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After being fostered out in Ipswich, I arrived at Goldings in 1935
to find that I had a brother who was already there. He was in the
woodworking shop under a Mr Bishop. I was destined to go there a few
months later.
To
start with, I was placed in Mrs Rowes sewing room sorting out the
clean clothes and pigeon - holing them for bath night collection. It
was a job well - sought after, as one of the kindly ladies always
found a sixpence each week to secretly pass over.
I
was put into Buxton House with Joe Patch as our housemaster. He was,
I believe, an ex gym instructor in the army. His bearing and manner,
plus his knob stick, made him a formidable character!
My
brother William left after I had only been there six months or so.
As I had never really known him, I can't say that I missed him about
a year later my younger brother Thomas arrived. Thomas had been
fostered with me at Ipswich.
At
Goldings, I was trained as a woodcutter under Mr Bishop and spent
two evenings a week at night school doing, drawing etc.
In
March 1939, the De Havilland aircraft company based at Hatfield in
Hertfordshire employed me and five other boys as apprentices. Over
20 boys began working for De Havilland during this period.
In
the early war years I worked on Mosquito aircraft. I was called up
in late 1942 into the Royal Artillery where I was trained as a
wireless operator driver. I was then posted to 66 1 AOP Squadron RAF
where I took on the job as an observer spotting planes in Auster.
About a fortnight after D ‑ Day we landed in Normandy and set out,
finding enough room for our aircraft to land. This took quite a few
days.
Several sorties later we were spotting near Bologna. Suddenly we
were caught by heavy machine gun fire, which injured my pilot
Captain Hawkins. Together we made an emergency crash landing and
took cover in a ditch until we were picked up. For this action, I
was awarded the Distinguished Flying Medal.
While driving at night several weeks later, we were approaching
Nijmegen and I noticed that the Polar Bear division had arrived. I
remembered my sister saying that my brother William was in Iceland.
I put two and two together and thought he could be in the vicinity.
The
next day I borrowed a jeep and went to look for him, after the third
attempt, I struck lucky and found his unit. Unfortunately he was
away that day on patrol, so I returned the following day and we were
reunited.
After the war, I returned to De Havilland at Hatfield. I married in
1948 and we will hopefully celebrate our 56th anniversary this year.
John 'Jerry' Gibbs
boarded out 1927
Boy's Garden City 1928
boarded out 1929
Goldings 1935
Reproduced from The
Barnardo Guild Messenger Summer 2004 |