Roger Atkinson - Blackout, Austerity and Pride

38 1 — Keep calm and carry on
Now we come to what may seem to be illogical: apart from that
initial introduction to Aunt Edna in autumn 1940, the account of
my life in the 1940s starts in 1945/6, but goes back to the period
1939 to 1944 by way of diversions. This is partly because those
earlier years have to rely heavily on my memory as a boy of 11 to
17 years old. Another strong reason for not simply following my
life story through chronologically is that I am writing about many
facets of life in the 1940s, using my own progress through school
and the army only as a frame on which some of them can be hung.
It is important to note that I have not overcome my addiction to
going off down by-ways.
Learning and discovering
in 1944/5
Let us plunge straight away into one of these diversions. Reproduced
below is a letter from the Ministry of War Transport, in
March 1944, addressed to Bernard Lloyd at St. Christopher
School, Letchworth. I was a boarder at St Christopher, from September
1942 to July 1945. Bernard was a day boy who lived in
Welwyn Garden City and came to school each day by train. Bernard
was interested in trains; I was interested in buses. I cannot
remember why it was Bernard, not I, who wrote for a list of bus
companies; but the important point is that the Ministry’s reply was
helpful, pointing us to an annual directory, “The Motor Transport
Year Book”.
I followed it up in the Easter 1944 holidays in Bradford library,
where they had the 1941/2 edition of the MTYB. It was the last
issue ever produced; publication did not resume after the war. It
was a goldmine, and I absorbed it virtually cover to cover. Later,
Bradford library disposed of it as out of date and useless. Viewed
in a different light by a librarian with greater insight, its archival
value would have been profound. Thus I obtained knowledge of all
our main bus companies, their addresses and areas of operation.