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The Shipwreck.

Many years ago I was evacuated to Whitstable in Kent, I was told to go and play and be home by midday for my lunch. Off I went just following the road. The road ended and what looked like an alley way more or less looked inviting. I walked down the alleyway and came to the beach. Whitstable has a pebble beach and to my great delight I saw the hulk of a ship that had been washed ashore by a storm. This was too much of a good thing for a boy and I climbed onto the ships deck. My imagination ran wild with me I was now Captain of this ship later I told myself I was a Pirate. I spent many happy hours on this old wreck. No one else took any notice of the shipwreck and I was the master of my new domain.

Nothing had been left on the shipwreck it was just a timbered hulk but it was my playground and I spent hours on board. Sadly the masts had been taken off for firewood I had no crow’s nest to climb into. Below decks the tides had slowly filled the bottom of the shipwreck with pebbles. I had to be careful of the tides some weeks the tide came in, in the afternoons others in the mornings. On the days that it rained I spent my time below decks shifting with an old shovel that I had found the pebbles looking for hidden treasures that might be have been forgotten. All that I found was an old broken knife and what was left of an old paraffin lamp. The glass of the lamp was broken but the wick was still useable and to my joy some paraffin was left in the lamp. I now had the means of lighting my new playground.

From some of the old wooden beams I made myself a comfortable room against the hulks sidewall. Here I put all that I found on the beach in the way of flotsam and jetsam for safekeeping. Pieces of old fishnets and special pebbles with holes in them and the flat pebbles that I collected to skim across the surface of the sea. I once threw a pebble that hit the water’s surface nine times before it sank. They were happy days until the British Army moved in and to keep a watch for invasion troops from the enemy. I was not allowed to go to my wreck again. I my next move was to South Wales. All of the evacuees were sent by train across country to Cardiff. Here we changed trains and the local train from Cardiff took us to a place called Tonyrefail. Tonyrefail was a mining town here there was no beaches no shipwrecks but a lovely countryside. Now I spent my time exploring this new area.

Now I spent my time in the countryside. I had no end of trees to climb. Fruits such as blackberries were mine to collect and sell three pence for a large jar of blackberries. In season hazel nuts were to be collected and Sold. I now had pocket money. It was here that I bought myself a cigarette lighter. I collected dried wood and made a small fire. Potatoes I baked and eat. I walked many a mile as a young boy and was as fit as a fiddle as the saying goes.

In Whitstable I had witnessed a few of the air battles in the skies, listened to the firing of the anti aircraft guns with their loud bangs. The black out and the darkness of the evenings were ideal for a young lad. Now here in the so-called safety of the Welsh Valleys were many Soldiers from all over, American GI.s, Free French troops and many more from all over the European continent. Not so far away was the town of Swansea this was attacked by the German Bombers. One of the German Bombers dropped its bombs to gain height and a mine on a parachute was dropped over Tonyrefail. It blew off one of the huge winding wheels that let the cages down to the pit floor that brought up the coal from below.

Nearly all of the boys from Tonyrefail were out the next day looking for Parachute silk. I myself found a long piece of silk cord. The silk and any shrapnel that was found should have been handed over to the Authorities. My silk cord, well I took off my shirt and vest and wrapped the cord around my body putting on the vest and shirt afterwards it was well hidden and I took it home with me. I used it sometimes as a skipping rope and sometimes as the reins when we played horses. Not all of the war days were bad for a healthy young boy and I often look back on them as some of the happiest days of my life. Bern