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In October 1939 I was about to start at my new school – Derby Grammar School but as the railway line passed under the school playground the school was split up and the pupils went to different schools. In August 1940 the whole school cam back together in a camp at Woolley Moor. This consisted of about 20 wooden buildings. There were about 6 dormitories with 50 boys to a dorm – complete with 2 tier bedsteads . Down one side of the camp were some woods. These were out of bounds at night – but we had our dens to escape to for a crafty fag and to put the world to rights. The winter of 1942 saw a heavy snowfall – the camp was cut off! Eventually food got through on horse-drawn sledges.
We used to go home at the end of term – when there was invariably air raids. I remember once, it must have been early 1944, we were fooling around on the air raid shelters when two planes flew over the valley. Someone said – they are Junkers 88. It turned out they were right. These two planes had shot a school up in South Wayfield ( 9 miles from us), which they presumably thought was something camouflaged. It was rumoured later that these two planes were later shot down over Lincoln.
(The school was in Amla valley, Woolley Moor - it is now a reservoir called Ogston Lake)

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