WAR ON DOORSTEP

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXXIII, 26 June 1940, Page 4

WAR ON DOORSTEP

IMPRESSIONS ON SOUTH-EAST COAST LIFE IN ENGLISH SEASIDE TOWN CLOSE WATCH ON STRANGERS LONDON, 7th June. We call it the Front Line here. It is only the distance of an hour’s motor run from the real battlefield, writes Reginald Foster, “Daily Herald” reporter on the south-east coast of England. There is still canned music drifting from the skating rink; there are still girls bathing in the sea. But as an undertone to the dance tunes there is the rumbling of guns across the water. And the bathers are A.T.S. girls, not holidaymakers. Everywhere, in fact, the veneer of normal life is peeling away. Here we are reminded constantly that we are in the war zone. We no longer wear the mask of indifference still to be found in other parts of the country. GRUMBLING GIANTS SHAKE TOWN As I write this, I am facing the sea in a hotel that ordinarily, at this time of the year, is filled with holidaymakers. At intervals, giants are grumbling across the sea. Just now the whole building quivered as a series of violent—and not so very distant—explosions shook the town and set the seagulls screaming. Until recently, this gunfire and the sound of bombs from Flanders vas monotonously regular. And we have seen war, as well as h ard it. We have watched great fires raging on the french coast. We have watched enemy planes dropping bombs and mines a few miles out to sea. From the bathroom window the other night I saw a firework display of flaming onions, tracer bullets and searchlights. And, of course, the most stirring experience of all was to see the return of the B.E.F. War comes in through the swing doors of the hotel. Navy men enter, oddly dressed, oil-stained and wet. They have come straight from action. They have a bath and a meal, and are off again. One man came in the night. His ship had been lost. A few nights later he came in again. His new ship had been lost. —He has gone back to the sea—back out there where the masts of ! sunken ships stick out of the water, where strange jetsam floats to be washed up on the beach. All throug’h the town and the countryside behind the tentacles of war are stretching out. PEACETIME SIGNS MOCK US There are shops to let, rows of empty houses. You seldom see children now. ; They have nearly all been evacuated. So have many of the women. Now and again a mocking sign reminds us of peace. “Daily trips to France,” “This way to the boats.” That sort of thing. Along the roads, barbed wire entanglements and sentries have taken the place of the tea-rooms, j Motor-buses twist slowly through | S-barriers.

If you drive at night, a red lamp is waved at you before long and you must stop to produce identity cards —or take your chance of being shot Some roads leading to seemingly harmless beauty spots are barred all the time. At the junctions, old motorcars and farm machinery are piled ready for use. Groups of soldiers rest inside the barbed wire which surrounds some houses. They look at you suspiciously if you stop to find the way—and it is difficult to find the way now that all the signposts have disappeared. To ask for directions, especially at night, is to court suspicion. Everywhere, in fact, strangers are carefully watched. Once I received a midnight telephone call from high authority. I had been reported for talking to Naval officers. HE STOPPED—LOOKED AND LISTENED On another occasion, while I was telephoning from the back parlour of a country inn five miles from the town, an Army Security Officer walked in and asked to see papers. He wanted to know what I was telephoning and to whom. He also preferred to stay and listen. And as the mist of war swirls thicker, precautions become stricter. Dozens of people are detained every day, and I have even heard of officers who have been detained until their identity was proved.

It frequently happens that people engaged in innocent conversation at a hotel bar find themselves questioned by suspicious military who have been summoned by equally suspicious civilians. Now, after the evacuees, the aliens have been told to go. Favourite restaurants have been closed overnight, and their proprietors and staffs have been seen going away from the station. Sometimes, whispers go round that So-and-so has been called on by the police, that So-and-so haj gone away and will not be back until after the war. OUR LIVES ARE NOW STREAMLINED Along the sea front, rows and rows of "Seaviews” are full of lodgers. But tin-hats, gas-masks and military equipment are piled where there were once buckets and spades and golf clubs. These lodgers get up and go to bed at strange times. Squadrons of bombers and fighters roar overhead and pass out to sea. We hear the series of thuds that follow. We count the machines coming back. Yes. down here, in this corner of England, the war is very near. And we have learned ti.e lesson that must now be learned by the rest of the country. We have put “Cancelled” labels across notices of dances, meetings and sports events. We have cut out all unnecessary functions. We have streamlined, simplified our lives. No one complains or grumbles. It is just that we have learned before some other people to take the war seriously.