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48a - Ruth Harper now lives in Stratford, and describes her life in Yorkshire during the War:

"Before I got married things happened with the war.
The first incident was when the war first started. I was about, what was I, 18 or something like that at the time. I was terrified. I was working at Bridlington on the East …, you know the Yorkshire coast, and I had been there for, oh a good three years in a lovely hotel, and it was right on more or less the sea front, but it was beautiful place, and we girls used to go out in the morning before we went on duty to work, we used to go off down on to the sea and we used to go swimming and everything, it was lovely you know.
Anyway when the war, when the war broke out oh, I thought that was the end of the world. I mean I was only young and I was a long way from home, from mom and dad you know, and we had got gas masks issued, we thought they were horrible! But after a couple of nights, then we got the very first air raid warning, yes it was as early as that, because we were right on the coast don’t forget, the east coast and it was
the most horrifying sound, we were petrified, and of course it would happen bed time you know, when everybody’s in bed. And when I heard it, I am a very light sleeper, when I heard it I jumped out of bed, I screamed to everybody that was there, all the other girls to get up, get up, and of course some got their gas masks, I did, and being a young girl naïve, I stuck it on and you can imagine what I looked like! And I flew down the stairs with this gas mask on, across to where the air raid shelter was and scrambled down the stairs, nearly fell down the stairs because we could hear aeroplanes, but we never heard a bomb drop then, remember it was the second night of the war being declared. But that was the first fear, and it really was. So we were down there for about an hour or something till the air raid siren cleared and got back, couldn’t sleep any more that night.
So from then on after that, then periodically there was air raid warnings, but I didn’t take my gas mask again! I just kept running to the shelter you know like we did, but I was frightened. And when it had got to be …, September wasn’t it when the war broke out, yes, so it must have been about the October then and I was too frightened to stay. I loved the job, the people, everything, I made loads of friends but I thought I have got to go home to my mam. So if anything’s going to happen to me, I want to be with them, you know. So I left, and I was very sorry to do so but never mind.
Well to go back up to Hartlepool which was the nearest town and then on to Blackhall, you had the coach. Now always before that the lights had been on, it was all lit up, you never any bother if you went at night-time, but remember the blackout was on. Can you imagine what it was like going over the Yorkshire Moors in the pitch dark? I mean we were terrified in the coach, but the driver, he had to guide that coach, he hadn’t a clue where he was going, there were sheep on either sides, he kept getting lost, he had to keep getting out of the bus and having a look around to see where he was, he just … I mean it’s vast is the Yorkshire Moors as you know, we were petrified, and we thought we were never going to get home and he was worried sick, he thought well we were going to be left there all night. However he plodded on, and we finally, very finally reached Middlesborough, and he said thank God for that - and we all thanked God for that! And from then of course I got another coach on to Hartlepool and so forth, and I was glad to get back home.
Well I couldn’t …, and of course there was air raids warnings there because it was all along the coast you see, and I couldn’t stay at home all the time I wanted a job, so I got a job in Hartlepool, but up at the top end of Hartlepool where there were really lovely parts, they’re all very nice but that part was nice, The Grange, Muller Road or whatever you call it, and it was a beautiful house called Northbrook. But I went there as house parlourmaid, but it had turrets, it was a grey house, very orderly, beautiful, great big grounds, greenhouses, everything and it had the lodge, the gardener’s lodge, you know it was really lovely. But it had turrets because it was old, so you can imagine when aeroplanes, Jerry aeroplanes came up they thought it was a castle, and they must have thought that there were soldiers or people stationed in that, I don’t know what, so of course two or three times they tried to bomb it, so of course me, we slept there you see, I was sleeping in the same room as Betty the cook, and she was such a heavy sleeper and I was a light sleeper, so of course every time I woke up, Betty, Betty, Betty, come on, come on! And you know she would just amble down, and I thought any minute she’s going to get killed! And I flew down the stairs and down into the air raid shelter and the Captain, the master was captain of the Home Guard and his family, his boys and his wife, he had had them evacuated to the Lake District with the nanny, so there was only Betty and I to look after the master at that time. He was very nice with us mind, very patient.

Well this one night this Jerry aeroplane whether he was on his way back and he thought he had some bombs to drop and he would drop them on us where the turrets were I don’t know, but there was no siren went, nothing. And it was at 3 o’clock in the morning, I remember this distinctly, 3 o’clock in the morning and I heard this; you know the whistling noise of a bomb coming down, and I could hear it, and I couldn’t …, grabbed hold of her, I pulled her out of bed, and I said come on, come on, listen, listen - and we flew downstairs, and we just got down into the underground shelter when bang, it went off! And it went, flattened the greenhouses, the poultry houses, all the vegetable gardens, oh what a …, and the dining room windows, all the dining room windows the whole lot. Oh what a terrible mess, but we were safe, thanks be to God! Well the captain, he was on duty you see that night, and he was a solicitor or lawyer or something in a profession, but he was on duty. Well he guessed where that bomb had dropped and of course there had been no warning, so of course he flew back as fast as he could and brought help with him and everything in case we were, you know. He was glad we were all right and so we got a nice hot cup of tea, but when he saw the damage, I think it could have broken his heart and so could the gardener, because I mean that was all his work and everything, it cost a fortune. In fact all the time I was there, I don’t think they got it properly fixed up then, it took so much doing you know. But eventually I suppose they did, they were very good to me anyway, very nice people.

So then eventually I got married and I left there, and well we went to live over at East Renton where his people lived for a little while, and we didn’t get the bombing it was over in Sunderland because that was where you went, from East Renton you got the coach and you went over to Sunderland, Newcastle, that way. Now we could see them, at night time we could see them in the distance all the bombing that was going on you know, it was nasty.
And then, we came back over to Blackhall because mom and dad lived there, we managed to get a place in Hartlepool and my husband got work in, well actually Seaton it was, he got work there on furnaces before he went into the army. And I had my little boy then, that one that’s been doing all that work (Mrs. Harper’s son and daughter in law had just left, having built her a lovely raised garden), yes, then, was only about 18 months old, and we went to live there where the work was, but they were old houses from …, in fact refugees from the Great War came over and lived in those houses, yes it was right on the coast and right up, you could walk straight down onto the beach like that, so they were right on the coast and of course there was works round about, so of course when the air raids came they bombed it didn’t they? So I had 3 empty houses at one side that had been bombed, and 3 empty houses on that side that were bombed, yes, and there was two houses over that side that were bombed, so it was really hairy as I can tell you. But anyway eventually we moved away and the war got over, thanks be to God. But the actual bombing and what happened in Hartlepool as well you know, they were bombed badly along the coast, very badly so I mean we have all gone through it you know.

But my goodness the rationing as well, the food. Do you know I don’t know how anybody else managed, but food was so scarce that a jar of meat paste, or a jar of fish paste was a luxury. We couldn’t buy meat, we couldn’t get it, and I mean you had to sweetheart the butcher if he had a little bit of sausage or a bit of offal you know, that sort of thing.

But I remember when I was first married, I made these girls laugh, the women laugh at the clinic, I was telling them that when I was first married I said, it was during the war of course, but I was so thrilled that I was able to go out to the shops and do my first week’s shopping, groceries you know. I mean I was only 20 on the day I was married, so you know. So I got my basket on my arm, and my bag, and a little bit of money that I had and off I went. I remember going into the Co-op, then I went into Red Stamp Stores, they used to call a shop there, grocery shop, mam used to use so I went in. I forgot all about rationing! I was so happy to be able to do my own shopping and I went in, the first thing when they asked me to serve them, the first thing I asked for I wanted half a pound of butter and a pound of bacon. And I just said it blindly you see, and they looked at me and they said oh, you are naïve, and I looked I said what do you mean you know? And they said you know rationing’s on? I said oh gosh, I had never feel so embarrassed you know, I said oh I am sorry I said, I don’t know what I am talking about! And they laughed, they said it’s alright you are a new bride you know, and there I was asking for half a pound of butter and all you could get was two ounces of butter and a bit of marge.

We had to register with the shop, yes, yes. And a little …, part of the …, when I think about it now, yes, so we made lots of mistakes like that because food was …, oh it was dreadful, dreadful you know. And bananas, fruit. Well when I was expecting my little one that boy Peter the first one, I was living over at Renton at the time and I would be about six months maybe at the time, and up to that point I had never had a banana nor an orange you know, well you couldn’t get them because the ships couldn’t get over with the food you see. Oh and I was dying for an orange and dying for a banana, something like that, so my husband, well he couldn’t get them obviously but he felt sorry for me, anyway he went in the pub this one night nearby, and he got talking to a sailor and this sailor belonged there but he was home on leave as you know, the boat must have been in Hartlepool docks as far as I can tell you. Anyway, Gordon got talking to him and he must have mentioned something about being a cook, or working in the cookhouse, so Gordon said you can’t get my wife a banana and an orange can you he said she’s pregnant, and he only said it in a bit of fun really; so this sailor said leave it to me he said, will you be in at the weekend on a Saturday, so Gordon said yes, I like to have my pint like, you come in and I’ll see you and he came! Came back with it, and he brought a great bag of oranges and a great bag of bananas. And I’m not kidding, when he brought them back do you know I couldn’t believe, I grabbed it straight away, I thought I’m not going to have my baby’s tongue hanging out for a banana and an orange you know. Yes so there was always sort of things like that you know, and you don’t forget them really, they’re just little things that crop up now and again in your mind you know.
But there was all sorts of things happened, but food was big, big worry, because if anybody came to see you, you were lucky to be able to give them a cup of tea you know. Lettuce sandwiches, you know which is part of a salad isn’t it but we had nothing, and bread was nearly black you know, oh dear.

(to be concluded in Part Two)

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