大象传媒

MEMORIES OF THE SECOND WORLD WAR

By Malcolm Henry Nolan

I was born in Sunderland on the 14 th March 1939 the day before Hitler鈥檚 armies entered Prague and Slovakia became a Protectorate. It was a family joke that my birth had caused the War! Because of the expansion of Nazism there was turmoil in Europe at this time and there were growing fears in Britain that a second world war was not far away. Thousands of men volunteered for the Air Raid Protection service (ARP) as well as the Civil Defence, evacuation plans for women and children were drawn up, air raid shelters were dug or distributed, people started to leave the big cities, new wills were written and there was a sudden spate of marriages.

As my father鈥檚 work was in civil engineering he was sent with many others to prepare defences in the South of England against assault by the Germans either by sea or air. He supervised the building of tank traps, pillboxes and other defence structures such as gun emplacements. In addition he worked on disguising gas works and oil storage depots so that Nazi bombers would not see them from the air. During this time he lived on the south coast moving from town to town living in hotels and boarding houses. As soon as I was a few months old my mother travelled with me down to Brixham to join him.

1st September 1939 Evacuation of cities began; five million women and children were moved to 鈥渞eception areas鈥�. These included 500,000 children under 5 and 10,000 women who were expecting babies. Can you imagine the chaos this must have caused and the heartrending distress to those children and their mothers?

3rd September 1939. Britain declares war on Germany.
All men between the ages of 18 and 41 were called up for service in the Army, Navy or the Air Force. Some men who were in reserved occupations such as police, steel workers, seamen and some coalminers did not have to enlist.
My father, being engaged in vital Government defence projects, was exempt and we continued to live in the southern counties. Even though I was a very small child at the time I have recollections of Southampton, Plymouth, Winchester, Basingstoke, Torquay, Brixham and Micheldever, remembering in particular how kind complete strangers were to me.
Meanwhile around Britain war preparations continued. All beaches were closed to the public and surrounded by barbed wire, park and house railings were removed and melted down to make ships and tanks. People were issued with gas masks which they had to carry with them at all times. As a child I had a special gas mask which I remember I did not like.
Barrage balloons were winched up into the sky above strategic targets such as factories and shipyards in every house blackout curtains were fitted at windows and doors, the glass panes being taped over to reduce the danger from flying glass. Streetlights were not switched on and at first motor vehicles drove without lights. However as so many people were killed in road accidents at night, vehicles were eventually allowed to show a small amount of headlight.
During the time of this activity Britain was fighting the battle of the Atlantic, German U-boats inflicting terrible losses on our ships and seamen.

May 1940 Germany invaded France, Holland and Belgium and British troops were forced to evacuate Europe at Dunkirk. At home the weather was beautiful, a very mild spring had been followed by glorious sunshine throughout May and June. The countryside never looked better.

21st June 1940 On a clear, warm night in Sunderland at one in the morning a loan German bomber came in from the sea dropped 3 bombs near the beach, which killed 2 horses. My family鈥檚 war had begun

15th August 1940 A group of 63 Heinkel bombers flew from their base in Norway
to attack Wearside and Tyneside. They caused extensive damage to area on north side of River Wear.This caused my mother much concern as most of her family lived in this area.

6th September 1940 Sunderland main railway station suffers direct hit, the bogy wheels of a railway engine being flung out of the station into a shop window in the town. Two German bombers were shot down that night.

7th September 1940 Blitz begins on London

December 1940 My mother travels with me through London despite the Blitz back up to Sunderland to stay with her parents. My father remained in the south and we only ever go to visit him again during the summers of 1941 and 1942.

29th December 1940 London ablaze with 1500 fires caused by incendiary bombs.

15th March 1941 Lone bomber drops out of a large formation of enemy bombers passing over Sunderland on the way to bomb Glasgow. It dropped 4 large calibre bombs, which landed, in a circle around my grandfather鈥檚 house. Four neighbours were killed and many more were seriously injured.
I remember very well being in our Anderson shelter hearing the bombs drop then the drone of the aircraft as it passed overhead. We all then rushed to the shelter door and there was the bomber caught in a searchlight moving, very slowly it seemed, in a long right hand turn towards the sea
After this raid my grandfather became very concerned about having three generations of the same family under the one roof during the bombing. I was therefore sent with my mother to her brother鈥檚 house, which was about one mile away.

10th April 1941 Another heavy raid which began about two in the morning and caused great damage to the centre of the town. The town鈥檚 largest departmental store was destroyed when clusters of incendiary bombs hit the building. Other large commercial buildings and shops were set on fire by hundreds of incendiaries.
I remember standing in my uncles back garden looking across playing fields towards the town and seeing this unforgettable blaze lighting up the sky. I recall that my mother and my uncle Bill were debating which of their favourite buildings in the town were being destroyed before their eyes
Later that day my uncle, who was a policeman, took me with him through the cordons into the town centre and the sights that I saw were burned into my memory. There were firemen and auxiliary workers everywhere. The roads were lined with hundreds of firehoses amongst the rubble, broken glass and still burning wood. However what stuck in my memory most was the smell of burnt wood, soot and the foul water that was pouring out of the gutted buildings. It was not really the place for a small child.
The bombing of the town continued almost nightly during April and May, if good weather coincided with a full moon the townspeople knew they were going to get a hammering.

3rd May 1941 During an alert that lasted from 11pm until 4 am the area around my grandfather鈥檚 house was hit by 3 heavy bombs, which destroyed 25 houses and killed 13 neighbours. You can imagine the fear and anxiety that my grandparents suffered. I was meanwhile considered fairly safe in my uncle鈥檚 house. That was until 2 days later a huge landmine landed by parachute in his street about 20 yards from his front door! Luckily for all of us it did not explode but lay in a big hole in the road until a brave army bomb squad defused it. If this mine had exploded many surrounding homes would have been destroyed and many families including our own would certainly have been killed. After this incident Jerry left us alone for a while to concentrate his bombers on the eastern front.

June 1941 Operation Barbarossa begins, Germany invades the U.S.S.R.
During this period the British government increased the standard rate of income tax to 50p in the pound. Think what this would mean to a shop assistant or factory worker who would be lucky to be paid Three Pounds a week and he now would have to give half of it back to pay for the war!
The lull in the bombing gave the towns workers a chance to repair some of the damage to homes, factories, roads railways, gasmains and watermains. Chance was also taken to clear bombsites and use the sites for anti-aircraft guns, barrage balloons and as I remember to build big tanks to hold emergency water in case the watermains were damaged
I had meanwhile been taken to the home of another of my mother鈥檚 brothers who was also a policeman. He also lived about 1 mile from my grandfather but in a more northerly direction.

13th August 1941 Jerry was back! Just before noon a lone Heinkel bomber sneaked in over the beach at Roker .The sirens sounded too late for people to take shelter. The plane was clearly seen by people out shopping and they stared in disbelief as it dropped 3 bombs which landed very close together on the little cul-de-sac where I was now living. A pair of semidetached houses took a direct hit killing 4 people and injuring 5. Another five houses were so badly damaged that they were pulled down. My uncle Mathews鈥� house had all the windows blown in and about half the slates were missing from the roof. I was in the back garden at the time and so escaped the blast.

The town continued to be bombed at regular intervals for the remainder of 1941 and into January 1942 when yet another bomb dropped close to my grandfather鈥檚 house.
There was then another lull in the aerial attacks while Germany concentrated its resources to
counter the Soviet offensive. The town used this lull to build more ships needed to replace those lost in the Atlantic; it would take longer to replace the hundreds of engineers from the town who had gone down with their ships. In the springtime the Government intensified its Dig For Victory campaign, insisting that parks, gardens and even lawns be dug over and planted with vegetables.

15th February 1942 Singapore falls to the Japanese. Things are looking very bad for Britain.

1st May 1942 The German bombers were back! At 2-30 in the morning the sirens wailed and we all ran to the shelter, about 20 mins later a plane dropped four H.E. bombs on my aunt and uncle鈥檚 little street within a few yards of the bombs that landed in the previous August. This time they killed two people in a homemade shelter. Extensive damage was caused to local institutions such as the pub at the end of the street, the fire station and the workingmen鈥檚 club. I remember that the milkman鈥檚 horse, which was stabled nearby, was killed. My uncle鈥檚 house again escaped serious damage, but he reckoned that for the number of houses that were in the cul-de-sac we were living in the most bombed street in England!
With this in mind we moved back to my grandfathers house.

Throughout the reminder of 1942 the town suffered many more air raids and many more people were killed, we hade alerts nearly every night which meant the whole family, including my mother who was now pregnant, spending long hours in the shelter in our night clothes until the 鈥淎ll Clear鈥漵ounded.

October 1942 Montgomery defeats the Germans at El Alamein, our first real victory and regarded by many as the turning point of the war.

January 1943 The Germans are defeated at Stalingrad and the huge German army surrenders The news is getting better!

14th March 1943 My 4th birthday and by way of celebration Hitler hit the town with its worst air raid so far. Damage to the town centre was very extensive with many of the remaining buildings being demolished or severely damaged.
I visited the town centre the next morning with my grandfather and the scenes were unbelievable. There was bomb damage everywhere and I remember in particular that all the public clocks were showing different times. In those days when very few people owned a watch, they came to rely entirely on the large public clocks. The damage to the town was so great that the King and Queen came to see it for themselves and this helped to keep up the spirits of the townsfolk

6th April 1943 My mother gave birth to a baby girl and my father moved to Sunderland to live, getting a job dealing with the massive amount of bomb damage in the town.

May 1943 Part 鈥搕ime work is made compulsory for women aged 18-45. This was a very draconian measure for women with young children or for those looking after old or infirm relatives.

15th May 1943 It was a clear moonlight night when 60 German bombers set off from their bases across the North Sea, destination? Sunderland.
At my grandfathers house we heard the sirens at about two in the morning and scrambled for cover. There was now too many of us to be fitted into the shelter. And as my mother and her new baby had priority, I was pushed under the bath with my cousin. We lay there for a long while listening to distant bombs exploding and the sound of anti-aircraft guns. We were very scared as we knew this was what our parents called a 鈥渉eavy raid鈥�. Suddenly there was a heavy 鈥渃rumpwhoosh鈥� and the house shook. I remember that the toilet lid fell down and then there was absolute chaos. We heard the sound of breaking glass and large objects falling and then suddenly the house was full of choking dust and soot.
We lay there terrified until the 鈥淎ll Clear鈥� sounded and then my Dad and Grandfather came to rescue us. We found the living room and lounge full of bricks and other debris .All the windows in the house were broken and my grandmother was heart broken at the state of her lovely home.
It was only at daybreak when we saw the full extent of the damage to the neighbourhood did we realise that we had nothing to complain about, Grandfathers house was the end house of a row of cottages that lead down to a railway level crossing at the main road along which tramcars ran. A land mine had dropped right on the spot where the rail and tramlines crossed causing devastation to the streets around. Dozens of houses were demolished, at least seven shops were flattened including our beloved fish and chip shop and the bus depot was damaged.
As our house was the end house of the street the gable end took the full blast and it was demolished together with part of the roof. It is a credit to the Anderson shelters in the area that no people were killed but 8 neighbours were injured. My baby sister had survived her first air raid! That night 130 bombs fell on the town killing 71 people. We were paying the price for being the biggest shipbuilding town in the world.
As my father was in charge of repairing bomb damage my grandfather鈥檚 house was quickly repaired. However the overcrowding in the house was now getting desperate with the additions of my father and my sister. The government was tackling the problem of the thousands of people who had been 鈥渂ombed out鈥� by requisitioning large houses of people who were not using them to the full and then turning them into flats. It was hard luck on these richer house owners but hard times required hard measures.
In Sunderland alone 1013 houses had been demolished, 2700 had been extensively damaged and 32000 had suffered damage that was considered repairable. As you can imagine this kept my father very busy!

24th May 1943 Just a week later the problems were compounded when Jerry pummelled the town again. Forty people were huddled inside a brick surface shelter which suffered a direct hit, resulting in 12 of the unfortunates loosing their lives, it must have been a terrible job for the fire-fighters many of whom pulled their own wives and children from the carnage.
On this night a further 83 people were killed, 109 seriously injured and 3500 more people were made homeless. We were now seeing heroism, devotion to duty and unselfishness on a scale never seen before and the townsfolk were certainly worthy of their fathers, brothers and sons who were away in the larger war in Burma and Africa as well as on and below the seas of the world.

September 1943 The Italian forces surrender and the British occupy Naples.
Just before Christmas 1943 my parents together with my sister and I moved into a flat in a requisitioned house in Park Avenue just a short distance from the beach. This was the first time our family had a house that we could call our home. The air raid alerts continued as bombers overflew the town on raids to other cities, we did not know it at the time but the dreadful raid of 24th May was to be the last time that Jerry visited us.

We were beginning to settle into a normal (or as normal as you could expect) family life when tragedy struck. Early in 1944 my mother became seriously ill and was taken to hospital. The illness subsequently caused irreparable damage to her heart resulting in her being unable to walk. She was confined to bed or a wheel chair and could not look after her husband and children. It will never be known how much the stress of the war contributed to her illness and eventual death in 1946. It certainly was a hard time in which to bring up children.

8th May 1945 The Nazis are defeated in Europe

**

So much for the events of the war as it affected me, but the bombing was just a small part of the day-to-day life .It was something that was traumatic and you certainly could never forget it.
Worse still in many ways was the false alarms, the sirens wailed out a total of 247 times in three years on Wearside which meant a lot of people had their sleep disrupted but still had to go to work or school the next day.
For a small boy it was a bit of an adventure, I suppose that my mother and grandmother were very protective of me but I just wanted to absorb everything that was going on. I know it was very difficult for them to keep me indoors and away from the bombsites. It was very exciting.!
One of the main problems for my mother was finding good food to keep us nourished. As the war progressed there was very little food from abroad as the ships had to carry vital supplies for the war effort. So there just was no fruit such as bananas, oranges or grapefruit. There was a shortage of sugar and apples as well as white flour. The government introduced rationing in order that everyone, rich or poor could get a fair share of the food that was available.
However the shortages were so acute that people had to live by their wits and a thriving 鈥渂lack-market" developed
Meat was rationed and the butcher became the housewives best friend! I remember we used to eat a lot of rabbit as my mother had a friend whose young son used to catch the rabbits early in the morning. Later in the war I was allowed to go with him. My grandmother used to make a wonderful pie with rabbit and black pudding.
To supplement our diet we all ate 鈥渁n awful lot of offal鈥� such as liver, pig鈥檚 trotters, kidneys, tongue, sheeps brains, pigtail, tripe, sweetmeats and heart. My grandmother could make very tasty meals with these items, which are probably used as dogmeat nowadays.
I clearly recall that people ate a lot of horsemeat and there were butchers who sold only horsemeat.
Horses were very much in evidence during the war as due to the petrol shortage they were used to pull laundry carts, hearses, coal carts, beerwagons, milkcarts in fact just about everything including working on the farms. Imagine, when they could work no more they became some family鈥檚 Sunday lunch!
I do not remember if fish was rationed as we seemed to eat it quite often and I suppose take it a bit for granted as we lived by the sea. It is only with hindsight that we must thank those brave fishermen who risked their lives to sail out into the cold, rough,North Sea in their little boats defying mines, enemy aircraft and ships to bring home the fish.
Vegetables were available but only in season as there was very little tinned food and certainly no frozen food. My grandfather had many friends who were miners that worked down the colliery during the night and who tended their garden allotments during the day. These men shared their produce with neighbours and friends.
I used to love to help my grandmother shell fresh peas they were delicious! Potatoes were sold by the stone and tipped straight from the scale into my mother鈥檚 shopping bag, complete with the soil. I then had to carry it home!
Bread was not rationed so we ate a lot of that with homemade jam. My grandmother used to bake once a week making bread, tarts and pies in the coal fired oven. I do not think I shall ever forget the wonderful smell that came from that small kitchen. Later in the war it was considered as wasteful and unpatriotic to use white flour.
So what did we drink? There was no such thing as coca cola nor were there any sweet drinks in tins. I remember we drank bottled drinks like sasparilla and dandelion and burdock. We also had milk, oxo and very rarely cocoa, but mostly drank tap water if we were thirsty. Adults seemed to drink a lot of tea even though it had to be imported. I never saw wine or coffee until many years after the war ended.
There were no supermarkets and everyone used their local shops, housewives being on first name terms in each and every one and considered to be friends. I still remember the names of the local shopkeepers.
About 90% of the products you see in the supermarket today were not available during the war. There was no frozen food as nobody had a fridge or a freezer. We kept meat in a wooden box with wire gauze sides called a meatsafe. Kitchen towels, tissues and toilet paper were never sold. The daily newspaper was cut up into neat squares and hung on a hook inside the toilet.
Children had not yet experienced tinned Heinz beans, spaghetti or macaroni. Pets lived on any leftover or scraps they could find as pet food , apart from dogbiscuits,was not available, now we have whole aisles dedicated to it and to other things like perfumed soaps, detergents and cleaning sprays.
Soap was rationed in the war, we used 鈥渂ar鈥� soap that was a horrible yellow block about 10 inches long that smelled like animal fat. My grandmother used to cut it into smaller pieces for the bathroom, scraping thin slivers off the block to mix with soda crystals to use in the clothes boiler on Monday mornings.
Re-cycling has not just been invented. During the war nothing that could be re-used was thrown away, food scraps were given to the dog, used clothes were passed on to friends or relatives. When the clothes were no longer of use they were cut into strips and woven into mats. Anything left over after that was given to the rag and bone man who pushed his handcart through the streets. Any bones he collected were used to make glue.
Milk was delivered daily in bottles, which were washed and collected the next day. Jam jars were washed and taken back to the jam factory or were used by children to gain entrance to the cinema on a Saturday morning. Newspapers were used by shops as wrapping paper or used to light coal fires in the home. Each home had a small bucket with a lid, which was used to hold vegetable peelings; these were collected weekly and fed to pigs. Anything else that was of no use was burnt in the kitchen fire, which apart from keeping us warm was also the cooker and the oven.
Two modern day disposal problems that cause us expense and headaches now were unheard of during the war;
Plastics had not yet come into use so there was not the massive problem that we have today of disposing of them. Also babies had nappies made from towelling which were washed by hand and then hung out to dry. Disposable nappies now present a huge disposal problem.
So you can see that when the refuse collectors came each week all they had to collect was the fine ashes from the coal fires ,hence the words dustbin and dustcart came into use.
Apart from the constant quest for food my mothers other concern was clothing for the family. Clothing like food was rationed, however the adult issue of 66 coupons was not enough to buy a 50 shilling (拢2. 50) suit. Women had to resort to cutting up the curtains that had been replaced by blackout curtains in order to make skirts etc..
Utility clothing was introduced in 1941 which reduced everything to a minimum. Men鈥檚 trouser turn-ups were not allowed, shirt tails were reduced drastically and only six styles were allowed for women鈥檚 under garments.(The latter nearly caused riots!) My biggest problem I recall was shoes as I was constantly growing out of them and my feet had really to be pinching before I got a pair handed down from an older cousin. I of course was not alone in this predicament as it was common to see children wearing clothes many sizes too big for them and even children who wore no shoes at all in the summer time.
Mothers became ingenious at patching clothes so it was fashionable to have patches on places such as elbows. My mother used to unravel old wool jumpers and cardigans and use the wool to knit larger garments for me.
Two items became in short supply as the war progressed. One was razor blades my father having to use an old 鈥渃ut throat鈥� razor to shave. The other was hairgrips ,the shortage of which caused women to change their hairstyles.
The Second World War imposed such trauma, restriction and emotional stress on everyone that the memories linger forever.
I remember clearly the long journeys in crowded trains to visit my father in the south, having to endure long nights of darkness, which would be hard to explain to the children of today who are used to the bright lights of modern Britain. Walking in the streets after nightfall was an extremely hazardous thing to do, as you bumped into people, posts, letterboxes or could easily fall down one of the many large holes in the ground.
Then there were the long nights in the air raid shelter, with people being amazingly jolly and singing songs ,the words of which poured scorn on Mr Hitler and his gang of criminals. Nowadays when I am at an airport and a taxiing jet plane exuded the smell of paraffin fuel I am taken straight back to the inside of our Anderson shelter with my grandfather struggling to get the hurricane lamp or the paraffin heater lit.
So apart from the singing what did we do for entertainment? There was no T.V. no nightlife as in the beginning of the war all cinemas and theatres were closed down as it was thought they were too big a risk from a direct bomb hit (They were re-opened later in the war).
There were no sports events to go to as all the sportsmen and women had joined the forces Can you imagine Beckham and his pals putting their Ferraris up on bricks and going off to war perhaps not to return?
The only real source of entertainment as well as information was the radio and most families gathered around this early in the evening to hear news of the progress of the war on the 大象传媒 Home service. I do not believe that the people were told the whole truth especially in the early years when things were going so badly. Like many others our radio ran on an accumulator , which we had to take to the local garage to be recharged.
As few people had a telephone one had to keep in touch with friends and relatives who lived far away by writing letters. These letters have now become valuable first hand accounts of the experience of war and tell in all innocence the reality of the time when Britain stood alone, a time of great danger but at the same time a time of hope. It was anticipated that in future little children would always have shoes for their feet and that people would be looked after from the cradle to the grave with good housing, healthcare, working conditions and free from the fear of poverty.
Whether this all came to pass I leave it to you to decide.

M.H.Nolan

MEMORIES OF THE SECOND WORLD WAR

By Malcolm Henry Nolan

I was born in Sunderland on the 14 th March 1939 the day before Hitler鈥檚 armies entered Prague and Slovakia became a Protectorate. It was a family joke that my birth had caused the War! Because of the expansion of Nazism there was turmoil in Europe at this time and there were growing fears in Britain that a second world war was not far away. Thousands of men volunteered for the Air Raid Protection service (ARP) as well as the Civil Defence, evacuation plans for women and children were drawn up, air raid shelters were dug or distributed, people started to leave the big cities, new wills were written and there was a sudden spate of marriages.

As my father鈥檚 work was in civil engineering he was sent with many others to prepare defences in the South of England against assault by the Germans either by sea or air. He supervised the building of tank traps, pillboxes and other defence structures such as gun emplacements. In addition he worked on disguising gas works and oil storage depots so that Nazi bombers would not see them from the air. During this time he lived on the south coast moving from town to town living in hotels and boarding houses. As soon as I was a few months old my mother travelled with me down to Brixham to join him.

1st September 1939 Evacuation of cities began; five million women and children were moved to 鈥渞eception areas鈥�. These included 500,000 children under 5 and 10,000 women who were expecting babies. Can you imagine the chaos this must have caused and the heartrending distress to those children and their mothers?

3rd September 1939. Britain declares war on Germany.
All men between the ages of 18 and 41 were called up for service in the Army, Navy or the Air Force. Some men who were in reserved occupations such as police, steel workers, seamen and some coalminers did not have to enlist.
My father, being engaged in vital Government defence projects, was exempt and we continued to live in the southern counties. Even though I was a very small child at the time I have recollections of Southampton, Plymouth, Winchester, Basingstoke, Torquay, Brixham and Micheldever, remembering in particular how kind complete strangers were to me.
Meanwhile around Britain war preparations continued. All beaches were closed to the public and surrounded by barbed wire, park and house railings were removed and melted down to make ships and tanks. People were issued with gas masks which they had to carry with them at all times. As a child I had a special gas mask which I remember I did not like.
Barrage balloons were winched up into the sky above strategic targets such as factories and shipyards in every house blackout curtains were fitted at windows and doors, the glass panes being taped over to reduce the danger from flying glass. Streetlights were not switched on and at first motor vehicles drove without lights. However as so many people were killed in road accidents at night, vehicles were eventually allowed to show a small amount of headlight.
During the time of this activity Britain was fighting the battle of the Atlantic, German U-boats inflicting terrible losses on our ships and seamen.

May 1940 Germany invaded France, Holland and Belgium and British troops were forced to evacuate Europe at Dunkirk. At home the weather was beautiful, a very mild spring had been followed by glorious sunshine throughout May and June. The countryside never looked better.

21st June 1940 On a clear, warm night in Sunderland at one in the morning a loan German bomber came in from the sea dropped 3 bombs near the beach, which killed 2 horses. My family鈥檚 war had begun

15th August 1940 A group of 63 Heinkel bombers flew from their base in Norway
to attack Wearside and Tyneside. They caused extensive damage to area on north side of River Wear.This caused my mother much concern as most of her family lived in this area.

6th September 1940 Sunderland main railway station suffers direct hit, the bogy wheels of a railway engine being flung out of the station into a shop window in the town. Two German bombers were shot down that night.

7th September 1940 Blitz begins on London

December 1940 My mother travels with me through London despite the Blitz back up to Sunderland to stay with her parents. My father remained in the south and we only ever go to visit him again during the summers of 1941 and 1942.

29th December 1940 London ablaze with 1500 fires caused by incendiary bombs.

15th March 1941 Lone bomber drops out of a large formation of enemy bombers passing over Sunderland on the way to bomb Glasgow. It dropped 4 large calibre bombs, which landed, in a circle around my grandfather鈥檚 house. Four neighbours were killed and many more were seriously injured.
I remember very well being in our Anderson shelter hearing the bombs drop then the drone of the aircraft as it passed overhead. We all then rushed to the shelter door and there was the bomber caught in a searchlight moving, very slowly it seemed, in a long right hand turn towards the sea
After this raid my grandfather became very concerned about having three generations of the same family under the one roof during the bombing. I was therefore sent with my mother to her brother鈥檚 house, which was about one mile away.

10th April 1941 Another heavy raid which began about two in the morning and caused great damage to the centre of the town. The town鈥檚 largest departmental store was destroyed when clusters of incendiary bombs hit the building. Other large commercial buildings and shops were set on fire by hundreds of incendiaries.
I remember standing in my uncles back garden looking across playing fields towards the town and seeing this unforgettable blaze lighting up the sky. I recall that my mother and my uncle Bill were debating which of their favourite buildings in the town were being destroyed before their eyes
Later that day my uncle, who was a policeman, took me with him through the cordons into the town centre and the sights that I saw were burned into my memory. There were firemen and auxiliary workers everywhere. The roads were lined with hundreds of firehoses amongst the rubble, broken glass and still burning wood. However what stuck in my memory most was the smell of burnt wood, soot and the foul water that was pouring out of the gutted buildings. It was not really the place for a small child.
The bombing of the town continued almost nightly during April and May, if good weather coincided with a full moon the townspeople knew they were going to get a hammering.

3rd May 1941 During an alert that lasted from 11pm until 4 am the area around my grandfather鈥檚 house was hit by 3 heavy bombs, which destroyed 25 houses and killed 13 neighbours. You can imagine the fear and anxiety that my grandparents suffered. I was meanwhile considered fairly safe in my uncle鈥檚 house. That was until 2 days later a huge landmine landed by parachute in his street about 20 yards from his front door! Luckily for all of us it did not explode but lay in a big hole in the road until a brave army bomb squad defused it. If this mine had exploded many surrounding homes would have been destroyed and many families including our own would certainly have been killed. After this incident Jerry left us alone for a while to concentrate his bombers on the eastern front.

June 1941 Operation Barbarossa begins, Germany invades the U.S.S.R.
During this period the British government increased the standard rate of income tax to 50p in the pound. Think what this would mean to a shop assistant or factory worker who would be lucky to be paid Three Pounds a week and he now would have to give half of it back to pay for the war!
The lull in the bombing gave the towns workers a chance to repair some of the damage to homes, factories, roads railways, gasmains and watermains. Chance was also taken to clear bombsites and use the sites for anti-aircraft guns, barrage balloons and as I remember to build big tanks to hold emergency water in case the watermains were damaged
I had meanwhile been taken to the home of another of my mother鈥檚 brothers who was also a policeman. He also lived about 1 mile from my grandfather but in a more northerly direction.

13th August 1941 Jerry was back! Just before noon a lone Heinkel bomber sneaked in over the beach at Roker .The sirens sounded too late for people to take shelter. The plane was clearly seen by people out shopping and they stared in disbelief as it dropped 3 bombs which landed very close together on the little cul-de-sac where I was now living. A pair of semidetached houses took a direct hit killing 4 people and injuring 5. Another five houses were so badly damaged that they were pulled down. My uncle Mathews鈥� house had all the windows blown in and about half the slates were missing from the roof. I was in the back garden at the time and so escaped the blast.

The town continued to be bombed at regular intervals for the remainder of 1941 and into January 1942 when yet another bomb dropped close to my grandfather鈥檚 house.
There was then another lull in the aerial attacks while Germany concentrated its resources to
counter the Soviet offensive. The town used this lull to build more ships needed to replace those lost in the Atlantic; it would take longer to replace the hundreds of engineers from the town who had gone down with their ships. In the springtime the Government intensified its Dig For Victory campaign, insisting that parks, gardens and even lawns be dug over and planted with vegetables.

15th February 1942 Singapore falls to the Japanese. Things are looking very bad for Britain.

1st May 1942 The German bombers were back! At 2-30 in the morning the sirens wailed and we all ran to the shelter, about 20 mins later a plane dropped four H.E. bombs on my aunt and uncle鈥檚 little street within a few yards of the bombs that landed in the previous August. This time they killed two people in a homemade shelter. Extensive damage was caused to local institutions such as the pub at the end of the street, the fire station and the workingmen鈥檚 club. I remember that the milkman鈥檚 horse, which was stabled nearby, was killed. My uncle鈥檚 house again escaped serious damage, but he reckoned that for the number of houses that were in the cul-de-sac we were living in the most bombed street in England!
With this in mind we moved back to my grandfathers house.

Throughout the reminder of 1942 the town suffered many more air raids and many more people were killed, we hade alerts nearly every night which meant the whole family, including my mother who was now pregnant, spending long hours in the shelter in our night clothes until the 鈥淎ll Clear鈥漵ounded.

October 1942 Montgomery defeats the Germans at El Alamein, our first real victory and regarded by many as the turning point of the war.

January 1943 The Germans are defeated at Stalingrad and the huge German army surrenders The news is getting better!

14th March 1943 My 4th birthday and by way of celebration Hitler hit the town with its worst air raid so far. Damage to the town centre was very extensive with many of the remaining buildings being demolished or severely damaged.
I visited the town centre the next morning with my grandfather and the scenes were unbelievable. There was bomb damage everywhere and I remember in particular that all the public clocks were showing different times. In those days when very few people owned a watch, they came to rely entirely on the large public clocks. The damage to the town was so great that the King and Queen came to see it for themselves and this helped to keep up the spirits of the townsfolk

6th April 1943 My mother gave birth to a baby girl and my father moved to Sunderland to live, getting a job dealing with the massive amount of bomb damage in the town.

May 1943 Part 鈥搕ime work is made compulsory for women aged 18-45. This was a very draconian measure for women with young children or for those looking after old or infirm relatives.

15th May 1943 It was a clear moonlight night when 60 German bombers set off from their bases across the North Sea, destination? Sunderland.
At my grandfathers house we heard the sirens at about two in the morning and scrambled for cover. There was now too many of us to be fitted into the shelter. And as my mother and her new baby had priority, I was pushed under the bath with my cousin. We lay there for a long while listening to distant bombs exploding and the sound of anti-aircraft guns. We were very scared as we knew this was what our parents called a 鈥渉eavy raid鈥�. Suddenly there was a heavy 鈥渃rumpwhoosh鈥� and the house shook. I remember that the toilet lid fell down and then there was absolute chaos. We heard the sound of breaking glass and large objects falling and then suddenly the house was full of choking dust and soot.
We lay there terrified until the 鈥淎ll Clear鈥� sounded and then my Dad and Grandfather came to rescue us. We found the living room and lounge full of bricks and other debris .All the windows in the house were broken and my grandmother was heart broken at the state of her lovely home.
It was only at daybreak when we saw the full extent of the damage to the neighbourhood did we realise that we had nothing to complain about, Grandfathers house was the end house of a row of cottages that lead down to a railway level crossing at the main road along which tramcars ran. A land mine had dropped right on the spot where the rail and tramlines crossed causing devastation to the streets around. Dozens of houses were demolished, at least seven shops were flattened including our beloved fish and chip shop and the bus depot was damaged.
As our house was the end house of the street the gable end took the full blast and it was demolished together with part of the roof. It is a credit to the Anderson shelters in the area that no people were killed but 8 neighbours were injured. My baby sister had survived her first air raid! That night 130 bombs fell on the town killing 71 people. We were paying the price for being the biggest shipbuilding town in the world.
As my father was in charge of repairing bomb damage my grandfather鈥檚 house was quickly repaired. However the overcrowding in the house was now getting desperate with the additions of my father and my sister. The government was tackling the problem of the thousands of people who had been 鈥渂ombed out鈥� by requisitioning large houses of people who were not using them to the full and then turning them into flats. It was hard luck on these richer house owners but hard times required hard measures.
In Sunderland alone 1013 houses had been demolished, 2700 had been extensively damaged and 32000 had suffered damage that was considered repairable. As you can imagine this kept my father very busy!

24th May 1943 Just a week later the problems were compounded when Jerry pummelled the town again. Forty people were huddled inside a brick surface shelter which suffered a direct hit, resulting in 12 of the unfortunates loosing their lives, it must have been a terrible job for the fire-fighters many of whom pulled their own wives and children from the carnage.
On this night a further 83 people were killed, 109 seriously injured and 3500 more people were made homeless. We were now seeing heroism, devotion to duty and unselfishness on a scale never seen before and the townsfolk were certainly worthy of their fathers, brothers and sons who were away in the larger war in Burma and Africa as well as on and below the seas of the world.

September 1943 The Italian forces surrender and the British occupy Naples.
Just before Christmas 1943 my parents together with my sister and I moved into a flat in a requisitioned house in Park Avenue just a short distance from the beach. This was the first time our family had a house that we could call our home. The air raid alerts continued as bombers overflew the town on raids to other cities, we did not know it at the time but the dreadful raid of 24th May was to be the last time that Jerry visited us.

We were beginning to settle into a normal (or as normal as you could expect) family life when tragedy struck. Early in 1944 my mother became seriously ill and was taken to hospital. The illness subsequently caused irreparable damage to her heart resulting in her being unable to walk. She was confined to bed or a wheel chair and could not look after her husband and children. It will never be known how much the stress of the war contributed to her illness and eventual death in 1946. It certainly was a hard time in which to bring up children.

8th May 1945 The Nazis are defeated in Europe

**

So much for the events of the war as it affected me, but the bombing was just a small part of the day-to-day life .It was something that was traumatic and you certainly could never forget it.
Worse still in many ways was the false alarms, the sirens wailed out a total of 247 times in three years on Wearside which meant a lot of people had their sleep disrupted but still had to go to work or school the next day.
For a small boy it was a bit of an adventure, I suppose that my mother and grandmother were very protective of me but I just wanted to absorb everything that was going on. I know it was very difficult for them to keep me indoors and away from the bombsites. It was very exciting.!
One of the main problems for my mother was finding good food to keep us nourished. As the war progressed there was very little food from abroad as the ships had to carry vital supplies for the war effort. So there just was no fruit such as bananas, oranges or grapefruit. There was a shortage of sugar and apples as well as white flour. The government introduced rationing in order that everyone, rich or poor could get a fair share of the food that was available.
However the shortages were so acute that people had to live by their wits and a thriving 鈥渂lack-market" developed
Meat was rationed and the butcher became the housewives best friend! I remember we used to eat a lot of rabbit as my mother had a friend whose young son used to catch the rabbits early in the morning. Later in the war I was allowed to go with him. My grandmother used to make a wonderful pie with rabbit and black pudding.
To supplement our diet we all ate 鈥渁n awful lot of offal鈥� such as liver, pig鈥檚 trotters, kidneys, tongue, sheeps brains, pigtail, tripe, sweetmeats and heart. My grandmother could make very tasty meals with these items, which are probably used as dogmeat nowadays.
I clearly recall that people ate a lot of horsemeat and there were butchers who sold only horsemeat.
Horses were very much in evidence during the war as due to the petrol shortage they were used to pull laundry carts, hearses, coal carts, beerwagons, milkcarts in fact just about everything including working on the farms. Imagine, when they could work no more they became some family鈥檚 Sunday lunch!
I do not remember if fish was rationed as we seemed to eat it quite often and I suppose take it a bit for granted as we lived by the sea. It is only with hindsight that we must thank those brave fishermen who risked their lives to sail out into the cold, rough,North Sea in their little boats defying mines, enemy aircraft and ships to bring home the fish.
Vegetables were available but only in season as there was very little tinned food and certainly no frozen food. My grandfather had many friends who were miners that worked down the colliery during the night and who tended their garden allotments during the day. These men shared their produce with neighbours and friends.
I used to love to help my grandmother shell fresh peas they were delicious! Potatoes were sold by the stone and tipped straight from the scale into my mother鈥檚 shopping bag, complete with the soil. I then had to carry it home!
Bread was not rationed so we ate a lot of that with homemade jam. My grandmother used to bake once a week making bread, tarts and pies in the coal fired oven. I do not think I shall ever forget the wonderful smell that came from that small kitchen. Later in the war it was considered as wasteful and unpatriotic to use white flour.
So what did we drink? There was no such thing as coca cola nor were there any sweet drinks in tins. I remember we drank bottled drinks like sasparilla and dandelion and burdock. We also had milk, oxo and very rarely cocoa, but mostly drank tap water if we were thirsty. Adults seemed to drink a lot of tea even though it had to be imported. I never saw wine or coffee until many years after the war ended.
There were no supermarkets and everyone used their local shops, housewives being on first name terms in each and every one and considered to be friends. I still remember the names of the local shopkeepers.
About 90% of the products you see in the supermarket today were not available during the war. There was no frozen food as nobody had a fridge or a freezer. We kept meat in a wooden box with wire gauze sides called a meatsafe. Kitchen towels, tissues and toilet paper were never sold. The daily newspaper was cut up into neat squares and hung on a hook inside the toilet.
Children had not yet experienced tinned Heinz beans, spaghetti or macaroni. Pets lived on any leftover or scraps they could find as pet food , apart from dogbiscuits,was not available, now we have whole aisles dedicated to it and to other things like perfumed soaps, detergents and cleaning sprays.
Soap was rationed in the war, we used 鈥渂ar鈥� soap that was a horrible yellow block about 10 inches long that smelled like animal fat. My grandmother used to cut it into smaller pieces for the bathroom, scraping thin slivers off the block to mix with soda crystals to use in the clothes boiler on Monday mornings.
Re-cycling has not just been invented. During the war nothing that could be re-used was thrown away, food scraps were given to the dog, used clothes were passed on to friends or relatives. When the clothes were no longer of use they were cut into strips and woven into mats. Anything left over after that was given to the rag and bone man who pushed his handcart through the streets. Any bones he collected were used to make glue.
Milk was delivered daily in bottles, which were washed and collected the next day. Jam jars were washed and taken back to the jam factory or were used by children to gain entrance to the cinema on a Saturday morning. Newspapers were used by shops as wrapping paper or used to light coal fires in the home. Each home had a small bucket with a lid, which was used to hold vegetable peelings; these were collected weekly and fed to pigs. Anything else that was of no use was burnt in the kitchen fire, which apart from keeping us warm was also the cooker and the oven.
Two modern day disposal problems that cause us expense and headaches now were unheard of during the war;
Plastics had not yet come into use so there was not the massive problem that we have today of disposing of them. Also babies had nappies made from towelling which were washed by hand and then hung out to dry. Disposable nappies now present a huge disposal problem.
So you can see that when the refuse collectors came each week all they had to collect was the fine ashes from the coal fires ,hence the words dustbin and dustcart came into use.
Apart from the constant quest for food my mothers other concern was clothing for the family. Clothing like food was rationed, however the adult issue of 66 coupons was not enough to buy a 50 shilling (拢2. 50) suit. Women had to resort to cutting up the curtains that had been replaced by blackout curtains in order to make skirts etc..
Utility clothing was introduced in 1941 which reduced everything to a minimum. Men鈥檚 trouser turn-ups were not allowed, shirt tails were reduced drastically and only six styles were allowed for women鈥檚 under garments.(The latter nearly caused riots!) My biggest problem I recall was shoes as I was constantly growing out of them and my feet had really to be pinching before I got a pair handed down from an older cousin. I of course was not alone in this predicament as it was common to see children wearing clothes many sizes too big for them and even children who wore no shoes at all in the summer time.
Mothers became ingenious at patching clothes so it was fashionable to have patches on places such as elbows. My mother used to unravel old wool jumpers and cardigans and use the wool to knit larger garments for me.
Two items became in short supply as the war progressed. One was razor blades my father having to use an old 鈥渃ut throat鈥� razor to shave. The other was hairgrips ,the shortage of which caused women to change their hairstyles.
The Second World War imposed such trauma, restriction and emotional stress on everyone that the memories linger forever.
I remember clearly the long journeys in crowded trains to visit my father in the south, having to endure long nights of darkness, which would be hard to explain to the children of today who are used to the bright lights of modern Britain. Walking in the streets after nightfall was an extremely hazardous thing to do, as you bumped into people, posts, letterboxes or could easily fall down one of the many large holes in the ground.
Then there were the long nights in the air raid shelter, with people being amazingly jolly and singing songs ,the words of which poured scorn on Mr Hitler and his gang of criminals. Nowadays when I am at an airport and a taxiing jet plane exuded the smell of paraffin fuel I am taken straight back to the inside of our Anderson shelter with my grandfather struggling to get the hurricane lamp or the paraffin heater lit.
So apart from the singing what did we do for entertainment? There was no T.V. no nightlife as in the beginning of the war all cinemas and theatres were closed down as it was thought they were too big a risk from a direct bomb hit (They were re-opened later in the war).
There were no sports events to go to as all the sportsmen and women had joined the forces Can you imagine Beckham and his pals putting their Ferraris up on bricks and going off to war perhaps not to return?
The only real source of entertainment as well as information was the radio and most families gathered around this early in the evening to hear news of the progress of the war on the 大象传媒 Home service. I do not believe that the people were told the whole truth especially in the early years when things were going so badly. Like many others our radio ran on an accumulator , which we had to take to the local garage to be recharged.
As few people had a telephone one had to keep in touch with friends and relatives who lived far away by writing letters. These letters have now become valuable first hand accounts of the experience of war and tell in all innocence the reality of the time when Britain stood alone, a time of great danger but at the same time a time of hope. It was anticipated that in future little children would always have shoes for their feet and that people would be looked after from the cradle to the grave with good housing, healthcare, working conditions and free from the fear of poverty.
Whether this all came to pass I leave it to you to decide.

M.H.Nolan

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