Bill Comstive was born April 3, 1929. His father was a Great War veteran, but he was injured on a postwar job, so Bill’s mother cleaned houses to make ends meet. The family endured difficult economic times in those years. Bill indicated that his father did share memories of his military service: he was assigned to the Pioneer Corps and later the King’s Liverpool Regiment, and he fought in the 3rd Battle of Ypres. The young Bill attended the Thames Road Elementary School in Blackpool, where he was not very good either at arithmetic or algebra. Bill’s father furthered Bill’s education; he discussed day to day topics and read the newspaper to Bill. The times were tense as the clouds of war were gathering. Bill and his father were listening to the radio when the news was interrupted on September 3, 1939 to announce that Britain had declared war on Germany. Bill recalled a van with loudspeakers announcing the declaration of war and playing doleful music too. At the declaration of war Bill’s father and mother were assigned jobs. His mother was a cashier at a laundry and was sent to do the same at the new aircraft factory, and his father was sent to the Ministry of Pensions in London. Meanwhile the young Bill assembled gas masks, which he carried with him for the next 2 years! During the Blitz, the miniature Eiffel Tower in Blackpool was used by the German fighters as a landmark for navigation. Bill could see the flames in Barrows and Liverpool from the German incendiary bombs that were dropped. Bill came of age in this time, and he remembered the wartime rationing, victory gardens, blackouts – and the Americans and Canadians stationed in the area. He said that he volunteered to harvest, dig up and pick potatoes, and he fondly recalled the National Wheatmeal Bread. Bill was in grammar school on VE-Day, and as he was still young he had no expectation of having to go to war and missed being called up by 18 months. He became an accountant in his uncle’s practice and went on to raise his own family. Bill is a Crestwood grandparent, and he was interviewed over zoom from his home in England in October 2024.
