In about 1934, living in the then fairly new Park Avenue, I met another small boy who became a many-years friend.
His father worked on the railway, and eventually became yard-master, in charge of Spalding’s then big shunting yard.
The family moved to live in the fine house that went with the job.
It still stands, now looking sadly dilapidated, inside the BT depot on King’s Road.
At that earlier time, the site of that depot was Mr D’Alcorn’s field.
We went to school together, joined the Boy Scouts together, served on the Youth Council together (when Madge
Hardy was chairman and Jean Webb secretary), and shared many out-of-school hours.
One striking incident was when a stick of five German bombs landed in Mr D’Alcorn’s field.
No one was hurt, but many of the windows were blown out of the house.
The police put a barrier on the field to keep people out, but the two of us hopped over his garden fence and toured the craters looking for shrapnel that we could take to school for swaps.
Our ways divided after we left school and went on to National Service and such.
He left this area for his career in about 1950. That was our last contact (I left in 1954).
These recent years, I made sporadic unsuccessful attempts to contact him for old times’ sake.
Finally, I wrote to the pensions department of the organisation he joined. I just got their reply: he died last year.
If you have nostalgic feelings about contacting a long-ago friend, don’t leave it too long.
John Tippler
Spalding
