大象传媒

My employment meant that I was in a reserved occupation, but my age meant I had to do 44 hours a month National Service. I was in the National Fire Service. We were stationed at the fire station beside the working Men鈥檚 Club on Wheatfield Road, Westerhope. I was a telephonist, 44 hours but if there was an air raid apart from the 44 hours I had to report for duty. I remember Dinnington fire station had to ring in to Westerhope and tell us the names of those on duty so quite an area was covered. I had to report to Westerhope if an air raid alarm went off. My sister who was in a reserved occupation, Olga, was a bakeress. If the all clear went off Olga was always at Whorlton church to meet me coming home from work. On the Wednesday of the Dunkirk evacuation it was a very warm day, I had to walk home, either the buses were stopped or just didn鈥檛 turn up. When I got indoors, my mother was waiting for me, she said 鈥淩ita, would you go down to Auntie Tilda鈥檚, I鈥檓 worried about her. Auntie Tilda鈥檚 family consisted of four sons and one daughter, mother had four daughters and one son. Her oldest Billy had been blinded when he was a boy by another boy who had been given a dart gun for Christmas and spent most of his time at blind school. Matthew the next son and George another were reservists in the Northumbrian Fusiliers, so were immediately called up when the war started. Margaret the daughter worked in munitions at Armstrong鈥檚 factory and Fred the youngest was in the Navy. Matthew and George were both at Dunkirk so obviously when the evacuation was taking place aunt Tilda was very worried. They lived in an upstairs flat in Francis Terrace at Newburn, near Millfield actually. When I got there she was in a bit of a state and needed company. I had been there about five or ten minutes and there was a funny smell. I had to ask what it was. She said 鈥淪mell? The only smell is coming from the oven, I鈥檝e just put the meat in! I opened the oven door and sure enough the meat was there in a dish but she had forgotten to take off the newspaper! Anyway I stayed until Uncle Matthew came in and made my way back home. George and Matthew survived Dunkirk but both were wounded and didn鈥檛 live long after the war.
I also had another cousin, Eddie Robson, who was born at Callerton. He was taken prisoner by the Japanese but did get back home. He said to me 鈥淵ou know Rita I have two rectums(well not exactly in those words) and I pass **** from them both! Needless to say he didn鈥檛 live very long after that. And there are people who think the bomb at Hiroshima was cruel, those prisoners of war went through sheer hell !!!!!!
My sisters husband Bert who saved me from the shrapnel was in the Far East and could he tell a tale. When Mr Churchill died he went to the funeral and he said he stood in the queue and in front of the catafalque. He wept unashamedly. Mr Churchill was idolized by the lads who were fighting a long, long way from home.
Remember Churchill鈥檚 speech 鈥淭his is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. It is the end of the beginning鈥�. Middle East Victory.
It may seem odd not to mention names of casualties but I feel even now that relatives must feel very very sad. There were one or two instances even yet that disturb me. I felt awful about one incident . If a person went missing the War Office would send a wire to stop payment on the relative鈥檚 allowance. One such, the wife of a serviceman who went missing came in to collect her allowance book. The instruction was to impound the allowance book, stop payment which I did. We hadn鈥檛 any explanation so I just said sorry and took the book. It must have been very distressing. This lady knew my family well and apparently blackguarded me left and right saying I took far too much upon myself etc. An explanation could be that the serviceman went AWOL, which I hasten to add was not the case in this instance. The chap concerned went missing in action and later returned. The lady went to my home and apologised to my mother when she received an apology and her allowance was re-instated. I鈥檓 afraid she got short shrift.
However a family from Beaumont Terrace lost a son, Mooney, a sailor at Scapa Flow. Another Freddie Piper went down on HMS Hood. Billy Clarke a near neighbour鈥檚 son in the parachute regiment went down in the Middle East. All lovely people. There were a few badly wounded. One lad came back very badly shell shocked and used to walk around praying. There is nothing nice I feel one can say about war service., just being able to return unharmed.. but I always feel it must have some mental effect.
About five or six years ago a Welsh man who had been a wireless operator on Stanley鈥檚 plane got in touch with the Evening Chronicle. Apparently they, Stanley and the crew, were all given 48 hours leave before the fateful flight. He had gone down with a heavy bout of flu when he got home and his father had kept him home. So his position was filled by someone else. He had a memorial put up at Driffield to the crew and asked if any friends or relatives of Stan were still alive and if they would like to go as it was being put up. Not being a relative but knowing them well I got in touch and I like to keep in touch although I never managed to get to Driffield on said anniversary. An amusing incident about this. He came on the telephone to me at one time and asked me if I knew the song the Blaydon Races. I said yes of course and he asked me to sing the song which I did on the telephone. Just lately I got the music of it and other Tyneside songs and sent it on to him. His wife apparently is a pianist. I am not such a good singer but he seemed to appreciate it. Apparently Stan used to sing the old songs to them
Yes those who survived were very lucky !

Post Office Counter
Between the two shops, there was a hallway from the front door of the living quarters and in between the post office and shop there was a small kitchen with a fireplace. When Stan came on leave he always made his way to this fireplace. The post office counter led off from this small kitchen and if I was busy behind the counter Stan used to whistle softly to attract my attention. I used to feel embarrassed but if I had a free moment I would go in and get a nice hug.
Another memory was Mr Bright had served in the army in France during the 1914-18 war or the Great War as I think it was called. His father had given him a beautifully chased silver cigarette case which he in turn passed on to Stanley. I remember when Stan鈥檚 personal effects were returned. It was a parcel, a brown paper parcel. Mr Bright must have thought very highly of me. He took me to one side and said 鈥淏rownie, will you go into the outhouse which was in the garden and see if there is anything I should see straight away. I do not want Mary, Stan鈥檚 mother, to know this has come鈥� I did open the parcel and went carefully through Stan鈥檚 personal belongings. It was so distressing. Inside amongst clothing etc was this cigarette case. It was bent almost double. I hastily replaced everything, re-wrapped the parcel, took it upstairs to their living quarters and pushed it behind a lot of old books in one of the cupboards. I told Mr Bright the contents and where it was.
My father was a very clever mechanic having served his time to be an electrician at Clarke Chapman in Gateshead, and then doing war service in the Royal Air Corps. His father travelled the country drilling mines. He was Scottish(his wife, my paternal grandmother WASA Welsh born) and when he came to this part of the country he decided to settle down here. My maternal grandparents were Irish so what does that make me? One of Hein 57! I would never have swapped them but this is about memories of the Second World War.
My father was clever with wireless in later years with television. One of my sisters who had the young son just loved to listen to Lord Haw Haw. The Chronicle I remember had published a piece encouraging or discouraging people to listen. It read WE ARE ANTI HAW HAW HERE
So I cut it out and put it on the wireless. This was from a traitorous Englishman. He eventually got his comeuppance!
Another memory was about the afore mentioned Inns of Court Regiment. They used to come (or some of them) to the local Saturday night Hop so we were never short of partners. One Jimmy Brownley from Glasgow used to drive a jeep to collect the company mail. Another, Jimmy Scott was from Dundee. Jimmy took an invitation from my mother to his wife asking her to come for a weekend which she did and thoroughly enjoyed it. As I said before they were more or less passing through but we received letters from them for quite some time. Good dancers, nothing more! My mother used to say here鈥檚 Jimmy and his Jip. Jimmy was engaged and we were all good friends.

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