to clear out all the coal from the coalhouse under the stairs and convert it into an air raid shelter complete with benches and candles and a spade so that we could dig ourselves out if necessary.

Churchill had made a rallying speech on the Radio and there was an air of defiance and camaraderie amongst the people around the battered houses and shops. I remember a mobile soup kitchen giving out soup to people whose homes had been destroyed. It was parked outside a Barber’s shop. The Barber’s shop window had been shattered and only half of it remained in place. The Barber had written on the remaining piece of glass with white chalk, I had a close shave last night, why not come in and have one for yourself.

My father mentioned to me that the same Barber’s shop was where he had two teeth extracted on separate occasions. The Barber used a pair of pliers and it cost a penny a tooth. No painkillers!

My childish innocence had been abruptly shattered with the realisation that life could be full of danger and pain. I learned to take a longer route to the paper shop, and avoid the gang of toughs who hung about at the top of Gladstone Road. They were always ready to hit a new face, especially if he had clean clothes and curly hair. I suppose these experiences were lesson one towards me gaining my Streetwise Diploma.

After the air raids became more intense over Liverpool, our visits became less frequent. It was much safer in our wonderful little market town of Northwich, but Grandma and Grandpa refused to let Hitler disrupt their lives, and they declined our offer of safer accommodation.

Whenever we did visit Wallasey, we heard many stories of heroic rescues of people from blazing houses, and tragic tales of whole families being killed.

I remember my grandfather telling us of four streets being evacuated because a German landmine was swinging perilously from the corner of an air raid shelter roof. It’s parachute cords had luckily become entangled on the roof corner which prevented it from exploding on impact . After a few hours an Army unit de fused the landmine and everyone went back home and carried on.

Life in wartime Northwich was much less dangerous, and I started school at Park St. Infants School, Castle, Northwich.

On my first day, one of the teachers, Mrs Warburton put a big pile of books in front of us all, so that we could pick one out. Ronny Powell and I put our hands on one book simultaneously and a tug of war ensued. I got mad and aimed a punch at his left shoulder to make him let go. Unfortunately Ronny moved his head to the left at the crucial moment and his cries echoed around the school.

I was very sorry about this incident because Ronny was a very pleasant boy and we became firm friends. After school we would always spend a few minutes looking into the windows of Warburton’s toy shop, drooling at the toys we couldn’t afford.. One day a beautiful Rolls Royce went past and we both gazed in wonderment. I said to Ronny I’m going to work hard a get a good job, and save up to buy a Rolls Royce when I grow up. Ronny said, Will you promise to give me a ride in it I said Yes and when I eventually bought my first Rolls Royce in 1990 I did make some enquiries in the Northwich area, but was unable to track him down.

I suppose that when two schoolboys see a Rolls Royce these days a more likely reaction would be Let’s scratch that posh bloke’s car. In those distant days the seeds of envy had not yet been sowed by the Socialist Party.

The other teacher at Park St. Infants school was Miss Hinchcliffe who took us for music. I was honoured to be appointed number 1 Triangle Player in the school Band.

When I think back about those first two years schooling, I realise what a wonderful start it was to my education. It was a happy school but also a very industrious school, which imparted great pride in achieving and not too much sympathy for underachieving thus challenging the underachievers to try harder. All the little children walked to and fro from the school. None of the parents had motor cars, but there was no need for children to be escorted in those days because there was virtually no serious crime , due to the strict punishment handed out by the Courts for any minor misdemeanour.

This was before the reformers had abolished Capital Punishment, Corporal Punishment and virtually all forms of chastisement.

If the readers of this book are forming the impression that I have been forced to take an Anti-Socialist stance through experience, then they would be correct. I find it hard to forgive the Socialist meddlers who have in my lifetime ruined the quality of life in a country which was the nearest thing to Utopia one could imagine. Of course I accept that in the 1930’s and late 1940’s , the Socialists were justified in improving the lot of the exploited working classes, but unfortunately they didn’t know when to stop and created an uncontrollable monster.

I used to go shopping with my mother every Friday. Her wicker basket brought back virtually the full week’s shopping, which would look lost in one of the present day’s supermarket shopping trolleys.

We always had fish on Fridays and I clearly remember the Fishmonger continually swiping at the hordes of bluebottles which were besieging his display of fish on the wooden counter top, on the pavement as my mother made her selection. We would then go to the Northwich Market where mother would almost always bump into her mother or one of her sisters. Dad said There’s always one of them on patrol.

Auntie Winnie would quite often ride into Northwich from Rudheath on her bicycle and then walk home with her mother, forgetting all about her bike.

She would go back a day or two later to retrieve it from outside the shop where she’d left it and it would always be there. It was virtually unheard of for anyone to have a bike stolen. In later years I had to stop using Auntie Winnie as a babysitter because of her forgetfulness, but that’s another story for later.

Mother and I would then walk back home to Alderley Road ,Winnington after about 3 hours, in the full knowledge that our house would be exactly as we’d left it, even though we hadn’t even locked the door.

As the country became embroiled in the war, one of my biggest concerns was the absence of bananas. I kept going on about it to such an extent that somehow my father managed to contact Great Uncle Jim and asked him to send me a banana. After about 3 months an envelope addressed to me arrived bearing the postmark Calcutta. It contained a short letter from Jim and a blackened banana skin, the contents of which had dissipated. At least he tried!

5a.jpg

I was always willing to run up to Wimm’s General Stores, if Mum needed anything during the week to supplement her one shopping basket of supplies. It gave me the chance to ask if they had any bananas. After a few months I realised that there would be no more bananas until the war was over. What greater incentive could a young boy have than to help in the war effort. Every night I would help adjust the blackout curtains to make sure that no light could be seen by German bomber pilots and I helped Dad paint black , the top halves of all the glasses on our torches and bike lamps, so that no stray light shone upwards. I listened intently as Dad organised his team of Firewatchers, but he would never let me have a go at blowing his official whistle

We managed a week’s holiday in 1943 when we stayed at Aunt Sadie’s cottage in Pentre, Wales. Dad and I went fishing in the canal nearly every day. We were quite often disturbed by horse drawn barges and then on the last Saturday we were really disturbed big time!. We had to run for our lives and left all our fishing gear on the Canal Bank when a Bull came charging at us. We crept back and rescued our tackle after half an hour. We had a trip to Chirk one afternoon. I remember forming the impression that every man was dressed in a black suit and wore a Bowler hat. We went into a shop where a lady was chatting to the shop owner and as soon as they realised that we were English they started to talk in Welsh. Even in my tender years I thought How Pathetic

In my desperation to make things happen I asked Billy Wimm, who owned Wimm’s shop, if he would grow me some bananas on his smallholding where he cultivated vegetables and potatoes. He used to sell fresh vegetables and potatoes from his cart, which visited Alderley Road once a week, but there were never any bananas. One afternoon Billy had stopped his horse and cart at Sextons Garage at Greenbank, to inflate one of the tyres. He got chatting too long and the tyre exploded with a deafening bang. The terrified horse took off at an alarming rate of knots spilling greengroceries over the road and pavements. Eventually Billy managed to catch the poor animal about two miles up the road near Old Hartford Railway station. I’m sure the poor creature was relieved to get back to pulling Billy’s plough in the field. Served Billy right for having no bananas!

Some 5 years later when the war had been over for about 3 months, the jungle telegraph told me that Wimm’s had just taken delivery of their first consignment of bananas. In a blind panic I rushed to the shop and took my place in the queue. I bought one banana and rushed home with it. In my excitement I peeled it and inexplicably threw the banana in the fire and kept hold of the skin. I cried for about ten minutes but I then had to wait until weekend when mother bought 4 bananas. Sheer Luxury!

I certainly was by no means the only one to be sorely hurt by the absence of bananas. One of the most popular songs during the War was Yes! We have no bananas

6.jpg

JOE ALLMAN IN HIS JUNK SHOP ON WINNINGTON HILL.

Every Friday on our way back from Northwich Mum would insist on calling at Joe Allman’s junk shop near the bottom of Winnington Hill. She very rarely bought anything because there was no spare money but she loved looking at all the knick knacks he had removed from people’s houses during his house clearances. When I got married I took Anne to Joe’s Junk shop and we bought an old black corner cupboard from him for 5 shillings (25p). I eventually sold it for £225 at Phillips Auction House in Chester when I cleared out of Brookfield House in 1998.

CHAPTER 4 –

Schooldays In The 1940’S

As the German bombing raids became more frequent, Darwin St Council School suddenly had it’s numbers swelled by an influx of evacuees from London and Liverpool. There was very little bullying in those days mainly because a pecking order was automatically established in each class and I had managed to become best fighter in the class after two bruising battles with Brian Hopley. I’d beaten him quite easily in the first fight, but the second fight which was watched by virtually the whole school took place on the field next to the school and was much more difficult than the first because Brian’s dad had installed a punchbag in his garage and given him intensive training for the return bout. The teachers very rarely bothered to intervene and it must have taken about twenty minutes for me to get the better of him. One of the evacuees from Liverpool was a huge West Indian called Edmond Hammond and on his first day he asked who the best fighter in the class was and then challenged me to fight him. I’d never even spoken to a coloured person before and it was extremely rare to see one in Northwich. He just rushed at me with both arms flailing. My Dad had taught me the value of a trusty straight left jab for such an occasion and after I’d softened him up with about ten of these jabs I smashed a couple of right crosses into his face and he just gave up. I was thankful that I had been able to evade all his wild swings because if one had landed I don’t think I would have been standing for long.

Brian Hopley and I became firm friends after our second fight but I lost touch with him when I passed the entrance examination to Winsford Grammar School. I’ve often meant to call in and see him but life seems to rush by. The last I heard of him was that he owned Hopley Tyres on the Holmes Chapel Road leading from Middlewich to Holmes Chapel.

Even though there wasn’t much intensive German bombing on Northwich, the air raid sirens seemed to sound most nights because the German planes used to drop whatever bombs they had left on their way home from bombing the more industrialised areas. (Mainly Liverpool).

We could easily distinguish the surging drone of the German bombers from the more rhythmic purr of the British planes. One night in particular there seemed to be a lot of bombs being dropped and the large Anti-Aircraft guns dotted around the town were all shooting flat out. After about two hours of crouching in our Air Raid Shelter under the stairs, my Dad dragged the mattress down the stairs and we all cuddled together on the mattress in the living room with the dining table over the top of us. There was a huge blast from a landmine which went off at Wincham and a few fires here and there caused by incendiary bombs

One afternoon shortly after my brother David had been born a British Spitfire suddenly appeared in pursuit of a German Messchersmitt fighter bomber. The sound of the machine guns was deafening. I’d never seen my mother move so fast. She shouted for me to get inside the house and grabbed the pram, which was out in the back garden containing my baby brother. She ran flat out, pulling the pram behind her straight up the concrete steps and into the house. We never found out how the dogfight ended but the planes had moved out of earshot in the space of a few minutes.

One night my uncle George Houghton came to our house and spent about an hour with us. He had been to quite a number of his local relatives and it must have taken him quite some time because he was on Shanks Pony. He’d been given 24 hours leave because he was going on the first Thousand Bomber raid over Germany the following day. He was a Radio Operator/Gunner. We turned our Bush Radio on and found the correct frequency to pick up Morse Code and cut into a dogfight which was going on over the English Channel between a British Spitfire and a German fighter plane. He was writing the messages on the back of his Players cigarette packet, and we were able to follow what was going on. In the end the German fighter plane escaped.

7.jpg

UNCLE GEORGE HOUGHTON

The next night Uncle George was killed when his plane was shot down over France. It was a long time before we received confirmation of his death and night after night we would sit up listening to the endless lists of British prisoners of War being read out by the Germans. After about three weeks we heard the name George Houghton being read out and became very excited at the thought that he might still be alive, but unfortunately our hopes were immediately dashed when his address was announced. It was another George Houghton from Wiltshire.

No matter how little sleep we had during the night, my Dad always went to work on time and I went to school on time. There was a great united determination about the people. Winston Churchill’s wonderful speeches inspired the Nation. Everyone , including us small children had to stop whatever we were doing and cluster round the radio.

During one of his speeches he instructed everyone to donate every piece of metal they could lay their hands on and put it on the Council Lorries which would collect it during the following weeks. Very quickly huge lengths of steel and iron railings disappeared from outside prominent buildings and large houses. Children were gathering old tin cans, and the whole community felt inspired in a united effort to help the War Effort. It was revealed after the war that most of the metal collected was of little use for the manufacture of tanks and ammunition, but it was a clever ploy by Churchill, to unite, inspire and rally the population. He was determined that despondency would not set in, especially in the cities which were suffering air raid attacks virtually every night. In London there were over 40,000 people killed, and over 120,000 injured during the first 9 months of the war.

We were lucky that Northwich received much less attention from the German Bombers but nevertheless, everyone was on a high alert. We all knew that the possibility of invasion was very real. We were never without our gas masks. We took them to school with us and laid them by the bed at night. My baby brother’s gas mask was a full length affair which completely enveloped his entire body.

I remember a number of people saying to my father that they were surprised that he had not been called up to fight in the war. He said that it was probably because he was a little too old. (He was 37 in 1942). In actual fact because he was a good engineer he was working on secret projects for the war effort. All he would tell me was that he was working on Pluto. It was only after the war that he revealed that Pluto stood for Pipeline Under The Ocean, an undersea oil pipeline from England to France in preparation for our invasion. He also did a lot of work on The Mulberry Harbour which was towed across the Channel on Invasion Day to assist in the unloading of troops and tanks.

CHAPTER 5 –

The Beginning Of The End

By 1943 Churchill’s speeches had grown in optimism . No longer did he only offer Blood, Sweat and Tears but in one of his most famous addresses he said that we had now witnessed the end of the beginning and he was looking forward to the beginning of the end. I don’t claim to be a literary expert but I cannot think of any person throughout history who had such a grasp of the English Language. He had that ability to home in on the crux of the matter, irrespective of how complex it was, and simplify it so that even young people and poorly educated people could clearly see the picture in the most dramatic fashion. There is no better example of this than his wonderful volumes of History of the English Speaking Peoples which took me nearly 20 years to read mainly because I was very busy but also because quite often I could only inwardly digest a few pages at a time due to the enormous amount of fascinating information in each paragraph.

As The Royal Airforce gradually gained the ascendancy over the German marauders, more and more German planes were being shot down.