I had not wanted to attend any of the reunions in the post war period until the 50th anniversary of D-Day in 1994. This proved to be a most memorable event and I have returned to Normandy almost every year since.
In 1996 I also attended a reunion of the 55th Anti Tank Regiment accompanied by my son Paul. There I met several of my old comrades; each one with great pleasure. I attended several further reunions in Bury St Edmunds until, due to the advancing years of it’s members, the organising association was disbanded.
Tony Delahoy is pictured above at his investiture as a Chevalier de la Legion d’Honneur on 15th October 2015. The presentation was made on board the French warship FNS Aquitaine, which was docked at Leith.
THE house in Malpas Road had belonged to Helen’s mother and we all lived there as a family until Helen’s mother, who had been suffering with a heart condition for some years, passed away in the autumn of 1956.
It was at this very time that I was offered a promotion to take over a school of my own. This, however, required my working in North London and as the post was a residential one it would naturally neccessitate moving from Malpas Road in South East London to accommodation in North London.
With the death of Helen’s mother the house was passed on to Helen and her brother Cyril and a decision was made to sell the house at Malpas Road.
I took up my new appointment as Schoolkeeper of Paddington and Maida Vale High School for Girls, situated in Elgin Avenue in Maida Vale, London W9, and in the December of 1956 Helen, Barbara, Paul and I moved from Malpas Road to begin a new chapter in our lives in a very different part of London.
Naturally this entailed new schools for Barbara and Paul, a new home for the family – and even a new motorcycle in the shape of a BSA N21 with a Watsonian double adult sidecar! This motorcycle bore many similarities with my war service BSA M20.
Our years between 1956 and 1960 were spent in temporary accommodation in a flay in Cosway Street, London NW1, just off the Marylebone Road.
Eventually new accommodation was built for us on the school site and we moved into our new home in the December of 1959 and so on the eve of the 1960s we began the next chapter of our lives.
At this time (1950) a petition had been launched to collect signatures against the proliferatation of nuclear weapons. We in the union branch at the New Cross tram depot decided to set up a Peace Committee to collect signatures for the Stockholm Peace Appeal.
The Cold War was intensely pursued by the Western powers. Charlie CHaplin was thron out of America and Paul Robeson too.
We had a big meeting in Camberwell to support Paul Robeson, to which he sent a recorded message, but we were up against the full wight of an anti-communist media.
I even stood as one of three candidates for the Communist Party local elections in Debtford, as their proposals seemed at the time to best address the needs of ordinary working people. But this was at the time of the Yangtse incident, where the Chinese communists were fired on by a British warship and the McCarthy era in the United States was in full swing.
The Vauxhall Tram authorities gave permission for a stall to be set up for just one day in the garage – and we were successful in collecting over 900 signatures for the Stockholm Peace Appeal, which I delivered to their offices near Regent’s Park.
I would collect the Daily Worker newspaper before my shift and do leafletting after my shifts, early morning or late. The shifts were spaced such that it was impossible to go home in between shifts. They were long days away from home.
Over the seven years I was active in the Transport and General Workers Union we were always under pressure and the canteen was a hive of activity with the early morning sales of all kinds of newspapers. We had to prove we were selling all papers inside the garage and not just the Daily Worker – this we did from outside the garage!
Then we were banned from selling the paper when we had tram uniforms on. The attempts at control were relentless.
There were of course already some big improvements such as improved provision if social services and the formation of the National Health Service in 1948; it is hard today to imagine not having an NHS and having to pay to see a doctor.
I knew that improvements to the lives of ordinary working people would have to be fought for by ordinary people like me and the hundreds of thousands of people who were now finding ways of making progress through sound argument and political pressure.
This was the challenge of winning a better future for everyone and pursuing this has been my lifelong ambition.
Progress is never guaranteed and things are sometimes disappointing, but I have seen poverty, war and destructive chaos and I know that only through ordinary working people struggling together will the devastating evils of poverty and war be avoided in the future.
OVER the next few weeks there was a period of adjustment back into civilian and domestic life. My demob leave lasted until February 1947. Initially I spent most of the time with Helen an the family at home and making numerous visits to see relatives and friends, many of whom I had not seen in a long while.
All this was undertaken against the backdrop of one of the coldest winters on record, with freezing temperatures and snow that lasted for months.
Rationing was also quite extreme and there were shortages of almost everything. Coal was in very short supply and consequently so, too, was electricity. Food was scarce and making do was still very much the way most people were living day-to-day – but at least the fighting was over and we were grateful for our survival.
A feeling among many at this time was that winning the war against a repressive and brutal regime had been essential, although at an awful cost. But people now talked about ‘Winning the Peace’ and there was much to do.
In the mid-1930s I had started to think about the problems affecting working people and how to change things for the better. Why were there problems of unemployment poverty and hunger – and why were these problems not being solved?
Having served in the army for over five years it had given me, like so many other young men and women, opportunities to talk about these issues and develop a determination not to return to the bad times of the 1930s, but instead to work for a better world. Surely, now, in peacetime, things had to change?
In the future there should be no acceptance of unemployment or poverty, but a need to secure good working conditions, annual leave, sick pay and to tackle the many other issues that needed to be addressed.
AFTER some years of working as a tram conductor with London Transport buses took over from tram operation and the general working conditions were not so good.
I applied for a job with the London County Council, as Helen’s uncles and brother had joined LCC’s Schoolkeeping service after the war, and Helen’s stepfather Alf (who was himself working at LCC’s County Hall) suggested that I might try Schoolkeeping as a future occupation.
After discussion with Helen and consideration of the prospects of remaining with London Transport or trying something different, I applied to work for the London County Council and was appointed as an assistant Schoolkeeper at Catford Secondary School.
There I learnt the business of caring for and managing the upkeep of a large and busy school which also had annexes for infants – and a Foot Clinic!
Each had coal fires in every room and larger ones in the hall which had to be kept alight and attended to throughout the day. It was hard worked but rewarding and held the prospect of advancement.
WORK as a milk roundsman was still largely enjoyable and I stayed with the Dairy until well into the summer of 1947. That summer was extremely hot and I remember that the heat made pushing the barrow very difficult as the metal-rimmed wheels dug deep into the softening tar on the roads.
One particular problem for me was the expectation for a milk roundsman to work seven days each week. When I asked for a day off and the foreman insisted that I had to work seven days each week, I decided there and then that they needed someone else, and my life as a milk roundsman was over.
After the years of war service there was a determination on the part of working people for a better way of life, and a return to the old inflexible relationship between employers and the workers was intolerable: the old way’s of working and doffing one’s cap wouldn’t wash any longer.
After leaving the Dairy I applied to work for London Transport and was taken on and trained as a conductor working on the trams, largely on ticket recognition and control. I worked from the New Cross Tram Depot, initially operating on a variety of services until, with sufficient experience of the whole network, I was allocated a regular route and driver. I worked on the number 54 route that ran between the Victoria Station terminus and Grove Park terminus at the top of a huge council estate in South East London.
I enjoyed working on the trams that seemed to glide along and sway gently as they went. Dealing with the electrical pickups both in the road and overhead was interesting, and dealing with people as well as handling money was of course already familiar to me.
My driver was a skilled operator, but when one had a relief driver who was less skilled the difference in the ride was most noticeable, particularly to the conductor who naturally spent the journeys on his feet; one soon learned to balance and move with the movement of the tram!
As time went on plans were being made to replace the trams with buses, and in 1952 my route was converted to buses. This also necessitated a change of depot from New Cross to Peckham. The work of a conductor remained much the same, except that the buses were prone to shaking and jolting and were much harder on the legs of the conductor; sadly the buses did not compare with the gliding smoothness of the trams.
During this time work and home life settled down. Helen’s mother, who had been widowed many years before, had remarried in the final years of the war and now lived with her husband Alf on the lower storey of the house whilst Helen and I lived on the upper floors.
On the 10th of October 1947 in the top floor front room of 64 Malpas Road my daughter Barbara was born, and in 1951 on the 12th of October my son Paul was also born there. On both occassions it had been a beautiful sunny October day.
The 10th of October 1947 was my first day in control as a conductor under the supervision of a regular conductor, on the 46 from Lee Green to Eltham. It was an early morning shift and I remember that conductor calling out to the passengers that ‘the conductor this morning had a baby girl’ – the passengers all cheered!
THE question of finding a job after demobilisation was less problematic as the employers were obliged by law to re-employ their former employees, and so I returned to my pre-war occupation as a milk roundsman for the Co-operative Dairy.
The depot I now worked from was located in Long Lane, Southwark – a good distance from my home. I cycled to and from work each day. Work involved pushing a heavily loaded milk barrow on my daily round. The pre-war norm of early, mid and late deliveries each day was now reduced to one delivery, lasting from about 7am until 2pm, but of course there was still the loading of bottles and accounting of monies to attend to.
One memorable incident at this time happened when, having parked my heavily loaded barrow just off Tower Bridge Road and making a delivery, the barrow must have been struck by a passing vehicle. The result of this was a good deal of the day’s supply of milk now lay smashed and running down the gutter.
A small crowd had gathered, including a policeman who was surveying the scene. This was quite a serious problem as milk was still rationed and the loss of such a large quantity posed a problem, not least for me! I then had the job of righting the barrow and of salvaging as many of the unbroken bottles as I could before making some of the remaining deliveries, and explaining to those customers who were not getting any milk that day.
Someone, presumably from a local newspaper, must have been in the area and took a photograph of the scene. The item appeared in the local newspaper under the headline ‘Making the ration go further’.
WE disembarked from the ship and I was surprised to find that we were expected to go through customs. There hadn’t been any such requirement on entering France some years earlier!
Now the war was over normal procedures were back in place. I remember the customs official asking me what was in my kit bag before marking it with a chalked cross.
I next boarded a train to Woking where we were all gathered in a de-mob centre and had to hand over our kit before being issued wiith the various items of civilian clothing. We had to tip out our kit bags onto a bunk bed then go to another hut to get our civvies.
When I returned I discovered that my personal possessions had been ransacked and many items had been stolen. I lost several items that were intended as gifts, including a bush hat that I would have liked to have kept as a memento. This was a shocking episode and a disgraceful way to treat returning comrades.
Every item of kit I had been issued with was listed in my Pay Book and had to be accounted for and returned; any lost or missing items were to be charged or had to be otherwise accounted for.
After five years of active service I hardly expected to be charged for missing items or clothing. I don’t recall whether any any deductions were made, but I wouldn’t have been surprised.
We were also supposed to keep our battledress for as long as one was on the army reserve list.
The issue of civilian clothing consisted of a suit jacket, a pair of trousers and a waistcoat plus a pair of shoes and a trilby hat. Thank you very much and goodbye!
The next part of my journey home was by train to London Bridge station, where I caught a further train to New Cross, which was about a mile from my home.
I was still carrying a large and heavy kit bag; it was now early evening and, being November, quite dark. Outside New Cross station I noticed a night watchman sitting next to a brazier beside some roadworks. I saw that he had a barrow, which I was able to borrow, and I wheeled my kit bag back home to Malpas Road and my wife Helen.
Of course in those days very few people had telephones and there was no way whatever of letting anyone know when I would be coming home. I arrived to find Helen at home with her mother, her mother’s husband Alf and some other relatives, so it was quite a houseful!
It was good to be home at last, but now of course I had to return the barrow!
IT was from Coimbatore Camp in India that I started the return journey to the UK. Our route home would be via the city of Madras and then onwards by train to the transit camp at Deolali near Bombay, which was a three day journey.
At each station along the way we stopped for half an hour or more and drinks and food could be bought from the many refreshment sellers. It was even possible for a cooked meal to be bought. These food sellers were very efficient in servicing the whole train and could remember what had been ordered and where you were located in the carriage!
The camp at Deolali was largely unchanged from the previous yeae and with no special duties to perform except that, as a sergeant, I was asked a few times to deliver military correspondence going by train overnight to various other camps. This relatively ‘easy life’ was short-lived, when notification of departure to the UK was announced with an expected four week sea crossing. The ship was fairly small for a troop ship at only 9,000 tons and, together with about a hundred other soldiers, I marched through Bombay to go on board. I was at last on my way home.
As we had all served in the forces on active duty for many years in different theatres of war we were expecting a fairly relaxing voyage home, but this was not to be. The ship was also transporting 2000 Italian prisoners-of-war back to Naples and we had to undertake guard duty of 24 hours on and 24 hours off. The accommodation for the 100 or so soldiers was one deck down at the stern of the ship and no space had been allocated for them on the upper deck.
The ship was also carrying civilians who had been resident in India and were also returning to the UK. They were accomodated in cabins and had the use of the main promenade deck.
Due to the lack of space provided to the returning troops we made a formal protest about the cramped conditions – and we were eventually given an area of the deck for our use. However – it seemed in retaliation to our protest – we were ordered to lay out our full kit for inspection, and, as you might imagine, this was not appreciated!
As we waited for this kit inspection to take place the assembled men felt that the the delay was deliberate and began to voice their disapproval, banging their cutlery on the mess tables. It wasn’t long before some officers appeared and caautioned me that, as a Sergeant, I was responsible for keeping order and that I would have to report to the ship’s Captain.
In fact I saw the ship’s Purser, who informed me that I could be charged with mutiny, but considering the cirumstances I would not be – thanks a bunch!
When our ship eventually docked at Southampton we were met by newspaper reporters who had got wind of the alleged ‘mutiny’ but nothing further came of it.
IT was from Osnabruck that I was posted back to the Woolwich barracks in the UK. I was given four weeks leave and then sent out to India to take part in the war against Japan that was still going on.
The troopship to India was the P & O Edinburgh Castle, and the route was from Southampton past Gibraltar, through the Mediterranean to Port Said, then on through the Suez Canal, the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean to Bombay.
Sleeping arrangements on board was in hammocks hooked to the ceiling and packed like sardines head to toe; beneath the hammocks were the mess tables. The hammocks were rolled up in the morning and stacked away and the area then became the mess deck during the day,
The weather improved daily as we moved further east. It was fascinating to see the coat of North Africa so close, and the many islands of the Mediterranean – also the many flying fish that kept up with the speed of the ship, just in front of the ship’s bow; a really lovely sight.
The further east we travelled the warmer it got, very much so at night time below deck. To aid the airflow there were some scuttle-like ventilators that were pushed into the portholes to scoop fresh air; there were also some small swivel-type air vents in the ceiling. It was quite funny to see hands and arms constantly reaching out to turn the ventilator in their direction!
We finally reached Port Said at the head of the Suez Canal to restock the ship with stores and water. It was here I first saw and tasted water melon; very refreshing in the heat.
The journey through the canal was very interesting. It is quite narrow. The Egyptian side was cultivated and the other bank just desert. To regulate shipping there are wide lagoons to allow ships to pass. I remember one at Port Suez, there were others with beautiful blue sea and lovely scenery. On leaving the Canal and entering the Red Sea the heat became sticky and oppressive, but it cooled off once we entered the Indian Ocean.
As our troopship reached it’s destination of Bombay we heard news that an atomic bomb had been dropped on Hiroshima in Japan by the Americans on the 6th August, and this was followed by another on Nagasaki on the 9th. We didn’t know the full implications of this new warfare but were hopeful that it would end the war.
As we approached Bombay harbour there was a huge amount of shipping that we presumed was part of the preparations for an invasion of Japan, of which we would be a part.
Our ship docked in Bombay Harbour and the troops were disembarked. We marched through the city to the railway station to be transported 150 miles to a large military transit camp at Deolali.
Soon after arriving at Deolali the news came through that Japan had surrendered. Japan also concluded a separate surrender cermony with China in Nanking on 9th September 1945. With this last formal surrender World War II came to an end.
