大象传媒

I had just turned nine years old in the August before the war started in September 1939. The first feeling I got about it was in the tone of my mother鈥檚 voice when, in talking to a neighbour, I heard her say, 鈥淗ere we go again!鈥� She had lost three brothers in the First World War, so she had a very tragic feeling about it.

Things picked up in pace; air raid wardens and fire watchers were selected for each area or street, and the LDV, the forerunner of the Home Guard was formed. I became a messenger. One of my duties was to keep a list of where the fire buckets, stirrup pumps and sand bags were located. Mother and the neighbours were folding bandages for the B.E.F in France. There wasn鈥檛 much thought about hygiene then, as they were doing this at home. At school we collected cigarettes and woollens for the troops. Later, when Russia got involved in the war, we collected ship ha鈥檖ennies in support of Mrs Churchill鈥檚 Aid to Russia Scheme.

The school had to declare an estimate of how long it would take each of us to get home, in the event of an air raid. Then we were issued with coloured epaulettes to indicate whether we should be sent home, if there was an air raid warning, or whether we should go with the rest of the school to a shelter. Our school was bombed 鈥� on a Sunday afternoon. There was a stick of six bombs that fell, two by two. Two fell in a farmyard, and two on the school, and destroyed half of it. I remember watching as workmen tried to pull down one of its towers to make it safe. They tried using a lorry, but its wheels kept skidding, so in the end they used a winch. It made a big impression on me. The half left standing was retained after the war for general use for meetings and so on up until the 鈥�50s. All the locals knew it as 鈥淭he Bombed School鈥�. It was where the police station is now in Stourport.

For a while we had no school at all, then we started doing half days at the girl鈥檚 school. One week, boys would do the mornings, and the girls the afternoons. The following week, we would swap over. This arrangement went on for a very long time until eventually various classes were farmed out to different halls and places around the town, and some of the older children moved up to the senior school. In due course we had to take our Eleven Plus exam, or the 鈥淪cholarship鈥� as it was called then, and I don鈥檛 think any allowance was made for all the disruption we had had in our schooling. You either passed or failed. By luck I passed, and moved on to the grammar school at Hartlebury in 1941.

At the grammar school I met a completely different scenario to what I had known before. They had the Army Cadet Force there, and we did 0.22 rifle practice in the drill hall, off Lion Hill, in Stourport. At morning assembly, the headmaster would give the names of boys who had joined up in the forces, and later some would turn up, in uniform, at the school. Later still, the headmaster would announce that so and so had been killed. It was very moving.

We had evacuees from Birmingham and Smethwick at my parent鈥檚 house. We had three bedrooms, so we had two girl evacuees, which was interesting! Then, when the Americans arrived, the authorities already knew how many rooms everyone had, so they just went down the street going 鈥渢wo in that one鈥� or 鈥渙ne in there鈥�. No permission was asked. We had one; he was just off the boat and completely knackered when he arrived and went and sat in the front room. Dad was a lorry driver, and we never knew when he would be at home, but he happened to come home then, with Mum trying to indicate there was an American in the front room. He was not very pleased. But he (the American) was very nice, and stayed friends with us for years after he had gone back to the US. In fact he, and his wife, even named their child after my dad, eventually.

The US forces had two hospitals at Burlish and one at Wolverley. After D-Day there were convoys of dozens of ambulances bringing in the wounded. You can imagine the effect on a little place like Stourport.

I was in the swimming baths in Kidderminster (in Castle Road) one time when I was about 12 or 13 years old, when the superintendent came in and ordered all the girls out of the pool. Then in came all these GIs, some just jumped in the water. We were just in awe of them.

One big thing, in the war, was that travel was very restricted. Troops, and anything to do with the war effort had priority. It was always 鈥榮tanding room only鈥� on the trains. Rationing went on right into the 50鈥檚. I got married in 1952, and we had to take our ration books with us on our honeymoon! But as a kid, we never went without food, though we didn鈥檛 like sweet rationing. There were long queues at the butcher鈥檚 for sausages, and if you could get rosemary lard from the butcher, you could mix it with butter to eke out the butter ration. At school the writing paper was like blotting paper, and with no margins, so no space would be wasted. The engineering room was empty: I think they had taken all the tools for the war effort.

Everyone came in for the 9 o鈥檆lock news on the wireless. I remember asking 鈥淲hat did you listen to before the war?鈥�

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by Joe Taylor for the CSV Action Desk at 大象传媒 Hereford and Worcester on behalf of Trevor Pugh Lloyd and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.

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