After the war he was allowed to stay on for many years until he died in the late fifties, but to me he comes alive every time I comb my dog. "Simmy", as we called him always maintained that at midnight, all the fleas on a dog's coat cross over from the left to the right and vice versa so to catch them, all you have to do is to sprinkle a line of insect powder down the spine before going to bed!
A very different "character" was Boswell. He was a rather high ranking civil servant, who had - and I had no reason to doubt his word - at one time been secretary or some other way connected with the Air Council. He had, sometime before war was declared, fallen foul of either his Minister or the Permanent Secretary, on account of his somewhat scathing comments in our lack of preparedness and ineptitude of senior people involved.
When war came, he had been shunted into some backwater, but was seen to be given a post where his rank was essential if he was to do the job properly. As war Controller of M.A.P. Housing and he did a fine job of work, providing by building and reorganising semi-permanent houses for key workers in the Aircraft Industry. Mostly it consisted of cutting through all the rules and regulations of local and County Councils, to build on requisitioned sites, pre-fab, housing, as well as taking over semi-completed houses in suitable areas from the builders whose labours had ceased on the outbreak of hostilities.
He was a single man, and in his early fifties, and when he first came to see us in about 1942, we were hard put to accommodate some toolmakers and other key personnel for our expanding programme, and who mostly had been bombed out of their houses in various parts of the country. He arrived unannounced, driving a stately Roll Royce and asked me to get him fixed up before dark at some hotel. It seems he was partially an albino, and due to some defect in his eyes on that account (they were quite pink) he could not see to drive in the dark, and to make sure he was never tempted to do so, his Rolls was without lights other than side lamps.
The next day he came along and said we had been allocated twelve pre-fabs., if we could find a level plot of land near at hand, and Garland and I took him along to a paddock not half a mile from the factory, which he measured up and approved after checking the availability of water, drainage etc. We were about to leave the paddock, in which two ponies were grazing, when a lady appeared with a younger woman and in a rather imperious voice with one hand on a rather tall umbrella, asked "What are you men doing in my paddock?" Boswell, the essence of politeness, explained that pressure of war work necessitated his compulsorily requisitioning of the land for a dozen pre-fabs. and that she would, if she was the owner of the land shortly be receiving the appropriate notice of requisition.
At this, in a rather haughtily manner, the lady said she would soon see about that, to which Boswell replied explaining the circumstances and what his powers were, and, emphasising that "there was a war on" carried on with his measurements of the site. As we were leaving, she was waiting for us at the entrance and in a rather loud voice said "where will my daughter put her ponies?" to which Boswell making a sweeping bow with his hat and in a perfect stage voice said "Madam, that is hardly for me to suggest".
At all events the story soon spread around, and as the dwellings were built and occupied within about 3 months, much to the chagrin of a number of local officials, it did something towards impressing the local worthies to whom the war was merely a temporary intrusion, that we were of some importance. A year later we got Boswell to build a further group of pre-fabs. on a site terraced out of the hill just outside the factory perimeter, and he also passed on to us a Colt House, which had been lying on a building site when war interrupted its erection, and tempted away from one of the Admiralty Establishments at Harrogate.
He came along about every three months and quite often stayed with us at Rodbourne when he was in the district, which was fairly frequent as Bristol, Cheltenham and Gloucester were busy centres for aircraft work. I remember he once asked my wife at breakfast, if she had a sister he could meet and possibly marry! He certainly carried a great deal of weight in the Civil Service hierarchy and never failed to perform on those occasions when I asked him to ease some difficulty which had arisen and which seemed insoluble through normal channels.
As a footnote, a few months after VE day he rang me up and said if I was ever in town he had something for me, so the next time I was up I called on him at Millbank. After we had had a chat, he went to his cupboard, brought out a bottle of real Spanish sherry, and handed it to me saying "Eleven Shillings, please!" I do not think he was "tight", or forgetful of our frequent hospitality, he was just a most unusual Senior Civil Servant!
On reflection, it sometimes does strike me as odd, that, at a distance in time of over 30 years, many of these "non operational" memories loom large if not larger than many of my more direct war time experiences. The longer the war went on, the more I became interested in the human factor in industry, so it should be no surprise that such a large part of my recollections consist of matters quite peripheral to the job of producing Radar.
