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The Life of My Grandad
By Carl Smythe Age 11
Youth
My Grandad was born on the 16 May 1916 at Bishops Stortford. His full name was Donald Arthur James Francis, and his parents' full names were Arthur and Maud Francis.
He lived at Bishops Stortford for three to four years, then he moved to Cherry Hinton and lived there for four to five years. Then he moved into Cambridge and then to Argyle Street with his family in Cambridge, then to Sedgwick Street. By that time he had started work.
His hobbies were playing football, snooker, billiards, cycling, marbles, and tiddlywinks.
First Employment
Donald was fifteen when he started work. It was at a firm called Foster Mills, who had a mill at Cambridge Station making flour and animal foods. He started as an office boy with a view to working his way up through the various stages of promotion. These he accomplished to a certain degree.
War and Marriage
The war broke out in September 1939 and groups were called by their age, and when you are called up you are put into whatever unit they want you to be. So he did not wait to be called up with his age group, he volunteered and joined the Royal Corps of Signals in March 1940.
He was involved in the war for about six years. He left on the 29 April 1946.
He got married during the war. After two previous attempts at an earlier stage, but unfortunately each time the wedding was cancelled because he could not get leave of absence from the Army, mainly due to the time being around Dunkirk. So he eventually got married in July 1940, and the young lady's name who he got married to was Florence Ethel Galer.
They had their first child in 1942. It was a boy, his name is Keith.
When my Grandad was in the war he was sailing to go abroad, and his ship was in collision with a mine in the Irish Sea, and fortunately even though he took to the boats, the mining apparatus fitted prevented the mine exploding, and so he was able to return to Scotland and given embarkation leave for a period of ten days.
(Carl's Grandad eventually embarked for the Far East on the Empress of Asia. Carl's story continues.)
At the Banka Straits he was bombed twice by twenty-seven Japanese war planes. Fortunately he was not hit. The following day he was bombed once again by twenty-seven war planes, just as he left Sundra Straits, and they hit the Empress of Asia and it was on fire. He himself was in the water for four to five hours, and several ships tried to pick him up, but they were too high for him to get aboard, but eventually he was picked up by a Chinese boat, and by that time he had nearly drowned, so they put a grappling hook beneath him and he got aboard. He landed in Singapore later that day and was without clothing, which was wet through. He was supplied with some clothes.
On 15 February 1942 he was guarding an area in Singapore when the Governor surrendered to the Japanese. From midnight that night he became a prisoner of war. The following morning he was rounded up by the Japanese and marched from Singapore to Changi, a distance of fifteen to seventeen miles. Reaching there he was put into an area belonging to the British army barracks, which the Japanese had bombed into ruins. This was to be his residence for the next unknown period.
He had to build a railway which also had thousands of other prisoners working on it. He personally travelled from Ban Pong to just short of the Burma border, working at umpteen camps on the way.
My Grandad had two brothers who were both in the war. He had one that was in the Cambridgeshire Regiment, also taken prisoner of war. He died at one of the camps near the Burma border from cholera. Cholera was a disease and it spread quickly, so you could not bury them like other people who just died normal, you had to dig a big pit to put them in and burn them because it spread so quickly.
During the building of the railway he had to cross a river called the River Kwai. This river ran through a canyon of rock, and the only way they could bridge the River Kwai was to form a ledge on the rock, another job for the prisoners of war. He had to stand on ropes or on supports, drill holes in the rock face, and then the Japanese came and put dynamite in the rock, then he was allowed a break (a drink and something to eat).
Then they were shipped to Singapore.
(It would appear that Carl's Granddad was then sent to Vietnam. Carl's story continues.)
From Saigon he was loaded into goods wagons on a train and their destination was an airfield further up the country at a place called Dalat. Just after the first day on his journey he was spotted by an American plane, and it scored direct hits all along the train. Fortunately he was looking out of the door and saw the plane coming, and so he shouted and they all dived into the edge of the jungle, but the shrapnel of the bullet went into his leg. This shrapnel he carried with him for the rest of the Japanese war, by which time the wound had turned septic. He had managed to keep it under control by using some drugs which he had obtained by breaking into the Japanese store room.
The wound was eventually operated on (after the Japanese war) in Rangoon hospital. He was flown from Saigon to Burma to have the operation done before returning to this country. After being discharged from Rangoon hospital he was put on a hospital ship and sailed to Calcutta in India. From there he went into the hills to a place called Rachi for convalescence. He spent six weeks there before being able to get a ship from Bombay back to Liverpool in November 1945.
Children
My Grandad had already had one child, but he had two more after the war. Barbara was born in 1948, and my mum Janet was born in 1952.
After the War
After the war my Grandad went back to his old job. At that stage money was scarce because he had a child. He got two pounds ten shillings a week. This job he finished at 5.00 p.m. He then went straight to work at another job called Pye Radios Ltd, and he was working for them making wireless sets. This he did until 8.30 or 9.00 in the evening, except for any particular evening which had other activities. Such as playing snooker or billiards. He did this for about two years.
After that period he then became the Secretary of a social club in Cambridge, which was known as the Romsey Labour Club. This he carried out a few years until he was offered promotion at his daily work (Foster Mills).
This promotion involved working away from home and he spent a period at Birkenhead Mill, during which he lived in an hotel at New Brighton for four to five months. This was in order to learn duties to carry out in his future work. Having returned to Cambridge he then spent approximately twelve months on a project at Cambridge Mill, during which the mill was completely remodelled. He had a capital target of one million pounds. This work was accomplished within the target.
Having completed this project he was then asked to go to Coventry Mill to carry out a similar project on the mill. This he agreed to do and was once again away for four to five months. He returned to Cambridge and awaited the actual date of the commencing the task, but the Coventry Mill job was cancelled. So he was back at square one again in Cambridge for a period of two to three months, during which he carried out various jobs, and then he was approached and offered promotion on the sales side, and accepted. This covered an area mainly of East Anglia and part of the South Midlands to be covered over a period of fourteen days. This job lasted for twenty-eight years, and was the position in which he retired from the company, after having completed fifty years service.
Retirement
After retiring and having a few months' rest catching up on jobs around
the house, he decided to look for some part-time jobs, and met up with
a gentleman who had just started up his own business and wanted someone
to do his accounts for him. This he agreed to do, and they had a very
happy partnership for nine years, during which the company grew and prospered.
To show his appreciation he always invited him and his wife to the 'do's'
and parties they had there, and they are still in touch with that couple
to this day.
By Carl Smythe Age 11
(Written for a school project in 1993)
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