Barrage Balloon launch
Peter Finch “…those were very exciting times for twelve year old boys like Bob Combley and myself – during the time of the Battle of Britain school was optional, so I said to my mother ‘in that case I ain’t going to school’ and she didn’t mind, she’d rather us just be around – we hadn’t got evacuated and sent away and I think mothers at home just thought if there’s going to be a bomb on the house let’s all be there together.
So mother didn’t force me to go to school at that time, I carried on for a little while, but I didn’t like it up at Hosey ‘cos when the siren went and there was an air-raid, our drill was to re-arrange all the desks close together and put covers over them and then get underneath.
Well, with an air battle going on overhead and you’re sitting under your desk that wasn’t for me, I wanted to be outside to see what was going on and keep up to date with it – he laughs.
I remember the Home Guard – the comedy ‘Dad’s Army’ was pretty close to what they were like. When they armed them, they didn’t have full military training and there were some accidents. I remember Sergeant Mercer got shot in the behind on the twenty-five yard .22 range in the Drill Hall. He’d bent down to inspect the targets and one of the men accidentally shot him. They rushed him into the Royal Standard next door and gave him a brandy, then took him off to hospital. At the hospital they wouldn’t give him any anesthetic because of the alcohol, so that had been a bad move – he had to stay in overnight with a bullet in his back-side…”
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