LE: We’ll come back to the football, tell
me more about your memories of the
war?
DK: I remember seeing the Palace Pier
being bombed. My mum was walking
me along the seafront, it was a beautiful
sunny day and this little by-plane came
in on its own, obviously from a German
battleship in the Channel. I could see
this plane flying down the Palace Pier, (I
am glad to see that that name has been
revived!), he had one bomb under the
fuselage and it had skis on it so it was
going to go back to the battleship. The
pilot was looking from side to side as to
where he could drop this bomb and he
looked really scared. I remember he was
wearing a black leather coat, goggles
and a helmet because he was in an open
cockpit. He probably realised that he
did not have much chance of surviving.
Anyway when he turned and came back,
my mum, along with everyone else, had
thrown themselves on to the floor. I was
still stand ing up watching this; I don’t
know how old I was, probably four or
five. Then this bomb came down and
there was this huge plume of water at
the end of the pier with a boat at the top
of the plume of water! Then the blast
hit me and knocked me down. It didn’t
hurt, it just knocked me down. Then the
Spitfires came over and went after him - a
few minutes later they came back and
everyone cheered. It was packed on
the seafront, no one was on the beach
because you weren’t allowed to go there,
but they were all waving as the Spitfires
waggled their wings as they went overthey had obviously shot this German pilot
down. Unfortunately I think a few people
were killed who were on the end of the
pier but it was just bizarre seeing stuff like
this when you were a kid.
LE: What did your mum and dad do for
a living, before your dad was a bomber
pilot?
DK: My father worked for Hoover before
the war and he was the south east
regional sales manager by the time he
was 25. My mum was a housewife. She
had been a journalist but in those days
when women got married they stayed at
home and looked after the children. I got
my love of writing from her. When my dad
came back after the war, he seemed to
be affected by what he’d seen and never
wanted to talk about it. He did the same
job until he retired at 60.
LE: I read somewhere that when you
were younger you wanted to be a Spitfire
pilot?
DK: That’s right...you couldn’t help
but want to be one because every day
me and the other kids are watching
these Spitfires flying over our heads. I
remember when Ivor Caplin was the Hove
MP, the remains of a Spitfire were found in
Portland Gate in Hove. Somehow or other
it had crashed there and apparently no
one had seen it happen and there weren’t
any records. But I saw that plane being
shot down.. When I looked up I saw these
two planes over the Downs and one was
a Spitfire chasing a German ME109. All
of a sudden the German plane went into
a vertical climb. It went straight up and
the Spitfire pilot wasn’t ready for it so he
went straight on. Immediately after he
did that, the German plane came down
behind him and opened fire. There was
no smoke or anything coming from the
English plane but I saw it, it went lower
and lower over Shoreham until it came
down in the Portland Road area. I didn’t
see an explosion, and I never knew any
more about it. But years later I read that
they had excavated the site and they
had found the pilot still in the plane. It
was obvious he was shot and killed by
the German plane and wasn’t able to bail
out. What was strange as a little kid was
normally you’d see the pilots jump out
but this plane just came down behind the
houses. It must have been that aeroplane
and when I told Ivor this story, he was
amazed because they had this special
memorial service. It turned out that this
pilot was on his second flight, he was only
a young chap and he was obviously very
inexperienced and he came up against
a much more experienced pilot and that
cost him his life. It is an amazing story
because they have a memorial for this
pilot in the Portland Gate area.
LE: What was your first job when you left
school?
DK: Well I didn’t have a job. I was due
to go to university and I had a place
at Bristol to study English Literature.
By this time I knew I wanted to be a
writer, a journalist, something like that
because I loved writing. But me and a
pal decided to go backpacking on the
continent and both gave up our university
places. My father was furious because
he had given up a lot for his son to go to
university. He never went to university
himself and neither did my mum, but they
expected their son to go to university
- but I wanted to go travelling first. So
I went travelling for about two years all
over the South of France, Spain, and
Germany. I backpacked, by hitchhiking.
And then I got called up to go into the
National Service and I missed about six
months because they couldn’t trace me.
Obviously nobody had mobile phones in
those days my parents eventually tracked
me down to this farm in a place called
Frejus, north of St Tropez. They expected
me to want to sign to become a pilot
like my dad, but I had no real intention
of signing up because I had seen what
it had done to him and although they
tried to persuade me I was not having
it. Eventually I did the statutory two
years and they made me a medic. All
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