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1222 Mike Draper I was CORB child No 2284, I was evacuated from Southsea in August 1940, I
went by train to Liverpool and Joined the SS Llanstephan Castle which sailed
on the evening of 24 August 1940 bound for South Africa. I was fortunate to
catch this ship, as although this was my supposed destination, due to a
false air raid in Portsmouth, it must have been on the 20th or 21st of
August I missed the train and had to wait for the next one which had the
children bound for Canada. My Mother was told that if I arrived in
Liverpool before the ship (Llanstephan Castle) sailed I would join that, if
not I would join the ship (SS Volendam) going to Canada, she was not told
the names of the ships. When I arrived in Liverpool I was taken by car
direct to the docks and hurried up the gangway very shortly before it was
removed as we sailed, literally 15 minutes after I boarded. The SS Volendam
was in fact torpedoed, luckily there was no loss of life amongst the
children, although some of them later joined the SS City of Benares which
was sunk with the loss of about 90 evacuees. My Mother, as I found out
years later had no knowledge as to whether I had caught the South African
bound ship or not, it was not until many weeks later that she received the
obligatory letter which we all had to send on arrival at the destination,
that she knew where I was.
I went firstly to a holding centre at the Cape
Jewish orphanage where I stayed for about 6 weeks, I then went with a batch
of children and an escort by train to Johannesburg. I do not recollect
clearly how we were chosen, but I was selected and went with a couple who
had obviously been vetted by the reception committee which was led by a
lovely lady called Mrs Meyer. The house where I stayed was very nice and it
was on the edge of the town, I was treated well and started to go to the
local school. I do remember very clearly going for a walk in the local
countryside and finding a bullet, which I think must have been something
like a .303. I took this back 'home' and went into the couples shed, there
I put the bullet in the vice and with a hammer and a nail I detonated it.
There was an almighty bang, I was completely disorientated, I could neither
hear nor see for quite some length of time, eventually my senses returned, I
found that the window of the shed had blown out, the head of the bullet had
gone right through the toe of my shoe and apparently passed between my big
toe and the next, only slightly burning me, the case had flown out of the
vice and struck me under the right eye, which was already swelling and
completely shut. Nobody had heard the bang, so I went to my bedroom and got
in bed. About 2 hours later the lady of the house called me for dinner,
when I said that I was not hungry she guessed something was wrong, as a 10
year old growing lad was always hungry. When she came into my bedroom and
pulled back the eiderdown, she screamed and rushed of to call her husband,
after getting the doctor and ascertaining that there was no life threatening
damage, I was well and truly in the dog house. Mrs Meyer was summoned and I
was moved to another house within a few days. This only lasted a few weeks
and again I was shifted. Altogether I was in 4 houses until Mrs Meyer
herself took charge of me. I loved her home, her husband Mr Theo Meyer and
their son Nigel were all very nice to me, I remember the study had
bookshelves lined with National Geographic magazines, which I read for
hours. However due to their social and work schedules I was put into
boarding school. Firstly into St Georges Home for Children, then Jeppe High
School and finally Houghton College. It was whilst I was at St Georges that
I was in a scout group and we were camping somewhere up north of Pretoria,
each tent had 3 boys, it was about three am when the back of the tent was
ripped open and a male lion,s head appeared in the gap, I was the nearest
and my screams immediately woke the other 2 lads and we fled under the
opposite side of the tent, the screams obviously were sufficient to scare
the lion, wake up the rest of the camp, but in the mean-time the three of us
had rushed up the nearest tree. By this time everybody was wide awake and
wondering what had occurred, we gabbled on about the lion, it was only when
the tracker studied the ground behind the tent that they believed us, it was
a very big lion, to which I could not have agreed more. In the intervening
period we realised that the tree that we had all shinned up was a tree known
as a 'wait a bit' (Vag un bitje) tree in South Africa owing to the fact that
it had nearly 3" thorns, none of us had felt a thing on the way up, but we
were unable to climb down. It took ages waiting for the dawn, when we could
gingerly make our way down, breaking of thorns en-route, with assistance
from those below. To see a lion had been one of my dreams when I had opted
to go to S. Africa in the first place, I did not envisage seeing one at such
close quarters. Altogether I spent from September 1940 until September 1945
in S/A, when I returned on the SS Mauritania. Within 3 months I had joined
the Royal Navy. One very puzzling thing was that I had obviously replied to
a letter from my Mother, where she must have asked what I wanted to do when
I grew up, I had replied that I wanted to be an Electrical Engineer in a
Submarine. I joined the RN in January 1946 at HMS GANGES as a boy seaman, a
few years later I went into Submarine service having changed to the
electrical branch, in January 1963 I was commissioned, it was then that my
Mother sent me my letter, and yes, I was now an Electrical Engineer in a
Submarine, I had no knowledge of ever having written it! All these memories keep
popping up.
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