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Remembering the Second World War - Brian Smith born 1931

(These recollections are only in approx. date order, but - for example - the doodle-bugs must have been after June 1944 and before April 1945)

1. I remember talking to my pal....Blackburn on the afternoon of the 3rd September 1939, about being at War. We were in the mill lane from Mark Street, Wakefield, to the yard behind my home in Church Street and alongside his in Tadman Buildings.

2. I remember my dad making a plywood shutter to put up at the window to prevent glass spinters entering the house (prob. Sep 1939).

3. We moved to West Ardsley in April 1940, as it was expected that Wakefield would be bombed, and to be closer to Dad's work - he was a 30cwt truck driver for the L.N.E. Railway at Morley Top, and was unlikely to be called up due to his asthma.

4. I remember the long row of "Mobile Canteens" which, bumper to bumper, lined the right side of the road going from West Ardsley towards Kirkhamgate (maybe 25 to 35 of them), being camoflagued in the shelter of the overhanging trees from the "Spring Wood". Periodically they would all vanish, and a day or two later we would hear of the bombing of Sheffied, or some other large town that they had been sent to. Equally as suddenly they would re-appear - but always at the ready for another call. (1941-1944).

5. I remember our surprise (my sister and I) at seeing the hedgerows at the top of Spring Wood covered in tinsel - just like Christmas Trees. This may have been in the summer of 1942 or 43, position (1) on the map. Of course, by this time we were well versed in the warnings never to pick up anything unusual - especially Butterfly (anti-personnel) bombs, but having watched this tinsel for a while - some of it blowing around in the fields too, we thought that it woudn't harm to pick some up and take it home. Dad said it was "window", and was dropped from aeroplanes, but it was considerably later that I understood that it was for jamming the radar frequencies of transmitters and receivers.

6. I remember a bomb exploding at about 7.45pm on a May evening (possibly 1942). I was in bed at the time, so possibly I had been unwell that day, but my bed "jumped", and we all went out to see what had happened, but nothing was obvious. About 3 or 4 minutes later the "Alert" siren sounded, shortly followed by the "All-Clear".

7. Of course, after 1939, it was no longer possible to buy baubles for Christmas Trees, but from about 1941 onwards we managed to get some blown-glass decorations (some of which I still have) - obtained from worker's spare time work at the Beacon Works, Morley.

8. I remember the sweet rationing (having known pre-war plenty - if you could afford them). We used to buy Boiled Sweets with the ration - beacuse they lasted longer. Very occasionally, as I got older, I would have a bar of chocolate. Of course, I rememberd pre-war Cadbury's Milk Chocolate enclosed in silver paper and with its dark blue Cadbury's wrapper. The silver paper went quite early in the war and eventually chocolate bars were wrapped in a kind of greaseproof paper, with very little writing on it - and open at both ends. However, we could get double-milk chocolate - how is that for semantics? The pre-war milk chocolate was just that - all the way through. The wartime double-milk chocolate bar was made up of a layer of plain chocolate with a layer of milky chocolate on top and bottom. If you asked for milk chocolate you got a bar with a milk layer between two plain layers.

9. Having moved to West Ardsley to avoid the bombing, what happened in 1943? Only that the Army had taken over the 40 acre field between us and Ossett, and were putting oil barrels in various places - to be lit to resemble burning buildings and when an enemy raid was in the area, so that we could be bombed instead of Wakefield or Leeds!!

10. My sister and I were going to collect some potatoes with my small hand-cart. It would be in late 1941 I guess; a dull, miserable, cloudy and damp late afternoon. We heard an aircraft - and it really sounded rough. When we reached position (2) shown on the map the aircraft was almost overhead - low, but above the clouds, and there was immediate silence. We stood still, and in a minute or so there was an explosion. The aircraft had crashed on to a house behind the "Old White Bear", alongside the lane which led down to Tingley Station, position (3).

11. During 1943 onward we used to stand in the back garden looking west beyond Woollin Avenue, counting the bombers which were moving south preparing to make a raid on Germany .... 25 ...another 30, ...30 more, and so on, and we wished the fliers well on their dangerous mission. Lets not mince words. The Germans had bombed our cities and we were 100% behind our airmen who were giving them a dose of their own medicine.

12. By 1944 coal was beginning to get scarce, and to eke it out my mother and sister and I (with my little had cart) used to walk to the "Babes in the Wood" pub, then to Shaw Cross to the Colliery, where we could buy briquettes - a mixture of coal dust and cement moulded into blocks about six inches by six inches by two inches. If we were lucky we might be able to get 8, but more often it was 6. And then walk the mile and a half home again. Keep the home fires burning ...... but only just.

13. One night, I suppose about 10.30pm probably late October or in November 1944, I stood outside with my Dad watching doodle-bugs flying west above us - most likely heading for Manchester or Liverpool. The flame at the rear was quite distinct, and the throbbing engine was different to other engines which we had heard. I think we saw 4 or 5 in the quarter of an hour that we were watching.

End of this selection of reminiscences.

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