My Life by Lionel Graves. (Page 7)
There we could hear the German bombers passing over head for Birmingham of Liverpool and we had to traipse across College Green in our dressing gowns and pyjamas and bunk down in the cellars under College Hall, this didn't last for too long because they realised Worcester wasn't a target. The sound of the air raid siren giving the warning was a bit frightening but the all clear always sounded sweeter.
I did see the German bomber that dropped bombs on Dowty Meco factory, it was during an English lesson from Mr Ward and you could hear the distinctive drone of its engine and looking out the window saw it circling round. Minutes later there was the sound of the explosions, but there was no air raid warning as far as I can remember and the lesson went on till the end.
There used to be lots of Tiger Moth bi-planes flying round because Perdiswell was an RAF training aerodrome.
Went to several interesting lectures at the Guild Hall, Dr Wellington Koo the Chinese Ambassador of Chang Kai Check was one speaker, another was the brother of one of our teachers. Algy Longland who had been in the last Everest expedition. Saw Flora Robson in a French play (but spoken in English) at the Theatre Royal, she was magnificent, in the first few scenes she was supposed to be immobile in a wheelchair, couldn't move, but I can still remember her acting, just with her eyes and way they glittered, but have forgotten the rest of the play.
I was still in the school choir and Edgar Day, our conductor, who was brilliant had us perform one big concert a year. I worked my way through treble, alto, tenor and bass and we did things like The Revenge, The Highwayman, Acis and Galatea, Merrie England and a slightly shortened version of the Messiah, boosted by some soloist, from the Cathedral Choir.
During term time we went out to local farms, potato and vegetable picking, backbreaking work, when in 6th Form we acted as waiters in the Civic Hall in the Cornmarket (now a car park) serving food and clearing tables on Saturday nights at the British Restaurants. Every summer holiday there was a harvest camp near Welford on Avon where we did fortnightly shifts and lived under canvas, there was fruit picking, usually Victoria plums, or harvesting when we gathered up the sheaves of wheat or barley, stacked them in stooks like little tents then followed a tractor and trailer with pitchforks and pitched the sheaves on to the back of the trailer, one of us was lucky and drove the tractor and two stood on the trailer and stacked the sheaves in rows, heads inwards and stems outwards, the piles growing higher and higher until they were eight or ten feet high. The aim of the stronger ones pitching was to try and hit the stackers on top, but you soon learned to dodge them. Hands sometimes got full of thistle prickles.
One of us stayed in camp all day, tidying up and preparing things for the evening meal. His job was also to ride into Stratford by bike and queue up for cheap seats in the Gods at the Memorial Theatre. We saw some good Shakespeare there but I can also remember Volpone, couldn't tell you who starred.
Other evenings we'd call at local pubs for cider and a smoke. We were paid for our work but it didn't make us rich, came in handy though.
Back at school various things happened, I went one Sunday afternoon with a lad called Rowson whose father ran a pub in Hay on Wye and he knew an American GI serving in a camp about 8 or 10 miles from Worcester. We cycled there and got given a carton of 200 Lucky Strikes! He ran away later. Another afternoon three of us (Irving, Rankin and I) cycled to Tenbury, had a grand tea and then cycled back to Worcester.
Email: Lionel Graves (lionel@graf-tek.com).
Copyright ©2000-2008 L. Graves. All Rights Reserved.
