Special Investigation
Interview William Snell by Bianca Ilatts
by English Group (13)

William Snell I would like to introduce you to a special person to me, to me he s like a hero, although he s not famous. He has lived through a lot of horrible experiences and although he was not born with a silver spoon in his mouth, he is one down to earth man who has lots of special qualities and memories that make him the man he is. This special man is William Leonard Arthur Snell. "I was born on 20th of the 1st 1928 in Halling Kent. I was educated at Snodland Central School, it was a very strict school and I remember being very shy. The other boys always seemed to be causing trouble and I remember being very scared. The teachers at this school were very strict, and I remember seeing a tall, huge figure creeping towards us slyly with his cane in his hand which he used to use on us boys time after time. The cane was a long thin wooden stick that had chips missing from it, where it had been used time and time again. Looking at that stick being raised and ready to be used on us, used to make my blood freeze. When I first left school, I worked on a farm for a guinea a week (about 1.05 in todays money) this involved harrowing and rolling fields, thatchers mate, collecting potatoes, turnips, worzels, feeding the cows etc, it was hard work, but I enjoyed it. I had a work mate called Joe and we used to tell each other our fantasies of what we would really like to be doing in life. I told him that I wanted to do something more exciting, something more on the edge but I didn t have much chance of that working with cows and potatoes on a farm, that was a distant dream for me. When the second World War started, I was delivering coal with a horse and cart. The cost of the coal for a hundred weight was 3s 4d and 3s 6d (about 17/18p). I used to deliver 2 lots of coal a day so the pay per week worked out much more than what I used to earn on the farm. During this time, working with the horses was something that I really enjoyed. I grew to love these animals and I made sure that I took great care of them. One day a doodle bug fell only a couple of hundred yards away from us, the horse bolted with me still holding onto the reins, I was being dragged down the road which resulted in my arms being broken. I still had hold of the bridle trying to control the horse it took me months to recover after this terrible accident. Then after delivering another coal load, I saw houses being demolished with groups of people standing around crying because their loved ones were buried under all the rubble. I felt heart broken at this terrible tragedy. I felt that it was my duty to help, so when the houses in Snodland were bombed, I used to grab a piece of heavy metal and would use this to dig people out from the bombed houses. I saved a family of three who were trapped under a pile of wood, they were quite badly injured, but that day I felt that I wanted to help fight for our country. I was deferred from joining the army, because the work that I was doing was serving my country. When the time came for me to represent my country, I gave up the job of delivering coal and then I had the choice of either going to work in a mine or joining the army. I favoured the latter the Royal Engineers, I was proud to be British. When I joined up, I had to have six weeks training at Maidstone Barracks. The thing that I remember most was having my hair cut very short! I found training very challenging, but the people I trained with felt the same way. The six weeks flew by and I was then posted to Malvern, Wales were I was pleased to be posted somewhere different because when I was a child, I never went on holiday and this was my first step out of the world that I was used to and I was very excited. I learnt bailey bridging, bomb disposal, which was that edge that I had wished for when I was on the farm. From that moment on, I felt I was doing something with my life. I was proud. I was then posted to Hamburg, Germany where I worked on the docks, which at first was a bit scary. I missed my family terribly. The war had ended then, but our job was to watch the Germans unloading ships etc. to stop them pilfering the goods. Hamburg was flattened like a pancake during the bombing and the people were living in the small brick shacks that they had built. Although we were the enemy, I felt for the poor Germans. I had nightmares about the screaming babies who were without their parents and were just left lying there to die. These dreams caused my a lot of discomfort. I was quite disturbed and today I can still hear the cries of death and smell the burning shacks. This is something that I would never like to experience again. The German children used to line the railway tracks begging for food, so we would through are army rations out to them because they were starving, even if that meant that we didn t eat for a couple of days, I d rather be short of food than watch the children die of starvation, it was cruelty. If you were smoking a cigarette, the children would follow you around until you disgarded the cigarette end, they would then pick it up and use the tobacco to buy food. These images of starvation, death and crying is something that still haunts me now. We were then moved on the "movement control" on passenger trains. They were fitted with wooden seats and soft seats. The Germans had to sit on the wooden seats and our job was to enforce this rule. If we saw the Germans sitting on a soft seat, we had to forcibly remove them. I remember one of the men removing a German from a soft seat, he then killed one of our men, he killed him by knocking his head against the metal railings. I found out that the poor man who had died, had just had twin girls, his wife had died during labour, so the girls were put into boarding school, because they had no parents. When I heard this, I felt heartbroken for the two girls and wished I had done something, guilt I will always live with. I was demobbed in 1949, when I was presented with a demob suit, trilby, shoes and mac, that moment was something that I remember really well. On leaving the army, I could not settle down to begin with, so a I took a number of jobs which included barging, lorry driving, and machine driving before I finally settled down with my beautiful wife who I met whilst working in a garage. Today I am more in love with her than ever before. I finally settled down at work, working for Rugby Cement driving machines. I retired in 1993 after being there for 30 years. I am now a man of leisure. My wife and I didn t have a lot in those days, nevertheless we had happy childhoods, perhaps it was because we were all in the same boat". So this is my hero William. He lived a life like so many; he suffered some horrific times, but he saved lives and helped his Country. To me William is a true hero and will always be a hero too!