FUNNY how chance remarks can evoke memories. A couple of weeks ago Julian Cole opened his Pokmon card article with the admission that his memory of being 14 was rather fuzzy. But he did recall wearing a school cap, learning to play the guitar, thinking about girls, and having a second-hand Raleigh cycle. All the things that you might expect a 14-year-old schoolboy to have on his mind as he entered the 1970s.

Then, a few days ago, we read about Joe Barnes, the 14-year-old boy who, in 1940, had stowed away on a small boat bound for the beaches of Dunkirk to help evacuate British and allied troops, who were fighting with their backs to the sea.

Many listeners will have echoed BBC Radio York reporter Sandie Dunleavy's remark, "Just imagine a 14-year-old doing anything like that today."

But to be fair to today's children, it has to be remembered that during the war many boys of 14 had left school to work a 44-hour week. And those youngsters, whose parents were in war work or the armed forces, had to grow up quickly.

This set me thinking about when I was 14, a time I remember well - better than the last Channel 5 film I saw, or where we've put the television licence for safekeeping. But then that's how it usually is when you are getting on a bit.

Like Julian, I thought of girls, even took them to the cinema with what was left of my weekly wage, which - after I'd "paid for my keep" - was enough for two one and threes, a couple of 3d Walls' ices, five crafty Woodbines and the trolleybus fare home.

I never wore a school cap but a battered old trilby, and a hand-me-down trench coat got us in to see 'A' and 'H' pictures. My 8d bike, bought in 1938, was just about clapped out and new tyres weren't easy to come by. And, as to music, the only instrument I learnt to play was the comb and paper.

But living in wartime Woolwich, home of the Royal Artillery and the Arsenal - no, not the goal-shy Gunners, who met their 'Gallipoli' in Copenhagen, but the largest munitions factory in Britain - was very exciting. And with most of the men at war, there were plenty of jobs for the boys. For a short time I had one - repairing bomb-damaged houses.

It was the summer of '44, and I was on the roof of an old three-storey house near the Military Academy, trying to put a huge tarpaulin sheet over a hole in the roof. My chargehand was standing at the top of the ladder at the roof's edge shouting instructions at me.

Suddenly, there came the unmist-akable sound of an approaching flying bomb. The chargehand shouted: "It's OK, stay put, don't panic, it'll pass over."

I continued to struggle with the tarpaulin. The doodlebug's flaming engine cut out and it turned to glide in our direction.

The chargehand disappeared, having slid the length of the ladder to the ground. The whooshing noise grew louder; my mouth was dry, my stomach churning; I was rooted to the spot - waiting to die. But this one was not for me, it passed over the roof to crash a couple of streets away, demolishing several houses, with little hope for those inside.

I slowly descended the ladder.

Then, remembering my mother's earliest advice: "Always make sure you're wearing clean underpants, you never know when you might get run over," I asked the foreman if I might be excused for a few minutes as I had an urgent matter to attend to at home.

The foreman, who had lost a leg at Passchendaele, sniffed disdainfully and muttered, "Yes, you'd better."

Funny, how some things are so hard to forget.