Life Stories DENNIS BLURTON SARAH MERCER 1 Life Stories From DENNIS BLURTON Dennis Blurton As told to and written by SARAH MERCER Contents Life Stories from Dennis Blurton As told to and written by Sarah Mercer Author: Sarah Mercer Design: Hannah Fincham Page 9 Page 37 Published by: Bridging Ages CIC Printed by: Lulu About: Chapter 3 Copyright: ©2018 Bridging Ages, CIC Bridging Ages Days In The Army Page 13 Page 45 About: Chapter 4 Bridging Ages, CIC develops Life Stories Looking For A programs to encourage social Career contact between the elderly and youth. Page 17 Page 53 We are based in Sussex, UK. Chapter 1 www.bridgingages.co.uk Childhood Days Chapter 5 Reprints can be ordered at Seafaring Years www.lulu.com Page 25 Chapter 2 Evacuation 4 5 Page 65 Chapter 6 Married Life Page 79 Sarah Mercer Bio 6 7 Bridging Ages Bridging Ages CIC is a small not-for profit community company established in Sussex UK, formed in 2014 by three friends who were concerned about loneliness and the lack of social contact between generations. The Life Stories Project was created to address these issues. In 2017, Bridging Ages was awarded a National Lottery Fund grant to develop a Toolkit for the programme, making it possible for any school or group to bring the Life Stories Project to their communities. 8 9 Life Stories Life Stories aims to increase social contact between generations. Teens visit older people in their homes, ask them about their lives and then write a professionally published book about them! In the process, young and old come together and each becomes a part of the other’s Life Story. A Life Stories book is an important family document for future generations. Families can order more copies and usually do! However, the success of the project lies in the process of making the 10 11 books. The student visits give support to older people who may be lonely. Conversations with a young person can stimulate reflections on a life lived and honour that life. The older participants tell about how things used to be and what they’ve learned in their lives. It is enjoyable to share these stories with a receptive ear and important to hand down this legacy to the next generation. Spending time with an older person and hearing a first-hand account of history can counteract negative ageist attitudes in the young. This is important in our rapidly ageing population. For many teens, this project is an introduction to volunteering, which can lead to future civic engagement. In addition, they meet the tremendous scholastic challenge of actually writing a book! The Life Stories Project builds respect, trust and empathy between generations, and that makes our communities stronger. 12 13 Life Stories From Dennis Blurton 14 15 1 Childhood Days 16 17 Childhood Days “I would enjoy going to the cinema for special showings for nine pence.” I was born on 24th August 1926 in Beckenham, a town situated in the county of Kent, Southern England and was an only child. My mother, Sybil Tamar (Medwell), was born in 1889 and my father, George (Blurton), in 1894. My parent’s family home was in Kingswood in the neighbouring county of Surrey and, wishing to return to my father’s roots, they only lived in Beckenham for a short time after they were married. I therefore only lived in Beckenham for a year or so and have no 18 19 Dennis Childhood memories of living there. Blurton Days We moved to a bungalow in the village of Lower Kingswood, which is where I grew up. It was a happy place to live, with a church, school, shops, petrol station and two pubs. My parents enjoyed a happy marriage, with my father commuting to work in London by train to Waterloo Station where he worked for Southern Railway in their solicitors' office. Both my father's parents died when he was young, so I never knew my paternal grandparents. However, my maternal grandparents lived in Lower Kingswood and I knew them well. My grandfather, a carpenter, kept ferrets and he had an organ keyboard in his front room that he would play. Additionally, my aunts and uncle, on my mother’s side of the family, also lived in the village and would come over for tea with their children some afternoons, and we would visit them. My father’s three brothers and his sister had by that time moved away. We would invariably spend Christmas Dennis at Mick's, 1940 Day at home but over the Christmas period would visit friends and relatives. 20 21 We did not tend to have big parties at Dennis Childhood we were able to make the most of this on home. Blurton Days holiday visits. Growing up in the village during As a boy I would pump the village peace time I would play games of Cowboys organ and a little later progressed to join and Indians with a gang of local boys in the Church Choir and sang with them the nearby woods and these were an until being evacuated to Canada at the age exciting adventure. Riding down the hill of fourteen. In 1938 I joined a scout group outside our home on a makeshift that had formed in the village. These were pram-wheeled go-kart was not always the days of trek carts and I remember accident free! A more efficient go-kart was setting out for a first camp on a Reigate built by the scouts and it competed in a Hill estate. This was all right on the way pre-war scout competition at Broadlands. down the hill but involved lots of pulling Crossing the main road on the way to and pushing on the way up for our return. school often involved help from the AA This did not put me off scouting however, (Automobile Association) man on duty at and since those early days I remained the crossroads. He was always smartly involved, both in and out of uniform, in turned out in breeches and black gaiters Canada and Mayfield. and he saluted all passing motorists who I attended the local village school, the displayed the AA badge. head master of which was our next door On some Saturday mornings I would neighbour, and then went on to Reigate go to the cinema for special showings for Grammar School, travelling there by bus nine pence which was always enjoyable. I and remained there until I was evacuated. would also act as a ball boy at the local tennis club where my parents were members. We had a small terrier called Binjer. We were fortunate that my father received certain railway travel benefits through his work for Southern Railway, so 22 23 2 Evacuation 24 25 Evacuation “My evacuation experience was life-changing.” In 1941, at the age of fourteen, I was evacuated to Canada. I don’t recall much about the process of the evacuation, but the scheme itself was obviously publicised. In those war days we had no idea of what the future held and were living under the constant threat of invasion by Germany. This threat is really what led to the evacuation taking place. My parents must have thought very seriously about it and I think their decision was aided by the fact that my father’s 26 27 Dennis Evacuation brother had already established himself in Blurton Canada and had, with his wife, come over to visit us on holiday before the outbreak of the war. In that way it wasn’t as though I was being sent to live with strangers, as happened with so many other children, but would be going to stay with family. This probably helped settle my parents' minds that they were doing the right thing; however, being their only child, it must have been very hard for them to let me go. I was evacuated in convoy from Liverpool to Canada, landing at Halifax, where the evacuees boarded the trans-continental train for destinations en route to Vancouver. We stopped frequently on the journey across Canada to allow children to disembark to go to their new homes. Whenever one of these stops occurred there was always a welcoming group of Canadian ladies who came on board the train to greet us and bring us fruit and sweets. These were, to us, a real treat as there were great shortages in England at that time with rationing Summer Holidays 1943 making fruit and sweets hard to come by. They were indeed very welcoming and 28 29 outgoing people. Dennis Evacuation separate the milk from the cream and was My uncle and his family lived in Blurton quite a valuable job as my uncle would Penticton, in the Okanagan Valley, British only separate what he considered to be Colombia, where he had a fruit and dairy surplus. farm. He had two children, both older than I would also pick the fruit. When I was me, a son who joined the Airforce whilst I about 16, I got a job in the summer was there and a daughter who was slightly holidays working in the packing house, younger and in the top grade at school humping boxes of apples, putting them when I arrived. She was into horses, so onto trolleys and wheeling them around. was very busy with them. The money I earned doing this was very The farm had a dairy herd of useful. Guernsey cattle for milking and, as was In addition to farm machinery my common in the valley at that time, uncle had a team of two horses which he orchards growing cherries, apples and used to work around the farm.