大象传媒

WAR TIME MEMORIES
At the start of the war I was eight years old and lived in Anstey Lane, Leicester. I had anticipated bombs falling, and general mayhem, but none of this happened. In fact nothing out of the ordinary happened for some time. Eventually it became evident that things in the shops were getting unobtainable. First of all sweets and sugar were rationed, and almost disappeared all together, possibly at the same time, everything else in the food line that we were used to, such as butter, cheese and bacon..
We have in later life learned that it was less difficult in London and other dockland cities, especially if you could afford the black market prices.
The weekly ration was measured out in ozs. ( ounces..16 ounces to the pound). In my, and many other families case, we were not too badly off because my dad had two allotments plus the back garden where vegetables could be grown and chickens kept.
One thing that started very soon was the 鈥渂lack out鈥�.
This meant that no lights whatsoever could be allowed to filter through the windows at night.
Thick black curtains were soon available in the shops to serve this purpose. The street lights were turned down to a glimmer, and shielded from the above by metal discs, similar devices were also attached over joints of the overhead electric cables that supplied power to the trams. These joints would flash as the tram travelled under.
It is quite impossible to describe how dark the outside could be at night if the sky was overcast, and even worse if there was smog.
The dreaded smog was caused by fog and smoke from numerous things, such as factory chimneys, steam trains, domestic fires and of course the fact that most people smoked. Without exaggeration, I have known visibility to be as short as one or two yards.
It was during this time that all iron railings, and gates etc. were confiscated, we were told to make munitions. In later years we learned that this was all rubbish, just a moral boost. This metal was no use for this purpose, and in any case, factories were still producing these things.
Early on in the war, most families were issued with some sort of air raid shelter, of which there were several types. The one that we had was an Anderson , which was a round topped, corrugated iron box, approx, 7ft. x 6ft. which had to be assembled in a hole dug in the garden.
These things were at best, better than nothing, and certainly wouldn鈥檛 give much protection if a H.E.. bomb landed anywhere near.
However, they did give some feeling of safety, and were probably again a moral booster more than anything else. In these things conditions could, be made very comfortable, with a bit of ingenuity, wood, and a door at the front. My dad built bunk beds in ours, plus electric lights and a fire.
Most of the air raids would start late evening, and were more frequent in the early stages of the war. If we were in the shelter, we would usually stay there for the rest of the night, it was a bit like camping, and out of the ordinary, in fact quite exciting. This in fact happened one white Christmas eve. ( but Santa obviously knew where we were, ).

鈥楾his story was submitted to the Peoples war site by Rod Aldwinckle of the CSV Action Desk on behalf of Keith Marsden and has been added to the site with his permission.. The author fully understands the sites terms and conditions鈥�.

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.