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I was born in Wallsend on Tyne in1928 in an upstairs flat in a row of terrace houses less than a mile from the famous Swan and Hunter shipyard. I was the third and very much the youngest and last of the three children. My brother Jim, now living in Vancouver, Canada was eight years older, and my sister Jane, who died last year after a fall, was seven years older.

On that famous day when the whole world changed, 3rd September 1939, I was expecting to start at Wallsend Grammar school where my big brother had been before me. Both my brother and my sister were eligible for war service by 1939 but my brother was working as a civil servant in Woolwich Arsenal and my sister as a clerk in a window-cleaning firm in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. I was only eligible to be an eleven year old evacuee to the safety of Alnwick, which is an ancient market town in mid Northumberland. Alnwick has a castle and it is one of the homes of the Duke of Northumberland, but no industry to speak of.

On 6th September I had joined the group of evacuees on the platform of Wallsend station, which was not far from the house where I was born, with my gas mask in a cardboard box hanging by a string around my neck and a small case containing a toothbrush, pyjamas etc. A steam train arrived, which was rare because it is an electric line to the coast, and the main line north comes directly from Newcastle. The reason for this became clearer when the train chugged slowly along the little used lines nearer the coast, leaving the main line unimpeded but joining it briefly at Alnmouth. We changed there to an even older train to Alnwick. There are no trains there now and the station has become a massive second hand bookstore.

I was aware of Alnwick, having passed through it once on a coach trip to Bamborough, a few miles further north of Alnwick. Both towns are now a far cry from the industries of my home town. My father was now too old for military service, having served with the Royal Engineers in Mesopotamia, now Iraq, in the 1914-1918 war. He was now a postman after along spell of unemployment in this land ‘fit for heroes’ after his return to England and ‘demob’ in 1919. My mother had taken on the rental of a ‘lock-up’ corner shop. This meant that we did not have to live on the premises but had a rented house nearby for seven shillings and six pence a week. That is about 37p in today’s money but inflation has made a nonsense of comparisons. She sold bread, butter, milk, sugar, yeast, bacon, sweets, cigarettes, matches, firewood, patent medicines, and whatever would sell, except wines and spirits. A woodbine and a match were ‘good sellers’ at a half penny each to the pitmen going to work. A half penny would be about 5p at today’s values.

In the school holidays I would usually return by bus to Newcastle and another to Wallsend but I did cycle once or twice down the main North road, the A1. Of course there were hardly any motor cars or lorries about then, petrol was rationed, driving at night was unwise by the dimmed lights on all vehicles so as not to mark out where the roads were to enemy aircraft. I helped out in the shop and counted the ration coupons and took them to the food office. This was to enable the shopkeepers to purchase new supplies from the wholesale merchants. This was a tedious and time-consuming bit of necessary bureaucracy. Everyone had an identity card and carried it at all times.

Story Continued in Part 2.

This story was submitted to the People's War site by Nicola Muni of the CSV Action Desk at ´óÏó´«Ã½ Radio Stoke on behalf of Malcome John Green and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the terms and conditions.

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