大象传媒

I was ten year old in July as the second world war broke out in September the things I remember about living through a war was, home service, that was school in a neighbours house which was only in the morning or afternoon we never did a full day.
My Dad was unfit for the armed forces so he did his bit like many others in his position by being a fire spotter that was being on the street after the sirens had gone with a stirrup pump government issue, there were buckets of sand outside many houses on our street. We had an Andersons shelter in our yard, half of which was below ground, the smell of damp was awful, the only light was from a candles left in the shelter, if you forgot to bring the matches in the haste to get down there then you had to sit in the dark, so Dad reinforced the cellar roof, so that is where Mum and I sat on Friday night of the Sheffield Blitz.
It was very frightening the noise the smell and the look of terror on my mothers face, because my Dad was out there with a group of other men. As daylight dawned We were told that we had five unexploded bombs on our street and on other street around us. The army came very quickly and said we all had to leave right away, so Mum grabbed a few things of importance, like ration books and what little money they had, we went to a ladies house in Broomhill who mother worked for, I guess this must have been arranged between them earlier. We left so quickly we forgot to take our canary with us so after we had taken our possessions to Miss Moor鈥檚 house Dad returned home for the canary, to find the street cordoned off, so he had to wait to give the soldiers the slip before he could get back to the house, he told me afterwards that he prayed all the way there and back. Moors house was a lovely big house and her and her father made us feel very welcome, I can still remember even though I was only a child everyone had concern for each other, something you see little of today, so we had lots of company when the boomers came back two nights later, because their cellar had been knock through to the next door neighbours cellar it was very comfortable it had beds and warmth and seemed very luxurious to
me.
Having moved from our own district where we were registered with the local shop for food, it was necessary to go to some other shop to buy food, to which we were not registered, the local radio was broadcasting that anyone in these circumstances was allowed to shop anywhere, and they had to serve you, so on the Saturday morning my Dad and I went to Kings the bacon shop on Glossop road and they refuse to serve us with our rations of bacon, butter, lard and sugar, even though we had three ration books I can鈥檛 remember the quantities that were allowed but the parcels were always very small, however we came outside and the first person we saw was the policeman who went back in the shop with us and ordered the assistant to get on and serve us, I found this exciting and couldn鈥檛 wait for the next time I would see my friends to relay the story. After we got our rations sorted out Dad took me further down into the city centre, I shaw many of the big shops that had been reduced to rubble. Police and soldiers were stopping people, and we got turned back, so we went back to the comfort of Moors Home and waited for things to calm down, it was very sad news when we got to know of the many who had lost their lives that night, and more was to come on Sunday night. we consider ourselves very lucky to be where we were. Fortunatly the army managed to defuse all the unexploded bombs around my home so we were able to return home in about a weeks time.
All this happened just before Christmas 1940, thinking of Christmas I remember queuing with my Mum down Hereford Street, for the only meat available without ration books we were told they had chickens but it turned out they had only Rabbit left and Mum had took me with her so they allowed us to have one per person I remember they were two shillings each in old money, when there were 240 pennies to the pound, this was our Christmas dinner for which we were so grateful. Opposite the shop where we purchased the rabbits there was a shop which sold Horse meat which was advertised, (Fit for human consumption) and when things got really bad Mum bought it, she made stew or pie鈥檚 with it, I can only remember enjoying them and thought nothing of it. We were grateful for many unusual things in my childhood. My praises go out to my Mother who could make wonderful meals from so little and made the rations go such along way, I never remember going hungry, plus she had none of the streamline cooking utensils that I have been privilege to own in my married life, she would send me to our local shop for two penny worth or bacon bones which she would put in a pan on the fire, with any veg: she managed to get hold of.
I can remember the Americans coming to Sheffield there were quite a few large houses around Broomhill and they were taken for billets by the G I鈥檚, we as children would go to watch them playing base ball in the large gardens usually in front of the houses where they lived and we had a saying, (Got any gum chum), and they were kind and polite to us. It was exciting when a friends older sister from the next street married one of the G I鈥檚 and much later on went to live in America, this to us as young teenagers was a place where all film stars lived, we never thought of it as anything else.
There were many parks round where I lived and we children were allowed to go there to play un-chaperoned in day light hours, even though we were at war there was less harm that could come to us than children out on their own today. Towards the latter end of the war Italian Prisoners from the Lodgemoor camp were aloud to walk around freely and they would speak to us, most of them spoke very little English but they always had their phrase book with them, as I remember they to were always very polite, I never heard of any harm befalling any child.
Sweets and chocolate were also on coupons but sometimes we would hear of somewhere that had them and we didn鈥檛 need coupons but once again queue鈥檚 would form. I cant remember if this was part of the black market, queuing became part of our lives. Furniture as also on dockets, every one needed a reason to be entitled to these dockets, families that were boomed out of there homes and newly married couples. I started work at the age of fourteen that would be in 1945 and the girl that trained me as a scientific glass blower was getting married so she was entitled to dockets for furniture but the boy she was marring was in the forces so they weren鈥檛 setting up a home, she kindly give my Mum and Dad some of their dockets, so we bought some new dinning chairs, there was not much to chose from as all furniture came under a label named utility, which had some special markings which look like two half moon鈥檚. stamped all over the underside. Rationing went on for along time after the war had ended. I married in 1950 and food and other things were still in short supply we still had ration books, so all the relations from both sides of our family helped with our wedding reception meal. I think this sums it all up everyone was so kind and considerate. people had respect for each other. The relief of peace and the gratitude we all felt to so many for so many different reasons. This created such a wonderful atmosphere even though there were many sad memories I feel privileged to have been born during these times, I consider I had a wonderful childhood, we had very little money but I had a loving family.

Beechill

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