大象传媒

I suppose the earliest that I can remember was sitting on the garden gate just gently swinging backwards and forwards, my friend Jack was doing exactly the same on his gate. It was another friend of ours named George, that came up to us and said that the war had broken out. Of course we knew about the war, we had heard it on the radio every day. 鈥淭his was going to happen, that was going to happen鈥�. In fact we had heard so much about it that we just did not believe it would happen, anyway it did, and this is what I remember of it

I was playing upstairs in the back bedroom, I can remember that I was jumping up an down on the bed, and looking through the window at the same time, when a big black van pulled up outside in the road at the back of our house. Nothing like that had been seen before. I went downstairs and told my mum. I don鈥檛 know what that is she said, but wait a second, I have been told the gas masks are to be delivered. I wonder if that is what they are, and sure enough a bit later the big black van came up our square and started to give our gas masks out. I suppose it was a novelty at first. We tried them on and they were very uncomfortable, they were tight and smelled awful of rubber. We soon got fed up with them, but we had to put them back in their box and whether we liked them or not we were not allowed to go anywhere without them, yes, you had to take them everywhere. We really got fed up with them but we just had to live with them, and if you were seen not carrying one you were told off and shouted at, so you had to carry them everywhere. You see we were told that German aeroplanes were going to come over and drop bombs that had gas in them. Of course, I didn鈥檛 believe any of it, as I was only nine at the time. There were aeroplanes in the sky every night and day, and we did not know if they were German or ours, but in time we soon found out, as things went on for a few months like that. Then things really did start to happen.
One night about 7pm the air-raid warning went off, the wailing sirens, we did not know what to do, so we quickly went under the stairs and waited for something to happen. Nothing did, and after 2 hours the all clear sounded. We rushed to put the
radio on to find out just what did happen, and the news told us that a couple of bombs had been dropped at the Liverpool docks. That was just the start of things, which were to get a lot worse. Now it was beginning to get frightening.

The next big thing to happen was the man coming to the house and telling us that they were going to put an air-raid shelter in the garden. The shelter was made of steel, and they dug a big hole and put this shelter into it. The soil that they took out of the hole they put over the top of the shelter, so it was half underground and covered over when it was finished. It looked awful and spoilt the garden, but we were glad of it later on when the air raids came every night, and sometimes during the day. In fact things got so bad that we slept in it every night for month after month, it made us feel safe. Instead of going to bed, and when the German planes came over, we would have to get out of bed, get dressed and go down to the shelter and spend the rest of the night there, we went to the shelter to sleep all night. We never really did get a good night鈥檚 sleep because of the noise of the bombs dropping. The explosions were terrible and all the ground and the houses shook like the devil.
After a couple of weeks of this, I noticed some very loud bangs, and when I say loud I mean deafening. This was something different from the bombs, and we found out that an anti-aircraft gun was shooting at the German planes, and it was just at the back of our house. It was there for the rest of the war. The air raids affected everything; there was no such thing as television, so nearly everyone went to the cinema to see the news in pictures. It was really frightening, not just houses getting blown up but shops, hospitals, schools, in fact anything. Yes, the bombs dropped on anything, everywhere. The noise and mess was all over, and nearly every time you went to the pictures the air-raid warning would go off and you had to get out of there and find a shelter, generally in a cellar under the shops. You had to stay there until the air-raid finished, generally the next morning, then on the way home you would see the houses and shops that had been blown up that night. Instead of seeing the usual houses that you knew, all that was left was a load of rubble. It was quite a usual thing to go to the local church and have a look at the list on the railings, it showed the names and addresses of the houses that had been blown up that night, and how the people were, if they had been killed or injured. Sometimes you just knew them; sometimes they were your friends. This became a way of life, every day this happened, no, it was not a film like they are now, this was happening to you every day and you were part of it. This was the way you had to live. Then with all this going on, all the schools were closed down. They closed
because it was too dangerous. With all the children in the classes if a bomb dropped on a class it would be terrible, so they thought it would be safer to close the schools. We did not do without, though, what they did was to send 6 children to one house, 6 to another and so on, and the teachers would go to the houses to give lessons. If a house was bombed there would only be 6 children in it.
One other thing I would mention was the blackout. All lights had to be out before it got dark, no streetlights or anything like that. You could have lights on in your house but you had to have blankets against the windows, of course you could use anything but I think the blanket was the best. German bombers could see any lights, even from a window. Motor cars had special covers made to put on the headlights, but even these were only to be used in an emergency. Anybody going out at night had a small torch that should only be used very carefully. Every street had an air-raid warden, and it was his job to go around to make sure that no lights were showing anywhere. If he could see a chink of light from any part of your window he would bang, bang, bang on your door and shout PUT THAT LIGHT OUT, and he meant it.

As I said before there was no TV only radio, and that played a big part in every one鈥檚 life, you got all your news off it, and also programmes. All the factories, instead of making things like carpets, furniture and so on, were utilised for War Work. They made guns and bombs and anything that was needed to fight the Germans. While all the men were called up to join the Army, the Navy or the Air Force, all the women were doing their jobs as nurses or working in the factories, and the 大象传媒 used to put on radio programmes like 鈥楳usic while you work鈥�, and Concerts.
The children, such as myself, had our own games, and could only play in the street at certain times. We could not go far in case there was an air raid, and as soon as the siren sounded we had to get to the shelter. Some cities were getting bombed more than others, like London and Coventry because they had big factories there. Liverpool had some big factories as well, and the bombing started really bad on them, and also the docks. Everywhere you went there were houses, shops, offices and factories that had been blown up by the bombs. You did not know if your house would be next, with you in it, that was the way we had to live. We were only children but we knew we could be killed any minute. It was nothing like it is now.
On your way to lessons in the house you had been told to go to, one of the main games was to collect the shrapnel that was all over the streets. (This was the bits of shells, from the guns, after they had exploded in the air and also bits of the bombs that had been dropped at night). We used to collect these just to see how much we could get, and believe me there was quite a lot all over the streets.

If you wanted to go anywhere you had quite a job as the tramcars and buses could not always get down the streets because of the houses that had been bombed. There were bricks and broken glass and furniture everywhere. Many times it meant walking and you had to take great care with your shoes and also your clothes. You could not go into a shop and just buy new shoes or a frock or a shirt as they were all rationed. You had a Ration Book with coupons in it and you could only buy certain things or you would run out of coupons. It was the same with food; all the shops were empty, like for instance the butchers, which was more often than not closed. When they did get some meat in you could tell by the big
queues outside, sometimes you would be hours in it and then only be allowed a little bit as it all had to be shared, and if you had used all of your coupons you would get nothing! Sweets were also rationed, but very few shops had them and what they had were awful. If you were lucky you would get a bar of chocolate, it was blended, which meant it was not pure chocolate. All food was hard to get, and nothing had labels on like they do now, it was just a little sticker saying what it was.

With all the men in the forces, the women were working in factories and also on the land, on farms. During our lessons at school we were told that we had to be out on 2 or 3 days a week working on farms. It was mainly potato picking, none of us children liked it but we had to do it. It was hard work and we did not get paid. Pea picking was a little better, but it still had to be done even if it was raining.

With London getting bombed badly they thought it would be a good idea if a lot of the children living there were sent to live in other places. Just as it happened a lady called at our house and checked if it would be OK for a child to stay in our house, with my sister and me. A London girl, named Gwen, stayed with us till the end of the war. She was a great friend and joined in all our games and became one of the family. During her stay her mum used to send food parcels to us, with real sweets and would you believe, real bananas! They were something we had never seen before!

Continued....
鈥楾his story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by 大象传媒 Radio Merseyside鈥檚 People鈥檚 War team on behalf of the author and has been added to the site with his/ her permission. The author fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.鈥�

Story typed by the author, and submitted by Mr Ogden鈥檚 sister: Miss Carole Ogden in his memory.

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