Jimmy2

THE GROWING UP YEARS

March 1943 SAT Bn Douglas Isle of Man

Embarkation Leave May 1944

Sig Jarman James 1942

Taken in Charles St Milford Haven
4th July 1949

"This one will amuse you all. The day after the V1 doodlebug dropped on us the Section Sgt. said to me get your lads to clear up the mess here. The 3 sentry box latrines complete with buckets had been blow away and the contents scattered everywhere. Army point-nose shovels were useless so we dug a hole and tried to bury what we could, but it was a hopeless task.

Tired and fed up I saw Pip Piper, a scouser, leaning on the shovel. He said to me "Corp its the first time I've ever seen a Turd Tree. Impaled on the brambles were the contents of the buckets."

Tired as we were everybody fell about laughing. It did not matter how bad things were there was always good humour and banter and I was proud to have served with such a good team who always gave 100% under often continual harsh conditions."

James William Henry Jarman, was born at Devon House, 8, Upper Market Street Haverfordwest in Pembrokeshire on 24th January 1924.

He was the son of a Metropolitan Policeman who was stationed with the Thames Division at Pembroke Dockyard from May 1914 - 1926.

When Jimmy was 2 years old, the dockyard was closed and his father was transferred back to London and they then took up residence at Forest Hill and later at Sydenham S.E .London.

On leaving primary school Jim won a scholarship in August 1939 to Brockley County Boys School and as usual he spent his summer holidays with his grandmother at Haverfordwest.

War was declared on the Sunday but with the glorious weather and everyday being spent on the beach at Broad Haven, under no circumstances was the young Jimmy going to return to London a week early. When he eventually reported back to school, a week late, everybody had been evacuated and the school was commandeered by a heavy Anti-Aircraft battery. Word got around and he was due to be sent for but with the chaos of the school being evacuated to Kent, time passed and the London County Council revoked his scholarship provided he registered at the Junior Labour Exchange in Catford for work.

On being asked what type of work he would like he replied "an engineer" he was given the choice of "Civil or Mechanical" and chose the former.

Jimmy was then sent for an interview to Redpath Brown the steel constructional engineers at Greenwich and became a trainee costing clerk. He enjoyed working for this large company, it was situated where the Millennium Done is now sited. Everything went smoothly but then a shadow drifted over the country with the coming of the Dunkirk evacuation.

Jim and a friend decided to enlist in the L.D.V and added a year to their ages. Then the first daylight bombing raids started and as they came up the Thames, the company being opposite the large East India Docks were on the receiving end. They had a grandstand view later of the Battle of Britain, and Jim used to do guard duty with the L.D.V every third night at the Crystal Palace waterworks and while coming off guard on the 30th November 1940 he discovered a landmine had dropped on the corner of the street where he lived. As luck would have it his father was in the City at the time working on security with the Post Office and his mother was in the cellar of the pub across the road, so they escaped. When his father returned home he decided that they salvage what they could and move back with his Grandmother in Haverfordwest.
This meant Jimmy had to find different employment but he was lucky in that the NAAFI District Manager there was in urgent need of a clerk, so it was not long before he was enjoying himself in his new job.

"I think of those days before D Day when we in camp at Bishops Waltham. All the area south of Basingstoke was a No Go area with Military and Civilian Police in control. One
of my Watch used to cycle up to Peckham and back on his 32 hours off. At the checkpoints he bypassed them by going round country lanes. My pal the other L/Cpl on the Watch and I used to hitch hike to Winchester and stop at the YMCA. One Saturday night we were in the town carpark looking for a lift when someone (not from our mob) unhitched the towrope on the winch in the front of an American lorry and put it fast to the boundary railings. When the poor GI Driver
took off he took half the railings with him. That same night one of our lads a Londoner asked numerous GI's to sell him a packet of fags as the shops were shut. By the time we got a lift Danny had enough free fags to keep the Watch (all
21 of us) in fags for a week. for nothing they were only to pleased to give them. I often wonder how many of them survived the massacre at Utah"

Then the District Supervisor from Carmarthen asked him to go to Aberystwyth for two weeks to help compile a ration register for the shop and stores which stood opposite the bandstand. After a week the manager was called up into the R.A.S.C (EFI) branch of the NAAFI and Jim was asked to hold the fort until a new manager could be found. He had only just had his 17th birthday but found the book keeping in the NAAFI easy.

Eventually an old man was brought in from Neath but he could not manage the paperwork and Jim was asked to remain as a Trainee Manager (he could not take over as a manager until his 18th birthday) and he was enjoying the work. The shop was closed down and it remained a ration store for the RAF aircrew wing and the Royal Artillery Field Training Regiment, In January 1942 he had his eighteenth birthday and became a full qualified Stores Manager. In February of that year he was asked to take over as Manager at RAF Blaennerch Aberporth. This had a a small shop and stores to serve the camp, Although he was paid a lodging allowance he had a bedspace in one of the nissen huts with the clerks and M.T. section.

While at Aberystwyth he had volunteered to join the RASC Expeditionary Force of Institutes (all NAAFI personnel went abroad in the RASC). It was in June that Jim went to Llanelli for a medical and then in September he received his call up papers, and was amazed to find he was to report to No 41 Infantry Training Centre at Deepcut Barracks. The barracks were modern, built in 1938 for the Militia men and were a lot more comfortable than the nissen hut at Aberporth.

The first six weeks infantry training was tough, from 0600 hours to 2000hrs daily, it was also very physical but thorough, and although he found it hard going he in fact enjoyed it! On Pass Out, his platoon was posted to the holding Company where they would be passed on as reinforcements to various regiments. It was then to his horror that he was told he was to be transferred to the Royal Corps of Signals at Huddersfield! This brought scary images of him having to climb telegraph poles and laying cables!

Milford Haven Mercury: That Reminds Me , A pee through rose-tinted spectacles of nostalgia, by Jeff Dunn

I was prompted to delve into the archives and see the sort of things I missed out on like this one as described in an old Telegraph Almanac.A minute or two after he had left the cinema in Milford Haven, at about 9.30 on Friday night, April 30.1948,with his girl friend, Henryk Bojko,aged 27,a Pole
was shot dead in Charles Street. Four revolver bullets were found in his body.

A young Police Officer, Constable Jarman, standing a few yards away, heard the shots, dashed up and found in the gathering darkness, Bojko laying in the gutter. Standing over him with a revolver in his hand was another Pole, Jan Stowkowski, aged 27.Seizing the revolver, PC Jarman handcuffed Stowkowski and then went to the aid of the shot man, who died in the Ambulance on the way to hospital in Haverfordwest.

At the Pembrokeshire Assizes on June 25,Stowowski was found guilty of
murder. He was sentenced to death by hanging by Mr. Justice Denning who wore the
black cap when he pronounced sentence.

From the dock, Stowkowski asked if he could suffer death in the same way as Bojko, with the same number of bullets, but the Judge said "No". It was the first death sentence at the Pembrokeshire Assizes for nearly a century, but later following a medical report, the Home Secretary ordered Stowkowski to be detained during His Majesty's pleasure at Broadmoor.

Blimey! Hands up all those who think night time in Charles Street in 2007 is hairy. Trying to act a bit more like a proper journalist, I rang the young PC in question, Jim Jarman, now 83,who lives in Thornton, to ask if he remembered the incident.

Vividly, he said immediately quoting the exact dates and names. "It's not the sort of thing you forget in a hurry. I'd not long gone on duty in Charles Street and I was standing outside Whichers Shop. The shooting happened outside the Bethel, Seamen's Mission and when I ran over to Stowkowski, having been demobbed from the Army for less than 12 months, he was still pulling the trigger, and I
knew the gun was spent, so I took it off him and handcuffed him.
Jim made it all sound so matter of fact and mundane, but it made me realise their was much more to the job than reading the riot act to the likes of me.