大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People's War site by Helen Avey of the 大象传媒 London Team on behalf of Jennifer de Villers and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

These are my recollections of the war. As it was some 60 years ago I do not guarantee the accuracy of all the facts, with the exception of my feelings. Some of the events may well be in the wrong order, and I have very few dates. Some of the memories may overflow into 1946 or 47. I can only give my own memories of how it seemed at the time.

I was born in the West Riding of Yorkshire on 7th September 1928 and was just about to turn 11 when the war broke out on 3rd September 1939.

Marshall Foch 1919. This is not peace, but an armistice for 20 years.

LEAD UP

I remember something of the lead-up to the war. There seemed to be a 'crisis' every year. I don't remember the Anschluss 1938 (take over of Austria) but I do remember the invasion of Czechoslovakia (the Sudentenland), and of course the attack on Poland, which started the war on 3 September 1939, when I was just about to be 11. We knew the Swastika, and Heil Hitler and his salute. I acted in a little play about Robin Hood, and brought the house down with the words 'Heil, bold Robin.'

I started at Grammar School in the same September. Everyone was in a flap. Our entrance exam was cancelled, and I was put in 2B instead of 2A, much to my chagrin. The men teachers were called up, so we had a lot of women teachers, and men who were too old or not fit enough. It was a mixed school, unusual in those days, so the Sixth Form boys went into the forces as they finished.

We learned German, but did not find that at all strange. We read a Nazi propaganda book that I think was called 'Des Deutchen Vaterland'. It didn't occur to me then that our German might be of use in the war effort. 'Deutschland uber alles' not 'Germany over everybody else, in control of everything' but 'Germany before everything else' 'Germany first'.

I do remember the Italians dropping gas bombs on the poor Abyssinians, 1935.

PREPARATIONS

We bought a wireless for news, some new blankets (a good buy) and for some reason, a set of saucepans. There was, of course no television. Our sources of news were the 大象传媒 on the radio (no commercial radio), the newspapers, cinema newsreels, and very important, Picture Post, for photographs of events. No pictures of corpses, or mutilated bodies were ever shown.

We were issued with gas masks, which we had to carry all the time (more of this later) identity cards: my number was KOUC 296/3. KOUC was the area, I think, 296 the family, and 3 my position in the family as eldest child. We had to wear engraved metal identity discs on a chain round our necks with our name and identity number, even in bed, to identify our corpses.

There were advertisements of long-handled shovels and scrapers for disposing of incendiary bombs. This all seemed very exciting at first, but we soon learned that it was anything but.

We lived in a small steel town, ten miles out of Sheffield up in the Pennines. The steel works were in the valley, the houses on the side of one hill (the other was too polluted), and beyond the houses farms and a vast area of moor land. In the other direction, farmland and coal mines.

We were a family of five. My father worked the whole period in the steel works, loading billets, dirty and heavy shift work. The steelworkers were in reserved occupations, not called up into the forces, as the steel was required for obvious reasons. We spent the whole war in a pleasant council house, my father and mother and my two younger sisters. The town was designated a neutral zone, that is to say not dangerous enough for us to be evacuated, but not safe enough to receive evacuees. I believe people who did receive evacuees were sometimes shocked to find that the little slum children were not house trained. Later in the war we were taken for a medical examination in Sheffield, preparatory to being evacuated to Canada, but a shipload of evacuee children was sunk in the Atlantic, and no more children were sent. However, earlier my two cousins, my mother's sister's daughters, had been evacuated to the USA and spent the war in Boston.

PHONEY WAR

There was a long quiet period at the beginning of the war, called the Phoney War. The blackout was introduced. Street lights and car lights were dimmed, and we had blackout curtains on all windows. There was a joke when wardens were so strict they complained about light cracks showing at the bottom of the windows? 'Are they coming over in submarines?' We also had to stick papers strips on the windows to lessen the danger of flying glass (I did that). My father was an air-raid warden. He had a tin hat, a special extra-protective gas mask and a uniform combat jacket. He used to go out when the siren went, but I have no idea what the wardens did on these occasions, or where they went.

GAS

There never were any gas attacks, thank God, but the wardens had special protective clothing (oilcloth?). I remember the first instruction for putting them on was 'Attend to the wants of nature', which puzzled me in those prim days, as a young girl. My father had, at one time, some little jars or containers with samples of poison in them, so that the wardens could recognise the various smells. One of them was said to smell of 'acid drops' but I didn't know what acid drops were. He kept the jars in the bath for safety. We also had an (empty) Japanese hand grenade in the bath at one stage. We didn't, according to the scandalous lie, keep coals in the bath, nor did anyone else.

My sister tells me we also had incendiary bombs in the bath. Later in the war we were told we needn't carry our gas masks any longer, to our innocent relief.

RATIONING

My grandmother had an unpleasant experience before rationing was introduced. There were already shortages, and when she asked her regular grocer for some biscuits she got the reply 'We keep them for people who spend a lot'.
'I'm a poor widow living on an Old Age Pension. How can I spend a lot?'
She didn't get her biscuits.

When I first went to Grammar School we used to buy chocolate bars at a shop on the way, but that didn't last long! I can't remember when rationing was introduced, but I have some figures. The rations changed from time to time.

'Ministry of Food 1942 0 1943 Serial No AH 51234 RATION BOOK - 'Don't Waste Food'

One week's rations.
Bacon and Ham - 4 oz
Meat - Approx 1 lb
Butter - 4 oz
Cheese - 2 oz - 4 oz
Tea - 2 oz
Sugar - 12 oz
Margarine - 2 oz
Milk - 2 - 3 pints
Eggs - 1 small egg every 4 weeks
Sweets - 12 oz every 4 weeks

(With thanks to Eden Camp Modern History Museum, Malton, N. Yorks)

There were also points coupons. These could be used for a variety of foods: jam, biscuits, tinned fish and almost anything that became available. Each item needed so many points, and you had a given number of points to allocate as you wished.

Vegetables were not rationed and potatoes particularly were a great standby. I remember a shortage of onions once, I don't know why, but we did miss them. I won some in a raffle, to my great delight. Of course, there were no luxury imported vegetables. Fruit was available, but not in great quantities, and there again it had to be local. No bananas, until they were imported later, for children only. We used to eat raw carrots and turnip instead of fruit.

Bread was not rationed at all during the war, only after it, but there was always the problem of what to put on it. Jam, butter, margarine? Dripping from the meat was good and tasty! With salt. The so-called 'National Loaf' was introduced. It was between brown and white and contained chalk for calcium.

Milk was rationed, but we were fortunate in that the dairy farms in our locality did not produce enough to export, so we had access to all that was produced. Milk was also provided in schools.

Meals in restaurants were not rationed, but that didn't help us much. There were places called British Restaurants, were an un-rationed, good, plain meal could be had very cheaply. Was it 1/6d? After a concert in the Sheffield City Hall Barbirolli and members of his orchestra would eat with us in the British Restaurant instead of going to the nearby hotel. We were very pleased.

We also had school dinners, 2/- a week if I remember rightly. For some reason the school had an enormous stock of rice, and every meal consisted of a main course, pudding and rice pudding. Sometimes I could not eat the food and went home hungry. I particularly remember the caterpillars in the cabbage - not the fault of the war, or really of the cooks.

Clothes were also rationed. As with the points system for food, you had so many coupons, and could spend them as you wished. Shoes were very heavy on coupons, as were winter coats. There was a curious regulation brought in at one time that women's underclothes could only be made in three colours, white, pink, blue. Hats were not rationed! I have a vague recollection that brides might have been given a few extra coupons.

We used to knit 'comforts' for the forces.

I'm not sure whether soap was rationed, but I think it was. Of course, at that time detergent had not yet come in (except possibly for shampoo, I don't know) and we washed everything with soap, the laundry, the washing up, ourselves and our hair. I never went hungry. Except, of course, that teenagers are always hungry, and there was a shortage of fuel, which meant that you were often cold, or fairly cold. Coal was rationed at one time.

Rationing continued long after the war. Bread rationing was introduced after the war. When I went abroad in 1953 both meat and sugar were till rationed. Clothes rationing ended in the late forties, but of course you still had to find the money for the lovely New Look clothes.

I have much clearer recollections of food later in the war and after it, when I was older. As far as I know we never bought anything on the black market, I suppose because we couldn't afford to. What we did was to sell the surplus clothing coupons that we couldn't afford to use.

AIR RAIDS

The imminence of an air raid was signalled by sirens, rising and falling for the alarm, and plain straight for the All Clear. This sort of sound still turns my stomach over 60 years later. As it is difficult to black out or close down (no, impossible) a steel works, we also had an alarm called the klaxon. This was a straight, rather short, harsh siren. Observers were stationed on the hill tops around us, and as soon as they saw enemy planes in the neighbourhood, the klaxon sounded. I don't know what precautions were taken in the works, but I presume that the workers at least took some sort of shelter, and switched off what lights could be switched off.

The big Coventry blitz (the first) was in 1940. I don't remember what bombing there was before that. The Sheffield blitz was on the 12 December 1940. We did not yet have air raid shelters at that time and spent the night downstairs under the table on blankets and eiderdowns in the corner of the living room. What I remember most is the constant steady rumbling of the bombs on Sheffield 10 miles away. I suppose there must have been light and flashes. Actually, I slept for quite a lot of the time, fortunately. I am still frightened if I hear a loud unidentified bang.

My sister tells me that father took her outside to see the squadrons of enemy aircraft flying over. I think I was possibly too afraid to go out. We were frightened of the bombing, of course, but I at least got resigned to the idea of sudden death. Two or three days later my father took me to Sheffield, just to see, I think. There were bits of paper flying about with blackened edges. I picked on up, and it had Hebrew printing on it. How did we know it was Hebrew? My father was a very well informed man on many subjects. It made us very sad though. Actually the bombers got it wrong in Sheffield. They dropped their bombs on the shopping centre instead of the steel works, luckily. The down side though, was that the stocks in the shops were destroyed and there was very little for us to buy for the rest of the war. We saw the rubble of the destroyed buildings, though some of the roads had already been cleared.

Later, air raid shelters were built for us. Ours was in a neighbour's garden, and shared by several houses. I don't know what it was called, but it consisted of a long trench, covered with a curved root, above ground, made of concrete (or was it corrugated iron, or both?) and covered with earth and clods. Inside it was cold and dark. We had chairs, but no beds: an oil stove: an electric lamp of some sort. We used a lot of electric torches in those days, being careful to keep them pointed downwards.

Mother made us siren suits, one-piece with leggings, tops and hoods, out of old blankets to slip over our nightdresses when we had to run through the neighbouring gardens to the shelter. They weren't warm enough. I remember on one occasion running out to the shelter while some uncomfortably near bombs weir exploding and flashing. Nasty. I made up a little suitcase to take with me to the shelter, in case our house was destroyed, I suppose. It contained a Bible, because that seemed to me to be appropriate to the occasion, a handkerchief, because I had a horror of being without one (!!) What else? Some chocolate, I'm almost sure? Perhaps a drink of some sort. I forget.

I remember one evening coming home from a church social, watching and listening to bombs bursting and flashing in the distance, thinking to myself 'Can this possible be really happening?'

BOMBS ON US

There was no siren. I was in bed with my mother, as father was on the night shift. I was wakened by the sound of a succession of loud explosions and flashes, which I thought were in the next street. I actually woke in the middle of falling out of bed where my mother had pushed. I went downstairs, whilst she took charge of my two little sisters. I didn't quite know what to do, so I sat on the bottom step and waited. The explosions soon stopped. We believe later, that the bomber had jettisoned a stick of bombs before flying back to Germany. I was surprised that the bombs made a 'cracking' sound, not like the 'boom' of distant explosions. We found out the next day that most of the bombs had fallen in nearby fields. No one was injured and no buildings damaged, except a lodge and a hut. I think maybe one or two did actually fall on the works.

One thing I do remember was the red glow in the sky when Manchester was bombed. I now know where Manchester is in relation to us but I didn't until then.

Later in the war the V1s and V2s started coming over, at least to the south of England 'V' stands for the German 'Vergeltunswaffe' (retaliation weapon) but I don't know what they were retaliating against. Didn't we bomb Berlin very early in the war - though I didn't know it at the time?

One V1 managed to come as far as us. It sounded like a motor bike, then cut out, and after a short silence there was an explosion. They used to say that if you heard the explosion it hadn't hit you! They were called 'doodle bugs'. As far as I know, we didn't have a V2, which gave no warning at all. I am struck now that as far as I can recollect we didn't discuss these events, either at school or with adults. It was absolute bliss when the Allied troops, after D-day, advanced up north and took the launch pads of these weapons.

MISCELLANEOUS - re bombing

We were not bombed in daylight, but moonlight nights were very dangerous. There was one lovely night when we saw searchlight practice. Our planes were flying about, trying to evade the searchlights - it was very beautiful. The cinema company 20th Century Fox, which introduces its films with playing searchlights, always reminds me of this.

We used to have air raid drill at school. For some reason the girls had to sit in the cloakroom, but I learned afterwards that the boys were in some kind of tunnel under the school.

Before the Moehne dam was bombed by the bouncing bombs some Lancaster (I think) bombers came and practised dive-bombing our dams. Later, very tall poles were erected round the dams, linkjed by cables to protect against very low-flying aircraft. Was it successful? Anyway, nobody tried bombing them. My sister's future mother-in-law, who lived near the damn, told her they were very frightened by this loud 'bombing' as they didn't know what it was.

We heard once that a plane had been shot down on the moors, the pilot survived and crawled away and then died. The sad thing was that if he had crawled in the opposite direction he would have reached a house. Was he one of our or a German? We didn't care, poor lad.

MILITARY EVENTS

I remember the BEF (British Expeditionary Force to France) retreating and being mercifully rescued at Dunkirk. I remember the standoff between the Siegfried Line and the Maginot Line, long elaborate defensive positions something on the lines of the trenches in the First World War. The German troops circumvented the Maginot Line by invading French through Belgium. Always news of new countries being conquered. And the Germans advancing in North Africa. Hitler triumphing in Paris.

But the great event was the invasion of Russia. We had been getting news of the 'gallant Finns' defending themselves against the Russians (in white uniforms because of the snow), but this completely vanished from the news. We suddenly found ourselves allies of the Russians! The Nazis advanced and advanced and advanced. The Russians retreated into Siberia with their industries. The Germans besieged Leningrad, advanced on Moscow. The Russians destroyed everything in the path of the German armies, 'scorched earth policy' it was called. This advance was very depressing and frightening, of course, and seemed to go on forever, but then came the great turning point of the war - Stalin. 23 August 1942 - 31 January 1943. We waited with bated breath and scarcely hoped. The Russians threw everything they had against the Germans. Thousands were killed, alas, but at long last the turning point came and the German armies were thrown back. Followed the dreadful winter retreat, reminding one inevitably of Napoleon, lots more fighting of course, the liberation (as it seemed then, and indeed was) of Eastern Europe and the advance upon Germany proper to Berlin, where the Western armies and the Russian Communists met. A frightening time for those who knew, I think but we were joyous. Remember the Russians were our Allies.

At the same time (?) Rommel and the Allies were chasing each other up and down North Africa, like a football match, or so it seemed to us, if that is not too flippant. This was followed by the final repulsing of Rommel (El Allamein) and the 'liberation' of North Africa, or, I suppose, its return to its colonial masters.

Then came the attack on the little island of Pantellaria, the first foothold in Europe, I believe. A striking moment.

I see I have not yet mentioned the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour and the entry of the USA into the European war. On 7 December 1941 Japanese planes launched a surprise air attack on the American Pacific Fleet, destroying a large part of it. For years I believe, for some reason, that it was the American mainland (continent) that had been attacked, but actually it was in Hawaii, quite a distance from the USA proper. I understand now that the Americans were warned of this attack by European intelligence, but took no notice.

I am hazy about the progress and extent of the war in the Far East. It seemed a very long way away, much more remote than it is today (2005). The Japanese captured large parts of East Asia, but not Australia. I think they did attack India at one point, but did not take it. What I do remember, as a child was the Japanese invasion of Manchuria (which they called Manchukwo) in August 1932. The Germans and the Japanese had an anti-Komintern (Russia) pact in 1936.

At school the boys belonged to the ATC (Air Training Corps) and went from it into the Forces. We had an organisation called the WJAC Women's Junior Air Corps. We had grey skirts and white blouses and grey forage caps. We used to do elementary drill. By the right (or left?) quick march, halt one two, left turn, right turn, about turn etc. We learned Morse; aircraft recognition from cards with silhouettes on them; lay on our stomachs and fired with a rifle that sent out a little pricker on to a target about an inch from the end of the barrel! I also had the only cookery lesson in my life - we made rock buns. I hope the soldiers would have appreciated them.

Later in the war we had Afro-American soldiers camped a distance beyond the school. I imagine they were threatened to leave us strictly alone. They used to roar up and down the road in Jeeps (real Jeeps). There was a dance hall down the road, where we were told unimaginable things happened and we were never to go there. We didn't.

Occasionally we used to cycle to and from school over the hill. Towards the end of the war stacks of large bombs were stored at the side of the road on top of the hill. We were told that they were gas bombs. This surprised us but didn't actually worry us. I believed at the time that they were already loaded with gas, but now I wonder.

THE BOMB

The atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima and a second one on Nagasaki in Japan (when?) brought the war in the Far East to an end. The Japanese simply surrendered, and no wonder. Mother wrote to the Manchester Guardian with the joke 'Up boys and at 'em'. Next day the Guardian reported how many hundreds of correspondents had sent that joke in! We were of course very pleased that the Japanese had been defeated. What I did not realise at the time, and only learned much later, was that the Americans had been bombing Japanese cities long before that. The liberation of Asia followed, though I don't remember much about it, except that dreadful pictures of prisoners freed from the prisoner-of-war camps, starved, and with that ghastly look in the eyes of people who have been mistreated. Our hearts broke. Reminds me of Oliver Twist in the orphanage.

MORE ABOUT THE WAR IN EUROPE AND ITS END

We listened avidly to the 大象传媒 news, at 8 am, 6 pm and 9 pm and trusted it completely. I realise now that there were some things we were not told. There were humorous programmes such as ITMA (It's That Man Again - Tommy Handley), recipe hints - a lady who always talked about 'reconstituting' powdered dried egg first thing in the morning. Music While You Work; what else? The Radio Doctor - health hints; The Glums.

There was also Lord Haw Haw broadcasting German propaganda intended to depress us and lower our morale. I don't think I ever actually heard him, but he was regarded as a great joke. I remember talk about Hitler's 'secret weapon', but we didn't take much notice. Actually I believe it was the atomic bomb, heaven help us, but I later learned that some of our agents blew up his 'heavy water' in Norway, and held up progress. The great relief as I have said was the destruction of the V1 and V2 bases in Western Europe after D-day.

The German cities were bombed in 1943 after the relief of Stalingrad in 1942. Hamburg was bombed from July 25-30 1943. I saw it in 1948 when I visited Germany, and it was still completely flattened, in ruins, an incredible sight. We were taken to the Alster, an ornamental lake in the centre, and told that during the bombing people lay down by the water to get air, and were found dead of suffocation in the morning.

We heard the hundreds of bombers going off to Germany in the evening, heavily loaded, making a deep, intermittent panting sound, and returning the morning empty, flying fast with a steady high-pitched drone. 'None of our aircraft was missing' the news said.

D-DAY

There was a pre-D-day landing in Dieppe. I don't think it was a success, but perhaps they collected useful information. I was awe-struck when I sailed into Dieppe as a schoolgirl civilian in 1946.

I don't remember the lead-up to D-day, perhaps because we were in the North, but I'm sure there must have been something in the air. Then came the great announcement, and we all held our breath and crossed our fingers. Success followed gradually except for the unhappy event at Arnhem, where Allied troops were dropped into the middle of a crack German unit, and wiped out. Followed the liberation of the concentration camps and the shock and horror as the poor inmates came out, and all was revealed.

The Russians advance through Eastern Europe, and eventually they and the Allies met (was it Berlin?). I know now that people were afraid that the Communist Russians would continue their advance and take over Western Europe took, but I had no inkling of this at the time - after all they were our friendly allies. Peace was declared, the Nazis defeated and VE day took place (Victory in Europe). I have no recollection at all of VE day. I did not go to any parties or celebrations of any kind. It was just a good thing.

There immediately followed the famous 1945 election. Our revered and beloved Winston Churchill suddenly metamorphosed into a politician, and a Tory at that. Shock and disgust. The British working class and the returning soldiers voted in the Labour government by a sweeping majority, and we were trilled and delighted that the miserable days of the 1930s were gone for good. The mines and the railways were nationalised, the National Health Service set up and the new Education system brought in. The slums were to be cleared, and everyone in need was to receive an allowance of National Assistance. Let nobody tell you those were grey and miserable days. There was still rationing and shortages of all kinds, but we were used to that any way, and nobody was dropping bombs on us. The future was bright.

MISCELLANEOUS RECOLLECTIONS

I do not remember anyone giving us moral support or advice, neither at home or at school. This was normal life, the only life we knew and we just knuckled down and got on with it. As I look back now I think I was much more frightened than necessary. The chance of a bomb hitting our house was fairly remote, though of course, the prospect of invasion was bad, though rather unimaginable. I did not have much sympathy with the Germans when we were bombing them - to have bombs dropped on you has a remarkable effect on your view of things.

When I was in Switzerland in 1948 I danced with a young German man (those were newly international days). He asked me where I was from, and when I said, 'Sheffield' he said 'Oh, I have been over there'. I replied (in French - why were we talking French?) 'Oui, et nous etions en bas' ('Yes, and we were down below.') 'Pauvres gens' he said ('you poor people'). It seemed very strange, but one just accepted it. I didn't hold it against him - he was just doing his duty. It was history then.

SEX

We were very innocent indeed (I was only 11 when the war broke out and 16 when it ended) and girls were very sheltered. No one swore in our presence or told dirty jokes. There were open advertisements in the papers warning of the dangers of syphilis and gonorrhoea - noted, but not really understood. Obviously I have remembered them. My uncle once told us of hearing a woman crying out, but when he went to the rescue it turned out that she just wanted her money. I was a Girl Guide; we learned Morse and Semaphore, First Aid and Home Nursing.

AIR RAID SHELTERS

I have described our shelter, but don't know what it was called. We knew people in London were sleeping on the Underground: there were shelters in the street, just brick structures on the surface to protect passers-by caught out in the street from blast, there were Andersen shelters in the garden for individual families; Morrison shelters in the house, and, I think, big general underground shelters in towns, but we didn't have them.

FOOD, etc.

I remember the food at the end of the war and after it more clearly than at the beginning when I was only a child. The meat ration was eked out with corned beef, which contained much more fat than the present-day version (2005).

The Americans also sent us Spam - delicious. For many years I though it meant Spiced Ham, but have later been told the name stands for 'Specially Prepared Army Meat' Ah! For years after the war I couldn't stand tinned pilchards. We must have had a lot, very nutritious. Later in the war, and after it, we got parcels from America. All I can remember is an enormous tin of tomatoes. They also sent us second-hand clothes (Marshall Aid?) I had a lovely black Astrakhan fur collar, which I had made into a pair of gloves, very comforting in those cold days. Fuel was rationed, and petrol.

As I remember, there was plenty of fish. I understand now that there was a tacit agreement that both German and British fishing boats were spared the naval war, to everybody's advantage, of course. Ships were being sunk all the time, and we were fearful of U-boats (Undersea boats).

We did not have plastic (except bakelite); things were made of metal or paper, as appropriate; no artificial fibres, except Celanese; stockings were made of Lisle (cotton?), wool or silk, nylons were a post-war delight; no ball-point pens (biros), only fountain pens and ink, and pencils; no sellotape. Wristwatches were a luxury and were mechanical (wind-up). At one point we received a consignment of mechanical alarm clocks from Canada because ours had worn out and people were not getting to work on time.

My mother made her life tolerable by reading George Bernard Shaw, who I don't doubt had a great influence on the Labour success in the 1945 election.

We only lost one family member in the war. My mother's cousin was a gym instructor in the Royal Navy and was killed in an accident on the parallel bars in Iceland. My father's brother served in a tank regiment in India and returned safely, but that is all I know.

After the war I would have been called up into the forces but they stopped calling up women the year before I was due to go. My great ambition was to be a despatch rider, but I don't think women got this job!

Before the war a woman had to leave her job when she got married - this affected school teachers especially, but of course when the war came this fell away. Women found themselves teaching in boys' schools (unheard of) and to everyone's surprise they did very well and could keep discipline better than some of the men. Of course, women got called up into the forces and factories and on the land and did the most unexpected jobs, though not active military service, as far as I know. My father told us that the best crane driver they ever had in the steel works was a woman, because she was gentle and careful.

3 AUGUST 2005

I wrote these last few pages on the morning of 7 July 2005, not knowing of the London bombing. Jake came home and as I opened the door he said 'Have you heard the news?' It struck me as strange that people had been killed in the underground, just where they had taken refuge in the Second World War.

SONGS

We're going to hang out the washing on the Siegfried Line
Have you any dirty washing mother dear?
We're going to hang out the washing on the Siegfried Line
'Cos the washing day is here.
Whether the weather may be wet or fine
We'll just jog along without a care.
We're going to hang out the washing on the Siegfried Line
If the Siegfried Line's still there.

This song didn't last long as the Germans invaded France through the undefended Belgian end of the Maginot Line, so both lines became obsolete. I heard later (at Eden Camp) that the Siegfried Line was quite something - several storeys deep and elaborately equipped.

Donner and blitzen, oh I beg your pardon.
Come and have a drink with me in Berchtesgaden

We were told Donner and blitzen (thunder and lightening) were swear words in German. (Are they?). Berchtesgaden was Hitler's holiday home. (Austria?).

What a surprise for the Duce, the Duce.
He can't put it over the Greeks.

The Duce (leader) was the Italian dictator Mussolini.

Roll out the barrel
Let's have a barrel of fun
Roll out the barrel
We've got the blues on the run
Sing boom-ta-ra-ra
Let's have a song of good cheer.
Now's the time to roll the barrel
'Cos the gang's all here.

Sung to the tune of 'Rosamunde' a popular continental (Austrian?) love song (rather unpleasant). The words 'Roll out the Barrel' suit the tune much better than the Rosamunde words.

Silver wings in the moonlight
Flying high up above
I am patiently waiting
Oh take care of my love.

Silver wings in the moonlight
Silver bird in the sky
Many times has he told me
He loves both you and I.

Surely this must have been a pre-war song in spite of the meaning, because war time aeroplanes were camouflaged, not silver.

Underneath the lamplight, by the barrack gate
Darling I remember the way you used to wait.
'Twas there that you whispered tenderly
That you love me, you'd always be
My Lilli of the lamplight, my own Lilli Marlene.

Time would come for roll call,
Time for us to part.
Darling, I'd caress you;
And press you to my heart;
And there 'neath that far off lantern light,
I'd hold you tight; we'd kiss 'Goodnight',
My Lilli of the lamplight, my own Lilli Marlene.

Orders came for sailing, somewhere over there,
All confined to barracks as more than I could bear
I knew you were waiting in the street
I heard your feet, but could not meet
My Lilli of the lamplight, my own Lilli Marlene.

Resting in a billet, close behind the line,
Even though we're parted your lips are close to mine.
And there where the lamplight softly gleams
Your sweet face seems to haunt my dreams
My Lilli of the lamplight, my own Lilli Marlene.

Lilli Marlene German song which has been sung by soldiers in every subsequent war.

There'll be blue birds over the white cliffs of Dover
Tomorrow, just you wait and see,
There'll be love and laughter and peace ever after
Tomorrow when the world is free.

And so it was, except perhaps for the 'peace ever after'. Vera Lynn

London Pride has been handed down to us
London Pride is a flower that's free.
London Pride means our own dear town to us
And that Pride it forever shall be.

Bless 'em all, bless 'em all,
The long and the short and the tall.
Bless all the corporals and the WO1's
Bless all the sergeants and their blinking sons
For we're saying goodbye to 'em all
As back to their billets they crawl
There'll be no promotion this side of the ocean
So cheer up me lads, bless 'em all.

I suppose this is an American song, on account of the ocean.

We'll gather lilacs in the spring again
We'll walk together down an English lane
We'll gather lilacs in the spring again
When you come back again.

We'll gather lilacs in the spring again
Until our hearts have learned to sing again
We'll gather lilacs in the spring again
When we come home once more.

Also: The Lambeth Walk: Underneath The Spreading Chestnut Tree

Note: Underneath the spreading chestnut tree
Adolf Hitler said to me
If you want to get your gas mask free
Join the blooming AR

P

We'll meet again don't know where, don't know when
But I know we'll meet again some sunny day

Come, come, come
Remember you're a Plum
And never start a' worrying
When things look glum.
And no matter what the weather
Plums will always hang together
Come, come, come,
Remember you're a Plum.

What was a Plum? A surname I think.

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