大象传媒

This story was taken from Mrs.Mavis Foster by Denis Price of the People,s War Team, 大象传媒 Open Centre, Hull.

I remember when War was declared, I was going to the Salvation Army Sunday School when I met my Aunt Kate on the way . She was crying and I couldn,t understand it. She said it was because of the War, she was about sixty and having experienced the First War she knew what to expect, I was only eight so it meant nothing to me at the time.
Dad was in the Merchant Navy so he was transferred to the Royal Navy on minesweepers. The air raids really affected our everyday lives more than anything. I remember us all rushing into an Anderson shelter when the siren sounded only to find out it had no roof, in our panic it took us a while to realise that building work hadn,t been completed.
Dad was home on leave once when the bombing was heavy and we always kept a bag of things we might need at the front door in case we had to make a run for the shelter. On this night we were all in a real rush to get out of bed and into the shelter. We were in it when we noticed Dad wasn't with us. It turned out he couldn't find his trousers because my Gran had mistakenly picked them up in the rush and taken them into the shelter.
Us kids, like every body else were issued with gasmasks. These were fitted and issued at school whether you liked it or not. Some children hated them but it made no difference. The day after an air raid we kids always had off from school and sometimes there was no school to go to anyway. I remember one morning after a raid, getting up to find the senior department of Craven Street School was totally destroyed so we had to go to other schools, and walk there as well! The disruption to education must have affected everybody of that generation. Sometimes portable showers would arrive at school to be linked up to our school hot water system so we could use them. With the bombing it was sometimes the first good clean up for a while!
Another common and nasty problem was scabies. Lots of children suffered from this due to a lack of vitamins and fruit although my Grandad had an allotment down Hedon Road near the Maternity Hospital. My job was to go with him to Hesk's Haulage who had lots of horses. Grandad had a barrow behind his pushbike which was filled with horse manure which I had to sit on until we got back to the allotment. The vegetables he grew were bartered with other growers so we always had a good supply of the right food.
When I was old enough, about 1944, I went to work at Reckitts, at their canister works down Stoneferry Road. We worked with sheets of tin which cut and scratched your hands quite badly, there were no protective gloves in those days, all that for nineteen shillings and sixpence a week!
Early in the War when I was about nine, Dad won a lottery on his minesweeper, the winner had one of his children give him a message on 大象传媒 Armed Forces Radio. I went to Leeds and learned a script to read into a microphone which Dad heard but I never did. I'd love to hear it after all this time, it's probably lost in some old archive by now.
Overall I don't think the country was prepared at all for the War and yet we turned things round.The only friends we had were the Americans. They came in a bit late but with their support and effort we came through it alright.

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