Colin George Attfield (Rowlands Castle)
One Boy, One Life, One Destiny!
With thanks to http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ww2peopleswar/stories/60/a8034860.shtml
I, Colin George Attfield, was eight years old and my sister Evelyn was nine months old, in 1939, when the Second World War broke out. We were living in Victoria Street, in the city of Portsmouth, on the south coast (where there was a big Naval Base). We lived with my Mother Alice. My Dad, PO Henry Attfield, was at sea in the Royal Navy on board HMS Royal Oak.
On the 14th October, right at the beginning of the war, I was standing outside a furniture shop, “Jays”, with Evelyn in the pram, while my Mother paid a bill inside the shop. I heard a postman say to someone “The ‘Royal Oak’ has been sunk”. I rushed into the shop and told my Mother and we hurried home to hear the News on the wireless (radio) where it was confirmed.
Every day, a piece of paper with a list of survivors’ names was pinned up onto the gates of the dockyard. My Uncle Arthur (Attfield), who was also in the Royal Navy, was in Portsmouth at the time (he died two years later on HMS Cossack). He scanned the lists of survivors which were pinned onto the dockyard gate. My Dad’s name was never there and eventually we received a telegram to say that he had died. The Royal Oak was hit by a German U-boat whilst in ScapaFlow in Scotland. It still remains a mystery as to how it could have actually happened.
In those days, when men died in service during the war, their pay was stopped immediately, but my Mum did get a widow’s Pension.
Later, my Mother received a letter from my Dad, date stamped 14th October 1939, and mine, which I still have, was enclosed with it.
Portsmouth, having a Naval Base, was bombed a lot. I was evacuated to Basingstoke, whilst my baby sister had to stay at home with Mum. I cried every day, so after a week or two, they sent me home. After Dad died, we couldn’t afford the house, so we moved to a council flat. Our house was bombed a couple of days after we moved out!!
The lower flat in the block was our air-raid shelter - sand bags surrounded the floor. Everyone went down there and slept on the floor during the raids. There were no bombs in London at the time and so we decided to move in with relatives there. As we arrived, the bombing started again so we told the removal lorry to take all our furniture back to Portsmouth! Everyone helped each other out during the war and, when we got back to Portsmouth, our neighbours had already put all our furniture back in the flat for us!
The bombing was constant and, after watching the Portsmouth Guildhall burn in the blitz, my Mum complained to the Council, because she had a baby and we weren’t getting any sleep, they said we could live with a family on a farm. We only stayed there for a few months; the family were horrible. I remember going with the farmer to shoot rabbits for food and my Mum helped out on the farm. My Grandad came with us and died there.
My Mother asked the council if we could move again and we were given an old thatched cottage, called “Bottle Ale Cottages”, in East Meon in Hampshire. The property had no sanitation, no running water, and no gas or electricity - we had oil lamps and a kitchen range. Because we were living in the country, my Mother had to take on two small girl evacuees, in order to be housed, and eventually a third - they were all sisters.
A little old man lived in the cottage next door, on one side, my Mother used to cook meals for him. On the other side, the house was falling down and we used to play upstairs there!!
It was very hard work there and, although I was still at Junior School, I was the eldest of five children and the “man” of the house. We had an outside “toilet”, which was a bucket, which was only emptied by a man with a horse and cart once a week. So, as there were so many of us living in the house, I had to go and empty the bucket every day down a hole at the bottom of the garden.
The only water we had was from a tap down the garden, used to supply the pigs! So collecting the water was another of my jobs. We used to have a tin bath in front of the range. The range used wood and coal. Of course, we all had to use the same bath water!
After several months, we had electricity put in, which was wonderful! But we always had a bucket for a toilet!
The evacuees’ Uncle Roy used to come to visit them. He didn’t go to war because he was a welder in the dockyard. Roy and my Mother eventually got married, in 1944, and I sang in the choir at their wedding in East Meon church.
When I passed the 11+, I went to “Battersea Central School” (in Rowlands Castle) which had been moved out of London to Rowlands Castle near Petersfield, Hampshire. I remember that I enjoyed the journey to school on the bus and on the train. At school we had to walk between three or four different pubs, where we had our lessons, as there was not an actual school building.
We moved back to Portsmouth when the air-raids stopped, to a house which my step-father bought.
At the end of the war, we had a big street party and the electricity for all the lights came from my stepfather’s house. He must have had a big bill!!
I joined the Royal Navy at sixteen years of age in 1947. My first ship was HMS Glasgow. My father had been on that ship when it was launched and I had my photograph taken in the same place as he had before me.
I have four medals of my father’s - also a few photographs of him in uniform.
My father was born in London being one of eight children. The youngest is still alive, aged 96 (in 2005), having celebrated 73 years of marriage. My aunt has told me much about my father as she remembers him. Apparently he was into gymnastics with his brother Arthur.
