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At Holyhead, I was billeted with the Hainden’s – a 30th ish – couple with no children who lived in modern house in Seabourne Road, called “Khandalla”
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By 26th January we had the station operational and my first real association with a crew. I became very friendly with Topsy Martin (an ex High School teacher) and Paddy (an Irish girl).
The Station was call South Stack and it was situated on the top of high windy bleak cliffs near to the South Stack Lighthouse. We were taken there from Holyhead by Air Force transport and brought back again to our billets later. The Radar station was a new C.H.L. meaning “Chain Home Low Flying” and to get the lobes down low a very high frequency transmission was used.
I applied for my first leave over my birthday March 14th and was home at Turkey Court for that. I travelled back on the overnight train from Euston to Holyhead in pitch darkness. All lights in the train were extinguished. I arrived in Holyhead early in the morning about 5 am to find Mr Hainden waiting for me. He worked in the Customs Dept and on shifts so I did not find that unusual but when we got home and I got to bed, he came into my room and knelt by the bed and said how much he had missed me putting his arms around me. It was all very embarassing but in my best Oxford accent, I kindly asked him to leave the room – which he did. Two weeks
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later, Mrs Hainden went up to London on holidays and I wasn’t going to be left alone in the house with her husband. So I asked and got another billet. On April 12th I was posted with Topsiko and Paddy to open another new Radar station at North Foreland in Kent. I went back to “Khandalla” the day before I left to say goodbye to the Hainden’s. She had looked after me well and I think was fond of me – but he was very strange indeed.
I made some new friends again at South Stack – there were great girls coming into Radar and they were good to be with, I went to the pictures a couple of times. Georgie the “A” Watch mechanic. We had a good time dancing together at camp dances. But he was a nice shy lad and I enjoyed his company.
I also visited with one of Steven’s relatives in Llangefni in North Wales. they lived in a huge and old country home. An earlier ancestor had “done” the European Tour during Regency days and had come back to North Wales and built an Italienate front to his Welsh castle. It had huge columns and high Regency windows in the living room. It was filled with glass cabinets filled with memento’s of India and Waterloo etc etc. I was shown my bedroom off a spiral stone staircase that went round and round
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a central column. It had a heavy oak door with iron hinges and was cosy but small.
At dinner that night, we went through all the motions of a dinner party, just myself and this elderly couple. First soup which was hot water and Vegemite, then the entree, which was sardine, then the main course of sausage and something. Finally dessert and coffee and port. All very English – genteel – and shades of a previous era.
the table was beautifully set with Regency furniture – fine china and glass and they went out of their way to make me feel at home.
South Stack
Llangfni
Llangfnni
Hainden’s, my billet
Billeted at Seabourne Rd, Holyhead
“A” Watch Radar mechanics for South Stack
Shelia. Radar girls at South Stack
“A” Watch Radar mechanic at South Stack
Radar girls at South Stack
Hainden’s at Holyhead
Hainden’s at Holyhead
Hainden’s at Holyhead
Mr and Mrs Harden billet in Wales – South Stack
Bridge to South Stack
Looking out from South Stack Radar
Bridge leading to South Stack Lighthouse Holyhead
house with no windows, doors gone with beds made and crockery on the table.
Lived during billet, house name Khandalla, Seabourne St Holyhead
Khandalla, Seabourne Road, Holyhead
