大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People's war site by Ian Hayes of the 大象传媒 GMR Action Desk on behalf of Dorothy Waude, and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

The year is 1939 and I am six years of age. War has been declared which doesn't mean a lot to a child of that age but changes are about to take place, both good and bad.
I recall nights spent under the kitchen table, with loud bangs all around, or running in my nightie to the nearest neighbour's cellar.
My father suffered from stomach ulcers and so was exempted from war service, it was my job when rationing was introduced to queue up at the war office for coupons for extra milk and eggs for him.
I used to go fire-watching with my father; he worked in a warehouse in Manchester and the staff took it in turns to watch on the roof for incendiary bombs, I used to go to keep him company and well remember all the coats and dresses hanging in the dark looking, to me , like ghostly apparitions, and the warehouse cat on his nightly hunt for food.
When the bombings got really bad later in the War, I remember lots of people going to work in Manchester and finding nothing but rubble left.
The nearest I came to injury was when I, with my family, ran over the road to shelter in the neighbours cellar and a massive piece of shrapnel(bomb casing) just missed my head; had it been a few inches nearer it would have sliced off my head.
Then came the doodle-bugs with their throbbing engine and pin-points of light in the sky followed by a sudden silence and then an almighty bang."Which poor soul had that landed on?" we wondered.
One of my worst memories was, at the end of the War, my mother and I went to the Plaza Cinema in Stockport; in those days it was the big picture, plus a feature length film,adverts and the newsreel, I can now see the horror of the discovery of the concentration camps accompanied by the Hymn "Abide with Me". Whenever I hear that Hymn, that picture returns to haunt me.
But, it wasn't all bad, those were the days of community spirit, everyone looking out for everyone else, sharing nights in shelters with neighbours you hadn't previously known.We had great sing-songs and lots of laughter(mainly to keep us children from being scared).
Our mothers would swop rations with the woman next door, bacon for sugar, or tea for marg; whatever the family used most.
We were allowed to go into school at lunchtime the next day if we'd been up in the night for an air raid. One day at school,a child brought a banana flavoured cake to school and everyone begged a piece because we couldn't remember what they tasted like, only the babies had bananas and oranges.
We would follow the ARP (Air Raid Precaution) man at night echoing his cry of "Put that light out!", when there was a chink of light showing in anyone's window.
There were weddings where the dress was made out of parachute silk and the cake was encased in white cardboard as there was no icing sugar.
We made enormous black knickers at school out of satin black-out material;not very glamorous!
We were allowed three quarters of a pound of sweets per month and on the day the coupons were due we all went mad and bought the whole lot. We spent the rest of the month eating dry tea cakes and liquorice root, we were the healthiest generation of children ever and no-one was ever bored, as the general cry is today.
We loved the Yanks with their funny accents and chewing gum, bringing nylons to the older girls. It was great for the girls not having to put gravy browning all over their legs and pencilling lines up the back--how imaginative everyone was!
No,it wasn't all bad, not to a child anyway!

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