AAX                        Cousins Radio in Station Road Bexhill

While I was pushing a delivery bike around Bexhill, Mrs Kemp got me a job at Cousins Radio in Station Road Bexhill.  It was about the time of The Battle of Britain and the south coast had occasional bombs and other enemy forays.

I was formally indentured as an apprentice at Cousins.  Mr Cousins had one employee, a fellow of about fifty, I imagine.  He was a pleasant character and gave me a battery radio complete with an exponential-horn loudspeaker.  It would be worth o bob or two now!   You know the type, it was used by HMV as their logo with the dog "nipper" sitting alongside the speaker listening to  "His Master's Voice" (which is what HMV stood for).

I have to admit that  was not the brightest kid on the block.  I imagine I connected something up wrongly because the  radio worked for a while and then failed.  This chap should have given me a bit of tuition, but I just got the radio to learn the hard way.  I remember listening to Lord Haw Haw and hearing that Bexhill Harbour had been destroyed.  That was the first that we in Bexhill knew there was a  harbour !

In the shop there was a sort of shelter that Cousins' girl friend and I were shepherded into whenever the siren went --  which was quite often.  Thinking back, had a bomb landed on the open side of the shelter, we both would have been killed.  It would survive the roof falling in, but little else.  I reckon that many so-called shelters were simply a fraud.  Street shelters around Twickenham had a nine-inch concrete roof, but the brickwork was trash as it was possible to remove bricks by using a piece of stick to scrape out the mortar.  A nearby bomb would remove the brickwork allowing the concrete roof to fall in on the occupants.  The best shelter was under the stairs in a conventional house.

It was at Cousins that I first used the telephone.  Both Mr Cousins and his employee were out of the shop and the phone rang.  With trepidation I answered it to tell the lady that I was on my own in the shop.  I didn't take her number, or anything (twit), I just waffled and was probably thought of a a nitwit by the lady.  As I said, I wasn't the brightest of youngsters.

I was asked to get some battery acid from the glass container.  I discovered that the tap was one of those that fitted into the main container with a ground-glass type of seal.  The tap came away in my hand and acid poured all over the floor.  Normal strength (1.25 specific gravity) acid is not that dangerous provided that you wash it off your skin.  I now know that I should have promptly pushed the ground spigot back into the main body, but I panicked and about a gallon of acid ended up on the floorboards.  They did have some ammonia solution to neutralise the acid, but I was not their favourite employee that day.

Suddenly one day there were posters all over town.  The civilian population were advised to leave the district as a German invasion was anticipated.  A few night's before there was a red glow in the sky out at sea.  It seems likely that this was when the evacuation of Dunkerque took place and we saw the glow in the sky of the blaze when the fuel was being burned by the evacuating troops.

The notices told people that they could go along to the town hall and arrangements were being made to evacuate children to another part of the country.  My mother went along with my brother and was told that they would take her to Wales with Len, but as I was over fourteen, I did not qualify.  My mother told me later that she asked the clerk "Am I supposed to abandon my elder son here and go to Wales with the younger boy?"  You leave me no option but to go back to London.  The woman was mortified but had no other suggestion.

Mrs Kemp went to Worcester where she had some relatives.  We went back to Twickenham to my uncle's house at 10 Lisbon Avenue.  14 Edinburgh Road was just abandoned with its furniture and other effects.  I understand that the house got bombed later.

The journey back to Twickenham was quite eventful.  We passed through many stations that were totally unknown to us.  Having done the journey before the war on a number of occasions, we knew the regular route.  On one occasion we stopped for a very long time and while gawking out of the window we saw a parachutist coming down.  We had no idea whether it was a Jerry or one of our lads.  We were due to go via London Bridge to Waterloo East but suddenly found ourselves stopped at Surbiton Station.  "Quick. get out here" my mother yelled.  We could walk from here if we had to.  We didn't need to walk as a 601 trolley bus was there and we only had to walk from Twickenham to my uncle's house at 10 Lisbon Avenue at Fulwell Park Estate.  He took us in again although we were totally unexpected.  Oh for a mobile telephone, but that would have needed a 60-year wait.

My apprentiship just fell through.

I have visited Bexhill in recent years and looked in at Edinburgh Road.  I've been tempted to knock on the door of number 14, but feel that this stranger may not have been welcomed.