When the youth of Watford got organised

Realising the youth of Britain needed some form of relaxation, somewhere to go in the evenings, if only to keep us out of trouble, the Government announced that schools could be used if the youngsters themselves would organise and run youth clubs.

A small group of us thought this a great idea and set about establishing the first in Watford. Wishing to be an entertainer, I could see it might offer me the opportunity to get together with others and form a concert party.

This was comparatively easy to arrange and before long we had arts and craft courses, jazz and film appreciation groups, etc, and we held regular dances to records, with waltz, foxtrot, quickstep and jive lessons, even instruction in American barn dancing.

But the best by far were the kiss me, excuse me quicksteps, a fine opportunity to kiss all the girls you fancied as well as dance with them. We went on to organise three other clubs in local schools. There were only two nasty fights during the whole of the war. During the second, one of the lads produced a knife, but was quickly disarmed by older and stronger lads. Not a bad record, was it? If they still existed, I wonder what would be happening in youth clubs today?

Drug addition and violence were virtually unknown in those far off days. It saddens me to see the depths to which society has sunk. We should be celebrating life not trying to destroy it.

My father changed jobs, leaving the railway to work at Shrodells Hospital. Then Hitler's boffins came up with a nasty idea we called a Molotov Cocktail. It consisted of a cluster of incendiary bombs, each silver coloured bomb looking like a section of a pipe sealed at both ends, with small fins at one end and a detonator at the other.

These fell as one unit to a pre-determined height and were then released to scatter and saturate the target. They burned with a fierce white heat and were quick to start fires wherever they landed.

Spotters on the rooftops ran around like maniacs trying to get to them before they got a hold and smothering them with sandbags. My father was on duty on Shrodells Hospital roof the night it was showered with these monstrosities. In desperation he kicked some of them off the roof with his foot, to be dealt with by those in the street below.

They were lucky. Their prompt action saved the hospital and the lives of the patients. The greatest effect the incendiaries had, other than the fires, was to demoralise people and raise their stress level.

Clothes rationing began in the middle of 1941. The war was not really going our way, even though for the first time we had radar to help us pinpoint enemy aircraft from June on. Radar was a closely guarded secret and the War Office spread the rumour that our pilot's incredible success in finding the enemy in the dark was due to their eating carrots. Carrots could make you see in the dark, they said, carrots gave you "cat's eye" vision. We ate our carrots with extra enthusiasm. The truth did not emerge until after the war.

We gained a little heart when, after Japan's treacherous attack on Pearl Harbour, America came into the war on our side. We soon experienced an invasion of American servicemen. Brash, bouncy, over confident, they succeeded in making our girls weak at the knees.

Unlike the drab, rationed, bomb-weary inhabitants of this beleaguered island, they came from a land filled with goodies, goodies they brought with them: sheer silk stockings with genuine seams up the back (our girls had long been forced to paint their legs with "liquid stockings" and a friend with a straight eye would draw a line from "heel to heaven"); "Life saver" sweets with a hole (like Polo mints), my Jean was offered one while travelling on a train to London accompanied by her big sister, Margaret. The chat-up line failed on this occasion, and they had chewing gum. The children used to chase the Americans, shouting "Got any gum, chum?"

The girls had other priorities and the lure of these charismatic men with their Hollywood drawl and promise of a glamour, born more of the cinema rather than that of cold reality set their heads in a whirl. Their attraction, rather than their looks, proved irresistible to single girls and married women alike.

Englishmen on the Home Front were jealously disdainful of them and very quickly we heard them refer to the unwelcome intruders as "over paid, over-sexed and over here".

There was a great deal of truth in the phrase. Like servicemen of all nations, the "Yanks", as they were called, exploited their situation to the full. Unfortunately, it resulted in a spate of unwanted pregnancies and back street abortions. Orphanages became over full with rejected babies, to the extent they sought foster mothers. Our mother immediately volunteered, and a succession of babies came and went.

Our locals, however, exacted a little punishment on the Yanks by selling them "genuine Scottish whisky". Not so genuine, as it happened. Oh, the bottles were, having been provided by "mine hosts" of the local hostelries. The contents, however, were a form of potato wine, rather like the Irish "poteen". It had a kick to it and fooled our American cousins, and satisfied our men's yearning to get one over on them.

Soap rationing began in February 1942 to make us even more gloomy, but when we heard that Field Marshall Montgomery, Commander of the Eighth Army and his forces had chased Rommel into full retreat in November that same year, we managed to raise a cheer even though bombs still fell around us.

The war appeared to be going our way. We had already discussed a second front with Stalin, it was a matter of applying the squeeze.

With Rommel's army in full retreat in Libya, we had good reason to feel exhilarated, but cousin Reg was in the Eighth Army and during the fighting he was unlucky enough to be blown up, though fortunately not killed. Badly wounded, he was sent home to recuperate, then much to my aunt Celia and uncle Rob's relief, invalided out of the army.

Meanwhile, my future wife, Jean, attended a convent school and afterwards waited at home until it was time for her mother to leave work.

She was eight years old and had grown tired of wearing the same old clothes, her clothing coupons had all gone on new school uniforms.

Arriving home at 3.45pm and knowing she only had five minutes short of one hour 45 minutes, she unwisely decided to make something different to wear. Taking a blanket as thick as felt, clearly stamped "Government Issue", she folded it in half with the words inside, and cut out an all-in-one top and trousers.

Then working against the clock, she cobbled it together round the edges with long tacking stitches. The neckline was removed, and a cut down the front permitted her to climb inside. Dressed in this splendid outfit, proudly she cycled down to meet her mother outside Herts Pharmaceuticals.

While cycling, the stitches stretched, and by the time she arrived she presented a sorry picture.

Her mother was not amused. In fact, she went spare at the sight of her, not least because she had ruined a perfectly good blanket. Not long after, when the rag and bone man came down her street, he gave her a goldfish for it.

But the seeds were sown. In later years Jean became an extremely efficient needlewoman. Together with her trusty Bernina sewing machine she has made countless dresses for our two girls, herself and everyone else. While our youngest daughter, Tracey, was attending ballet school, she made most of the school's show costumes, one year as many as 108 for one show alone, and all the costumes for some of my shows: Lock Up Your Daughters, West Side Story, etc - that's another story.