大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People's War site by Jenny of the Stoke CSV Action Desk on behalf of Malcolm Green and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the terms and conditions.
My name is Malcolm John Green. I was born in April 1928 in Wallsend on Tyne, the third child of William Robinson Green and Florence Elizabeth Green, formerly Flynn. Mr Flynn came from Belfast to work in the shipyards. He married my Grandmother, had five children and died young, I never knew him really and he was rarely mentioned. People then did not talk as freely, even within families, as they do now.
My mother was the second born, but her elder sister was not strong, whatever that may mean. My father was born in Newcastle on Tyne, his mother was very young and died shortly after he was born of an infection, all too common then. He was brought up as an orphan by his uncle in Longbenton and was trained into leather work. He used to repair harnesses for horses as an apprentice and there were a lot of them on the farms. He also worked as a young man on farms, as a postman and as a tram driver before joining the army and fighting the Germans in 1915. Of course he joined the Engineers because they looked after equipment like harnesses. He was tall and athletic, he raced bicycles, was good at jumping and in the Engineers he was one of their best shots with the .303 rifle. He shot at Bisley, one of the famous shooting match locations. My brother and sister, who died recently at 82, were at least on the same lines. I used to shoot with a 0.22 rifle at university and I was fairly good.
My brother and sister were much older than me, by six or seven years, that is very large barrier when one is young. Our dad, in his tram driving days met our mother, who was a 鈥榗lippie鈥� and when he wanted to chat, he chose his moment and braked a bit quickly, caught her a bit off balance so that she shot forward along the tram into the front where he was. A bit naughty, but understandable. Mother was the 鈥榮horty鈥�, but she ruled the roost, she made the judgements and directed policy. As she came from a large family she had quite a few relatives of close family nearby so she was somewhat of a Matriarch.
I was born however into a 鈥榩oor鈥� house. My dad had just found a job in the Post Office, my brother and sister had started school and then I came along, a less than welcome interruption from a financial point of view. The house was one of a terrace of similar houses. There were flats upstairs and downstairs. We had an upstairs flat and I apparently fell down both the back stairs and the front at frequent intervals, but survived without injury. Front doors opened into onto the pavement, the back doors for both flats opened onto the yard which held the coal sheds and lavatories, then through a common door into the lane. Opposite that door was the wall of the Post Office where dad had found work. When he was a bit late he climbed the wall, but it was high.
Swan Hunters shipyard was less than a mile away and we timed ourselves by the loud buzzer at noon and at five o鈥檆lock.
Life was very different then. There was no television, not much traffic, there was no mains, no central heating. If you wanted light you lit the gas mantles. If you wanted heat you got closer to the coal fire in the grate. If you wanted hot water you boiled a pan or kettle or took a little from the small tank at the side of the grate and of course put some cold water back to get warm for the next time. If you wanted a bath you walked down to the public baths near the Town Hall or you emptied some space, took the tin bath off the wall and filled it with hot water. There were no bathrooms for us. We had a gas cooker, but if it was for a roast, they were fairly rare, the oven by the fire was used, otherwise it was for baking bread or cakes. We were pretty well fed. The radio was used sparingly because it used a rechargeable battery, called an accumulator which had to be taken to a particular shop to be recharged. What did we do? We talked, we read books or comics or newspapers. We had hobbies like stamp collecting, making models or drawing pictures. We played family games with Ludo or card games or even homework. We even went for walks. Dad would have liked to nip out for a pint or two, but money was often too tight and he mended shoes or made stools out of orange boxes. That was one of the things he was not very good at, he was not a handy man and neither am I.
My brother is the eldest, at mid eighties and living with his second wife in Vancouver. My sister died a few months ago from a heavy fall in the garden which broke some ribs, otherwise she was very fit and well. I mean to live forever with my second wife, wherever we find ourselves, which at present is Stoke on Trent. My wife has put her foot down on us returning to Germany. 鈥淣o Way! I am British 鈥� she tells me.
When I was eleven I took 鈥榯he exam鈥� at school. I had been at the Richardson Dees Infant school and then the Richardson Dees Junior School, which was next door to it. I used to walk to school everyday, about a mile and half, even after we moved house in about 1935. I forget the headmaster鈥檚 name, but I clearly remember the Empire Day celebration on, I think, May 12th. The Head was a bit lame in one leg, but he used to climb with difficulty onto a wooden chair in the middle of our cement playground and conduct the singing with some vigour. Everyone was distracted by the anticipation of him falling off his perch. He wasn鈥檛 a bad head master, but he we were not angles either.
鈥楾he exam鈥� was what is called the eleven plus, then it was called the 鈥榞rading exam鈥�. It sorted 鈥榯he sheep from the goats鈥� in theory, but in practice it was often grossly unfair. Children dreaded it, according to the results one wither went to grammar or good comprehensive type of school where they were taught the sort of subjects which would be required in going on to a profession or to university and the academic life. If you failed it could mean that you had had a bad day, were below par, got nervous or intimidated or a mistake had been made in the marking, or there were not enough places in suitable schools to take you, or you were a girl and hence less important as you were going to get married and live at home with the babies. Whatever your talents later in life, the exam pushed you in a particular direction and it was often inappropriate.
My brother had passed it and now so had I. I was pleased and proud when I got the result in summer 1939 even though there were rumblings of war with Germany. My sister had not passes and I think that it did influence her life adversely. She was not dull or stupid and lived a pretty full life anyway. She joined the Women鈥檚 Air Force Auxiliaries. They were called the WAAF鈥檚. Women often had a large part in wartime work. They did some of the jobs normally attributed to men like farm work and munitions factory and machining metal parts.
On Sunday 3rd September 1939 I walked down the High Street to the cemetery to put flowers on a family grave. I had never known this relation of my mother so it did not mean much except that it was the dome thing. I started to walk back and there was a small group of people gathered on the pavement, there was a radio announcer and I heard the solemn words of the Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain: 鈥淎 state of war now exists between Germany and Great Britain.鈥� I felt scared, I had heard my dad talking about his war experiences in Mesopotamia, which is now Iraq. It was a dangerous place then just as it is now. He had to travel through the desert from one army unit to another repairing the harnesses. He travelled about in a model T Ford car with Arab guides. I remember him saying that he learned to swim by slipping off the back of his horse when they had to swim across the river Tigris. He hung onto the horse鈥檚 tail. That does not sound like a calm and ordered life. The 鈥榣ife fit for heroes鈥� as a long way from being what it was cracked up to be, which meant means tested dole, high unemployment, no Health Service. The only thing he returned with was a complete and healthy body and that owed little to charity or even care. Dole, by the way, is unemployment benefit and I remember a figure of eighteen shillings and sixpence being quoted. That is about 90p at present rates. Our rent in my second house as a child was seven shillings and sixpence, about 40p at a present rates. I think that for a month. That house was only a little better that the upstairs flat I was born into.
I was scared, I ran home. They had already heard the news. We had to tape up the windows criss crossed with sticky tape so that when the windows blew in the glass did not fly about too much. The corner shop which my mother had rented in 1935 was now an important part of our small family income had to be similarly protected. The air raid shelters had to be prepared along the streets and on Wednesday I would be going with my new school to Alnwick.
An ancient steam train came chuffing into the station. That was a surprise, I had never been on a steam train before. It did indeed head for Tynemouth and Whitley Bay, but went on to Blyth, Ashington and a lot of small places not on any route that I had ever used before. We ended up at Alnmouth and then onto Alnwick. It all went very smoothly, but I cannot remember eating, I suppose there was something, but there was certainly no buffet car.
I had never been to Alnwick as far as a I can remember, but I may have been through on a coach trip on our way up to Bamborough. We gathered up our belongings and walked in an orderly crocodile up the hill from the station to the street near the penfold. There we were gradually identified and led away by an adult helper to one or other of the houses of the peoples who had volunteered to provide accommodation for these 鈥榟omeless waifs.鈥� Sometimes two would go together, but often singly. I was taken off to the home of Mr and Mrs Lorimer at the gas showrooms in Bondgate within. The showroom has now disappeared, but the cottage still exists. I wonder whether the present resident knows of the air shelter under the lawn at the back of his new home.
Mr and Mrs Lorimer were kindness itself and I think that was the usual experience. There was a general feeling of unity in the country, united against a common threat. 鈥淚t is us against the powers of darkness.鈥� This persisted amongst the common people, but it was not so amongst some of the aristocracy and many of the sophisticated. The drawing together of the country against all comers with evil intentions owes a great deal to the oratory and style of Winston Churchill, but he was more effective by the backing of such less recognised people like his backer and joint PM Mr Clement Attlee.
The Lorimer鈥檚 house was a surprise to me, It was not large, but of a tidiness and order and finely furnished such as I had little experience of. I felt a bit intimidated and out of place. I went to bed early and slept soundly until early morning, but I had no watch. I heard a clock strike and gauged from that it would not be wildly inappropriate to get up quietly and do what I could perceive as helpful. I fell woefully short on that score. My quiet tiptoeing in a dark and unfamiliar house was a good deal less than perfect, similarly my effort to open the wooden shutters to lend some illumination. Remember I was not at all that familiar with electric lights. I could not see how to fold back the shutters. It was a shaming disaster. The Lorimers took it in their stride, there were no rebukes or admonishments, but I was still ashamed.
After a few days I talked to one of he helpers and I was moved on with a fellow pupil, Alan Clemitson to the home of Mr and Mrs Green, no relation, but we shared a surname.
The house was called Bondgate, but now I think it is called Lindisfarne. Mr Green had a drapers shop on Fenkle Street and he was a quiet but good humoured man, not exactly a bundle of fun but quiet, good humoured and tolerant, or so we found. Ned Blackshaw was also a lodger with the Greens. He and his brother owned the garage along the road and we were often taken out on Sundays in his Ford V8 for a run around the area. We went along to a crow shoot on one occasion somewhere near Denwick. He also took me to the farm on the moors near Rothbury where my brother was convalescing from an operation and treatment for fluid on the lung which was found to be displacing his heart. He was recovering nicely, but I think that he enjoyed the visit. I found him knitting a pair of sea boot socks, they looked destined to be fitting up to the armpits. Mrs Green joined us on many of these excursions. I don鈥檛 expect she had much fun in her life during the week either. Petrol of course was rationed, but if one owned a garage there were always spillages and evaporation losses.
It transpired that Ned Blackshaw went to school with my dad. He was certainly a godsend to us young lads. We met his nephew Harry Blackshaw who was a jockey and I think that his father was also Harry and a horse trainer. I believe that the Greens had a son, Alan, but we never met him or perhaps he came along later after we had departed or was already born and gone into the army.
During the week we had our 鈥榮chooling.鈥� As schooling goes, it was probably poor to inadequate, but the whole experience was an education. There is a subtle difference between the two terms. I think that it is even more blurred nowadays with the pressure of SATS and the standard curriculum and the attempts at league tables of achievements. What may need measurement between the schools is the 鈥榓dded value鈥� or how has the school managed to improve on the raw material represented by its pupils. That needs a measure of both the before and after states. If one selects the raw material to start with then you may bring a great deal more overall benefit to the nation. A talented individual will always make good against the odds. The nation is more broadly based than the family, but there are many peoples who slow to grasp that concept. Sorry, I must get off my hobby horse.
For chapter II of this story please go to: A576673

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