'A Grandfather's Tale: Memoirs being mainly concerned with service in the Indian Army and the Indian Political Service in India and the Persian Gulf from 1932-1947' [‎5r] (9/118)

A GRANDFATHER 1 S TALE
I was born on the 19th May 1912, St. Dnnstan's Day, at All Saints
Vicarage, Southend-on-Sea, Essex, where my father was the Incumbent. He
was uhe Revd. Frederick Ernest Ranee and my mother was Mary May nee
Cole. I was the second son and fourth child and the original intention
was to christen me Dunstan plus the family name of Holwell. However,
my parents belatedly realised that as my elder brother was D. G. H. it
might be confusing if I were D. H. so Hugh was tacked on to the front.
In the family I was always known as Dunstan, but by the outer world as
Hugh, and so it has continued. As a small boy I took great pride in the
legend that St. Dunstan had tweaked the Devil’s nose with a pair of redhot
tongs. Later I learnt that he had also, in fact, been a great Archbishop
of Canterbury and Chancellor of England in the tenth century. My younger
brother Patrick arrived six years after me on the 18 th March 1918.
I cannot remember the outbreak of the first War but I know that
my father, one of his sisters and some friends were on holiday in Brittany
at the time and the first they knew about it was when a gendarme galloped
through the forest where they were picnicking, shouting "C’est la guerre”;
and I still have the ’’laissez passer” which my father was given to enable
him to return to England as soon as possible.
When the German aircraft raided London they used to follow the
Thames upwards and on their return drop any spare bombs they had on
Southend. This usually seems to have been at night and on these occasions
we children were brought downstairs and put under the very solid dining
room table and given chocolates to eat to keep us quiet. This seems to
have had the desired effect and I cannot remember ever being frightened.
I can, however, recall one day-light raid when our aircraft intercepted
those of the enemy and there was a dog-fight high in the sky. To me they
looked like toys circling round each other and I was too young to realise
what was really going on. Round about that time a Zeppelin was brought
down near Billericay and someone presented me with a minute part of the
wreckage. Soon after this we were evacuated to a small village about
twenty miles from Southend and I can remember no more excitements.
Early in 1918 my father was appointed as Vicar of St. Margaret's,
Leytonstone - a large East End parish - and we moved there a month or so
after my younger brother Patrick was born. The last air-raid of the war
was on Whitsunday 1918, which happened to be my 6 th Birthday, and I remember
being most annoyed at being woken up in the middle of the night and taken
downstairs. It seemed a most unpleasant birthday present. Later that year
on November 11 th at last came the Armistice, and my father took me out to
buy union jacks and other decorations with which we festooned the outside of
the Vicarage. All the rest of the family, except for the baby, must have
been away at school.