91热爆

As I was only born in june 1940 my memories of WW2 are scant but still very vivid, owing to the fact that my father was at the start of the war seconded to a reserved occupation, being a boffin working in experimental Radar he was posted away from home to the Radar establishment at Daventry and shortly after my mother with my sister as a three year old and I as a very young baby were uprooted from our home where I was born in Greenfield Avenue, Poole, to rented accomodation at Rugby to keep us together as a family, which unfortunately did not work out as planned as being in a house right on the railway marshalling yards was very early on bombed out luckily whilst we were in an air raid shelter, consequently mother returned hot foot back to Poole to reside with her father and stepmother along with my sister, where because of space it was decided that I should go to live with my paternal grandparents, my grandfather was long established pigeon fancier, and beeing previously in trade as a poultry and game dealer at one time with his own shop on Poole Hill, in Bournemouth he had built up a large knowledge of the needs of the bird world and the successfull breeding and rearing of all types of birds, also a very large number of contacts with people at home and on the continent in course of trade and with pigeon racing which he was very accomplished at, he had been co-opted to the Secret Service and sworn to the Official Secrets Act to run the Poole section of the Pigeongram Service for the first world war so he was a natural choice by 1940 being all but otherwise retired from trade, to take on and run the service for the Poole area again, as a small boy I was unofficialy involved with this having to keep an eye open for birds returning to the lofts when my grandfather was otherwise engaged, keeping an eye for stray lost birds who would tag on to another bird returning when they were tired, and also looking out for and scaring off neighbours cats as clever birds learn never to come to land when they were about, my grandfather was Charles Harding who was born in Pimperne, Dorset, on the 18th December 1871, he had lost his brother Henry John Harding, who at the age of 37 was a Sergeant of Horse with the 10th "Prince of Wales Own" Royal Hussars, when he was killed on the 11th April 1917 during the Pursuit to Mons, this badly effected my grandfather,and the immediate family and which efectively caused his striving to to try to help his countrymen in our hour of need, though being by 1939 70 years of age.
At the outbreak of the First World War all pigeon racing and all movement of caged birds was immediately halted in the view that there were at the time many enemy agents and spies who might use the existing pigeon fanciers facilities to send messages about our country's preparedness for war. Consequently, many of the best birds were killed and whole lofts destroyed through the paranoia. If an officer at the War Office had not had the foresight to interveen by pointing out that the French and the German Military had very good pigeon messaging services, the French especialy having previously employed pigeons quite effectively during the seige of Paris by the Prussians in 1870, although only 25% of the messages sent were successfull in getting through many more birds would have been killed than were,also even we had used pigeons in the Boer War and during the seige of Mafeking, thus the point was made. It was decided that use should be made of the existing pigeon fanciers who had lofts nearest to the south coast, that they should be approached and checks made as to their background, nationality and allegiance to their country, so it was that the Pigeongram Service was established and was much refined for it's better use in the second World War, All pigeon owners had to apply for a licence to keep,race for training purpouses, and to notify all movement of lofts and birds, all birds had to have fitted an idetification ring and use was made of this to record all the comming and goings of all the birds, by putting a ring into a securely sealed clock which then stamped out the time of the hour and day on which the particular bird was received back from it's travells, messages were nearly allways in code were enclosed in a small capsule strapped to the pigeon's leg,

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