大象传媒

This is the second of a series of chapters that summarise an interview with Gertrude Alice Bloore.

Gertrude was a housewife in Coventry throughout the war, looking after her husband, father, grandfather and child. A second child was born towards the end of the war.

Gertrude's war is memorable mainly for the way that people on the home front endured the privations, the hardships and the constant dangers. How people got on with life with no real feeling that things would ever get better. Gertrude had a bad war.

(Trudy) Then of course, the corner was turned and things started to brighten up, but the rationing went on for quite some time afterwards.
Then, every time you picked a paper up, another ship had gone down, but it were nearly all food-ships they sank, you know, they nearly all come from America ... but eventually, Australia got cracking, they sent men and everything they could lay their hands on. Gradually, the sun came out again.
Things got settled down and life brightened up, but the actual ... that four years, they were bad, No doubt about it, they were bad. It were just sheer determination that kept you going.
No choice, you couldn't lie down and die in the street, you gotta carry on ... and it was a carry-on, as well.
'Cause I got those two elderly men, my grandfather and father, grumbling like blazes all the time, "Don't want that. Don't want that. Don't like that." I said "It's all you're gonna get, mate."
But they expected to come in ... I don't know. I tell you something, I never liked either of them after that, very much. Oh, they did grumble ... they did.
But the old man said "Oh you won't get me in the house, I'm not running like a rat" he said. First in. He'd sit there with Bill on his lap, dogs, and me ... sometimes Ron, if he wasn't on Home Guard duty.
Mind you, the Home Guard were a bit of a joke to start with, because they'd got this tale about "Who guards the Home Guard?", but they turned into a very smart outfit, 'cause they got the clothing and all that to get them all sort of sorted out, and it was quite a nice little force actually.
A lot of the chaps stuck together for several years afterwards, and of course, with Corner Croft's being a small firm, Johnny bought a shop called the Old Clothing Hall.
That was by the Rising Sun, which has got a fancy name now, and our shop was next door, and Johnny, he purchased it and had it fitted out, they'd helped themselves a bit as well, as a club (the Fairfax Club). And very welcome it was.
I used to go trotting down through ... I lived at ... a long way off ... with Ron's tea, and I always used to have half a pint.
I think everybody used to put as much as possible out of their minds, but there's something now and again that'd give you a jerk. But nothing ever so startling happened ... just standing there, getting colder and colder and colder.
That was Earlsdon fish people, Pye it was, big fish people they were in Coventry. It was the same ... mind you, you went down to fetch your meat with the coupon, and if you were very very lucky, the butcher perhaps would put a sausage on top of it.
Of course, all the food you could get your hand on, ... well mine did ... went on my husband, 'cause they did put some hours in.
They weren't even safe at home, what with the mess that the city was in. A lot of ambulance men and firemen were killed, quite a few got killed at the Daimler Works, up Beechwood Road, ... big motor firm. Queen Mary always liked a Daimler. The old Queen Mary.
So I think it was a war that ... I think what put the people off against another war, although there's bound to be one sooner or later, ... was the fact that it caught the civilians. All previous wars hadn't caught the civilians, they just sat still while the chaps went out and done their bit.
Well of course, this Hitler, he hit the working population of a big city like ours, and Birmingham took it bad as well ... but they did coin a phrase, the Germans did ... they threatened everywhere they went, but they were ???.
My God, they did as well. Portsmouth caught it, with a bit of severity ... but time passed. There'd got to be an end sooner or later because there wouldn't a' been anybody left to fight.
Mind you, outside the big cities, if you got a car, which not many people had, you could go out to the country, and there was one or two little pubs in one or two little villages, where you could buy pretty well anything you wanted, from meat ... anything. There was a terrific lot of that done.
But the stuff that actually got to the shops in the cities ...
We hadn't got a car, and he was working all hours God sends, anyway. But out of the war, I've always thought ... there's always a few people do very nicely ... very nicely indeed. It's always been like it. It'd be just the same again.
The peace has lasted quite some time, this time. Don't think, really, after that, anybody'd got the stomach for it ... to start one. Course, the people that start them don't have to fight them, do they?
Germany took it bad as well, they were badly knocked about. I often wondered how Ted got on, with his damaged hand ... the end of a working life, well, his choice.
But the Standard factory itself didn't ... they got away, I think, with a percentage of damage, but it wasn't wiped out at all, it struggled on ... by the railway line at Canley. It's a hypermarket now.
It'd got it's funny side ... really not funny ha-ha. But that little phrase "Be like dad, keep mum", oh the women did resent it ... well the single women, or women without too many commitments, ... 'cause they were working all the hours God sends. There was quite a big munitions factory somewhere, ... Foleshill way I think.
(Jim) Me mum was working in it.
(Trudy) Yeh.
Never knew that district of Coventry very well, I was born in Earlsdon, and lived there all my many many years, till I moved up to Radford. And although the Daimler took such a belting, it ... most of the houses were spared. I don't think there was too much damage done from the part where I was, by Radford Common ... ??? to private property.
There was one or two things, ... you had to laugh, really.
My ... a neighbour of ours, his son was in the Navy, on a hospital ship, and somebody said "Well, what do you do with all the odd bits and pieces?" He said, "We used to chuck 'em back." It always raised a giggle, that did. But then again, what would you do with legs and arms?
But it left its mark everywhere, it really did. Parts of the country didn't know there was a war on. There always is. Some people did very nicely out of it, a lot of people did very nicely out of it. But for the average bod, especially in the big city, that worked in a factory ...
The factories immediately went over to war work ...
Still we was lucky, really ... we didn't get any damage done. Yes, they started out in a sort of ... well they started out in the coats and cap on, and finished up in quite a smart uniform, and a proper gun.
Course, the lodger that came from one of the Scandinavian countries, he'd been living in England a long time. He said "Well, they'll have to use all the old pikes and stuff up." Said "It'd be a nasty thing, you know, to face a pike."
He was quite serious about it. 'Part from the enemy chap having a bullet, he was quite serious about that. I think he meant it, more or less, for people lurking and sort of smelling out houses for getting in.
Course, all the factory workers were sworn to secrecy as to what they were doing, but little Corner Croft's came through the war with very very little percent ... by Saint John's Church, all round that area ... bottom of Queen Victoria Road. A nice firm to work for. He was very happy there for the best part of forty years.
And of course, factory workers were more or less ... not exactly the elite of the working classes. All factory workers don't get covered in grease - he come home quite clean, he earnt about three times more than office workers, so ...
Still that's not here or there is it. I'm sorry to have gone on a bit.
(Jim) That's all right, that's what we're here for.
(Kay) Quite interesting. Your husband was a toolmaker, then?
(Trudy) Yeh.
(Kay) My brother-in-law was a toolmaker. He worked at the Humber. He was apprenticed there until he was made redundant about twenty-five years ago now.
(Trudy) What happened to the Humber? I don't think I've heard anything about it for a long time.
(Kay) I think part of it operates as Peugeot now, but the rest of it ...
(Trudy) Didn't it get taken in by another one?
(Kay) Well yes, it became part of Roots Group, which is now Peugeot ... it's a French company, and they've got a little bit in Humber Road, and the big factory at Ryton, and the rest of the Humber Road factory's been let into industrial units, I think.
(Trudy) Of course, Coventry was really one big factory. I know, we reckoned up one night down the club, when they wanted something to do ... continuation of life. They decided that they'd write a list of factories connected with motor work, or all that. It was about twenty.
(Jim) I can still think of a few today ...
(Trudy) So if a chap got a bit fed up with where they were, they'd say "I'm not stopping here", they'd go and get another job. That was Coventry in those days, well, just before ...
It was quite a prosperous ... very good town for working people, and they're no dirtier. There wasn't a foundry. The only foundry there's ever been in Coventry was a little one, Smith's Stamping Works, and they did make their own bit of metal, ... it was only a little bit of one.
That was in Harnell Lane at one time, I don't know where it is ... I don't know what happened to it.
Well, it took the heart out of people, that was the main thing. And of course, everyone wasn't as lucky as I personally was ... I'd got me husband intact, my house hadn't been damaged, and I went down from eight stone to about six-an'-an-half, but I never put it back on.
The kids caught ... the kids were alright up to a point, with the ration ... the ration in clothes was really ... it was very difficult, very difficult indeed, especially if you'd got anybody ...
I know, when I was expecting my baby, we had got some coupons, and my husband's mother pestered me to death to give her some, and of course, the father (Ron's father) was a bit chesty. She had about a third of them, 'cause you can't fall out with relatives ...
I could, but he said "Oh give her the coloured thing".
Susan wasn't as well dressed as an average child would have been, in peace-time or even on the ration. It was the rationing, really ... there wasn't very much, not very much at all ... what there was, wasn't much good.
We'd got a big garden, and fruit trees, so that helped out. Of course, forty-four, when she was born, was one of the worst years, one way or another ... it was a long time before we turned the corner.
We would get pictures of Churchill. Apparently, he was the sort of person who could stop at the top of a street for about ten minutes, going to one place or another ... he'd always settle back in the car, and ...
Course, petrol was rationed. If you'd got car, you couldn't use it much, it'd got to be a certain distance from where you were.
Ron used to go on his pushbike ... but it was a shame, that was, 'cause the Home Guard were a bit of a joke. "Who guards the Home Guard?"
We had such severe winters ... well, normally, you wouldn't be standing in the street at eight o'clock in the morning, would you? We used to perhaps wait till nearly eleven o'clock.
So a little group of us, we decided we'd have a drink, and we used to go over to a little pub on the corner of Moor Street and have a drink. We'd earned it. We'd sit there ... he had a nice big fire, God knows where he got the material for it ... ooh, he had a nice fire. I can't think of the name of it now, it's all been so long ago.
They didn't get too much damage, do quite comfortably, just where the factories were, that there were civilian population. They did say, I don't know how correct it was ... nobody ever did ... that there was about, just the turn of four hundred proven killed on that night, but how true it was, I don't know.
I know they did have a special trench, couldn't call it a grave, to put bits and pieces in ... course, the hospital was badly damaged. The big hotel on the Keresley Road ... can't think of the name of it.
??? been in it a long time, somewhere Corley way, I think. Very big one in it's own grounds, a big house taken over. That was more or less ... a bit of a convalescent place. My Susan was born there ...
Then, if everything was going alright, you were moved over to the house, it's a motel now, on the Allesley Road.
???, although things were tight, actually, you still got your rest. I don't hold with these girls that go to work next day ... well, get up and dash ... well, you did go to work looking after a baby. You got your full nine days in hospital, even in those times, so that when you come out, you were alright to look after everything.
But it wasn't the best time to have a baby.
Some of the Home Guard were in a lot of danger, 'cause it were mostly factories they kept an eye on. It was always "Thank goodness" to see them come in when they'd been out all night.
Yes, I was ... ??? two hours ago. I'm ninety-three now ... been a long time ago. Surprising how some people last and others don't.
I was telling my son the idea about doing a bit on the Home Front, because the services have been thoroughly written about.
There's not a lot you can say beyond the fact that you just stuck it out, and as I was saying, there were parts of the country that did quite comfortably, thank you.
It was the big cities that really caught cold.

(There's an interruption here as some tea is brought in)

(Trudy) ... so I suppose we made history a little bit.
(Kay) You did indeed, yes. You certainly made history.
(Trudy) It was all ... ??? a bit of comradeship about, apart from women in a queue ... bit of elbow pokin', but the food was very very scarce at one time, very scarce, it really was, if you lived in the city, you hadn't got a car, you were stuck.
??? could get to a more isolated farm or something ... and of course, the food that was coming in ... there was ship after ship went down.
(Kay) And you stayed in Coventry all the time, did you?
(Trudy) Oh yeh. Well, where d'you go?
(Kay) Oh, I don't know. Nowhere, I suppose.
(Trudy) There were a lot of children, schoolchildren especially, were sent out of the city.
But of course my son wouldn't go, he got 'sterical at the mention of it. Susan were only about twelve months old when the war finished. But we were quite comfortable really where we were, because once the Standard had took a belting, they left that particular area alone, apart from some of the ...

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