WWII: A family at war in the railway school

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Jack Hewing

MY story begins when I was 14 and living at 418 Harvey Road, Allenton. The year was 1938 and the clouds of war were gathering.

My father had just acquired a new job as boiler engineer at the LMS School of Transport on Ascot Drive, Wilmorton. It was a highly responsible job, having the plans for all the stop cocks and valves within that huge building.

This meant that he could be called out any time of the day or night, so, inevitably, we moved house to Bower Street, Alvaston, which was a short bike ride to the School of Transport.

When war broke out, all activity at the school finished and the LMS management asked my father if he would move into the school as caretaker for the duration, as the Army engineers regiment was taking it over for training purposes.

So, it came to pass that our family moved into the right wing of the building and the Army moved in, under the command of Colonel Manton. We remained there until the end of the war.

Part of the building was also occupied by the LMS cost office, also for the duration.

Seeing the article by Maxwell Craven in Derbeian’s Diary about the school brought back many memories of my time there.

I recall, after being out each evening, I would be challenged by the guard and not allowed in the building until I had been identified. This happened several times until the guard got used to me.

At the age of 16, I volunteered for the Auxiliary Fire Service as a messenger. We were located in a garage next to the Rex cinema on London Road.

Every time there was an air raid, we had to follow the pump to a particular air raid post, ours being adjacent to the Mitre pub at Allenton. It was just as well that we wore tin hats as the shrapnel from the ack ack guns used to rain down on us.

By the time I was 18, I was employed on the railways, which was a reserve occupation. We were required to register for the fire service or the Home Guard. I chose the Home Guard as all my pals were in it. It was based at the Carriage & Wagon works.

Despite a lot of leg-pulling, we became a very good fighting force, considering we were part-time soldiers and it was a while before we got any weapons or ammunition. We were trained by old soldiers from the First World War.

I spent many of my weekends and nights crawling around meadows, doing battle training. We also had to do guard duty one night a week.

All this time, I lived in the beautiful flat at the LMS. After spending six years there, it was a bit of a wrench moving back into a normal house. My father carried on his job there until his retirement.

Jack Hewing (81), Spondon.

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