You missed out on chatting with this legend, who's sense of humour is second to none. With thanks to Stockland.
Saturday mornings we’d go to the cinema to see comedies and old westerns. We’d buy a rabbit. My mum would skin it and I’d take it to the Barbican, Plymouth. I’d get 4d for the skin, which would pay for the cinema. Mum would cook the meat.
We had to share our school during the war because the twin school in the town was bombed. When the siren went off during school hours we had to go to the shelter. I went to a boys’ school. The only time we would meet with the girls’ school was in the shelter. We didn’t mind those times as that was when we got to converse with the girls.
I was evacuated for 12 months to my uncle in Scotland. While I was away the house that we had previously been living in in Plymouth was bombed.
After school I became an apprentice testing arms. I was in my third year as an apprentice, when the war ended. Ironically, it was only then that I got called up to the navy.
I went out with a girl in Plymouth quite a few times during that period. One night when I came back from the ship I had a date with her but her friend came out to tell me that the girl couldn’t make it. The friend took a fancy to me and we went out instead. That girl’s friend and I were married for 65 years.