大象传媒

Part 2 of 2

Street parties were held at VE day but I don鈥檛 remember us having one in our street. I remember going into Worcester with my mother, who didn鈥檛 used to drink, but we came home almost legless. I remember VJ night which was something. I went into the Packhorse pub with this girl and these two flying officers were in there. I found out afterwards that she married the one in the end. He had been a navigator in Burma but he came back to Pershore. It was packed in the Packhorse so we went to the Diggleth down by the river and there were thousands in there. I wasn鈥檛 drinking much but this girl was enjoying herself. The servicemen had to go back to Pershore. The girl was not able to walk so the serviceman got her in a fireman鈥檚 lift and carried her home. The servicemen then caught the bus back to Pershore and I was left to walk home on my own in the dark.

On VJ morning my mum shouted up the stairs to me that the war was over and you鈥檝e got 2 days holiday. I remember my dad shouting up to me one morning that the King had awarded Malta the George Cross. Out there was terrible, they were bombed. There was a blockade and they had no fuel for the planes. I can鈥檛 remember anything about the ships but there were a lot of them. They had a convoy going there and lots of destroyers. One morning the news reported that the American tanker 鈥極hio鈥� had broken the blockade at Malta and it was limping into Valetta harbour. They had to prop it up on both sides with destroyers to get the stuff off it before it sank. There were over 100 ships in the convoy and many of them were lost. They made a film about this later called 鈥淭he Malta Story鈥�. I can also remember when the pocket battleship, the 鈥楪raf Spee鈥�, went up the river for the Battle of the River Plate. It went in there because it was allowed to go into a neutral port for 48 hours. I have since seen the film and it was laughable. In the film they told you that Montevideo in Uruguay would give them the recognised amount of time to come out. We had 3 quite small ships which weren鈥檛 very heavily armed. We sent someone to see the government person in Uruguay to say that we want a bit more time. He told them that the nearest battleship we had was the 鈥楤arum鈥� but it is in South America and we need to get it back up but it will take 2 days sailing to do this. Apparently they let us do this. Everybody was waiting with baited breath on the quayside in Uruguay. We were out like an arc and then to our surprise they scuttled the ship and the Captain shot himself. Those ships like the Bismark, the Graf Spee, the Tirpitz were roaming about and were a pest.

Life at that time was so depressing. If the Germans had tried to invade us in 1940 they would have got through because we left a lot of the armour behind in France. The news was always bad, the food was always short. When people came home from the Navy on leave (such as Rhoda鈥檚 boyfriend) they would advertise in the paper to see if anyone had an orange or a banana. I remember that Churchill said in one of his speeches that we wouldn鈥檛 have things like bananas or oranges because we had lost so much shipping and we can鈥檛 afford to bring stuff like that. Only essentials were brought. We had Spam from the Americans.

After the war it was like being let out of prison. I was shut up in a war factory for 2 years and it was dark when you went out. There weren鈥檛 any buses where I was and you didn鈥檛 have cars in those days. It was only when the war finished in 1945 that I spread out a bit and went dancing 4 nights a week. I was out all the time. Clothes were still rationed.

My close friend, who was working with me in the factory, lived up Rainbow Hill and her husband was a wireless operator in the Navy. They were trying to get the troops home for a bit of leave before D-Day. She hadn鈥檛 seen him for about 2 years and he came home in April 1944 and after he had gone back she found that she was pregnant. She worked on for a bit and then she left in the winter. We used to work from 7.00 鈥� 5.00 and on a Saturday 7.00 鈥� 11.00. When they wanted us to work overtime we had to work until 4.00 on a Saturday. After you had worked 59 hours a week for a fortnight; you had to go to work at 8.00 on the Sunday so the only time we had off was from 4.00 on the Saturday until 8.00 on the Sunday morning, so it was work all the time. They were trying to get all the stocks of everything up including the blood stocks.

I went to see my friend when her baby was just 3 weeks old. Her husband had been invalided out of the Navy with TB and she had to take the baby to hospital for tests. When he returned to Worcester he was out at Nightwick in a Sanatorium. My nerves were no good at the time and I remember us going over there on the bus to visit him and we had to walk a long way. They were like open chalets and he was in a 2-bedded place. Anyway, after he finished with the Navy, his wife told me he had some clothing coupons and she told me I ought to get round him for them. I hadn鈥檛 met him and I said to her can鈥檛 you ask him for them but she said no I had to ask him myself. I had to get up my strength to ask him and I went out and brought myself a riding mac.

In those days they didn鈥檛 have drugs, they used to have to take their ribs out and collapse their lungs. He was in the Sanatorium for about 18 months. When he came home and I used to go around there, the windows were all wide open and it used to be cold. My friend died 2-3 years ago but her husband is still alive. In 1965 they moved to Portsmouth because he worked for British Road Services. I went to see them because I went to Portsmouth to a convalescent home because I wasn鈥檛 well.

I hadn鈥檛 seen Rhoda since 1944 and she rang me most unexpectedly last Christmas and said her husband Harry had died. She had a son too who was married. She said she thought she would ring me for a chat because she often thought of me and of my mother, who was like a mother to her. I rang her back in the February but she was going to Spain for 2 or 3 weeks with some friends. She is older than me. She鈥檚 getting on for 84. When she came back she rang me although it was my turn to ring her. We don鈥檛 do it often.

I also decided to ring my friend鈥檚 husband. He wasn鈥檛 very well because he had had an eye operation for cataracts but it hadn鈥檛 been very successful. A few years ago they moved into a flat where they had a community room. He is 85 and although he had the TB, he used to look grey some days, I never thought he would survive but he outlived her. He put on my Christmas card 鈥淲onderful Memories鈥�. They had 3 children and I used to go around there a lot when they were little because he used to play the organ at church.

When VE was announced we were elated and it was a time for us to go out and make up for a bit of lost time. I used to go dancing on a Thursday, Friday and Saturday and I used to go to Droitwich Winter Gardens for the Tea Dance on a Sunday. During the war I used to be on duty down at the Police Station manning the teas if there was an emergency and we had to sleep over in our clothes on a bed. I was only about 19 then. Sometimes we used to go dancing to the Guildhall and the cafes and we used to have tickets for all of them and have pass-outs. We would use the pass-outs to see what was going on at the other venues. It was tough although what I am telling you doesn鈥檛 sound very tough.

Of course stuff was still rationed for a long time afterwards, particularly meat. My poor mum had 5 of us to look after and she used to cook at night when I was working.

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