HUGH DAVIDSON: LIFE AS A CHILD IN WWII

AN EASY WAR?

In many ways I had an easy WWII. I was four years old when it started in September 1939, and 10 when it ended.

I lived mainly in Douglas, but also in St Marks, Alderley Edge and Somerset. It was easy for me in the sense that I was never bombed and none of my relatives were killed.

My father, Alec Davidson, was orphaned at the age of 16, one of four children in a family with little money. He left school at 16 and managed to qualify as a surveyor, then as an architect.

Although in a reserved occupation, he volunteered in early 1941 to serve in the Royal Engineers. He became responsible for all military buildings in Western Command in the northwest, based at Alderley Edge, with a uniformed staff of about 30.

1942: ONE OF THE BEST YEARS OF MY LIFE AT ST MARKS

My father decided that I needed to move to a new school for a fresh start in the countryside and to

avoid catching whooping cough again. His sister, Frances Davidson, was Headteacher at St Marks

Village School, and almost all the pupils walked there from surrounding farms. At age seven, I was a weekly boarder, living during the week with my aunt in the school house. I would get up early on Monday mornings, walk from Brunswick Road to the Quarterbridge with my suitcase, and catch the bus to St Marks, then return to Douglas on Friday evenings.

My aunt, who spoke English, French and Manx fluently, taught the older children. I was taught by

Miss Corrin, aunt of Deemster Corrin. To my knowledge she had no formal qualifications but was a

natural teacher. She completely turned me round and gave me that fresh start.

I loved living at St Marks, with wonderful views of South Barrule, and liked my fellow pupils. WWII

seemed far away. My aunt was helped in the house by 16-year-old Elsie. The only lavatory was non-flushable, at the end of the garden. I bathed every Wednesday in a tin bath, which Elsie filled with water boiled in the kettle.

When home at weekends, I enjoyed using the new swear words I’d picked up from fellow pupils at St

Marks. This shocked my mother and grandparents – staunch Methodists – but they decided to

follow a successful policy of ignoring my bad language.

1943-1944: BOARDING SCHOOL AT MACCLESFIELD

We all moved to Alderley Edge for a year, to join my father, and lived with a local family within

walking distance of his office. I moved to a boarding school, Beech Hall, again as a weekly boarder.

After a year at Alderley Edge, my mother decided to return to the Island with my brother, and I

became a termly boarder at Beech Hall.

I have four memories of the school. First, the popular Headteacher Mr Hunt. He and I had the

same birthday, 6th May. On one occasion, term started on 6 th May, so Mr Hunt said I could come

back a day late. Second, we all helped in the school garden. One of my friends, De Russell, drove a

garden fork right through his foot. He returned to school a few weeks later to a hero’s welcome.

Third, there was a very unpopular master with a heavy tread. We could hear him some distance off

and scattered to avoid him. In later years I heard he had gone off with the Headmaster’s nice wife...

I hope it was 'fake news'!

Finally, at half-term, many of us had to stay in school because our parents lived far away. One half-term my father funded a slap-up meal and visit to the cinema for the 20 or so boys stuck at school. I still have all the thank you letters they wrote to him. Few people write those today, alas.

SCHOOL HOLIDAYS AND THE WAR

During term time we did not think much about the War. We were hardly aware of the important

battles in Russia or the war in the Pacific against the Japanese, and I do not recall any bombing.

There were a lot of American soldiers at Macclesfield. We would often sit on a corner near the

school, and if a Jeep passed, would yell ‘Got any gum, chum?’ The Americans would almost always

throw us a few packets.

During school holidays on the Island I was never bored and always had plenty to do: playing with

neighbouring children in the gardens or the road – chasing, skipping, hiding; marbles; making up

model aircraft kits; walks to Tromode; and reading.

The BBC nine o’clock news was a feature of life and I remember being told, as I sat in my bath, that

Italy had surrendered. My mother occasionally played Mendelsohn’s Violin Concerto on the

gramophone. She later told me this was when she was depressed. It cheered her up.

1944/45: SCHOOL AT BRISTOL

In 1944, my father moved me to T.E. Brown’s old school – Clifton College, Bristol. The prep school,

where I started, had been evacuated to Butcombe, a village in Somerset, and the senior school to

Bude in Cornwall. Bristol had been heavily bombed, much of the historical part destroyed, and the

centre was a place of desolation until it was rebuilt in the 1950s.

From age nine, I travelled to school on my own – something unlikely to happen today. I would get

the boat from Douglas, walk from Pier Head to Lime Street Station, take the five hour train journey

to Bristol Temple Meads, and then a taxi to school. There were only two passenger boats –Rushen

Castle and Snaefell. They both bobbed around like corks and most people were sick.

The school returned to Bristol in summer 1945, and we received a visit from Winston Churchill, with

a big cigar in his mouth. I thought it was fake because it emitted no smoke.