The John & Andrée East Award
2017
|
Deryck A
|
Life in Water
Deryck Alfred East
Editor (with some words by Ian East) :
My Great Uncle, Deryck Alfred East (1921-1989), worked as an engineer for many years for Wycombe Water Board, at their offices in Easton Street, High Wycombe. He wrote his biography (Life in Water), which is sadly more about the Water Board than his life, and it was published by his son, Ian in 1990. His sons know almost nothing about his childhood and just the odd story about his war service. Ian always thought he’d had a comfy war until he read an account of the history of St Eval. The base was attacked frequently and suffered many fatal accidents, to which Deryck was vulnerable. He didn’t suffer all the horrors and terrors that some did, but he was still at serious risk, and froze in winter. Ian recommends Arthur Clarke’s Glide Path for a fictional account of life as a radar tech. It’s based on his time on the same base, doing much the same thing, as Deryck. I have extracted the following pieces from his book which I hope you’ll find interesting, to give you a flavour of Life in Water …
Chapter five
though the cumulous clouds of war hung everywhere and affected everyone, their shadows did not engulf everything, with the consequence that, with some exceptions, life went on very normally and, for the first half or more of 1939, routine work, particularly paperwork, continued with myself spending more time with Fred [Griffin] [Clerk] on the administrative and general side. I became more involved with customer contacts and on one occasion brought trouble on myself by answering the telephone in the usual approved way (“High Wycombe Water Department”) when, following a pause, a voice said ‘Who is that?’. I replied ‘East of the Waterworks’. Another pause then ‘West of Penn here. Who is that?’ I repeated my phrase, to which he took exception, told me off (for what at the time I did not know) and also instructed me very shortly to get Mr. [Sidney] Young [Engineer and Manager] to ‘phone him back as soon as he comes in. Upon inquiring from Fred, it transpired that he, Mr. West, was Clerk of the Parish of Penn and always announced himself as ‘West of Penn’. He obviously thought I was taking the mickey, especially with the names being opposite compass points, to which he objected strongly, although at the time I had never heard of him! When I passed the request to Mr. Young with an explanation, he had a chuckle and, after his call, said that Mr. West made a complaint about it but he (Mr. Young) had explained and smoothed the ruffled feathers…..’
Chapter six
‘… As the war slowly hotted up, and 1940 moved into summer, so the Government decided that civilians must keep continual watch for aircraft and fires. Thus we were organized into fire patrols, two per patrol at the Pann Mill Pumping Station each night. War activity was very quiet at the time and as, in any case, two operatives were on duty at the station at all times, patrols could only amuse themselves by playing cards or sleeping on wooden benches, the latter being sixty-six inches long but only some twelve wide! A request was made for a small table on which cards could be played and in fact we got a card table. When the bill was received, Fred had doubts about the auditors reception of this item, so he altered it to one hard table!...
Gradually, the Battle of Britain flared and the radio news gave regular score sheets; x enemy aircraft shot down for the loss of y of ours. Our elderly storekeeper, ‘Windy’ Windaybanks got quite enthusiastic about these, joking about ‘They are now rolling the pitch’ (in the morning), at lunch time ‘It’s now twenty for four’, and updating us from time to time during the afternoon from the radio. It was obviously no joke for some people but it certainly helped us (no doubt many more) to keep up our spirits!
Eventually the night bombing started. We expected some, as our valley contained two railway lines, both of which were used for the transport of necessary war goods, one main trunk road (the A40) and, at the head of the valley the secret RAF Headquarters, all underground, known even then as Bomber Command, and which was an obvious target. (Surely with all local people knowing the secret, the enemy must have known?) I lived with my parents at Loudwater, about three miles East of High Wycombe, and between the main railway line and the A40. I was off-duty one night when my parents woke me with the news that, although there had been no alert, they thought that bombs had dropped. I dressed and hurried into the road outside and, on finding the local Air Raid Warden, asked what was going on. He told me that several bombs had been dropped by a single aircraft, two of which had been located and were unexploded; one almost under a railway bridge and the other in a railway cutting; both estimated to be five hundred-pounders. (Little did I know at the time, but an oil bomb which had failed to ignite had fallen on our fence at the bottom of our garden which separated our house from houses fronting the A40!) Having no telephone at the time, I got on my bike and cycled to Pann Mill as quickly as I could (all up hill) and reported. They had had no official notification of any aerial activity. Not even an anti-aircraft gun had been heard nor a yellow alert. In other words, they didn’t believe me! I got on the phone to the A.R.P.H.Q. and, much to my amazement, they had received no reports, not even a yellow. (Colour warnings were given, the yellow being that for an enemy aircraft in the vicinity, red being bombs imminent!) Thus the reason why they disbelieved me. I left them with no doubt of the truth and left the whole matter with them to make further enquiries and then to let our section know urgently as one bomb was on the line of a watermain. Nothing happened! When Butch [Mr R.R.Butchart] came in, I reported to him and he reported to Mr. Young who told him to make an immediate on-site investigation. He found the local warden, the local policeman and two or three railway police had sealed the railway line, were having arguments with local people wanting to return home from night shifts and were awaiting the bomb disposal squad. A third bomb had exploded alongside the railway embankment in someone’s back garden but no sign of life from the others. He estimated that the bomb almost under the bridge was right on top of our watermain, so he shut off that section. The army bomb squad arrived, looked at the bridge bomb hole and decided to look at the one in the cutting about two hundred yards away. They were roughly half-way to it when it exploded…so they turned back, just in time to see the bridge bomb explode! They shrugged their shoulders and said ‘Well, that’s saved us a couple of jobs!’ and went! We never discovered what went wrong with the A.R.P. organisation!...’
Gradually, the Battle of Britain flared and the radio news gave regular score sheets; x enemy aircraft shot down for the loss of y of ours. Our elderly storekeeper, ‘Windy’ Windaybanks got quite enthusiastic about these, joking about ‘They are now rolling the pitch’ (in the morning), at lunch time ‘It’s now twenty for four’, and updating us from time to time during the afternoon from the radio. It was obviously no joke for some people but it certainly helped us (no doubt many more) to keep up our spirits!
Eventually the night bombing started. We expected some, as our valley contained two railway lines, both of which were used for the transport of necessary war goods, one main trunk road (the A40) and, at the head of the valley the secret RAF Headquarters, all underground, known even then as Bomber Command, and which was an obvious target. (Surely with all local people knowing the secret, the enemy must have known?) I lived with my parents at Loudwater, about three miles East of High Wycombe, and between the main railway line and the A40. I was off-duty one night when my parents woke me with the news that, although there had been no alert, they thought that bombs had dropped. I dressed and hurried into the road outside and, on finding the local Air Raid Warden, asked what was going on. He told me that several bombs had been dropped by a single aircraft, two of which had been located and were unexploded; one almost under a railway bridge and the other in a railway cutting; both estimated to be five hundred-pounders. (Little did I know at the time, but an oil bomb which had failed to ignite had fallen on our fence at the bottom of our garden which separated our house from houses fronting the A40!) Having no telephone at the time, I got on my bike and cycled to Pann Mill as quickly as I could (all up hill) and reported. They had had no official notification of any aerial activity. Not even an anti-aircraft gun had been heard nor a yellow alert. In other words, they didn’t believe me! I got on the phone to the A.R.P.H.Q. and, much to my amazement, they had received no reports, not even a yellow. (Colour warnings were given, the yellow being that for an enemy aircraft in the vicinity, red being bombs imminent!) Thus the reason why they disbelieved me. I left them with no doubt of the truth and left the whole matter with them to make further enquiries and then to let our section know urgently as one bomb was on the line of a watermain. Nothing happened! When Butch [Mr R.R.Butchart] came in, I reported to him and he reported to Mr. Young who told him to make an immediate on-site investigation. He found the local warden, the local policeman and two or three railway police had sealed the railway line, were having arguments with local people wanting to return home from night shifts and were awaiting the bomb disposal squad. A third bomb had exploded alongside the railway embankment in someone’s back garden but no sign of life from the others. He estimated that the bomb almost under the bridge was right on top of our watermain, so he shut off that section. The army bomb squad arrived, looked at the bridge bomb hole and decided to look at the one in the cutting about two hundred yards away. They were roughly half-way to it when it exploded…so they turned back, just in time to see the bridge bomb explode! They shrugged their shoulders and said ‘Well, that’s saved us a couple of jobs!’ and went! We never discovered what went wrong with the A.R.P. organisation!...’
Chapter eight
‘…Another incident happened during this period, although strictly speaking it is not water-works history. In February 1956 we were blessed with a third son [Ian Robert East] and arrangements were made for him to be baptized at Loudwater Parish Church. The vicar apologised for some confusion at the beginning of the Ceremony, explaining that he had a new font that had not yet been used. He had first to get the water, bless it etc., before filling the font. Ours was the only baptism and in due course the baby was handed to the vicar who became very agitated and handed our son back, apologising that the new font must have leaked and he had to get more water etc. It could only happen to a water-works engineer to have a leak in the font at the Church in a baptismal service! The ceremony eventually went ahead but afterwards the vicar again apologised, had a laugh about it and said something about having to get the builders back again. Needless to say I received some ‘ribbing’ about this incident from all and sundry!’
It was requested that the £50 Prize money be donated to Water Aid.
Music Thanks to Moodmixes.com