The Diaries of Russell james Sparrow

The Diaries of Russell James Sparrow The Diaries of Russell James Sparrow 1908 to 1991

1908 to 1991 Edited by R.J Sparrow&J.H.Keen

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Copyright Š R.J.Sparrow 2011 All rights reserved

No part of this book may be reproduced or utilised in any form or by means, electrical or mechanical, without express permission from the publisher.

Limited edition. Typeset in 11pt. Palatino Linotype Designed by John Kay Printed and Published by The Millrind Press 22 Hall Road. Fordham, Colchester Essex CO6 3NQ

The Diaries of Russell James Sparrow 1908 to 1991

The Diaries of Russell James Sparrow

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The Diaries of Russell James Sparrow 1908 to 1991

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The Diaries of Russell James Sparrow 1908 to 1991

The Diaries of Russell James Sparrow 1908 to 1991 Edited by R. J. Sparrow & J. H. Keen

The Millrind Press 5

The Diaries of Russell James Sparrow 1908 to 1991

CONTENTS INTRODUCTION......................7

1957 Jean’s Wedding...63

Early days.....................10

1958 Arrival of Fiona, .63

World War 1..........................12

1967. Going ‘Down Under’ 68

School after the War...15

Premier Blinds..............72

Starting work................19

House buying...............76

Learning a trade...........21

Return to the UK by sea .........................................81

Meeting Miss Offord..24 Married life...................26 Moving to Needham...27 World War 2..........................29 The RAF years..............31 Bonnie Scotland...........41 Life as an Instructor ...43 Pilot Officer Sparrow..45 After VE Day...................48 Civvy Street once more.....54

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Back in England again

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Visit to Canada ............91 1976 House Hunting...94 1977 Moving to St Ives .........................................95 1991, Winding Down 104 R.A.F. postings .................106 Family Tree.................109

The Diaries of Russell James Sparrow 1908 to 1991

INTRODUCTION Here goes! After a few skirmishes and a bit of research into old diaries – not kept as accurately as I could have wished – plus extracts from a memory which was never one of the best but to my surprise as I have now reached “old age” has stored up some surprising recollections. This will be a recording of the life and doings of one Russell James Sparrow born at Ipswich, Suffolk on 21 September 1908. st

It has been said that the Sparrow family can be traced back as far as 1593 when a family of that name, albeit spelt with an e on the end, owned and lived in the Ancient House in the Buttermarket, Ipswich.

Mr Hugh Paget who lives at Tudor House, Needham Market and is a great delver into the past has to some extent verified this.

Grandad Sparrow (Eldred) born 1851, who died when I was about 10 years old was as I remember him a short, bewhiskered, quiet or maybe even a little dour sort of man, a bricklayer by trade.

Grandma Sparrow, Anna was her name was different. She was a bright and shining lady in every way, clean to the nth degree, hair pulled straight back off her forehead and a face that looked as if it had been polished – rather like one of her own rosy apples – a happy soul with an infectious laugh. They lived in a quaint old house just beyond the Shepherd and Dog at Onehouse and on the road to Buxhall and the church. There was a kitchen with a ‘stick’ oven in which all the bread was baked, a small passage down to the pantry, a rickety staircase and the living room which in turn led to the ‘front room’. I never remember it being used other than to house the geraniums, the smell of which together with apples seemed to permeate the house. I think there must have been three bedrooms and a landing which was used to store the apple crop, fairly considerable as the large garden had numerous trees, most of them were apple.

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The Diaries of Russell James Sparrow 1908 to 1991

They kept lots of chickens, a pig or two, and of course grew all their own vegetables. The family pet was a lovely white cat which must have been a great age when it eventually passed on. The house was situated on a site rising from the road and from the front windows you could look across the river Rat – a small stream that started at Rattlesden and finished at Stowmarket, in part of Finborough Park and on to the golf course which I can remember as agricultural land.

Grandma had wonderful eyesight and could tell you that so and so had just gone in the gate for a round of golf. The ‘mod. cons.’ consisted of a wooden shed adjoining the chickens run and a fair distance from the house, especially on a wild night, and had a two-seater split level box seat fitted over a large hole called the vault.

Drinking water had to be fetched from a pump about 300 yards up the road and this water contained all sorts of green squiggly creatures. One day a week was set aside to walk to Stowmarket to do the shopping, approximately 2 miles each way. The church where I was christened almost in the grounds of Onehouse Hall, a peaceful place if ever there was one.

Grandad James Denny died before I was born but I understand he was a gentle kindly type, nicknamed Doctor, a miller by trade whose hobby was breeding Harriet canaries. My memories of Grandma Denny are rather vague because she died when I was about 11 and was an invalid for years. They lived in the row of cottages opposite the Maltings in Creeting Road, Stowmarket next door but one to Auntie Alice’s. I can remember this house mainly because of an accident I had there when I split my head open by falling onto a pail, the scar is still with me in the centre of my forehead and now hidden by wrinkles. Auntie Alice nursed her mother for years before she died. Mother, Maud Mahalia, was number 6 in a family of seven, 3 boys and four girls, apprenticed to dressmaking and spent all her life until she married in Stowmarket.

Dad was number one in a family of three, 2 boys and 1 girl, and was 8

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a carpenter apprentice at Pollards in Onehouse. They met through activities at Stowmarket congregational Church where Dad was a founder member of the Boy’s Brigade and it was at this church that they married in 1902.

Dad believed life was for living!

He learned his trade under a onearmed carpenter who had a false arm with a hook for a hand and this was used with great effect on the seat of his pupil. Dad’s job included drivNew Stowmarket Congregational Church ing the workmen to and from their jobs in a horse and tumbrel and on one occasion the horse, a jibber, stopped halfway home and refused to budge. “Frank” said the foreman; “I’ll make the so and so go, you just hold on tight to the reins.” He gathered up some dry grass, placed it under the horse’s belly and put a match to it. They were nearly home before Dad could stop the horse and then he had to go back for the foreman! Those were the days when winters were winters and the boys earned a few pence by sweeping the ice on the frozen River Rat and fitting skates for the ladies. Grandad had one spell of 17 weeks out of work because of the frost, no anti-freeze then and no unemployment benefit or Social Security. Provision was made for such an event as far as possible by smoking or salting portions of pig and making up with vegetables. On completion of his apprenticeship Dad went to London to get a broader experience of the building trade and was employed on large contracts including shop fitting to some of the big stores.

During this time he joined the London Polytechnic for evening studies and also became an active member of the sports section, particularly in boxing, weight lifting and cycling, getting plenty of training for the latter by cycling home for weekends. He also did a 9

The Diaries of Russell James Sparrow 1908 to 1991

lot of pacing for the top men at Herne Hill, the Wembley of cycling.

I think he was employed in and around London until they were married, and then he joined Bishop and Son organ builders in Ipswich. Their works were on the corner of Westbourne and Cromer Roads, a stones throw from the first Berryhead. Mother and Dad made their first home in Cemetery Road (a cheerful place to start).

This job took him all over England, Scotland and Wales being responsible for the installation of new organs in cathedrals and churches. He had many tales to tell about this work but my favourite was about the dedication of a new organ in Cardiff Cathedral when he was made responsible for receiving a big name organist who was to play the instrument at the service. To Dad’s horror when he arrived (in a horse drawn taxi no doubt) he was helplessly drunk and had to be almost carried to the organ and lifted onto the stool. To everyone’s amazement as soon as his hands touched the keys and music was produced he appeared to sober up and the proceedings went on without any trouble.

Early days During this time Mother and Dad moved to Surbiton Road where Clifford and I were born, but in different houses. I was not the firstborn, three boys including twins having preceded me but I think the longest any of them lived was 6 weeks.

My first school was Springfield (now Westbourne) which was only a few yards from our house and the teachers I can remember were Miss Abbott, Miss Cunningham and the Headmaster Mr Glanfield, nicknamed Bogey famous for at least one thing as illustrated by our war song which went, “Bogey, Bogey Glanfield goes to church on Sunday to pray to God to give him strength to whack his boys on Monday.” The boys were a mixed bunch, the boys wearing anything from a sailor suit to knickerbockers, black stockings and hobnailed boots, the bigger the nails the better because bigger sparks could be 10

The Diaries of Russell James Sparrow 1908 to 1991

made when kicking on the pavement. Sunday School was at Crown Street congregational Church and the minister Rev. Arnold Quail.

Mother and Dad (when he was home) were fairly regular attendants together with their friends the Neobards who kept the Post Office cum General Store and Bakery at the corner of Surbiton Road and Bramford Lane. They had a son Roger who became a solicitor and a daughter Mabel who married big Stan Dunkley an Ipswich footballer whose son became a goalkeeper for Arsenal. I often think about Mr. Neobard who was a keen supporter of the Town, at that time an amateur team in the Southern Amateur League, because he was such an excitable type, and what his reaction would have been to a professional club and one able to win the first division of the Football League and the F. A, cup, I can’t imagine.

When I was about six, just before or at the beginning of the Great War my cousin Bernard, Uncle Percy’s son and about 3 years my junior, came to live with us because his mother, Auntie Daisy, was very ill. Our neighbours on one side were a Mrs Everett, a widow, and her daughter Phyllis. They had a hut at Felixstowe and I can remember getting up early one morning and going with them for a day by the sea, catching a tram to Derby Road Station and then by train to Felixstowe. When we got to the hut we had banana fritters for breakfast. Mrs Everett also took me shopping before Christmas to help her choose a suitable present for a friend. After a good look round I said if it was for me I would have a clockwork aeroplane, and lo and behold on Christmas morning what do you think – I was the little friend! Looking back I would describe Mrs Everett as a forthright person and when Bernard had a loose tooth and refused to let Mother pull it out Mrs E. came to the rescue and told him not to be a baby, she would take all her teeth out and think nothing of it.

Whereupon she removed upper and lower dentures to prove it. I can see Bern, as he was called, now sitting on the table his eyes popping out and shouting “Do it again Everett, do it again.” He is now a 11

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famous preacher, living in America and general secretary for the Seventh Day Adventists. A few years back he changed his name to Seaton,

World War 1 I don’t know why, I can remember hiding under the table when a Zeppelin raided Ipswich and destroyed some houses in All Saints Road, quite close to us, and seeing some German planes flying low over the allotments at the bottom of our garden in broad daylight and hearing the newsboys shouting “Kitchener drowned” when H.M.S. Hampshire was sunk.

Dad had joined the Royal Flying Corps and after training at Farnborough he was posted to Catterick in Yorkshire where after a time Mother and I joined him, Bernard having returned home. At that time Catterick was a small village with Church, school and two or three shops with a stream (beck) running through the middle of the green. We stayed with a brother and sister by the name of Todd, in a little cottage which was on one side of the beck whereas the school which I attended was on the other side. The method of crossing the beck was by stepping stones which I made an awful habit of missing. It was a lovely little spot within reach of Ripon and Richmond which we used to visit. After about twelve months or more Dad was posted to Montrose in Scotland and we followed him living in a small flat 12

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over Mr Hurry’s bakers shop at the bottom of the High Street. The smells (mainly gingerbread) from that shop still linger on. There was an electric street light just outside the shop and at one time it developed a leak so if you touched it you got a shock. We used to play a game, sort of survival of the fittest, by joining hands and making a circuit and as the weak ones dropped out so the shock became greater for those still left. I went to school at the Academy and palled up with two boys, one from the Queen’s Head and we had some good times there but I can’t remember his name, and the other Raymond Green whose father was in India where they had previously lived. Mrs Green would take Ray, his sister and I swimming in the sea and we would change on the dunes, and that’s where I first learned what little girls were made of! I played golf and had a few clubs specially made for me, we all went fishing from the jetty, often with great success and in fact the first time Mother came with us she landed five in one go! One of the fish fairly common but not edible was called a gun fish. It had a sharp spike on top of its head and it was the delight of nasty little boys (including R.J.S.) to catch these and put a cork on the spike, throw them back and watch them trying to fully submerge. Across the water from Montrose was a little fishing village called Ferryden and we would often go over there for picnics etc.

On one occasion when we were all on the beach at Montrose I left Mother and Dad, joined up with a gang of boys and we took a boat out on our own. We were some way out from shore when a squall developed and this together with a fast receding tide was taking us out to sea very fast. By this time I was missed and Dad who was looking around for me spotted the boat and saw what was happening and blew furiously on his whistle, which was part of his uniform, to attract our attention and indicate for us to come back before it was too late. When we did eventually see him or see people waving frantically from the beach it was too late for us to do much about it 13

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and we were drifting out to sea. However they managed to get out to us and one or two men got into our boat and rowed us ashore. The twinkle in Dad’s eye that day was not a merry one and a Royal Flying Corps swagger cane was used for a purpose other than intended! Having since become the father of a son who had similar lapses I can appreciate that giving vent is the aftermath of acute anxiety. We became very friendly with a farming family called Allen and they had a river running through their land and I spent many hours canoeing on it. I would spend as much time as possible on the aerodrome and although I wasn’t allowed to get airborne I was able to sit in the cockpits of Sopwith Pups, Bristol fighters and the 461 Avro. Bagpipe bands fascinated me and I followed one of these for miles one day and once again caused consternation in the Sparrow household. In the centre of Sopwith Pup the High Street was a shop noted for its Oki-Poki (ice cream) and owned by an Italian with a huge stomach and a very small son and this pair would often stand in front of the shop with the wee laddie sheltering under the canopy formed by his father’s belly. I had my first Norfolk suit there complete with Eton collar and Bertie Willie bow. Apparently a very anxious time was experienced by Dad who was a Flight Sergeant at the time in the new R.A.F. when he was to face a Court Martial for crossing swords with a certain Sergeant Major (later Warrant Officer) Ridd and although the charge was dismissed I’ve heard Dad say since that that episode stopped any further promotion for him.

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School after the War 1918 We returned to Ipswich just before the end of the war and I went back to Springfield school and after a few weeks sat an examination for entrance to the “Muni”, i.e. Ipswich Municipal Secondary School for Boys (now Northgate) in Tower Ramparts just above the Cornhill. I was successful enough to gain entry on half-fees and started there in 1918 in form Transition. My particular pal at school was Bert Garrod a farmer’s son from Copt Hall, Bildeston and I spent part of one summer holiday with them on the farm. He had two older brothers, Willie and Jack, also at the school and the three of them used to live during the week with Mr and Mrs Boar, a funny old couple who kept a chandlers shop in Bramford Road. We used to keep his door knocker in working order by remote control i.e. a piece of string taken through the hedge and round the corner. My weekend pals were Vic Thread Kell, who later joined the navy as a boy, was commissioned and killed during the war at sea, Alan Crane who became a Baptist Missionary, and Ken Nurse whose father was Manager of the local Co-op where they lived in a flat above the shop.

He had a sister Phyllis who was a bit of a goer!

We formed a football team called Surbiton Road Rovers and played our matches on Saturday mornings in one of the parks, mostly Christchurch. We would take ourselves off on hikes into the country, which at that time was close by because there was hardly a building the other side of the railway bridges in Bramford Road and Bramford Lane. One of our favourite jaunts was to the slaughterhouse at Sproughton where we would sneak up and peep through the crack in the doors and watch the slaughter of pigs, sheep and bullocks. Blood thirsty little so and sos! Those were the days when you could play games in the road without fear of being run over unless by a horse or a cycle. Spinning tops, bowling hoops and ‘tip 15

The Diaries of Russell James Sparrow 1908 to 1991

cat’ where you knocked a piece of wood into the air and then with a stick hit it as far as you could as it came down. The favourite was wall walking in a narrow passageway between houses with your feet on one wall and your back on the other.

As a very small boy before the war Dad would take me with him to Stoke bathing place on Sunday mornings and the Muni was noted for the importance it placed on boys being able to swim and Stoke was the place of learning. During the school holidays we went to West End bathing place just off the Bramford Road. It was a good policy to be a swimmer before you went there because anyone shivering on the brink was soon in, irrespective!

A lot of my spare time was spent at the Neobards ‘helping’ in the bakehouse and going with Don the roundsman in the pony and cart to deliver the bread and then helping to brush and bed down the pony on our return. At one time they had a donkey which got onto the bakehouse and ate a batch of dough. When it was discovered it was swollen so much that it was impossible to get it out of the door.

They eventually got it out by deflating the stomach. School was never one of my favourite pastimes but nevertheless I managed to progress each year and I was ‘Le champion’ in the eyes of the French master M. Charles, a powerful bearded froggie with hypnotic eyes and a wonderful knowledge of English swear words which he used frequently. He would display his strength by placing a full hod of coal on one end of a window pole, grasp the other end in one hand and then at arms length raise the hod off the floor, and you had to be mighty strong to do that. The cane and I were more than nodding acquaintances and on one occasion two of us, both Russells, were coshed for some misdemeanour and during the course of the operation the other Russell’s fingers split open and he fainted causing a real kerfuffle.

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Turning to more enjoyable things I can remember seeing ‘The Quaker Girl’ and ‘The Maid of the Mountains’ at the Lyceum Theatre (the conductor of the orchestra Mr Kevin Taylor was my piano teacher) and pantomimes, revues and variety shows at the Hippodrome where Mother and Dad would go with Mr and Mrs Larter who kept a small shop in Delwyn Street, he was a carpenter. They had a son Fred and a daughter Dorothy and shortly after I learned to ride a bike but not owning one, Dorothy cycled round to visit Mother leaving her machine leaning against the wall outside our house.

Now who could resist a temptation like that? After a short ride down the street the chain came off and to replace a chain on a lady’s bike was a tiresome and intricate exercise entailing the removal and replacement of a complete casing enclosing the chain, and a fan shape affair called a dress guard which consisted of numerous fine ends going from the back hub up to the mudguard. However after a struggle I succeeded in replacing the greasy chain and other paraphernalia (but not as the makers intended) and deemed it wiser to push the bike back to its parking place, and then held on watching briefly to make sure that Dorothy was able to ride away. She did and all was well, until in the middle of our tea, Dorothy returned, and all was not well – the cycle was O.K. but on the sit me down part of her white dress were the perfect impressions, in cycle grease, of a nasty little boys hands which had been placed on the saddle during the manoeuvres. I joined the 11 Ipswich Boy Scouts, went to camp, won a few badges and helped them, as a patient, win the Ipswich Ambulance Cup. Our Scout Master was Len Robinson who kept goal for the Town. th

Holidays were spent at Stowmarket or Onehouse, although when Dad was general manager for Maples, Mother and I spent several weeks in Carshalton, Surrey and again in Higham, Essex where in each case the jobs concerned were the restoration of Tudor country houses. We must have had one lengthy stay in Stowmarket 17

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because I remember going to school there. It must have been at a time when Mother was helping Auntie Alice nurse their mother. At that time they lived in a small cottage on Stowupland Street next door to a baker’s shop kept by the Misses Rozier, and during the night you could here the chirping of the crickets as they made their way to the warmth of the bakehouse.

Until now I hadn’t realised how much bakery featured in my early life. Living over one in Scotland, helping in one in Ipswich and staying next door to one in Stowmarket. A lot of my time in Stow was spent with my cousins in the fruit shop in the Market Place where the living accommodation was at the back and over. We had some lovely parties there at Christmas and for birthdays. Jack was about my age and we formed a team helping Uncle Sam to clean vegetables, to clean out the stable etc. One Saturday Uncle Sam was very busy and he told Jack that he would have to do the delivery round and I could go with him to help. If we did the job well and got back in good time he would give us the money to go and see the Christy Minstrels who were performing at the Crown Hall that night. We made good time, speeding up the progress of the horse with a little persuasion from the whip and on the home straight which was round the corner by the church to the stable behind The Rose, we were flat out with Jack standing up and flicking his whip and me hanging on for dear life, when suddenly Bang! And the next thing I remember was lying on the ground looking up at the horse’s belly! The back wheel of the cart had caught the iron railings outside the church and the contents of the cart were scattered far and wide, and the harness was a write-off.

We picked ourselves up, collected the bits and pieces, made our way to the stables, baited and bedded the horse and wended our way home determined to keep quiet until we had seen the Minstrels. We did this but the next morning --!!! The bent railings stayed that way until they were taken down for scrap during the war. We would also visit the Smiths, Dad’s sister Eva and her husband Ollie and their 18

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children, Eva, my age, Jack, Spencer and Babs. They lived in Lime Tree Place and the Dennys, Mother’s brother Walter and two children who still lived with them, Olive and Jack, lived in Stowupland Street.

Clifford was born at 73 Surbiton Road on 2 October 1921 and of course having been an only child for so long I was delighted, so much so that I wanted to take my pal Bert Garrod to see him the same day he was born, but that didn’t come off. About this time the building trade was going through a bad period, there wasn’t the bomb damage to clear up as after the war and Dad was finding it hard to get a job. Knowing him as I subsequently did he was not the type to sit down under the threat of unemployment so he looked around for a small building business which would give him the chance to be his own boss, something I would imagine was always his ambition. Eventually he found one at Needham Market and this was the beginning of a hard time for us all. The business was purchased from Mr. Alf Folkard and was supposedly a thriving business with workshops and a yard beside the river in Crown Street, hence the title ‘Riverside Works’ which has been dropped since Clifford took over. There was an electric circular saw, a horse called Tommy, a dog called Bob, five or six men and two boy apprentices and nothing for them to do. Mr Folkard came to the yard one morning while I was there but he was soon gone, Dad told him in no uncertain terms to get out or he’d find himself in the river and he went! Pronto! nd

Starting work I finished school when we left Ipswich and had to decide what I wanted to do, whether to go into the building trade or try something else. At the time Hayward and Son, Solicitors, wanted an office boy.

I applied and well remember running all the way home which was 38, Stowmarket Road, Needham to proclaim the great news that I had secured the position with a ‘salary’ of 5/- (shillings) per week.

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Dad was struggling to get going and a lot of my time was spent, most unwillingly I’m afraid, helping in any way I could e.g. sweeping out the carpenters shop, cleaning out the stables and odd simple clerical jobs. I joined a group of local lads and we would go to Stowmarket to the cinema, the Palladium in Ipswich Street, or chasing Stow girls.

On Easter Mondays we would have a day out in Ipswich (cheap day return by rail) and go to Portman Road for the Suffolk Senior cup final in the morning, Pooles Picture Palace (now the Arts Theatre) or the Flea Pit in Tower Street where you were always sure of a good cowboy film in the afternoon and one of the ‘posher’ cinemas or the Hippodrome in the evening.

About this time I became interested in cycling and bought myself a racing model on which I would tear about the countryside, on one occasion winning a prize on it at Bildeston Sports. Cycle racing was a very popular sport at that time and one of the best riders in the Eastern Counties was Cyril Battle from Barking, (he came to an untimely end when he died from blood poisoning after cutting his leg while felling trees.) He had a brother who had an old Ford covered truck and on Whit Tuesdays when there was a big cycle meeting at Norwich would organise a load to go from Needham.

Once or twice I went with them being very much the ‘boy of the party but nevertheless having a good time.

Wireless was by now getting into homes in the form of crystal sets. Great powers of concentration were needed when you sat in front of the little square box, headphones fixed lightly to the ears to cut out external noises, and wiggled the ‘cat’s whisker’ until you found the right spot on the crystal for maximum output. Two of the songs played by the Savoy Orpheus were ‘Why did I kiss that gal’ and ‘ Yes, we have no bananas’ and poor old Tom Brown threatened to leave if ‘the guvner didn’t stop that damned boy from whistling those tunes.’ Mr Waters who was manager of the old Eastern Electricity Co. at Stowmarket and lived at ‘Montrose’ on the corner of 20

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Freehold Road and Stowmarket Road, he was the first person in Needham to have a valve set. He was a radio ‘ham’ and he fixed a loud speaker to one of the trees in his garden and at certain times we would gather in his garden and listen to the programmes. After a year as a solicitor I was looking for pastures new and joined the L.N.E.R. as junior clerk which sometimes included a spot of ticket collecting and according to Mum, I used to flaunt my authority by insisting that the Stow Secondary school pupils produced their season tickets.

Learning a trade After about a year I became surplus at Needham and was asked to go to Birdbrooke near Sudbury. I decided against this and decided to join Dad in the business. Dad insisted that I learn a trade and having tasted carpentry while I was at school in Ipswich, and having made such a horrible job of a dovetailed joint that I ‘lost’ it rather than take it home to show what I’m sure would have been a far from sympathetic parent. I went for bricklaying and again to make sure no favours were being shown I had to do my time as a labourer in all sorts of jobs. I enrolled for evening classes at Ipswich to study bookkeeping, maths, geometry, drawing, etc attending three times a week. I often think of a typical day’s work for me at that time which was something like this; rise and shine and go to the yard to get the pony and tumbrel ready to take the men to say Mockbeggars Hall, Claydon at 6.30 a.m., return home, have breakfast and go off to work for the day, sometimes returning in time to go and collect the men or more often this was done by Billy Gooding who was the transport man (later to become a lorry driver.) After a quick change a dash to the station for the train to Ipswich for night school eating a packed tea en route. Evening classes from 7 – 9.30 p.m., catch the last train which left at 10 arriving in Needham at 10.30, walk home, have supper and go to bed ready for the next day. That lot 3 times a week 21

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plus homework, making out timesheets, choir practice, Boys Brigade etc. kept me out of mischief. When evening classes were finished I was sometimes asked to work all night helping the carpenters to make a coffin. This didn’t mean I had the next day off, no sir, it was a 32 hr. stint.

At the time we were working at Claydon the council were repairing the road near Barking Lion and Tommy the pony couldn’t bear the sight or sound of a steam engine and every time we came to that bit of the road and he saw the roller he would stop dead, prick up his ears for a few minutes and then just as suddenly would lay his ears back and go like the proverbial bat out of hell until he was well past the offending steam roller – I used to dread that bit! Business was picking up by now and there was great excitement amongst the business fraternity in Needham when tenders were invited for a new Mission Hall and a new Fire Station. Dad got the Mission Hall and Theobalds the Fire Station. About this time Dad had advanced from a belt driven Triumph motor cycle to a new New Imperial and the pony and tumbrel had given way to a second hand T model Ford truck.

The men had to get themselves to the various jobs away from home (work was scarce then) and 6 or 8 men in a bunch would cycle to the jobs and there were some high jinks both ways. I was labourer to Harry Pooley and we did some work on 22

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a shop near St. Peters Church, Ipswich and of course we travelled by bike, one day the roads were snowbound and so we walked!

I would spend as much time as I could at Breams Buildings, Chancery Lane, London with Auntie Bertha, Uncle Fred and Muriel and Stella. Uncle Fred, who was a happy go lucky old stick and very fond of his pipe of baccy, was caretaker to a block of offices and they lived in a flat on top of a 6 story block and kept chickens on the roof.

While Muriel and Stella were at work (in offices in the City) I would explore the City, Fleet Street, The Strand, Holborn, Grays Inn Road, Leather Lane, Australia House, etc. etc. in the evenings go to theatre and cinema and on Sundays to the City Temple where Muriel sang in the choir. On a recent family visit to London I went to Chancery Lane and to my great surprise the buildings had escaped the bombs and were just as I remembered them nearly 50 years ago, even to the lift which I used to help Uncle to operate.

I was still attending evening classes in Ipswich, which by the way were held at my old school the ‘Muni’, and my subjects now included architecture in Tower Ramparts. A feature of this school was part of the furnishings of the Hall, a German fighter ‘plane which had been shot down during the war by one of the old boys and he had presented it to the school and there it hung for all to see suspended from the ceiling. Things were still progressing and my interest had shifted from racing cycles quite naturally to motor bikes and eventually when Dad bought his first car, a twin cylinder air-cooled Rover, I talked my way into becoming the proud owner of a 2 3/4 h.p. o.h.c.

New Imperial and things began to hum. I had helmet, goggles, leather coat and knee high heavy ex-cavalry boots and really thought I was heading for the Isle of Man T.T. races.

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Meeting Miss Offord I didn’t ride solo for long because one night after choir practice I asked a certain Miss Dorothy Offord if I could take her for a walk and that’s how it all started.

We had some good times and some narrow squeaks, on bikes of varying sizes finishing up with a 3.5 h.p. model which Mum tried to ride but it was so heavy that when she stopped the thing simply fell over. We attended dances all over the county, mostly on cold winter nights without turning a hair. Our first long journey together was to Bethnal Green, London to see Rufus, Ethel and family for the day and the rain bucketed down all the way, we arrived like 2 drowned rats. The rain persisted and rather than face the homeward journey under those conditions we stayed the night with them and saw our first ‘talkie’ at a cinema in Hackney. At that time Witham was notorious as a speed trap and the really only safe way was to push your bike through the town.

I fancied myself as a motorcyclist and remember that at the time we were building some bungalows at Finborough and for a dare I rode to Needham with a pillion passenger without touching the handlebars. Must say there wasn’t as much on the roads as there is today. I also made nearly a clean sweep of the prizes at a motorcycle gymkhana held in connection with the flower show. I became a keen member of the B.B. and attended the annual battalion camps etc., had a short spell as a Junior Beadle in the Foresters and with Mum joined Stow Operatic and Dramatic society and performed in Highwayman Love. Subsequently, after we married, we progressed to concerts and pantomimes with Mrs Russell Quinton & Co. and I did a few solo items for various functions – what talent! Sometimes I played football for the B.B. and if it was away I would go on my motor bike and take another player with me.

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After returning from one of these trips I dropped my passenger, picked up Mum and we took the bike back to its home, which was a shed at the workshop off the High Street, ‘the Fort’. I had received a nasty kick near a very vulnerable spot and after putting the bike away and in the gloom of the shed I had dropped my slacks to show Mum the spot when in walked Dad! Were our faces red?! I bet his eyes twinkled and he had a little chuckle to himself. As soon as Dad owned a car I learned to drive it and on occasions was allowed the use of it. On one such occasion I took Mum, Grandad Offord, Ethel and Rufus to visit relatives in Cotton and Wyverstone. After tea with U. Bob and A. Nell my passengers got into the car, a bull-nosed Morris. I cranked her up and nothing happened and after considerable winding by myself and Rufus and no sign of life from the engine I asked Rufus to give me a push, and this he did to the point of exhaustion and still no response. So after a brief explanation to Ru about letting out the clutch when I shouted we reversed positions and sure as faith the darn thing started and there was Ru with no idea about driving doing his best to keep on the road while I was breaking all sprint records to catch up to the car, which I eventually did, and hopped over the side, shoved it out of gear and jammed on the brakes. Fortunately it was a straight bit of road.

Dad’s early cars included a Rhode, an enormous sports Lagonda with an exhaust as big as a drain pipe and which, for that time, could really go, and a Blyno with a prehistoric choke system controlled by a long length of wire which the passenger had to hang on to while the driver did the winding.

At the time Mum celebrated her 21 birthday Ivor Theobold, Jack Bloom and I had pitched a tent in the garden of the Manse which at the time was empty (between Rev. Rose and Rev. White) and we were sleeping out. There were no riotous celebrations but my beloved purchased a bottle of port wine and we saw this off between us, 90% coming to me. After a rather unsteady journey back to the st

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Manse garden at a rather late or very early hour, I had great difficulty in getting the tent pole central in my line of vision in order to hang up my clothes. When I eventually subsided on to my bed the darn thing wouldn’t keep still! We provided our own suppers, mostly tinned loganberries and condensed milk and most mornings were asleep until awakened by the stertorous voice of Grandad Sparrow calling ‘Come on Russell’.

1930 Dad was reaping the reward of his determination and the building business was now becoming firmly established with a number of local firms and farmers becoming regular customers. At the time we married, despite the general depression, he was holding his own.

Married life November 15 , 1930 was the day of the great wedding at the Congregational Church with Rev. Eric White, a great B.B. man, and Rev. George White, our Minister, officiating. Mum’s bridesmaids should have been Kath and Viv but they were both down with chicken pox so their cousin Margaret Rivers and my cousin Babs Smith deputised. Jack Bloom was best man, the reception was held in the Church school room in Causeway, and a good time was had by all. We hired a car from Kerridges to take us to Ipswich station to catch a train to Torquay where we had a week’s honeymoon staying at the Bay Court Hotel overlooking the bay, room No. 22! I had travelled in my wedding suit, i.e. black jacket and striped trousers and when I dressed on Sunday morning I found that in my excitement I’d left most of my clothes behind (can’t remember if I’d packed my pyjamas!) and only had the clothes I’d arrived in. Fortunately Mother had noticed the omission and packed them off to me immediately. We had a grand week visiting the beauty spots by day (hence Berryhead) and theatres and dances by night. On our return to ‘earth’ we took up residence at ‘Berryhead’, 62, Westbourne Road, th

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Ipswich which was a nice little semi-detached house with 3 beds, bathroom, lounge, dining room, kitchen and small cloakroom off the hall. We stayed there until Oct. ‘33. The most important event during that stay was the arrival of Jean in the early hours of Aug. 12 , 1931.

I don’t know if there was a scarcity of telephones then but I do know that I got my motorcycle out to go and fetch the nurse and the thing wouldn’t start so I ran all the way to Brook Street to the Nurses Home! th

Moving to Needham Dad had bought a piece of land on the Stowmarket Road and built a nice house into which they moved shortly after we married so I never lived there. I travelled to and from Needham or to the various jobs by motorcycle during this period and in the meantime Dad had purchased some allotments from Mr. Dan Kerridge on the Stowmarket Road as a speculation-building site. The first customer was Mr Swain whose home and shop had been destroyed by fire in 1932.

Following completion of this house on the Gypsy Lane corner Mr. Frank Morris who had been appointed secretary of the local branch of the Manchester Unity Independent Order of Oddfellows (M.U.I.O.F.) wanted a house and it was decided to build a pair and we would have the other one which became Berryhead No.2 and we moved there in 1933. I was sufficiently accomplished to be able to design and make the drawings for 27

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these properties, which were to be followed by numerous others in various places during the course of the years. Mr Morris had one boy John who was about Jean’s age and they became great pals. The site was completed with a house for Mr Chandler and bungalows for Mr Tom Brown, Mr Ken White, Mr Riches and Clifford.

In the early part of 1933 the B.B. was practising for a concert in the Town Hall and I was involved every available night helping with this. Rather than go back to Ipswich late we all stayed with Mother and Dad and it was during this stay that Dad and I were working away in the office one afternoon when a gentleman walked in and asked which one of us was Mr Sparrow. He was obviously very upset and told us that his car, chauffeur driven, had been involved in an accident with Clifford who had been taken, badly hurt, to Ipswich Hospital. This had happened in Bury Road, Stowmarket when Clifford was cycling home from school. He was very badly knocked about and was on the danger list for days. This was a terrible upset to us all and meant several anxious journeys to hospital at all times. We stayed on in Needham for some time and did not return to Ipswich until Clifford was well on the road to recovery.

To our great joy Mick was born on November 8 , 1937 to complete our little family. No run to Brooke Street this time. As well as B.B., choir and concert party etc. I had been prevailed upon to become secretary of the Horticulture Society and also became a playing member of the Cricket Club which had been revived after a th

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long gap. Some of the boys who were in the R.A.F. at Wattisham joined the club and they would tell us during the course of the match where they had been to that morning and the distances covered in a short space of time. Little did I know then that in a year or two I would be doing a very similar thing under somewhat different circumstances.

Needham also had a swimming pool at that time, near the mill on the Coddenham Road. A rough galvanised shelter was put up on the river Felixstowe 1939 bank and this small piece of river was for bathers and beginners and the ‘hole’ which was nearer Chester’s saw mill was for divers and the more proficient. Some of the lads would bring a bar of soap and have their weekly ‘tub’ in the river. Not many bathrooms in Needham at that time. Which reminds me of the night soil collection and all the fun and games attached thereto e.g. Harry losing his jacket with his supper in the pocket. This horrible business was going on in Needham until the 50’s.

World War 2 War was declared on Sunday, Sept. 3 1939. I joined the Local Defence Volunteers and was issued with an armband, we did rifle drill etc. This later became the Home Guard attached to the Suffolk Regiment. We were issued with uniform and rifle and did duty three times a week from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. plus siren calls. Our platoon had its headquarters at Hawks Mill. Air raids were frequent, the news rd

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was far from good from the various fronts and I felt that I should be doing more than I was doing. The only way open to me was to volunteer for aircrew duties as I was in a reserved occupation. I put this to Mum and Dad and they both understood how I felt. Before I offered my services I went into Ipswich Hospital in June 1940 for a varicose vein operation. In the same ward were soldiers from Dunkirk and a young R.A.F. navigator flying Blenheims from Wattisham who was badly injured when a shell exploded under his seat during a raid on the bridge at Maanstricht, Holland. I was discharged from hospital but almost immediately went down with thrombosis. At the same time Mick was sick with something that was affecting his breathing very badly. He lay in his cot quite close to our bed and you could hear him fighting for breath and in a weak little voice saying ‘water, water’. This was a terribly anxious time for us all and especially for Mum and to a certain extent Jean too because on top of all the worry they had all the work to do. It transpired that Mick had empyema and this meant an operation to have one of his ribs cut away and the lung attended to, a very serious operation but thank God he pulled through and after a month in hospital was on the mend again.

All the things that happen with war were going on now – black out, rationing, restrictions, the wailing of the sirens, the drone of aircraft going out and coming in, the evacuation of Dunkirk etc. and we were trying to live as normally as possible. Of course business was completely different, the size of the staff had been reduced and several of the younger ones had been called up. Work consisted mainly of repairs and maintenance to farm buildings or premises producing food, building pill-boxes all over the county for the government. Some were in desolate places miles from anywhere.

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The RAF years I applied to join the R.A.F. on Aug. 8 1940, had my medical in Ipswich on 25 October and went to Uxbridge for two days for another medical and efficiency tests which I duly passed. I could not be sworn in because somebody had forgotten to clear me from a reserved occupation.

I went back to Uxbridge on 11 Nov. and stayed for one night just to be sworn in and become 1271516 A/C Sparrow u/t WOp/A.G. (Under training Wireless Operator/Air Gunner).

Air crew were not being used up to the extent that was anticipated at that time (see cuttings in my scrap book) and subsequently it was 9 June 1941 before I received the call to proceed to Blackpool on 21 June 1941. After a cross-country rail journey I arrived at Blackpool about 6p.m. together with numerous other bodies from all over the place and we were given a meal and a place to sleep. The first few days were spent in kitting, inoculations etc including wrapping your civvy clothes into a brown paper parcel and sending them home. I soon palled up with Alf McKelly from Dumfries and Ron Impey from Luton. We were billeted in a private hotel on the north shore and were soon into the routine of sparkling brass and a mirror like finish to boots pounding the prom up to Fleetwood, P.T. etc on the beach. It took about two weeks to knock us into shape but I must say I reaped the benefit of training in the B.B. The P.T. instructors th

th

th

th

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included a professional footballer, a pro.heavy weight boxer and a circus clown. We had church parades at unearthly hours and lectures on all sorts of subjects. We were issued with a small piece of white cloth, a flash, which we wore in the front of our field service caps to denote that we were aircrew u.t.(under training) and we were proud of it Being used to early rising, a full day’s work and plenty of discipline, the life presented no hardships to me and I soon fell into line.

My one stumbling block was that I was going to be learning Morse code and I found great difficulty in making my mind a complete blank in order to receive the stuff when it came dotting and dashing through the headphones.

At times it seemed that it would send me crackers (when we got to Yatesbury Bomb Damage Needham

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we found that there was a ward in the camp hospital called the ‘looney bin’ where cadets who had given way under the mental strain were sent to recover.) I learned that the handicap was my age, I was nearly 33 whereas most of my companions were in the 18-25 bracket. My mind was too full of concerns for other things, such as the safety and well-being of loved ones, had I done the right thing?

How was Dad coping with the business, the fear of news of bombing raids etc. However by having extra tuition on off-duty hours I managed to pass all the tests at various speeds. Then came the important day when we sat the final test which meant if you failed that you were finished as potential aircrew. The results came through and I had failed.

It would have been hard to find a more thoroughly miserable and dejected being than I was then and I went back to the billet completely shattered and prayed about it. During the evening, in a sort of trance, I went back to the ‘school’, which had been Blackpool’s Olympia; I suppose to see if I could find any kind of consolation. I was walking through the lanes of benches, each with their earphones and Morse codes, I saw my instructor, and ex-Merchant Navy W/Op. and he called me over as I thought, to offer a few words of consolation, but no, it was to apologise for having made a mistake with the markings and I had passed! It would be difficult to describe my feelings but I didn’t forget to thank God. Of course that wasn’t the end of the wretched stuff, the powers that be made sure that we wouldn’t forget and the endless pounding went on. But it did mean that the first hurdle had been taken and in due time I would proceed to Yatesbury for more Morse but better than that to learn all about wireless receivers and transmitters.

At the time we were in Blackpool, June-Sept.1941, it was still in full swing as a holiday resort and all the big time variety acts appeared at one or other of the many theatres in the town. Nearly all our drill was done on the prom. near the north pier and P.T. etc. on 33

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the sands below the prom. Most of the time we had an audience of holidaymakers. On completing the course we were posted to Yatesbury in Wiltshire with 7 days leave en route. Off home I went, proudly wearing my white ‘flash’. A very happy leave. One day Mum and I went to Ipswich by ‘bus, no petrol for the car, and on the way as we were passing Claydon cement works, I noticed that there was only one chimney stack instead of two. There had been no air raid the previous day or night so it wasn’t war damage, or so I thought. It transpired that during the raid on the cement works previously mentioned a delayed action bomb had been dropped plumb down one of the stacks and during the night it had exploded and fortunately there were no injuries.

Now to Yatesbury for a course on practical wireless, Morse procedures and more Morse bashing to get us to the required standard of 18 words per minute, together with drill etc. This station had the reputation for being tough and the joy of leaving at the completion of the course was apparent on our first night there. We had settled down into our hut and were enjoying a good night’s sleep when, bang, there was a most unholy racket, the doors of the hut burst open and we woke up to behold a rare sight. The boys who had completed the course and were leaving that day, it was about 2 a.m., were parading through the section completely naked except for 34

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webbing equipment and the accompanying music was big dustbin lids and billy cans! However despite the reputation, and it was true, and the bleak weather, we were there from Oct. until Jan., it was an interesting course.

One of the instructors there was Sgt. Hannah, the first V.C. of the war. I went out several times with hockey and football teams to Swindon, Devizes and Marlboro’ etc. The nearest town was Calne, home of Harris bacon and pork pies, and whenever we went there we finished up in the Forces club for fresh pies and Cornish pasties.

Again I managed to fix up for Mum to stay for a weekend in Calne and Dad spent one night there just before the course finished.

King George plus plenty of the top brass paid a visit on a bitterly cold day in October. The preparations were fantastic and ridiculous and hours were wasted. We even had to whitewash the stones surrounding the hut! One motto of the R.A.F. was ‘if it moves salute it, if it doesn’t, paint it’. We had been well briefed as to procedure, boots and brasses were polished to a mirror finish, overcoats would not be worn, whatever the weather, hats to be removed with waves and cheers as the Royal party passed. Our resentment to it had been building up during the preparations and when we were told that no coats would be worn despite the weather, that put the lid on it. When the great moment came we all stood like frozen statues, - and this didn’t go unnoticed I can tell you. Our particular hut had been in trouble soon after we arrived and then together with the above gained us the dubious award of 10 days Jankers. My old friend Morse was still giving me trouble and I failed the final test so instead of going home for Christmas I had to stay on for another week for another go.

However the Sparrow spirit prevailed and Mum, Jean and Mick went to Banstead (Surrey) and I pleaded my cause with a very strict and pompous Flight/Sergeant who gave me permission to leave 35

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camp on Christmas Eve with very strict instructions to be back by 2200 hrs on Christmas day. I hitch hiked to Banstead, had a short and sweet Christmas, and left after an early tea to catch a train to Swindon. After that I had to hoof the remaining 10 miles and arrived flaked out but only a few minutes over the deadline, and nothing was said when I handed over my pass to ‘chiefy’ the F/Sgt. All’s well that ends well and I passed the test at the next attempt.

I went home via Banstead and picked up Mum and the children for 7 days leave and to wait for further instructions re posting. Another happy leave with Doff and the children, various excursions including a pantomime at the Hippodrome and a visit to the Whiteheads who were living at Ivry Lodge near the hospital.

My posting duly came through to Marham in Norfolk and so on 8 Jan, 1942 off I went arriving about 5 p.m. when it was dark. Among the arrivals that day two of us were u/t WOP/AG who had been sent there to get experience on an operational station.

Marham was a permanent R.A.F. station with brick buildings etc. and to the delight of Ginger Pells and myself we were given, what to us was a bit of heaven after Yatesbury, a double th

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room, centrally heated in one of the airmen’s blocks. But, alas, it only lasted two days and we were moved back to the stone age, a Nissen hut in the middle of a farmyard at Marham Hall about 3 miles from camp. That meant catching transport at 6 a.m. if you wanted any breakfast before starting the day, and I can assure you that I didn’t miss that and most mornings had 2 breakfasts. For a lot of the time I was there it was snowing and cold and when we got back in the evening, sometimes by transport and sometimes by walking we would go off to Marham Bell for a warm up, internally and externally.

There were two squadrons on the camp, 115 (Wellingtons) and 218 (Stirlings). We were attached to 115 spending a lot of time with WOP/AGs getting first hand knowledge of what went on during an operation. We were using the wireless sets which as well as air to ground contact were used for inter-com in the planes, firing guns from the turrets and on the range, and clay pigeons and grenades.

We got fairly well acquainted with lots of the crews and most of them were very helpful. I remember one in particular whose home was relatively near the aerodrome. They were returning home one night after being badly shot and having virtually reached base and the aircraft being too badly damaged to attempt a landing, the skipper headed it for The Wash, the crew jumped and this chap ‘Smithy’ landed in his own back garden! Several of those we had got to know had ‘bought it’ or ‘gone for a Burton’ before we left. Soon after we had arrived a Wimpey (Wellington) crashed killing all the crew: and all sorts of weird and wonderful things were happening all the time. I was astonished at the preparation that went on here at one of bomber commands main ‘dromes during a hectic period in air war when it was learned that Sir Archibald Sinclair, Secretary of State for War was to pay a visit. Talk about Yatesbury and the King!

From the Group Captain downwards everybody was praying that no signals would come through for either squadron to go on ops, and 37

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it didn’t seem at all likely because the weather was so bad at the time.

After having washed and almost polished the hanger floors they didn’t want a lot of badly shot up aircraft coming in to mess it all up.

But lo and behold on the eve of the inspection a signal came through, 218 squadron were ‘on’ and the next morning, before the arrival of the V.I.Ps a Stirling which had been badly shot up with 3 of the crew killed did a crash landing and finished on its nose in the middle of the runway. The best laid plans etc. etc.

The Station commander was a New Zealander, a strict disciplinarian and nicknamed ‘February’ because all personnel coming before him on a charge were invariably sentenced to 28 days punishment. The C.O. of 115 squadron had a queer superstition; he wouldn’t take off until he had done a ‘doggie’ on the port side wheel of the undercarriage. It stood him in good stead for several trips but Jerry got him in the end. Our P.T. instructor was a real fanatic and for the first few weeks when we had Arctic conditions he would have us out in the snow, stripped to shorts only and after some hectic exercises we would finish by rolling in the snow. Variety was the spice of life here and in addition to the wireless hammering we also did guards, exercises with the R.A.F. Regiment, work in Stores, maintenance on the wireless in the aircraft etc. and a week on the mobile beacons at Doveham and Swaffham. We would leave camp at about 3 p.m. on a truck loaded with equipment and our food and an oil stove to cook it on in the back of the lorry returning to camp at daybreak the next morning. And boy was it cold!

Doff and I spent two very happy weekends in Lynn, on one occasion we took a ‘bus to Hunstanton via Sandringham. Kings Lynn was the place we went to if we had any time off and I spent one or two afternoons and evenings there with John Swain (a close neighbour in Needham) who was in the army and stationed close by. I think I must have been feeling fed up with having to do what we were doing instead of completing our training, my diary of 15-4-42 38

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says, ‘collecting rubbish all day makes me feel as if I’d like to let the world know how potential air crew are being treated’. A voice crying in the wilderness! Or was it? On Sunday 19 I was posted to Cranford, near Framlingham for even less action. This was a radar Beacon consisting of two Nissen huts in the middle of a field and crewed by a team of eight with a Cpl. W/Op. in charge. I was on guard all that night and next morning borrowed a bike and got home in time for breakfast surprising everyone. One of the lads, a wireless technician, was a peacetime member of the B.B.C. Scottish Orchestra and we formed a small band with R.J.S. on drums and percussion. The farmer whose land we were occupying was a jolly old stick and he would invite us up to his house for a musical evening and supper.

We also did some shooting with him and we entered a team for a shooting competition at Bruisyard, which I won. We were also invited to a real slap-up meal by another farmer and on two Sundays I had tea and the evening with Bunny Cousins and family. He was manager at Barclay’s Bank at Framlingham, a keen B.B. man and Cyril Whitehead’s cousin. Being on guard duty all the time with staggered hours I was able, by sacrificing a bit of sleep, to get home fairly frequently. I was also able to go and visit my distant cousins, the Bowers, who were millers in Saxmundham. En route from Cranford to Needham I stopped several times to see the Beecrofts, he was in the Royal Flying Corps with Dad and had a blacksmiths business in Earl Soham, I had breakfast with them one morning on my way back to camp. We were a self-supporting unit, one member was a cook, another a driver mechanic and we had our own small truck.

Once a week we had a bath at the Queens Hotel in Framlingham. and would go there sometimes to see a film and have supper. V.I.P.s visited the site including a high ranking Division Officer and a Bishop from China. It was during my stint of duty at Cransford that the first 1000 bomber raid took place on May 30th and the second one on June 1 . th

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Great news on Monday, July 6th, I was back on course. On Wednesday the 8 I went back to Marham, got my clearance and was issued with another kitbag, full of flying gear (two to lug around now!) and spent the night there. Next day I left camp at 0740 hrs. and arrived at Madley near Hereford 2200 hrs. after having tasted the joys of lugging two kitbags etc. across London during an air raid.

Joining camp at the same time was my little friend from Blackpool, Ron Impey and we found ourselves in the same hut and now exalted to the noble rank of Cadet. This was a Wireless Training Flying School and we had to put into practice in the air what we had learned so far plus plenty more. Our first trip in a D.H.Dominie (6 of us at a time) was a rough one and several of the lads were sick. After I passed out on these, and I did very well, we advanced to Proctors where we were on our own, except for the pilot of course, and they gave us some very rough rides I can tell you, diving, climbing and rolling while you were trying to send messages. One minute your hand was on the Morse key and the next, when you were in a steep dive, up near the top of the kite, you could feel your tummy and the flesh on your face trying to go up through the top of your head. A trailing aerial weighted with small lead balls had to be unwound for certain exercises and one day a complaint came in from one of the farm houses, they had found an aerial wound round a bedpost, somebody had been flying low. th

I booked a room for Doff at a farm house just outside the city and she came down for a weekend No time off for me I’m afraid but we were able to meet in Hereford in the evenings and on Sunday afternoon we went to Hay on the Wye and fell in love with the place. I sailed through all the tests including Morse and finished with an overall of 94%, but believe it or not, I had to do the final Morse test twice before I succeeded.

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Bonnie Scotland Now for the final hurdle, and on 3 Sept. 1942 I was on my way to bonnie Scotland for the gunnery course at Evanton on Cromarty Firth about 30 miles north of Inverness and a few miles from Invergordon, notorious for its naval mutiny. At that time a base for Coastal Command Sunderlands. An arduous journey, threading my way through the sleeping forms of Londoners bedded down for the night on the platforms of the Underground stations (a sight I was to see several times in the future) and then standing most of the way to Inverness. rd

On arrival at camp I found some more old pals and we celebrated together. Promoted to L.A.C. (Leading Aircraftsman) and soon busy dicing with death in Blackburn Bothas firing at airborne drogues and at ground targets on the wild north east coast of Scotland, cinecamera gun exercises with attacks by fighters etc. We were shown the films which were a lasting record of how good a shot you were in the air, gun turret turning and manipulation, gun stripping and assembling, aircraft recognition and pyrotechnics, dinghy drill, escape and survival exercises, clay pigeon shooting and a bit of Morse and some semaphore to prevent us going rusty. A very concentrated course and most of our spare time was spent at the camp cinema or the Scotch hut in the village, although we did manage a trip or two into Inverness. I had a good result at the end of the board, we had a super feed to celebrate and on 2 Oct. 1942 we had a brevet parade and were presented with our flying badges and promoted to Sergeants. nd

We left camp at 0200 hrs. and arrived at Stowmarket at 0200 hrs. in a terrible fog and I was more than pleased to see Clifford who had come to meet me. After a few days leave it was back to Evanton to learn that I had been retained as an Instructor. I was sent to do a course at R.A.F. Manby in Lincolnshire, another long journey for my 41

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kitbags etc.! The weather was pretty grim and we only managed to do 6 trips in Wimpeys during 5 weeks. The camp was called Mad Manby or the Royal Manby Air Force and it lived up to its reputation. The C.O. was ex Guards and he must have had a grudge against the R.A.F. The place was a sea of mud and we had to do P.T. in normal kit plus gum boots. Some of us went to Grimsby on a day off and finished up at a Variety Show at the Tivoli Theatre. A challenge was thrown out during one of the acts and I finished up on stage beating a sailor in a beer-drinking contest. The reward was participation with the chorus in the next act.

Again Doff and I managed a weekend together and I was able to get a sleeping-out pass for a couple of nights. We all heaved a sigh of relief when the course finished (I was one of 28 out of 39 who passed) and I was posted back to Evanton. So off we went again, my 2 kitbags and I! I did a slight detour en route and arrived at Stowmarket at 02.15 hrs. leaving again at 07.40 hrs the next morning, had an 8 hr. wait at Crewe and arrived back at camp 13.30 hrs. the next day.

I was only back a week when I was granted 7 days leave, the rule then was that all flying personnel should have 7 days leave every 3 months, so off I went again but without my beloved kitbags. During this leave Doff, the children and I went by train to Long Melford and spent two days with the Whiteheads who were now living there. It was a bit rough having to go back a week before Christmas but we were thankful for the week we had together. Doff and the children had been invited to go back the following week to spend Christmas at Long Melford. On my several leaves from Evanton Grandad Sparrow invariably came up to London with me and stood dinner at the Euston Hotel before seeing me off on the 19.20 train to Inverness.

The Christmas on camp was a pretty lively affair. A Christmas dance in the Mess on Christmas Eve, after which some of the lads paid their respects to the Major in charge of the R.A.F. Regiment bods on airfield defence.. He was retired from one of the Scotch regiments, a 42

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typical type who always wore his kilt and tam-o-shanter and was full of his own importance. They visited his quarters in the early hours, picked up his bed in which he was sound asleep, carried it to the ‘sacred square’ ( the parade ground), and left him there, poor old boy!

After church on Christmas morning we all went to the Officers Mess for drinks, after which officers and N.C.O.’s served dinner in the Airmen’s dining hall, all in the good Christmas spirit. We had our meal in the evening followed by another ‘do’.

Life as an Instructor Instructing potential Air Gunners was a job of many facets and risks galore, having to fly with pilots, a lot of them Poles and Czechs, who at times did some pretty stupid things e.g. flying in from the sea at zero feet and then pulling back on the stick just in time to ‘climb’ up the cliffs, or flying through an avenue of trees in a wood and lifting the wings of the a/c to clear the tops of the taller ones. Several lives were lost in my time, including pilots of drogue towing aircraft and their operators. Six were killed in one crash near the spot where the Duke of Kent met his end. I remember vividly one occasion when returning to base from an exercise. The weather had clamped down, we were flying through heavy snow and Johnny Hope, the pilot and I (we sat side by side) were straining our eyes and trusting we were all alone up there when suddenly we were confronted – it looked near enough to touch!- with a Sunderland flying boat. I have seen some white faces in my time but none whiter than Johnny’s as he yanked back on the stick and literally crawled over the other aircraft.

The weather was too bad for us to return to our own base and we were directed to the other side of the Firth, to Dalcross, where we waited for the weather to clear before returning home.

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The pupils were a varied lot, British, Commonwealth, Poles, Czechs, Free French, Indonesians and even a Russian. I made the most of time off by going to Invergordon, Alness, Dingwell and of course Inverness where we used to visit ‘The Club’ for drinks and a social get-together with the locals, playing and umpiring for the cricket team, helping with the soccer team and taking the cadets for swimming, dinghy drill etc. in the baths at ‘Snockie’.

We decided that if I could get a living-out pass and find suitable accommodation Doff and the children would come up for a time, and so, on 30 July 1943 after a lot of searching in the village and surrounding villages and eventually finding a place in Evanton they arrived. After lunch at The Novar Arms I took them to their new abode, a small ground floor flat in the village with pleasant surroundings. We soon settled in, Jean went to Dingwall Academy for schooling and Mick went to the village school. Doff was able to use the camp facilities i.e. Naafi for shopping, wives club etc. and I was able to take her to Mess functions and dances – we had some good ones I can tell you. We were also able to use the cinema for films and Ensa shows. Jean and Mick joined the local children for ‘tattie picking’ and earned themselves a few shillings. Jean and her pals organised and ran a sale of work for charity raising the sum of £37-10 shillings which at that time was quite a substantial sum. th

The weather was very severe, very short days and plenty of snow. There were several Polish and Czech flying personnel on the camp and they tried to teach the children to ski, but also other snow sports. The countryside away from the shores of the Firth where the aerodrome was situated, was wooded and hilly and we were able to enjoy some lovely walks. One was to Black Rock, a local beauty spot where there was a sheer narrow drop of about 60 feet to a rushing stream below, I risked my neck by hitching over it on a fallen tree trunk but that was before Doff and the children came up. Another glorious spot was Loch Glass up in the hills and one day Doff 44

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borrowed a cycle, I had already got one which I used for travelling backwards and forwards to camp, and we both struggled up a rather rough track but were well rewarded when we got there by the magnificent scenery. The return descent was a nightmare, steep descent on a rough track and Doff found her brakes wouldn’t work.

She reached base all in one piece but was extremely lucky to do so.

We were doing a lot of flying and generally working hard. I took my Wireless Operator board on Oct. 2 , passed O.K. and was promoted to Flight Sergeant on Nov. 2 . I was put in charge of programming and at one stage became acting course officer. nd

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Just before Christmas 1943 I was sent on Operations attachment to no. 9 Squadron at Bardney in Lincolnshire so another jaunt with the kitbags! Bardney was very much a wartime base, Nissen huts in wide-open spaces, a satellite of Waddington. Despite bad weather I managed to get in some good trips including one to the ‘Big City’ (Berlin) when I saw 11 of our aircraft shot down and a J.U. 88 and M.E.109 hit by their own flack.

On my return to Evanton I was made acting C/O of one of the cadet training courses. Grandad Sparrow came up for a few days in July 1944 and during his stay I was called before the C.O. for an interview and was recommended for a commission. At the end of July word came through that the station was closing down in August, which meant that on my next leave, August 3 , we all went back to Needham. rd

Pilot Officer Sparrow On my return to camp I had an interview with the A.O.C.(Air Officer Commanding) re my commission and was posted to Bishops Court about 30 miles from Belfast. Off I went again, spending a very rough night in a Y.M.C.A. in Glasgow and then on to Stranraer for a bumpy trip across the Irish Sea to Larne, on to Belfast and Ardglass by rail, a trip that was nearly as bad as the sea crossing. When I got 45

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to camp they told me why. They hadn’t got round to curved bends on the track and they were all angular! Well, after all I was in Ireland!

However I arrived in one piece and again soon met up with some old pals from somewhere. The nearest village was Ballyhornan, a delightful typical Irish place where I did see pigs running in and out of the front doors of houses. The Guinness (draught) was as black as your hat and as thick as treacle. It was on the coast and I was soon in the water, the first of many dips where we used to swim across to a small island. What a place for wind and rain.

Three weeks to the day after my arrival my promotion to Warrant Officer came through and the day after that my commission, so on 14 Sept. 1944 I became P.O. Sparrow 183057. The next day off home via Belfast and Heysham, this time leaving camp at 1300 hrs. and arriving Needham at 1900 hrs. the next day, having called in at Grimwades in Ipswich to order my new kit. After a few days leave I went back to Ireland but only for 2 weeks because I was posted to Air Crew Officers School at Credenhall near Hereford. This was a toughening up course in preparation for the Far East and we had to do full ground battle training, (we were issued with khaki battle dress, heavy boots and gaiters, full webbing and rifle) command assault courses, unarmed combat, field engineering, dummy parachute drops, first aid, escape exercises etc. as well as admin. work. Aircrew bods were a happy-go-lucky crowd and this was understandable, a short life and a merry one and we had some high times. My mind goes back to two navigators who had formed a friendship at A.C.O.S., one tall, about 6 ft. 3 in. and the other short, about 5 ft. nothing, a real Mutt and Jeff pair. We did an attack on the assault course under fire from all angles, ‘Titch’ missed his cue crossing a stream on the rope, this often happened of course but remember this was November. At the completion we all made our way to the Mess for a drink and there they were at a table with pints between them and Titch absolutely unmoved although saturated and surrounded th

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by a pool of water! The course finished on Nov. 15 and I went back to Ireland stopping for a night at Banstead en route. On our days off we would go into Belfast or Downpatrick or Ardblass. On Dec. 19 my posting came through for 42 O.T.U at Ashbourne in Derbyshire and was told that if I could manage to tie up all the loose ends I might get home for Christmas. These were duly tied up on the 21 , I hitched a lift by air to Speke, Liverpool, caught the train from Lime St. and arrived at Stowmarket in the early hours of next morning, completing the journey home by foot in pouring rain and arrived there at 0 2.45 hrs. much to Doff’s surprise. th

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After a very happy Christmas went to Ashbourne for a short stay, taking exams and tests and doing dinghy drill in the baths at Derby. We had to put on Mae Wests over full uniform, jump off the high board, swim to a dinghy which was turned over as soon as we were all in, right it and start again. On to Tilstock in Shropshire, by road to what my diary describes as ‘a somewhat dispersed camp’ which meant you had a long way to go before you got anywhere.

Again our stay was short and we moved on to Sleep between Shrewsbury and Newport, another ‘big spread’ with primitive accommodation. Two days after I arrived I hitch-hiked to Chirk again, this time for Doreen’s wedding having told the R.A.F. that I was to be best man. We were now doing circuits and bumps (day and night), cross country, low flying, formation flying etc. very concentrated stuff. Early mornings and late nights, day and night, and a few orderly duties thrown in. In our limited leisure time we would go into Shrewsbury and recharge our batteries at a pub called The Old Post Office. By this time I had managed to scrounge an old R.A.F. cycle, solid and heavy, and was able to get to Chirk on odd occasions.

Doff and the children came to Chirk for a holiday and I spent as much time as possible with them, sometimes flying until 0.300 hrs. and off at 0.800 hrs. and back for a late take-off the same day.

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I was home on leave when the war in Europe ended on 7 May and for two days there were celebrations, bonfires, dancing in the streets and later on a Victory tea and sports for the children at which I did a bit of clowning. th

After VE Day There were all sorts of crashes, some fatal, and one of my pals who was a long distance walker and had taken part in the London to Brighton race, was the only survivor from a crash because of his small stature. He was trapped in the rear turret but hacked his way out, through one of the Perspex panels, but was very severely burned.

We were soon on the move again, back to Tilstock for a day and then on to Saltby near Melton Mowbray when I made a diversion to see Stella (my cousin) in Birmingham and then to Needham. We were flying in Halifaxes now and after a few weeks doing glider towing and container dropping, as well as continental trips, formation and low flying we were sent to Matching Green, near Dunmow in Essex.

Soon after arrival, we the crew were sent to London for Yellow Fever jabs, and Halifax Bomber as these were due on the Friday and we were not flying again until the Monday we decided to make a weekend of it. Bob, who was on the Chelsea books, Ken and Val were all Londoners so went home. But Norman, Bill and myself had a night at the Russell Hotel and went to see the test match at Lords on Saturday.

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In July I met Doff in London and we had a busy two days in London visiting an aircraft exhibition, a housing exhibition, Houses of Parliament, Westminster Abbey and a service at St. Pauls, Hyde Park and St. James Park and Private Lives at the Prince of Wales theatre.

After some lengthy trips and one diversion to Crosby-on-Eden where we spent the night we were posted to 190 Squadron at Great Dunmow. On my last trip home I returned to camp in my car, a Ford 10 silver bullet, and kept it on the base where it was very useful for trips out and the occasional quick nip home. Shortly after we arrived here we were briefed to go to Hamburg but due to bad weather we had to land and spend the night at Stoney Cross in Hampshire. We returned to base to learn that the Germany trip had been scrubbed and instead we were to go to Oslo the next day. We landed at Gard and were shown our quarters which were some cavalry barracks near the aerodrome. After a meal Norman, Bill and myself scrounged a lift into Oslo and spent a very pleasant evening in the company of some young Norwegian students. I had the chance to have a good look round the next morning and was impressed by the number of good German cars, Mercedes among them, which had been abandoned. We were briefed for the return journey and had a passenger in the shape of the M.T. officer who was going home for a spot of leave. This was all unofficial and as a sort of reward he scrounged a bottle of wine for each of us, and as bonus for me being the only one with a car, a Gerry can full of petrol, very precious stuff, with strict instructions to keep it well hidden! The weather was bad, as too was the forecast, but after some delay we obtained permission to take off, but as soon as we got over the sea we wished we hadn’t as the weather deteriorated badly and we were soon enveloped by thick fog. Norman decided to cross the North Sea at zero feet practically skimming the wave tops. After a few minutes of flying at this level there was an almighty bang, the aircraft bucked like a bronco 49

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and from the rear turret I saw a flash of orange-coloured something go past, Norman and Bill were fighting hard to control the aircraft and I can remember Norman shouting over the inter-com “What was it Russ?” and my reply “It looks as if you have taken the sails off a trawler.” Despite the danger I can remember very clearly thinking ‘surely I’m not going to lose that wine and very precious petrol’. The mind of man works in a very strange way. By this time all the crew except Norman and myself were looking round to see what damage was causing the old Hali to cut such capers when somebody spotted a huge hole in the port wing. By this time we had sent out a Mayday signal and Norman was managing to keep us in the air. We eventually crossed the coast at Felixstowe and made a very rough landing at base where we were met by a full reception committee of fire engines and ambulances. We were soon off to interrogation where we learned that air-sea rescue and all East coast aerodromes, coastguards etc. had been alerted in case we crashed into the sea or on the coast. The cause of it all was the thick fog. Inside the port wing of a Halifax was a deflated dinghy large enough to take all the crew in the event of ditching i.e. crashing into the sea. This was inflated by an immersion switch which came into operation as soon as an aircraft touched the water. In turn the dinghy was inflated and in so doing burst it’s way out of the fabric of the wing. This is all supposed to happen when you are in the water and not in mid-air but in our case the moisture from the very heavy fog was sufficient to trigger the whole thing off. Seven worthy members of His Majesty’s R.A.F nearly went to Davy Jones locker and it was only by Norman’s skill that we didn’t for remember that if we had crashed our dinghy was in shreds miles behind us. As soon as the Air Ministry found out the cause of our trouble an immediate order went out that all immersion switches were to be moved but before this had been implemented the same thing happened to another crew and they were all lost.

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Now to my petrol which I managed to conceal under my Mae West when I left the aircraft and hid it in my crew locker at dispersal.

We were given a couple of days off after our adventure and I was very quick to smuggle my precious liquid into the car and get it to Needham. I have still got the Gerry can concerned which I kept as a souvenir. Shortly afterwards I found out what would have happened to me if I had been caught, stripped of my rank and back to A.C. plonk, OR, dishonourably discharged. This is what happened to a member of another crew on the squadron who had by some means won a gallon, not four as in my case, had been found out and after a court of inquiry in this country the crew had been posted to Germany and a Halifax full of witnesses were flown out there for the final court and sentence. A few hundreds of gallons of petrol plus time to put that matter right but the man concerned was a sergeant so he didn’t have quite so far to fall. Ah well, all part of life’s many experiences, some give a thrill, some a great deal of joy but many give you butterflies to think about them.

We did a continental cross-country the day after we arrived back and were then issued with tropical kit and briefed for a flight to Athens, calling at Brussels to pick up some ex-prisoners of war, male and female. They had been in one of the Gerry horror camps and bore the dreaded stamp in their wrists. I shall never forget how on arrival at Athens they got out of the aircraft, fell on their knees and kissed the ground. I reckon they never expected to see Greece again.

After landing in Brussels we were given a stark tea and the most horrible grubby billets for the night you could imagine. We went out on the town that night and didn’t spend long in the ‘luxury apartment’ for at 04.14 next day we were off, dropping in at Fay in Italy for an hour or so to pick up some troops and then on to Hassani (Athens). We had a meal and then went on to a camp near the sea for the night and as always I was soon having a swim, this time in the Aegean Sea. We got a lift into Athens on a truck, had a meal of goat 51

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and the most delicious ice cream on the roof of a café to the accompaniment of traditional music played by a Greek orchestra. The next day, while the other lads stayed in camp, I went into the city on my own, getting a lift in a open truck, and as we travelled along the country road the smell from the trees in the orchards by the roadside was superb. I had a jolly good look round, visited the Acropolis etc. and had a good fill of their luscious ice cream. On returning to camp I had two more swims in the sea before retiring to bed. We were off at 04.25 next morning calling at Foggia again to pick up troops to take home to St. Mawgan in Cornwall where we spent the night, arriving back at base at 15.15 the next day.

The next trip was to Lubeck in Germany calling at Tarrant Rushton in Dorset where we spent the night and had a whale of a time at their mess party. At this time Bill Burt our bomb aimer was on a course and he was replaced by ‘Chick’ Kerr a Canadian who in Civvy Street was a professional ice hockey player with Toronto Maple Leafs. He was a grand chap, generous to a fault, and he stuttered, and for a bomb aimer this was a bit of a drawback because part of the job was, when required, to do map reading from the bomb bay in the nose of the aircraft, and if we had waited for ‘Chick’ to tell us where we were we would have been about 100 miles beyond that point when he eventually got the name out. But of course Chick knew all this, and instead of trying to tell us he would write the information down on a piece of paper and pass it up. By the time we reached journey’s end we all reckoned that the cockpit looked like the outside of a church after a wedding – covered in confetti. To go back to the mess party, after it was all over we went back to a little tin hut that we had been given for the night but without Chick who had disappeared. However he turned up for breakfast looking very rough after spending the night, or what was left of it, sleeping on a bread rack in an abandoned baker’s shop. He said to me “R.r..r..r..russ my p.p..p..poor old b.b..b..back looks like a 52

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b.bb…….dy sheet of c.c..c..cor..corrugated iron”. That morning we picked up a load of troops, flew them to Lubeck where we had a meal in the Malcolm Club and then returned to base.

After some mass glider towing and parachute dropping we took an aircraft up to Holme-on-Spalding moor in Yorkshire, spent two nights there because of bad weather and then brought another aircraft back. In the meantime we had some more ‘jabs’ and then we were detailed for a trip to Cairo, but after a delayed start we had to return with engine trouble. We were given another aircraft loaded with aero-engines and spare parts and this time our destination was Palestine – first stop Malta where we spent the night. This has been described as the island of bells and goats and how right that description was. After dinner I took a stroll on my own into the villages and although it was dark and I couldn’t see much I could hear the church bells tolling and the continuous tinkling of the goats bells as they moved about.

We left at 0600 hrs next day and landed at El Quastina at 12.45.

This was in the middle of nowhere and the only sign of life, other than on the airstrip, were a few locals in their ‘nightshirts’ riding on donkeys and camels. I had heard that the ‘wogs’ could carry a piano on their backs and here I saw this demonstrated. Four R.A.F. lads just managed between them to ‘walk’ a heavy crate up the aircraft to the door and to our amazement the thinnest and most scraggy ‘nightshirted’ individual imaginable bent over near the door, they just managed to tip the crate on to his back and off he walked!

We spent the evening and that night in quarters at Lydda between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. Before we left early the next morning I managed to get a basketful of bananas, etc. to take home. Again we dropped in at Luqua and as we arrived much earlier we were able to go into Valetta and have a good look round in daylight. Poor old Malta had taken a bashing. Even in the town goats were much in 53

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evidence being driven by small boys to the music of their bells and the bells of the many churches in the town. I noticed that at the bus stops most of the passengers crossed themselves before going aboard and after seeing the way the buses were driven and what they carried inside and hanging outside I can understand why! We made base O.K. next day and in the afternoon did a trip to Holland.

Next day we were sent to Albert Lodge in London for Yellow Fever injections and we knew what that meant! Tokyo here we come! But it was not to be because after another trip to Holland and a few glider tows Norman the skipper and I were discharged so although it was another month before the final act we didn’t do any more flying. I had a few days leave plus 2 separate Saturdays in Town with Johnnie Bloom and his sister before the great experience of getting demobbed commenced, days of it - Doctor, Dentist, C.O. etc. a night in the Great Eastern Hotel on Liverpool Street and then on to Uxbridge to complete the deal before going on to collect our civvies suits etc. I eventually arrived home at 18.45 on 30.11.45 to a lovely welcome. A civilian once again and behind me some experiences I shall never forget.

Civvy Street once more I was soon back in harness commencing work on 3.12.45 and from then on it was all go, picking up the threads of business, going back into the B.B. and choir, renewing activity in the Masons and the Horticultural Society, and being elected to serve on the Parish Council.

1946 In the summer we all went to Chirk for a holiday. Jean had returned to the Ipswich High School for Girls when we returned from Scotland and Mick had gone to Bosmere Primary (the Need54

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ham Primary school had been bombed) where he stayed until in 1948 he went to Brandeston Hall where he became captain of Rugby and school captain before going on to Framlingham College. Jean had been doing very well on the piano and had signalled her future intentions by joining the local Red Cross Society under Mrs Fleetwood (who would play the organ for Jean’s wedding in 1957) at Creeting St Mary. I was appointed as Needham representative on the County Parish Council’s association and round about this time the needs for a Playing Field in Needham were being discussed and public meetings held and as the ‘Mayor’ I was in the chair for these meetings, some of which became very fiery with personalities becoming involved. However it was decided to soldier on and form a Playing Field Committee with yours truly as chairman.

The Parish Council became members of the Playing Fields Association and Frank Morris and I were appointed as representatives and attended several meetings in London with Prince Phillip in the chair. Doff became active again in the church and the W.I.. League football was resumed and Mick and I gave our vocal support to Ipswich Town. We had several outings to the cinema, Ipswich and Stow, the Hippo for pantomimes and the Art’s Theatre and frequent interchange visits with the Whiteheads.

1947 Clifford and Eunice were married at Stowmarket Parish Church on Easter Saturday, Jean was a bridesmaid and I was best man. I think it will be clearer to anyone who is interested enough to read this if I chronicle events as they happened, more or less anyway. One non-flying experience that I shall never forget happened when we 55

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were preparing for a carnival or Flower Show. As often happened on these occasions, and as secretary of one and Chairman of the other I would take our lorry out in the morning of the event and collect odd bits and pieces that had been overlooked. Mick had come along to lend a hand and was riding in the back of the lorry. We were on our way to Creeting and going down Hawk’s Mill Street and were nearly up to the railway bridge when providence stepped in and told me to stop and check to see that Mick had got his head down to clear the bridge – he hadn’t! He was standing up leaning against the back of the cab with his back to the bridge and if we had not stopped when we did it is pretty certain that at the speed we were travelling he would have been a goner with a fractured skull.

This same year we all went to a panto at the Hippodrome, Mick and I went to the Police Sports at Portman Road. Doff and I went to London to a Parish Councils Association Meeting taking the Morris with us and spending a night or two in Banstead. I was now taking charge of the annual B.B. visit to the Albert Hall display put on by the London battalion plus visiting companies of the U.K. This for us was a 2 day event in early May organised by the Mid.Suffolk battalion. We left Stowmarket by an early morning train, visiting St. Paul’s Cathedral, the Mint, and on one occasion by invitation of Edgar (later Lord) Granville, the Houses of Parliament, the Zoo, Madame Tussauds etc. etc. walking every where and completing the first day at the evening performance at the Albert Hall. After the show we proceeded to a church hall near King’s Cross Station where we slept on the floor in blankets provided by the good folk of the church. We rose very early next morning and did a tour of Smithfield Market before returning to the hall for a boiled egg breakfast, we had taken the eggs with us and carried them between us around town the previous day. We then made our way to Trafalgar Square, Whitehall, Buckingham Palace and Westminster Abbey before catching the train home in the afternoon, by which time we were flaked out! This 56

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was the pre-war programme and it started again for about three years after the war and then ceased as a battalion outing. We did go up several times as a company in our Bedford van!

And once in 1963 we hired a Dormobile from Coddenham arriving back in Needham at 2.30 a.m. the next morning with the vehicle still to go back to Coddenham and who do you think was the driver?

The last visit was in 1966 again in our Bedford.

1949 This was a year of sadness and gladness. Auntie Emmie died suddenly at a bus stop in Chirk in February and Doff, Ciss, John and I went to the funeral. I put my foot on the first rung of the local government ladder when I topped the polls in the Parish Council elections and was made Chairman. After a lot of meetings and pretty careful planning, and plenty of doubts as to the outcome I can tell you that the first Carnival week took place at Whitsun and was an enormous success. We went to Chirk for our holiday, Mick and I went to see Les Savold box in Ipswich and I went to the Motor and Radio shows in London. John and Brenda were married in Needham and Jean was a bridesmaid, Marie and Colin were married at Burgh Heath in October. The year ended on a sad note with the death of Grandad Offord in December.

1950 Grandad Sparrow was elected President of the Ipswich and District Builder’s Federation. We watched Mick playing rugby for Brandeston v. Ipswich School on the Valley Road. Jean went to Birmingham in April to commence her training at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital. Graham (Offord) sang the tenor solo in the Messiah at Ipswich and the year ended with the death of Uncle Ted in Westhorpe.

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We saw a lot of Birmingham this year starting with a weekend in February when we saw ‘Gays the Word’ with Cicely Courtnedge.

Jean was taken seriously ill at the Q.E. and we went up for weekends in March and April and stayed with the Robinsons. Mick developed Mumps after the April trip. We collected Jean and brought her home for sick leave on May 24 . th

I had tea with Group-Captain Viscount Acheson at Wattisham to discuss the carnival and played cricket for the fathers of Brandeston.

We had our holiday that year in Weymouth staying with Nellie and George (wartime lodgers) and finished at Banstead on our way home. Mick and I saw a memorable cricket match, England v. South Africa at the Oval and we also went to the South Bank Exhibition. Jean went back to Q.E. on Sept. 1 and I was Godfather at Philip’s christening on 21 October. We finished the year in that city having tea with Stella, visiting Jean and going to the service at St. Martins in the Bullring on 23 Dec. returning home for Christmas on the 24 . st

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1952 King George V1 died rather suddenly on Feb. 6 and our present Queen and Prince Philip had to return home from a Safari holiday.

We had some rough weather on March 30 when I was supposed to collect a student Minister from Wattisfield. The snow was so heavy that I couldn’t get through although the road was cleared later in the day. Mick went to Fingringhoe to camp with the College cadets and we had an afternoon with him in Colchester. Jean went to Switzerland for a holiday with Kath. th

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A coach trip to London was arranged on Dec. 6 to see Arsenal play football at Highbury. As we approached London fog became so bad that traffic slowed down and we didn’t get to Highbury until th

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just before kick-off time only to find that the match had been cancelled. What to do now? We found somewhere to park the coach and made for the nearest cinema, but we didn’t see much of the proceedings there because the fog had penetrated the cinema and obliterated the screen. So out we came into a real ‘peasouper’ and after a struggle and keeping close together we found the coach and set off for Harringay Ice Rink. We were admitted to the arena, saw some ice hockey until about a third of the way through the programme the fog became so intense that the whole thing was abandoned. When we got outside it was impossible and unbelievable – you could not see your hand in front of your face. It would have been impossible to move the coach and the weatherman had reported over the coach radio that London’s worst fog ever would persist over night and advised everybody to stay put. We found a café fairly close by and made our way there and back led by a local and holding on to each other’s coattails. I found a ‘phone box and rang Needham police, gave them the details of the members of our party and asked them to inform all the relatives they could especially the parents of the boys.

It transpired that they did this very well. In the meantime we settled down for the night in the coach with Gordon periodically revving up the engine to give us a bit of warmth.

On the Sunday morning the fog had lifted enough by 1 o’clock for us to get on our way and we made it to Needham by about 2.30 p.m., weary, dirty and quite a few upset tummies. That fog caused a lot of deaths to people with weak chests as well as a large number of accidents and was the reason for enforcing the burning of only smokeless fuel. A day to remember! 4000 people died as a result of this fog!

1953 Uncle Fred died and Dad and I attended the funeral on Feb.23 .

Severe flooding on the East Coast, north Suffolk and Norfolk, causrd

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ing much damage and considerable loss of life, especially at Felixstowe. Queen Elizabeth II was crowned on a very wet day, June 2 .

We entertained Mrs Elizabeth Wyatt from Needham, Mass., U.S.A. who had come to this country for the coronation and to participate in our carnival celebrations. She stayed with us for 2 nights. Jean and Mick came home at various times, sometimes with friends. Mick had a taste of real work when he helped with the painting of Offton School and other jobs during his school holidays. We had a holiday at the Y.M.C.A. at Eastbourne and returned via Brighton and met the annual London to Brighton walk en route. Mother and Dad celebrated their Golden wedding anniversary on 16 Aug. with a family lunch at The Limes and on to Felixstowe for tea at their beloved Millars. The day before that William Abblitt Nunn, Clifford, Mick and I motored to Kennington Oval for the last test against Australia.

The year finished with Mick’s confirmation service and Christmas in Birmingham when we stayed with Mrs Dixon. We went to Q.E. for carols on the wards, had a party in Jean’s room and then on to a midnight service in Harborne. On Christmas Day I collected Jean and Harriet from the hospital for the evening returning them at 11.30. On Boxing Day went to see Wolverhampton Wanderers beat Aston Villa 2-1 at Villa Park. nd

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1954 We had severe frosts and lots of snow in January. In the same month the B.B. had a more successful outing to London taking in Arsenal v. Sunderland, 1-4, and Jack Hylton’s circus at Olympia. I saw the All Blacks play at Ipswich on March 3 . Kath and Mrs Dixon spent a weekend with us during the month. Jean finished at Q.E. 4 years after she had started. She had an operation on her eye to correct a congenital ‘squint’ and then came home. She got a nursing job at Onehouse Hospital (an old workhouse) which she said was a real eye-opener. It was only for a few weeks until she started at the Central Middlesex Hospital with Joyce to do 1 Part midwifery. rd

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We spent Christmas in London staying at ‘The House of Rest’ (owned by the church) in St. John’s Wood next to Lord’s cricket ground. We met Jean in Trafalgar Square on Christmas Eve to sing carols round the huge Christmas tree, an annual gift from the people of Norway to thank the people of Britain for sheltering their Royal family during the war. On Christmas morning we attended service at Westminster Chapel and had tea with Jean and Joyce in Acton. On 26 we went to morning service at a church on Hampstead Heath, had tea with Jean and toured the hospital. Boxing day was spent with the Crookes and Harold, Mick and I went to Stamford Bridge to watch Chelsea play Arsenal, 1-1, in front of a crowd of 67,000. The year ended with severe gales. th

1955 Again severe frosts at the beginning of the year. London newspapers were published on April 21 after a month’s strike. Jean had started at the London Hospital at the beginning of April. Mick joined the Royal Sussex Regiment and went to Chichester on June 8 . Jean came home regularly and on July 15 she brought home a certain Colin Keen, a young man we were to see a lot more of. Mick came home on leave before going on to Canterbury. In August we all went to Christine and Tony’s wedding at Burgh Heath and on Sunday the 21 took Mick back to Canterbury. st

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We had our holiday in Torquay at the Y.M., Colin joined us for one night and then I took him to the station where later on I picked up Jill (Whitehead) who then spent the rest of the week with us. Our Silver Wedding Anniversary was on Nov. 15 and we had tea at Footman’s! Mick had one or two short spells of leave before his posting to Germany on Nov.22 . Jean came home for Christmas. th

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1956 Like the previous years we started with rough weather, lots of snow and severe frosts. We were very happy to announce Jean and 61

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Colin’s engagement on Feb.19 . Mick came home from Germany in April. On Sunday June 3 all the Sparrows met all the Keens in London and Colin took us all to supper at Schmidts on Soho. On 5 July Mick went to Korea.

On 21 July we went to Clapton to open Schmidt’s, Charlotte Street Jean’s flat where we stayed for one night (with the mice).We had another night with Jean on 18 August en route to Innsbruck where we had a good week but a very rough crossing on our way home.

The flat in Clapton was fast becoming a staging post for us. On 26 October we stayed there again before proceeding to Southsea for a weekend with Colin’s Mum and Dad. th

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A great time for Needham when Wilfred and Mabel Pickles brought their ‘Have-a-Go’ show there and yours truly was one of the selected contestants. Quite a lively evening finishing at the Lime’s Hotel. We went to Clapton for the week at Christmas and due to petrol rationing had to travel by Bedford van containing wallpaper, bricks etc. to make the journey authentic. Parking was a problem but this was over come by using the grounds of the nearby R.C.Church for the first two nights and then transferring our custom to the Chest Hospital. Jean and Colin took us to the morning service in the Royal Chapel, Tower of London and later Colin took me for a swim in the pool at the London Hospital. We went with Jean to the carol service in Trafalgar Square on Christmas Eve and on Christmas morning had drinks with Jean’s landlord, Mr. and Mrs Cohen. I also went to White Hart Lane and saw Spurs beat Bolton 4-0.

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1957 Jean’s Wedding When the bombs dropped in Needham High Street the stained glass windows were blasted out of the Chapel. We were responsible for having new ones made and fitted and on March 24 these were dedicated. David and Lynn Keen visited us in March and again in May along with Gran Keen for Jean and Colin’s wedding on May 11 .

The service was at Creeting Church, the reception at The Lime’s and the fun and games when the happy pair departed for their honeymoon all made up to a very happy day. Later in the month we took the Whiteheads with us for a week in the Y.M. in Scarborough. th

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Jean and Colin were now living in a flat in Graham Road, Hackney and we spent a weekend with them in June and again in August when we took Jean’s piano with us in a brand new Austin truck recently acquired by F.Sparrow & Sons Ltd. On the Saturday we all went to the Festival Hall to see ‘Coppelia’, travelling in the truck. We went to see Jean again in November and called to see Colin in Chelmsford on the way home and Christmas was spent at home.

1958 Arrival of Fiona, First Grandchild The fulfilment of years and years of dreams of all the people of Needham Market came about on January 29 when the sewage works were opened. But alas, ‘Whoopey’s’ cart was still functioning, and did so for some time until all the properties were connected to the system. We had a weekend with Jean in February, and Grandad Sparrow went into hospital to have his appendix removed, aged 80!

On March 24 Jean and Colin came for the weekend and we all went to Jill and Tony’s wedding on the 29 . Doff went to Denham College run by the Women’s Institute for a few days in April. We went to Southsea for the W.E. of May 2 , dropping Jean off in London on the th

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way and calling in on the way back. Mick who had been stationed in Gibraltar came home on carnival day, May 24 and then on June 23 Fiona was born at The London Hospital. The three of them came to Needham for a holiday in July and on 14 September Fiona was christened at Hackney Parish Church. We had been house-hunting with and for Mick and eventually settled on 71, Heath Road in Ipswich. th

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In November it was Mick’s 21 birthday and to celebrate we spent the weekend in London with Jean, C. and F. and we all went to see ‘Around the World in 80 days’ at The Odeon, Leicester Square. Jean and Fiona came to stay with us in Needham for 6 months while Colin did House jobs in King George’s Hospital. Ilford and in December we took them with us for a holiday in Eastbourne. On the way home we picked Colin up and he spent part of Christmas with us before going back to King George’s. st

1959 Jean went to The Albert Hall with Lynn on 18 March for Colin’s graduation ceremony. Later on in June Jean and Fiona went to Southsea to stay with Colin’s parents until they found rented accommodation in Bosham, Sussex while Colin was doing House jobs in Bosham Xmas 1959 Chichester where we visited them later in October. th

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1960 Doff and I went to Paris for the Easter weekend and had a jolly good look around with a bonus of a very rough crossing on the homeward bound journey! In August I bought a Wolseley 4/44, later in the month we did a coach tour of Scotland with the Whiteheads.

Jean and Fiona came to stay with us while waiting to join Colin in the Far East. On 4 September we took Jean and Fiona to Brompton Road to catch the bus to Stansted en route for Kuala Lumpur. We went to Burgh Heath for the weekend in December calling to spend a day with Viv and Willy at Charlwood before returning to spend Christmas at home. th

1961 This year we visited Chirk to see the Offords, John, Graham and Bernard and then on to Llangollen before driving up to Snowdonia.

In July we went to Holland and Germany for our holiday, touring by coach from Arnhem. We had an enjoyable time and two good crossings on the ferry from and back to Harwich. Jean, Colin and Fiona were now living in Hong Kong but to our surprise and delight came home for a few days as Colin was sent back to U.K. for a conference to do with Mountain Rescue teams. Unfortunately they were offloaded in El Adam and Colin missed the conference. Very sadly shortly before they arrived we heard that John Morris (neighbour) had been killed in an air accident in Cypress and I had the unhappy task of telling Frank his father. John was buried on the island and at 9 a.m. on the morning of his funeral Mr. and Mrs. Morris, Doff and I went to Creeting Church.

1962 Another grandchild arrived on March 18th. Andrew was born in Hong Kong at the Military Hospital on the island. Later in the year we had our first taste of the Lake District when we went up to Ambleside for the Easter weekend. We did a lot in a little time including a visit to Colin’s Aunt and Uncle. It took us 14 hours to get 65

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home on the Monday due to lengthy hold-ups in Ullerton and Newark. Ipswich Town won the first division championship in their first season in that league by beating Aston Villa 2-0 on 28th April.

Great rejoicing near and far! F.Sparrow & Sons decided to give Gt. Yarmouth a miss for their anniversary outing and instead went to London Airport and the Palladium (Bruce Forsyth). We went to Ambleside for our holiday. Mr and Mrs Jim Stirling and Andrew stayed with us for a week-end in August when he was preaching at Chapel,”with a view” and again in November after he had been invited to become our Minister. At the end of September we went to Eastbourne to help the Whiteheads to find a house for retirement We did two shows while we were there,”Waters of the Moon” and “Salad Days”.

Mick’s bungalow was being built at Westerfield and we did odd trips to watch progress. We went to Surrey for Xmas, spent Xmas day with Ethel and then we all went to Viv’s for Boxing Day.We had intended to go home the following day but 12 inches of snow fell on Boxing night and continued most of that day. We were unable to get the car out of Duncan Road. The next day Rufus and I managed to dig the car out and we eventually arrived home. This was the beginning of a very long spell of wintry weather which was to go on well into the New Year.

1963 The year started with arctic like conditions for the whole of January and into part of February. The coldest night for 100 years was recorded on 21st January and numerous meetings were cancelled because of the conditions. A trying time for most people, but for builders, Ye Gods!!! Jim Stirling commenced his ministry on 6th January and then on 16th February we got up at the crack of dawn and made our way on snowy roads to Stansted Airport to meet Jean, Colin, Fiona and Andrew from Hong Kong. They went on to Drift End, Rowlands Castle, with David and Lynn and then came to stay 66

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with us on 27th until we installed them in 71, Heath Road, Ipswich on 2nd March. Andrew was christened at Creeting Church on 17th March and Colin was demobbed from the R.A.F. in June after a 3 year short service commision. In May Jean went into hospital for a few days for a biopsy, and the children stayed with us.

We were spending some time at Westerfield getting the bungalow ready for Mick and Mavis who got married on 10th August in Ipswich with Fiona as one of the bridesmaids. After some false alarms Heather was born on Sept. 17th in Heath Road hospital and Doff and I spent a few days at No 71 with Colin, Fiona and Andrew.

We had the family within easy reach for a change but I am sure we had no ideas or suspicions how far we would eventually travel to be near some of ‘em! Jean and Colin bought a house in Rayleigh, Essex and moved there when Heather was 10 days old. We had a busy end of year with my commitments as “Mayor’ and then went to Mick’s on Dec. 19th, on to Rayleigh until Xmas Eve when we went on to Banstead leaving Jean and the children at the London Hospital en route. They then went on to Drift End to spend Xmas with David and Lynn.

1964 In December Auntie Alice slipped on the ice in her garden, was taken to Ipswich Hospital where she was diagnosed with a fractured femur and spent some weeks there. Later she was transferred to Hartismere Hospital in Eye and then eventually to Tattingstone Hospital, both of these were originally ‘workhouses’ which were taken over when the N.H.S. was formed in 1948. Heather was christened in the Parish Church in Rayleigh on March 1st. Doff and I spent a lot of time this year between visiting A.Alice, Westerfield Road and Rayleigh. Mick and Mavis parted company, Mick broke his leg playing football and spent some time in Rayleigh with Jean and family.

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1965 Much of our spare time was spent visiting family and then on November 20th Jean, Colin, Fiona, Andrew and Heather flew from Heathrow to Australia. We went up to see them off and were joined

by David and Lynn.

Christmas Day was spent at Mick’s and then on to Burgh Heath.

We returned from there because of Grandma’s poor health and she was admitted to a Nursing Home in Barham on 30th Dec. where she collapsed and died shortly after arrival.

1966 Grandma was buried on 4th January in Creeting St. Mary’s churchyard. Grandad was admitted to hospital 9th April and discharged 25th April. He became very ill and was admitted to hospital again at the end of May and died on 15th June. The funeral was attended not only by family but by representatives of all the organisations with which he had been associated. He was buried with Grandma in Creeting and had outlived her by only 5 months.

After the deaths it was good to get the news that on Dec. 2nd Sarah Elizabeth was born in Brisbane! 4th child for Jean and Colin.

1967. Going ‘Down Under’ This was the year that we spread our wings and flew to Australia. Before doing that life was hectic I can tell you because as well as all the responsibilities of the business we had our commitments to the W.I., Church, B.B.,Playing Field, Parish Council etc, to tidy up and pass on as well as emptying and letting our house, medicals, jabs etc. Uncle John died on 4th Feb. and we took A.Ciss and young John up with us to the funeral. Having visited Burgh Heath, Westerfield 68

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and Chelmondiston, our last night at Berryhead was 31st March.

Wednesday 5th April Mick took us from Westerfield to Ipswich Station en route to Heathrow.

After some confusion at the airport, when it was decided to switch from the western route via U.S.A. to the eastern route via Singapore, we took off at 14.15. The first landing was in Kuwait which we left at 22.59 arriving in Colombo at 0800. Here we had breakfast under the trees in delightful surroundings. We took off at 0910 arriving in Singapore at 1500 and after a quick look round were airborne again at 1700 bound for Aussieland where we arrived in Darwin 0015 (0830 Aussie time). Before we left the aircraft we were subjected to the indignity of being sprayed from aerosol containers to kill all foreign germs. As one passenger aptly put it “like a lot of bloody chickens with fowl pest”. However they gave us a good breakfast,by this time we didn’t know if we were having tea, supper, dinner or what, so we accepted each meal with grateful thanks.

Leaving Darwin at 9.30 we flew to Melbourne over the wild desert wasteland with a fine view of Alice Springs and Ayers Rock.

We touched down at Melbourne at 15.45 and as this was the end of the official trip from the U.K. and it was too The Gap – Sparrows arrival

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late to arrange for us to go to Brisbane that day, we spent the night in an immigration hostel in Myabigong. We went there by taxi and went through the main gates and past the keeper’s lodge. We were dropped off at a wooden hut divided into rooms and we had a room of our own with bunk beds, wash basin, table, hot water jug and tea bags. We found our way to the ‘cookhouse’ in the dark. It was bedlam! Families from all over the world, talking or shouting in their own tongue, the clatter of crockery, children tearing about- ye Gods!

We lined up for our meal and when it was over we lined up to wash up. We went back to our little wooden hut, made some tea and turned in.(Travel time from Heathrow to Brisbane, 4 days, 3 nights, 39 hours airborne in 7 stages).

After breakfast a taxi picked us up at 1000 and took us to the airport. It transpired that to most of the families at the hostel it was home because they had been there for some time waiting for jobs, which we found were not nearly as plentiful as we had been led to believe. It was an eye opening experience and something we wouldn’t have missed. In fact later on Mum said she enjoyed it. We took off from Melbourne at 1100, changed planes at Sydney and left there at 1300 eventually arriving at Brisbane at 1530 on Saturday, April 8th.

We were met by the Keens all lined up to greet us, and what a welcome! A lovely drive from the airport through the city to Shalmar Street the home of the Keens, a lovely spot and so many things for us to see and hear. We were both suffering a bit from jet-lag but Mum was O.K. because she had been well and truly sedated before we started. However we soon settled in and the next day, Sunday we went into Brisbane to the Botanical Gardens. We made frequent trips to Kenmore where Jean and Colin were having a house built, most interesting from my point of view to be able to see different methods of construction and types of materials used, especially timber.

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Doff and I went into the city on our own several times to find our way around and to make various enquiries etc. We tried out all the churches and made up our minds that if we did decide to stay on that the City Congregational would be the one for us. We saw our first ANZAC Day parade on April 25th, we were taken into the country where we saw the giant ant hills and of course the Gum trees. On a tour of the coastal region we came across familiar names like Margate, Brighton, Scarborough. We had a day with the McMillans at Esk, really out in the country where we saw our first wallaby and pelican.

It was the Australian autumn and still very warm. After a few weeks we decided to stay on and that meant looking for a job and a permanent home. I went to the Labour Exchange and found that there were plenty there looking for employment, a large number of them Immigrants who had been told that jobs were plentiful. I applied for jobs advertised in the press without success but eventually struck oil when I asked Rees Thomas (the church Minister) if he had any ideas.

He put me in touch with one of the church deacons who was the boss of Premier Blinds and he agreed to see me on May 18th. He told me about the firm, a large one serving all of Queensland and some of New South Wales. They manufactured and fitted blinds of all sorts for all types of properties, residential and commercial, prisons, hospitals etc.The decision to take me on would have to be made by the manager, I met him and we had a chat and then he asked me to prove my driving ability by taking a Holden “Ute� round the city streets. he would contact me the next day.

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On that next day Colin went to New Guinea, as he did at intervals, and other places too to conduct clinics, and Jean and I took him to the airport.

Premier Blinds Shortly after we got home a message came through to say that I had secured the post and would I go again to see Mr. Best on Saturday June 3rd. This pleased me I can tell you, after being told that this was a young man’s country and there was no hope for anyone over 40! and I was 59! I obtained my driving licence and then on the Saturday I went to the headquarters of Premier Blinds in Windsor and was shown around. I was introduced to Harold Bacon who would be my mentor and to other members of the staff who were proud to show me the 2 way radio system recently installed.

In the meantime we had rented a flat, one of three in a converted house in Toowong. Queensland was known as the backward State, lots of the suburbs were without mains drains and with B class roads, which consisted of a tarmac centre and strips of gravel on either side. I started work on June 5th spending that day in the office and was lent a Ford Falcon ‘Ute’ until I was established, which didn’t take long because the very next day I was sent out on my own. For the rest of that week and the following week I went out with one of the measurers. We moved into the flat on June 7th and on Saturday Jean and family came to tea. Fiona stayed over the weekend because Monday the 12th was a Bank Holiday. We shall never forget that weekend because Brisbane was visited by a frightening tropical storm a) frightening to us because we had never experienced rain and wind of such intensity and b) our flat was roofed with corrugated iron. The noise 72

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was as bad as the blitz and lasted for hours, there was enormous damage everywhere. The flat was situated halfway down a hill and the force of the water had taken the soil from the gardens above us and deposited it at the foot of the hill. The next day men were barrowing the soil back up the hill to their gardens. We were fairly near the Brisbane river and we walked down to see if it was in flood, and it was!! Riverside hotels, houses and streets were all under water, and as the water in the river tore out to sea it carried trees, dead animals and people’s furniture. Our factory which was near Breakfast Creek flooded to a depth of 12 feet in places and all the available staff had spent the Saturday night and all day Sunday rescuing materials and equipment from the awning factory. We were to see and hear more of tropical storms but none as bad as that one.

On Monday June 16th I started on my own in a new Ford Cortina car

PIL 571. I was allowed the use of the car for private purposes together with free petrol within a certain radius of the city and for holidays 73

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a free allowance of petrol to cover 500 miles.

Not bad, eh? I started by introducing myself to all the architects in the city and then out to the various suburbs and on to house builders, property developers, industries, hospitals, prisons, T.V. studios, churches, army Brisbane Cricket Club and navy barracks and married quarters, Queensland University at St.Lucia, Brisbane Cricket Club at the famous “Gabba” ground. This in turn led to my being responsible for measuring, quoting and obtaining orders for work at all these places. At the end of July we had a 2 day Sales Seminar at one of the hotels when all the branch managers and management staff and the managing and measuring staff from H.Q. met for discussions and policies etc. This concluded with a dinner, plenty of drinks and a cabaret. Harold Bacon introduced me to the various managers as a ‘pom’ and to one in particular as a fellow ‘pom’. To our mutual surprise it turned out that he came from Baylham, at one time worked as a carpenter in Needham for Theobolds and had a father living in Claydon. Small world!

The Royal Brisbane Show is held every year in August at the Exhibition Ground, a permanent and well-planned site commonly referred to as the Ekka. This caters for everything and everybody, lasts a week and has a daily attendance of about 130,000 people. We had a stand and all did various times from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. manning it. As well as the usual displays of bands, gymkhanas etc.. there were sheep-shearing and timber felling contests and we were most impressed by the very well attended “Speed the plough” service which 74

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was held in the arena on the Sunday. I well remember the occasion because we wandered into the arena looking for a good position to sit when I spotted some seats in the grandstand and made a beeline for them only to be stopped and asked what organisation we were representing. My answer was the good old B.B. whose button-hole badge I was wearing and we were put in seats close to the Governor of Queensland, I learned afterwards that the grandstand had been reserved for V.I.Ps. We exchanged visits with another couple from Suffolk whom I met in an architects office, the wife had at one time worked with my friend Cyril Whitehead. The third Suffolk man I met was in a builder’s office in Kenmore, as it turned out the firm were responsible for Colin and Jean’s house which they were having built when we first arrived. I questioned him about a building term that he used while we were discussing a project. The Aussies use a different pronunciation and he revealed that he came from Combs and was a friend of the Knight family who were customers of F.Sparrow and sons!.Then in 1968 we entertained Rosemary Ince whose father ran the gents outfitter in Stowmarket. She was on her way home from New Guinea where she had been working as a nurse/teacher for the Methodist church.

We became members of the City Congregational Church and choir, and throughout our stay we were both actively involved in church work as well as other interests. For example Mum was a volunteer worker in the office of the U.N.O. and we were both members of the Queensland branch which met periodically in Brisbane. Mum joined the Country Women’s Association, the Aussie W.I. and was a member of their district choir. The members in the ‘outback’ had their monthly meetings by radio where each sheep station or whatever had its own receiving and transmitting set and this method was applied to some of the children’s education in very remote parts. As well as the main airport for the city there was a 75

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smaller one used mainly by farmers etc. for their weekly shopping expeditions. Shopping on horseback was a fairly common sight.

Our first Christmas down under was different! It was very hot!.

We went to Jean’s for the evening on Christmas Eve, Colin’s parents had arrived on the 19th. On Christmas morning we went to service then on to some neighbours near the flat for drinks after which we went to friends of Colin’s for a swim in their pool. A light lunch, games with the children and then the turkey and plum pudding in the cool (80 degrees) of the evening. On New Years Eve we went to service and then a swim at Brookfield and having made up our minds to look for a home of our own we went to look at one in Enoggera, that day it was 104 degrees! We had been invited to visit the Gold Coast with Harold and his wife but were unlucky with the weather because it rained but Harold and I went for a swim in very rough seas.

House buying We bought 110, Stanley Terrace, Taringa on January 3rd, fully furnished including a T.V. which we soon changed. Brisbane was surrounded by 7 hills with a Roman Catholic building on the summit of one of them. Our site was on the top of a minor hill with roads running down sharply on two sides. It was fairly rural with lots of trees and strange (to us) shrubs in our front garden. In the back garden we had avocados, oranges, lemons, grapefruit and a banana tree which produced lots of fruit which we had to gather before the flying foxes ate them. The house was set up on concrete pieces which were 8 ft tall at the back because of the steep slope and each was topped by a metal skirt to prevent ants and other crawlies getting inside. The construction was wooden framed covered on the outside with clapboard and on the inside with vertical matchboard, including the ceilings. The floors were polished hardwood. The roof was corrugated iron, perfectly watertight but very noisy when it rained !

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Our windows had the old type wood slat blinds and we had some awnings too but no insect screens.

1968.

In January I was made responsible for all sales from customers in Papua-New Guinea and in March I went up to our branch in Bundaberg to assist a new manager to settle in there. I left at 6.45 a.m.on the Monday in a new Holden ‘ute’ which I was taking up for the new manager. The town in appearance was very much like some of the cowboy places seen on films with a wide main street with covered sidewalks and balconies. I was accommodated in a western style hotel with all the comforts, including mosquitoes, plenty of good food and drink, typically Aussie. I very much enjoyed travelling round the countryside with my ‘protege’ . I returned to Brisbane by air in a Fokker Friendship on Friday and then Mum and I went to Tugun on the Gold Coast where Jean and Colin had the use of a friend’s house on the edge of a lovely white sandy beach and the sea.

We spent most of the weekend on the beach and in the sea, the sand was so hot that we couldn’t walk in bare Fokker Friendship feet or lie down without some protection under and over. We did fit in a visit to a lovely bird sanctuary.

The following Friday I was on duty one day for the Toowoomba Show and on the Saturday we attended a function at Cromwell College, U.of Q. at St. Lucia, the training establishment for future Congregational Ministers. We were beginning to feel part of the community now and were made to feel that way by most people.

Our immediate neighbours were a retired American naval officer and his Australian wife and an Austrian refugee and his English wife who was the daughter of J.F.Wiseman, chairman of Birmingham 77

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City F.C., they had a pet wallaby. We had to adapt to the new currency, the very humid atmosphere, no light evenings in the summer, thirst, newspapers being thrown from the delivery van onto the front lawn even when wet. Mum learned to avoid the hot side seats on public transport, drive-in cinemas, the number of small stores that sold hot and cold snacks and cold drinks in addition to numerous small cafes in the city, people taking off their socks and shoes in heavy rain, and temperature extremes from the heat outside to the icy blasts from the air conditioning inside. I was impressed by the size of the ‘properties’, I knew of one sheep farm that stretched for 80 miles from one boundary to the other.

In May we attended the opening of some Old People’s flats at Wynham on the coast, under the auspices of our church. We had been very much involved serving on the responsible committees and working on the preparation of the site. etc.

Kenmore Pool

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In June Mick and Wendy came to spend a three week holiday with us and we were able to take them to all the local sites of interest.

We had several days by the sea at Shorncliffe and watched Australian Rules football, college rugby union, and rugby league international against England. I made myself known to the manager who was a great friend of one of the reps. who called on F.Sparrow and Sons and often gave us two tickets for the Rugby League final at Wembley.

Fiona developed appendicitis on July 3rd and Andrew and I had a day at Greenmount helping with repairs at the church holiday bungalows in the ‘sticks’. I was elected a deacon for the church and had one of several visits to cricket games in connection with my work. November began to warm up a bit and I have recordings on 3 consecutive days, in the shade, of 93, 98, 104 degrees. As Christmas approached Harold and I entertained some of our best clients e.g.

Military Staff.

We went to an unforgettable Carol concert at the City Hall where 600 children, Fiona was one of them, from primary and junior classes were singing. The girls were in white dresses and the boys in white shirts and dark trousers, they looked a picture en masse and sounded as good as they looked.

Doff and I were members of a committee formed by the churches of Ann Street to look after the welfare of the city’s homeless men.

There were a large number of them, mostly middle and old aged and many were ‘winos’ addicted to methylated spirits.We would take our turn on duty at their headquarters where refreshments and entertainment were laid on but it was a job to keep them from their bottle. Just before Christmas Doff and I were gardening and somehow I knocked a plank of wood which fell on Doff’s head and caused her to fall to the ground with a split head. We ‘phoned Colin and he came and did some stitching. On Christmas Day we went again to 79

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Brookfield for a swim and then back to Kenmore for the day. An eventful first full year down under, lots and lots of new experiences. mostly good, some not so good.

1969 The year 1969 started off with a period of storms. On 27th January, Australia Day, we all spent a day at Cunningham’s Gap. We found some unusual social customs, e.g. it was fine to attend services at the Church in open neck shirts but for social gatherings following evening service jackets and ties had to be worn. We had very little spare time, work was very busy and I did a lot of travelling and both of us were on several committees and Doff had her volunteer work with the U.N. all of which was rewarding. Holiday time was here again and we had decided to go north to the Sunshine Coast spending the first night at Mooloolaba and heading towards Nambour where the sugar cane trains run through the main street. We spent two nights in Noosa taking in the National Park and then to Nooseville where we found a comfortable Motel and booked in for the rest of the holiday. It overlooked the river where there was always plenty of fishing going on and in the middle of the river was an island inhabited by pelicans. These huge ungainly looking birds would wait until the fishermen had caught and gutted their fish and would then swoop down onto the water like a lot of seaplanes, load up their baggy beaks and take off for home.

We went to Noosa Heads to watch the surfing, to Peregian Beach for a swim and then to Sunshine Beach for more swimming. June was winter and although to us the temperature was better than we were accustomed to in summer I was always the sole occupant of the sea! On our second trip to Sunshine Beech I left Doff at the top of the cliff and was down below enjoying myself when I saw a man shouting and waving his arms about near the car and thought something had happened to Doff until I saw that he was pointing out to sea, and then the penny dropped - about 100 yards from where I was swim80

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ming there was a row of fins sticking up from the water - I was like a cork out of a bottle - they were sharks.

It was not all sunshine, we did have some rain but it didn’t interfere with us much and we were able to have some lovely walks, one day finding a dead turtle on the beach. At the end of our 3 week holiday we had a few days at home, gardening etc.

Despite the fact that we were happy enough in our activities and surroundings Doff was finding the weather a bit too much with the heat and humidity and the severity of the storms. We decided that we had better return to the U.K. and started making the necessary arrangements. Having come out by air and one of my ambitions being a long sea voyage, that was the mode of transport we settled on for our return. At the end of June I was able to book a cabin, No. C 73 on the P.& O. SS Orcades sailing from Sydney on 15th Dec. We carried on normally with our various jobs and recreations and learning something new all the time. On 30th Nov. we left 10, Stanley Terrace with a lot of regrets because we had both become fond of the place and it’s situation and frequently talk about it now. We moved in with Jean and family in Kenmore until our departure. Another baby was due at the beginning of December but Jean was determined that before going into hospital Sarah should have a good birthday on Dec.2nd, and she did although the icing and candles on the cake melted. Simon duly arrived on Dec.4th to give Andrew a brother to help stand up to 3 sisters!.all was well.

Colin had been busy in his spare time excavating by hand for the installation of a swimming pool with which I was able to help in the latter stages, and to enjoy it’s facilities on several occasions.

Return to the UK by sea On Sunday Dec. 14th after a dip in the pool and an early lunch Colin, Jean and Simon took us to the ‘bus station at North Quay and 81

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waiting there to see us off was Rev. Rees Thomas. We left at 1.30 p.m. for the 600 mile journey to Sydney and after stops for supper and an early morning cup of tea we arrived in Sydney at 7 a.m. After a leisurely breakfast at a nearby Cafe we took a taxi to the docks to the P.& O. berth, boarded the Orcades, We were safely installed in our very comfortable cabin and sailed at 12 noon into rough seas and a rather cool and rough night. However the next day the sea was calm, the sun was hot and we arrived at SS Orcades Melbourne at 1800 hr and spent that night and the next day there. We were able to go and have a look round the city.

Before proceeding any further on our journey I will tell you about our cabin and the facilities of what was to be our home for the next 5 weeks. The cabin was on the 3rd deck port side and was equipped with double tiered bunks, wardrobes, dressing table, chair, washbasin etc. a telephone, jug and glasses and a porthole. The toilets, showers and baths were just across the passage. The vessel was one class, most of the waiters were from Goa and were very good. It was a floating hotel with 2 dining rooms, 2 swimming pools, library and shops, cinemas, lounges inside and out side, post office and bank. The food was excellent with a good choice and there was evening entertainment, a daily news letter and a reminder as to when to change the time on watches as we travelled westwards.

We sailed from Melbourne at 2100 hrs. on the 17th and docked in Adelaide on the 18th at 2000hrs. We spent the morning of the 19th in Adelaide and sailed into a rough sea in the Bight leaving at 1400 hrs. The rough seas continued until we docked at Freemantle on Monday 22nd at 7.30 a.m. In the meantime we had, with our morn82

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ing tea served by our steward, a radiogram saying that Wendy had given birth to a son, Mark Andrew on the 21st. That meant we had 2 grandsons born within the space of 16 days. We looked round the port of Freemantle in the morning and then at 3 p.m. left to spend 9 days in the Indian Ocean before docking at Durban on 31st December. A group of children gave us a dancing display on the quayside, and although we were only there for a few hours we managed a trip ashore and for the first time saw apartheid in action. We went into a Post Office to buy some stamps and found the interior split into two, one side for whites and one for blacks and the policy was not to serve the blacks until all the whites had been served. Seeing this sort of thing in action was horrifying but we were to see worse in Cape Town.

We left the port at 1900 hrs and sailed off into 1970. And so along the coast of South Africa where I stood on deck in the darkness trying to imagine what was going on in some of the more isolated parts of the coastal strip. The isolation of that trip across the Indian Ocean (only 1 other ship seen, and that was going in the opposite direction) was an unforgettable experience with glorious sunrises and sunsets. We crossed in warm and sunny weather until we ran into rough seas round the Cape of Good Hope and berthed at 09.15 on 3rd January with a wonderful view of Table Mountain. Air travel is so much quicker but oh what you miss!!! In the afternoon of that day we had a lovely scenic tour along the coast to Hut Bay with afternoon tea en route.

Here again we were to see apartheid with bathing beaches marked White and Table Mountain 83

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Black. We ventured forth into the city on our own at night, saw part of the Mardi Gras Festival and the lights on top of Table Mountain with illuminated cable cars going up and down - fascinating my diary says. We were due to sail at 1300 hrs. on 3rd Jan. so in the morning we took ourselves into the city to see what it was like in daylight and to do some shopping. In the middles of all this I was stricken suddenly with a severe tummy upset so you can imagine what it was like looking for a toilet in a strange place in ever increasing desperation. To my great relief I did find one but only to be turned away because it was for Blacks only! My coloured friend directed me to the right (Whites) nearby but only just in the nick of time. Some experience to remember a great city by!! I must have made a good recovery because that evening, on board and at sea again, we saw ‘Mary Poppins’ at the cinema, participated in ‘What’s my Line’ and went to the Old Tyme Dance! We were now travelling well off the African Coast en route to Senegal and at various times we were 400 miles off St. Helena and 600 miles off Ascension Island, and of course on the Atlantic Ocean. We were now being accompanied by flying fish and other strange maritime creatures. The weather was glorious and our entertainment included swimming sports, ship’s concert, Scottish dancing and on the 8th January we crossed the equator with the traditional King Canute’s Court ceremony.This day was marred by a tragedy when a 5 week old baby was found suffocated in it’s cot.

We berthed at Dakar in Senegal at 1300 hrs. on the 10th. Here we were greeted by numerous colourful stalls manned by the natives selling fruit, souvenirs etc. accompanied by the beating of the tomtoms and other, not very musical instruments. We also saw the Muslims at the hour of prayer when one man selling beautiful rugs, grabbed one from his stall and took up his appointed place on the Quayside and used the mat for his prayer session. In the evening we had a rare treat when the real African Ballet came on board and gave 84

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us a marvellous show, bare bosoms and all! We sailed in the early hours of the next morning, bound for Lisbon.

The weather was getting cooler and showery and it was like that when we berthed at Lisbon at 0700 hrs. on the 14th. We had a look around the city on our own in the morning and in the Sintra afternoon we had a coach trip along the coast to Estoril and then inland through the countryside to Sintra where we were able to look round an old castle.

We sailed at midnight for Rotterdam and sunbathing was now out of the question! The seas were rough and there was a gale force wind blowing,we were in the Bay of Biscay. Ropes were put round the decks for handholds and there were plenty of empty places at mealtimes. We eventually arrived in Rotterdam at 09.15, two and a half hours late. We were fog bound all day finally sailing at 22.00 hrs., 9 hrs. late. This delay was going to cause us all problems at Southampton, those who were being met by relatives and those who like us were catching trains with connections in London. The fog had cleared by the time we berthed at 1400 hrs. 18th Jan. but there were more problems ahead, we were in the middle of a labour dispute with the dock workers and had to sort and unload our own luggage.

By the time we had cleared customs we just managed to catch the train to Waterloo, taxi to Liverpool St. where we left at 17.30 for Ipswich. A taxi from the station to Mick’s in Westerfield, time 21.20 hours! Quite a memorable end to 5 weeks of luxury and learning, and weatherwise a complete change from Queensland and hot December to Suffolk in cold and bleak January. But, another new grandson to see !

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Back in England again Mick was on a week’s holiday so on the Monday we had another Xmas Day celebration with all the trimmings and during that week he took us to Needham to see Clifford and Ciss, and neighbours and to look at our old home. We had Ciss over on one occasion and also Ruth and Ted from Chelmondiston. We went to look at 71 Heath Road and the next few days were spent in Ipswich shopping and preparing Heath Road for our occupancy. On Saturday 31st Jan. I purchased an old Morris Minor traveller and this was to be our mode of transport for the next few weeks. It proved to be an ideal vehicle for our purposes as we moved bits and pieces from Needham to Westerfield, to Heath Road and then to Frinton. Mum often says even now that was her favourite vehicle. And it cost £ 75. We moved into Heath Road on Feb. 4th having moved our furniture, with the help of Jack Ansell and our lorry, from Needham the previous day.

There was plenty to do here in the way of odd repairs and decoration and of course the garden. We went to Alan Road Methodist Church as well as Bethesda and St. Andrews Churches. Doff had a severe bout of sciatica in March and was laid up for several days in great pain. We had put Heath Road and Needham on the market and had made up our minds to go and look for a new home for ourselves in the Swanage area which we did on the last day of March. We spent the next day on April 1st looking around properties in the middle of a snowstorm, almost unheard of in these parts. One day was enough for us to decide that this part of the country was not for us because of its hilly nature and the lack of anything to suit our pockets! Our next house hunting expedition led us to Walton-on-Naze, Frinton, Holland and Clacton.

After one or two further sorties we eventually purchased “Berryhead”, Elm Tree Ave., Frinton-on-Sea moving there on Friday July 31st, it was fine and hot. In the meantime Colin and Jean were 86

The Diaries of Russell James Sparrow 1908 to 1991 Berryhead 1971

negotiating the sale of our house in Taringa and this of course involved letters, cables, telegrams etc. We had settled the sale of our Needham home but it was left to Mick to complete the sale of 71, Heath Road. While in Ipswich I had applied for job with Wallace Cameron, Industrial Chemists and after an interview I secured the job as a rep. covering the whole of Essex. I started work on Monday 17th August.

Another venture had begun! We soon joined the Free Church and the choir. Doff joined the Women’s Fellowship Choir and at one time was the conductor. I eventually became a Deacon of the church with the specific job of looking after the fabric of the buildings. We renewed our acquaintance with Stuart and Doris Hunt (Needham) and once we were established exchanged visits fairly frequently. ( Later addition by Jean. They were Quakers and on one visit to Frinton from Canada we went to Clacton Meeting with them.) I made the most of the bathing facilities available and had a dip in the ‘briny’ nearly every day in the season. Lots of visits to and from family and friends, and some good walks. As far as the job, it was another new experience and enabled me to see Essex from the small hamlets on the coast and Clacton Meeting House 87

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inland to the larger towns like Colchester and Chelmsford, up to the fringe of the metropolis to include Ilford and Romford, even to the murky places on the Thames estuary. Good days, bad days, car breakdowns, all went to make the life of a rep. frustrating but interesting The year ended with the electricians striking nation wide with power cuts at all sorts of times and the accompanying state of emergency called.

1971 And so into a new year when in January the Post Office workers thought they would have a go and thus caused all sorts of inconvenience especially to my firm who expected their reps to send in their orders to Glasgow every day. We overcame this by saving orders for a week and then taking them to a collection point for eventual collection. I was involved in this on 4 Saturdays, collecting from Colchester and taking to Ipswich and on one occasion to Cambridge.

Doff went to see Mr. Dunn in Colchester about her troublesome knees and he recommended physiotherapy. Fortunately there was a good physiotherapist in Frinton and Doff had rewarding treatment there for a few weeks. I finished by mutual agreement with Wallace Cameron on Oct. 18th and after a short period of unemployment I made contact with a firm, Megafoam, specialists in cavity wall insulation and started with them on Dec. 20th. Jane, a sister for Mark, was born on Dec. 18th.

1972 There were more power cuts as well as a coal strike. In March I had several separate days on the Megafoam stand at the Ideal Home Exhibition at Olympia leaving by train at 8.45 a.m. and returning home again at 10 p.m. A similar experience to the one I had with Premier Blinds in Brisbane but on a much larger scale. I worked in this field until the end of April and decided to leave because of a break away branch set up in Colchester and the manager and I didn’t see eye to eye! Fortunately I had seen a job advertised for a position 88

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as Clerk of Works with Frinton and Walton U.D.C. and I decided to “have a go”. I was rewarded with an interview on 18th May, got the job and started work on 22nd May supervising work on renovations and improvements to Council houses in the area. Russell Sparrow was now on the ‘ other side of the fence’, having in the past, on occasions, been pestered by and expected to ‘Kow Tow’ to ogres bearing the same title of Clerk of Works. Jean and Colin and family came over for a holiday in April, from Canada, having moved there the previous year. The Queen and Prince Phillip celebrated their Silver Wedding anniversary, there was a newspaper strike and some of the athletes in the Olympic village in Munich were assassinated by Palestinian gunmen. Mick was able to get a place in the Teacher’s Training College at Brentwood so they sold the bungalow and bought a house in Brentwood.

1973 At the end of April we spent a weekend with Lynn and David and during our stay paid a visit to Paul Whitehead who lived very close to the Keens. That year I had a few problems with my chest and went to see Mr. Greene in Colchester in May who sent me for an x-ray. On my next visit, to ascertain the outcome, I pointed out the peculiar way my fingernails were changing colour and texture. I was referred to other local specialists and finally to St. John’s Hospital for Skin Diseases in Soho, London. I was informed that I was a rarity, one of a handful of sufferers in the world with a rare complaint or disease called Yellow Nail Syndrome, of which nothing was known, cause or cure! But they would give me what treatment they could and hope! I would periodically lose my nails, develop chest and sinus problems already in progress, the whole drainage system of my body would be affected giving rise to swollen ankles etc. all of which has unfortunately proved correct. The treatment consisted of taking tablets and having my fingers and thumbs drilled or injected powerfully in 2 places just below the nails. As Eric Morecombe used 89

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to say ‘not a pretty sight’. However after 20 visits over a period of time and terminating on 3rd Sept. 1975 I was told quite frankly that nothing else could be done and so that was that.

We were by now fully involved into the life in Frinton, Doff was very active with the Trefoil Guild (old members of the Girl Guides), W.I., and the Church Women’s Fellowship and we were of course both involved with the Church choir. Like other jobs mine was not always a bed of roses and I had some pretty queer clients to deal with I can tell you. All the work on the renovations was drawing to a close which is what I was employed to oversee, full stop; but the Council asked me to take on a similar job on a fairly big contract, also in Walton, for a new Old People’s Home with up to date materials, bricks, door and window frames etc. etc. Everything was metric and here the fun and games really began in earnest.

1974 Wendy went down with back trouble and Doff went to Brentwood for several weeks to keep house and I soldiered on in Frinton going to Brentwood at weekends.

Doff came home on March 10th and shortly after that we both suffered a severe attack of ‘flu. I 90

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retired on March 29th and so became a gentleman of leisure. On 3rd March there was a terrible air crash in Paris killing 345 people.

Visit to Canada On August 24th we set off to see Jean and family in Canada.

We had a very good flight in a comfortable Jumbo with plenty of good food and drinks and Jean and Colin were there to meet us.

Fortunately the next day was Sunday and we were all able to have a lazy day. In the afternoon Colin took us to Sunnybrook Park where I was surprised to see cricket, football and rugby in progress on a sunny and hot day. Jean and Colin had a very comfortable and spacious home in Willowdale with a very modern shopping precinct within easy reach. It was in a delightful situation on the edge of a ravine through which the children were wont to take a short cut to school. Black squirrels and racoons visited the garden as well as skunks although these were not often seen although sometimes smelled! One racoon which we called Charlie would come up to the house every day for a feed of marshmallows. Jean and Colin’s neighbours were Marg and Geoff Wigzell and they welcomed us with drinks and refreshments soon after we arrived. Geoff and I had several walks together along the ravine. We had 9 weeks there from 25th August to 22nd October and during that time we experienced extremes of weather from very hot to cold and frosty, even some snow. We saw the grandeur of the trees in autumn and the beauty of the Lakes and visited many parks as well as Black Creek Pioneer Village and Ontario Place. We had a weekend with the Quakers at Camp Neekaunis including a visit to St. Marie among The Hurons, 91

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spent two days touring Algonquin Park, Rambling Falls and a night in The Sunset Motel, Huntsville.

Another trip to Niagara Falls passing through vineyards and peach orchards but it was so crowded because of the Bank Holiday that it was impossible to go under “The Falls’. Two days before we came home Colin, Jean, Simon and I went there again and I was able to go ‘under’ and also cross the Bridge into the U.S.A. Tea with the Gardiners, a visit to the Balcombes when they were trying to clean their cat after an encounter with a skunk, what a pong!!.

I did several odd jobs around the house and on several occasions went into town by myself, travelling in with Colin and sometimes returning with him, or underground and bus. I was able to watch work on the C.N.Tower in progress, see City Hall, Parliament Buildings, churches, Yonge Street, the longest in the world, Lakeside etc.

Also up to the 57th floor of the Bank Building with its shopping complex underneath. While I was there I visited Martin Blake, son of church organist in Frinton, who was in the office of the Business Research and Market Development Dept. on the 5th floor.

We were still there for Thanksgiving when we had the traditional turkey and Pecan Pie, and the Hunters joined us for the day.

We had had a wonderful holiday which ended on Tuesday 22nd October when Jean took us to the airport for a 6.50 p.m. take-off. An uneventful flight which landed at Gatwick at 6.10 a.m.

The C.N.Tower, Toronto

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local time. We caught a train to Victoria, taxi to Aldgate and a bus to Brentwood. Had a good night’s rest , loaded Mick’s Mini and set off for Frinton. Unfortunately we didn’t get far because the suspension on the car collapsed, too much good Canadian food! maybe. A taxi and train from Shenfield and we arrived home at 4.30 p.m. Back to routine and the problem of finding somewhere for Ciss, (Doff’s sister) to live as she felt she couldn’t carry on in Needham. A Home was found in Frinton and she said that she would try it. We spent Christmas with Mick and family.

1975 Mild and foggy weather to start the year..I treated myself to a good second-hand cycle which I found extremely useful and enjoyable. We visited Ciss 2 or 3 times a week and sometimes she went with Doff to her various afternoon meetings. After a good look around for another car I eventually purchased the famous Morris 1100, MOO 106J, on 13th March.

On the 14th we went to Brentwood for the weekend and Mick came back with us on the Sunday evening and took the Singer Gazelle back to B’wood for his use.

Jean and Colin, Sarah and Simon came back to this country for a holiday from May 1st to 16th and came to stay with us for a few days on the 9th, to be joined the next day by Mick and family for lunch. Simon went down with Chicken Pox which of course spoilt his holiday and deprived him of one or two trips to London.

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We had been discussing whether or not we should make a move away from the East coast finding Frinton a bit exposed in the winter, so decided to have a holiday somewhere which we thought would be a good place for another home. We settled on Hereford having spent 2 happy weekends there during the war when I was stationed at Madley and were smitten by a trip we made to Hay on the Wye. We stayed for a week in a guest house and had a jolly good look around but didn’t see anything that suited us.

In July Heather came over to England on her own and after a few days with Lynn and David they brought her over to see us. We took her out and about and then to stay with Mick and family for a few days before flying back to Canada on Aug.7th. Still no luck with house hunting but nevertheless decided to put our house on the market.

1976 House Hunting Gales and high tides were prevalent and lots of damage sustained. The much publicised Concorde went into service. In May Mick was successful in obtaining a teaching post at St. Joseph’s College, Ipswich. June came in with a heatwave and on the Sunday (27th) Frinton was filled to overflowing with cars. A drought followed and this included an invasion by ladybirds, they were everyThe Concorde where, all along the seawalls, houses, gardens, shops and all over you when you came out of the sea and tried to dry off on the beach. At the end of the month we went on another house hunting exhibition to Evesham, Upton-on Severn and Malvern where we stayed for the night. We decided to 94

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stay on for another night and then went on to Stow-on-the Wold, and then on to Winchcombe, Stoney Stratford and Bedford where we spent the night. Went on to Gt. Barford for the last night calling in at Cambridge, Sawston etc. stopping for supper at the White Hart, Yeldham and arriving back in Frinton at 9p.m. having covered 656 miles for nowt!

Mick started work at St. Joseph’s on Sept.7th staying with us during the week and going home to Brentwood at the weekends. We sold the house on 28th Sept. Now we were really up a gum tree with nowhere to go, so on 4th Oct., the day Mick and family moved to Felixstowe we were off again, this time back to the Cambridge area.

The next morning we went back to St. Neots where we were told of a property just on the market in St. Ives so off we went and for the first time in all our journeys we saw what we both felt was what we had been looking for at no. 22, Oak Tree Close, made a bid, had lunch in St. Ives and went home highly delighted after another trip of 250 miles making a total of over 2000 miles.

1977 Moving to St Ives Over to St. Ives to make final arrangements. The next fortnight was spent making the usual arrangements and on Sunday 16th January at the close of the evening service we were invited to stay behind in the choir vestry where the members presented us with refreshments and an ornament of a Cardinal bird, (foretelling the future when we would see these birds in their natural surroundings).

We moved on 19th Jan. and the next few weeks were spent finding our way around and trying out various churches,and inevitably rearranging the garden, digging up part of the lawn for a vegetable 95

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patch. We were taken into membership of the Free Church on June 5th.

On June 15th Andrew came over on his own spending his time with us and the Keens. I met him at Huntingdon station and after a few days with us I took him to Felixstowe for a few days with Mick and family and he returned to us by train to Cambridge where I met him, a few more days with us and then back to the Keens on July 8th.

Andrew returned home to Canada on July 14th.

In September it was our turn for a holiday and we went to spend time with the Welsh side of the family. Graham and Margaret, Ciss and Alec, Phyllis and Bernard and while there Colin and Marie called to visit Graham. We returned home on Sept.

10th and 2 days later had a ‘phone call to say that Ciss and Alec’s son (a tree surgeon) fell, and was killed. Viv and Willy brought Ettie to stay with us for a week and when we returned her we then stayed with Viv and Willy. We were becoming more involved in life in St. Ives when I joined the local Civic Society and Friends of the Museum.

Mum joined the W.I. 1978 A thunderstorm on Jan. 3rd which caused severe damage in Newmarket and district. I became more active in Church work but when they asked for volunteers to help redecorate I went St. Ives Free Church

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along but said nothing about previous experience in the building trade! I leant a hand with cleaning, painting and what have you, but be sure your sins will find you out. Some of the members had been discussing the work and I suppose it was obvious from my approach that I was not a complete amateur. Enquiries had been made through someone who was in touch with the Taylors in Needham and all was revealed! Mum was appointed treasurer to the thriving Playgroup.

Ipswich reached the final of the F.A. cup for the first time. We had a week in Eastbourne and the journey there was an anxious one for me as Ipswich were playing against Arsenal in the Cup Final at Wembley, and we had no radio in the car. Thank goodness my mind was put to rest as we travelled through Croydon. Fixed to some railings high up on the embankment was, what looked like a bed sheet bearing the message “Arsenal 0 Ipswich 1!”

Eunice and Clifford had two grandsons, to Caroline and Philip on June 18th, and to Judith and Barry on July 8th. Our Church choir belonged to the Royal School of Church Music and after various practices we had the great privilege of singing as part of a choir of 500 voices in King’s College Chapel, Cambridge. In October we experienced our first Church Weekend and went to Hengrave House, near Bury St. Edmunds. In the middle of the month Jean came over by herself having visited the Keens first and stayed with us for 2 weeks going back on the 28th Oct.. The wintry weather continued into early December and on the first of the month the river was frozen over in parts. We were away for Xmas in Felixstowe and on our way back called to see Ciss at Wade House only to hear that she had died very suddenly, Christopher and John were dealing with all arrangements.

1979 On Friday, 9th January we said our fond farewells to Ciss at Ipswich Crematorium. After the service Mum and I went to have lunch with John and Brenda before returning home. Doff had a spell in bed in the middle of the month but on 1st Feb. she had her first 97

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outing for 3 weeks to Bar Hill near Cambridge. The snow cleared and we had severe flooding especially in East Anglia followed by more frosts and snow, so heavy that on the 15th several places were cut off including Felixstowe. On the 17th all sporting events were cancelled.

In March we visited Felixstowe to see Jayne in a dancing display (very good but a bit lengthy). More snow and floods later in the month.

In April Colin, Jean, Fiona, Andrew and Simon visited U.K. and came to stay with us on May 3rd returning to Canada May 12th. In June Heather and Sarah came over by themselves and we met them at Huntingdon Station. We all went to Felixstowe to see Mark in Oliver Twist and H.and S. went back to Felixstowe later to spend a few days with Mick and family. In October Mark went to Canada to stay with the Keens and Heather who was living with Sue and Garry came to visit us for a few days and then we took her back and visited Lynn and David, (the Whiteheads), 2 nights with Muriel, and then a weekend at Charlwood. The year was drawing to a close and it had been a busy one but there was more to come. I was delivering Meals on Wheels to some of the villages and also taking people to and from the Day Care Centre in the Church Hall. We had Xmas with Mick and family.

1980 Doff and I continued with our usual activities, the weather was seasonal. In May Jean and Colin and family, except Fiona moved from Toronto to Cardiff where Colin had a new appointment at Velindre Hospital. The longest spell of continuous sun since 1933 was recorded this month. The coldest ever day was recorded on 1st July. Our Minister had been a member of the Iona community and was keen that a party from St. Ives should go there. A party of 20 was made up including myself and members of our church as well as members from the Anglican Church and the Roman Catholic Church. On Aug. 8th Jean and Colin collected Doff to go and stay 98

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with them while I was away. Six of us travelled in a Ford Estate and after stopping for lunch arrived in Oban at 7.30 p.m. The next morning we went by ferry to Mull, then a ‘bus and finally a short ferry ride to Iona. We had a happy week together with a similar party from Bristol enjoying a programme of services in the Abbey, discussion groups, walking, swimming (it was mighty cold) a Ceilidh, a party with some young people in their hostel close by. We returned on the following Saturday arriving home at 10.15 p.m. and after a good night’s sleep I left by car to find my way to Cardiff to stay a few days and then to bring Doff home on the Wednesday, after an enjoyable break seeing the Keens’ new home and a bit of S.Wales.

We continued to be very busy raising funds and then preparing for the opening of the new Church Centre on Sept.27th. It was a lovely event and all went according to plan with representatives from all the denominations and organisations to be involved in the activities of the new centre. Uncle Percy died on 29th Sept. a few days before his 100th birthday, Doff and I went to the funeral which was conducted by my cousin, his son, Rev. Bernard Seaton (nee Sparrow) now a big-wig in the Seventh Day Adventists in America. On Nov. 13th we went to stay with Jean and family in readiness for our Golden Anniversary on the 15th and we had a wonderful time, Mick and Wendy and the children came by train, the whole family was there except Fiona and she ‘phoned from Canada. On 25th the Church put on a party for us. We went to Jean’s for Christmas and went to a Carol concert in Llandaff Cathedral Golden Wedding 1980

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where long ago Grandad had been in charge of installing a new organ. A happy and memorable year for which we were extremely grateful.

1981 The first London Marathon was run on Sunday March 29th.

The rest of the year church activities continued as usual and also Meals on Wheels. In July Andrew and Heather visited for a few days.

Clifford was very ill in October and was admitted to hospital. Christmas this year was spent in Felixstowe with Mick. On the whole a quiet year.

1982 Turned out to be an even quieter year but with some unwelcome news, too old to be insured to deliver Meals on wheels!

1983 Apart from visits to and from family the year was quiet. Jean went to Canada for Andrew’s 21st birthday. Christmas was spent in Felixstowe.

1984 More happening this year! In January the church organised a weekend at Hengrave, nr. Bury St Edmunds.

In August developed cellulitis which meant an ambulance and a few days stay in hospital, put in Geriatric ward! In September flight to Toronto with 100

St Ives 1985

The Diaries of Russell James Sparrow 1908 to 1991

Jane, Lynn and Sue. September 14th Fiona married Michael Browning, a great day with families and friends. Doff had stayed with her cousin Ruth in Chelmondiston. Flew back home on the 19th. Another visit to hospital and put straight to bed, discharged on Oct. 3rd.

Travelled to Radyr (Cardiff) to spend Christmas with Jean and family.

1985 Jan. 1st. Mick with Mark and Jane arrived in Radyr for a few days. Jan. 3rd. returned home.

On the 11th Clifford was admitted to Addenbrooks Hospital where he stayed for a week.

Family and friends visit throughout the year including a visit from Fiona and Michael and Andrew in June. Another trip to Radyr for Christmas, Dec. 24th - Jan.3rd.

1986 In January Cyril Whitehead died.

Jean and Colin went to Canada for two weeks in April.

In May Mick visited with Sue and Lisa, her daughter.

Sept. 21st Heather returned to Canada.

1986 More happening this year as the decision to move is made.

House in St. Ives put on the market and after much house hunting a bungalow was found in Mildenhall and the move was made on July 10th, six days after Doff’s 80th birthday.

Ettie (Ethel) Doff’s sister died on Sept. 24th aged 87 years.

In December Jean and Colin flew to Toronto to spend Christmas with the family there.

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1988 Travelled to Radyr with Mick, Jane and Mark for Heather’s marriage to Derek.

Very sadly on June 14th Eunice ‘phoned to say that Clifford had died suddenly.

Jean and Colin arrived for Clifford’s funeral on 23rd at Creeting church.

In July visits to hospital for chest Xray etc.

Mick cycled from Lands End to John O’Groats in July.

Jean and Colin arrive for holiday. Colin drove us to visit Cotton, Buxton, Wyverstone and Onehouse, home of earlier generations.

In August Sue’s father died suddenly.

September 21st

80 years old.

In November Connie Race, childhood friend of Doff’s, died.

1989 Surprise!. Jack Bloom “phoned. He was Best man at wedding of Russell and Dorothy and no contact for many years.

Doff unwell in February, a lot of pain, ? shingles. Jean phoned from Toronto to spread the good news of Christopher’s birth on the 26th March. Returned home on May 1st.

In Sept. able to go to church with Doff, first time since Jan. for various reasons.

Oct.13th, to Newmarket hospital for biopsy of small growth on head

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Fiona and Christopher coming over for a visit, Jean brought them here to spend a night with us., 30th.

More trouble with leg.

Christmas in Felixstowe.

1990 Jan. 18th, appointment at Addenbrookes, Doff regular visits to Bury hospital.

Feb 3rd. Visit to Radyr with Mick, Mark and Jane in Mick’s car.

Feb. 4th Sarah and Neil marry in church in Radyr.

Diamond Wedding 1990

March 11th to Addenbrooks for op. home 13th,removal of growth and skin graft from thigh, back for removal of dressings on 23rd.

Family and friends visit regularly through the months.

In September Jean and Colin go to Canada for two weeks.

November 17th Family gathering in Mildenhall (at home) for Diamond wedding anniversary.

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1991, Winding Down Jan. 26th, Jean and Colin visit for weekend, Sarah and Neil for quick visit.

Feb, 4th. Colin rang to say that his mother (Lynn) was in hospital following a stroke and was very ill.

Feb.25th Jean left for Canada (just in time) as Heather went into labour more or less as soon as J. arrived. Jamie was born on 26th.

Stomach pain all day.

27th. G.P. called, ? bowel problems in bed until after tea.

28th -March 5th. Feeling under the weather for a good week, visited G.P. March 7th Doff rang Colin and on the 8th G.P. called, Xray next Wednesday.

March 9th Colin left to go to Canada to meet Jamie and to come back with Jean.

March 13th, Newmarket Hospital, stomach Xray 12.30-4.15.

What a day! Not the sort of day out that I would recommend!

March 14th, after a shaky start a day with some good food at last.

March 15th, made an effort to go shopping and arrived home whacked, back to square one.

March 16th, in bed until 4 p.m. and feeling very disappointed, again not much food, getting very skeletal.

March 22nd, colonoscopy which shows a small growth which means an operation, home at 4.30. Doff rang Mick, Sarah rang. On the 28th Mick arrived to help with shopping and to cut lawns. Jean back home from Canada not knowing that I had been taken ill, Doff didn’t want to tell her while she was away with Heather, 104

The Diaries of Russell James Sparrow 1908 to 1991

April 2nd, admitted to Newmarket Hospital and on the 3rd I was treated to all sorts of attention from various departments, Jean visited 3.15 - 5p.m. April 4th , ‘puffer’ treatment, physiotherapy, chest Xrays.

April 5th Dr Faiz had contacted Colin to discuss the situation, Mick visited the next two days April 9th

Operation day

April 13th still on water and fruit juice, Jean arrived from Cardiff and she and Mick visited.

April 19th HOME Jean collected me at 11a.m., good to be home, garden looks a picture.

April 20th Colin arrived for a visit having taken Simon back to Birmingham Uni. April 22nd, Colin left and Val, Mrs Brown, home help, came to introduce herself, to come daily except for weekends. Friends and family visits throughout.

June 27th, Lynn had died, funeral July 3rd.

July 11th, Violet Whitehead died.

July 13th, Simon’s graduation.

July 31st. Went for a ride in Jean’s car, chance for a chat, now on Steroids.

August Andrew over from Canada to visit, flew into Stanstead.

August 19th, feeling very groggy so stayed in bed all day, nurse called.

August 22nd, Jean, Colin, Fiona and Christopher arrived for Jayne’s wedding on 24th.

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R.A.F. postings Sept. 1941 to November 1945 Applied to join the R.A.F. 8.8.1940 Went to Uxbridge for medicals and efficiency tests which I passed but could not be sworn in because somebody had forgotten to clear me from a reserved occupation. Back to Uxbridge on 11.11.1940 to be sworn in and then became 1271516 A/C Sparrow u.t WOP/A.G. Aircrew were not being used up to the extent that was anticipated so it was not until 21.6.1941 that I went to Blackpool to start my training.

1. Blackpool: 2. Yatesbury:

June to Sept. 1941 Oct. 1941 to Jan.1942

3. Marham:

Jan. 8th to April 1942

4. Cranford, nr. Framlingham July 8th back to Marham where I got my clearance 5. Madly nr. Hereford

July to Sept. 3rd 1942

6. Evanton on Cromarty Firth, Scotland Sept. to Oct. 1942 Promotion to Sgt. and a few days leave, back to Evanton to be told that I was to stay there as an instructor.

7. Manby, Lincs. for an instructors course of 5 weeks Back to Evanton in December, (Still in Evanton, Doff and the children joined me in July 1943). ( 1943 promoted to Flt. Sgt.) 106

The Diaries of Russell James Sparrow 1908 to 1991

8. Bardney, Lincs for a few weeks Operations attachment to No.9 Squadron 9. Bishops Court, 30 miles from Belfast (nearest village Ballyhornan) commission, P.O.Sparrow and a few days leave and then back to Ireland for 2 weeks.

10. Credenhill. Hereford for a preparations course for the Far East.

Back to Ireland 11. Ashbourne, Derby Dec. 19th 12. Tilstock, Salops for a short stay 13. Sleep nr. Shrewsbury (within cycling distance of Chirk!)

May 1945 end of war in Europe 14. Saltby nr. Melton Mowbray 15. Matching Green, Essex 16. Gt. Dunmow, 190 Squadron A visit to Oslo, (on the return they had to send out a Mayday signal), another to Athens, a trip to Lubeck, another to Palestine calling in at Malta and Tel Aviv, 2 trips to Holland.

Demobbed, finally got home on 30.11 1945.

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6

9 1

11

12 13

7

14

3 16 15

10 5 2

108

8

4

Michael James Sparrow

Jean Heather Sparrow

Eva Sparrow 1884 -

Anna Maria ?

1850 -

Percy Sparrow 1881 - 1980

Clifford Francis Sparrow 1922 - 1988

Francis Sparrow 1878 - 1966

Russell James Sparrow 1907 - 1999

Family Tree

Dorothy Offord b.1907 - 1999

Maud Mahala Denny 1877 - 1965

1851 - 1919

Eldred Elgar Sparrow

The Diaries of Russell James Sparrow 1908 to 1991

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The Diaries of Russell James Sparrow 1908 to 1991

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