大象传媒

MEMORIES OF LIFE DURING THE SECOND WORLD WAR.

By Mabel Blackburn
. (written October 2005)

I was two and a half when World War Two broke out. People say children soon forget traumatic events. I disagree. I am now sixty-eight years old and the images and facts about wartime remain clearly imprinted in my mind.

I recall the terrible night of the Manchester Blitz. My father stood at the door of our air raid shelter, holding me in his arms, watching the flashes and flares that suddenly lit up the distant night sky; hearing the dull thumps and heavy rumbles and feeling vibrations as bombs were dropped on the city of Manchester, twelve miles from us. I thought it all wonderful and exciting, sensing an underlying fear, not really understanding, so exclaiming, 鈥淟ovely!.. Fireworks!鈥�
I was puzzled by my father鈥檚 lack of enthusiasm, sensing his fear from the strength of his heartbeats as he held me to his chest.

My family home was in Reddish, two miles from Stockport, Cheshire.
In those days, our house was internally dull. Father had fitted blackout frames in the top lights of all windows. He had made blackout blinds to cover the remaining window spaces. We had fixed brown paper tape to the windows,(to counteract flying glass from bomb blast.)Large curtains covered doorways. During air raids it was against the law to let lights show outside. It could help an enemy plane to locate its target. It became a routine practice for us to make sure that all windows were correctly 鈥榖lacked out鈥� every evening as dusk fell and we would be using electric lights. We were warned by my parents, never to open a door to the outside before first drawing the curtain over the door space.

We had coal fires for heating. Behind the fire in the dining room, was the boiler to heat our water. We seldom used the lounge, unless we had visitors. Mother was always conscious of saving our coal supply. We only had a fire in a bedroom if we were ill. The dining room was usually referred to as the living room. The lounge was known as the front room, because it faced the front garden and the main road on which our house stood.

On the roads, streetlights were out, so after dark driving was hazardous. Trees were painted with horizontal white stripes. Louvres covered car headlights so that a minimum of light showed; but petrol was rationed harshly to limit private travel. Cars were laid up for the duration of the war.
Paint was in short supply, as were many commodities, hence our bathroom was painted in an awful mixture of deep cream and dark green. Most woodwork was painted dark oak brown.

At the start of the war we went into a neighbours鈥� cellar space for safety during an air raid. One night, a bomb fell in the local children鈥檚 playing park. It was only a small bomb according to father, but the crater was over a foot deep and about ten feet across. All the local children went to see it, the morning after it fell. When I went, I noticed one or two nearby houses had windows missing and doors too. Mother told me someone had been killed by the blast (whatever that meant, I didn鈥檛 question Mother鈥檚 words) as she warned me not to touch anything strange I might come across. She was talking about stray unexploded incendiary bombs. I had seen the crater in the park, I didn鈥檛 need telling twice! These devices were dropped during bombing raids, to light up the targets.

Father decided we must have a family air raid shelter.
Some neighbours had the Anderson type shelter. Some did not want a shelter.
Ours was to dominate the garden until early 1973.It was a square structure of brick and concrete. The roof was flat and one foot deep, of concrete, reinforced with a metal bed-frame and some metal railings. It had a heavy windowless wooden door. As you entered its white-washed interior you walked past a blast wall some four feet long. There was a coke fired stove in the centre of the opposite wall. This was used to heat us during long night raids, to brew endless cups of tea, and to heat pans of Lancashire hot pot, when meals were called for! Two bunk beds occupied the wall opposite to the stove. I vividly recall lying in a bunk, dressed in my home made fluffy brown siren suit, listening to the sound of aeroplane engines flying overhead. There was a distinct difference between the throb of a British plane and the 鈥渮um zum鈥� of a German plane. This knowledge could be comforting or frightening to a young child. I never voiced my fears to my parents because I knew instinctively how frightened they were too.

The shelter had no windows. We used candles for lighting. To this day, I avoid confined places, and for many years would not use lifts. I always leave a small gap in the curtains at night, to allow some light to penetrate. Factory buzzers sometimes send unwelcome reminders of air raid sirens, when work shifts finish.
When the war ended I seldom went into the shelter.

But not all memories are bad ones!
One day I was at home with Mother. She had stopped preparing our dinner to watch a group of American soldiers who were at the commercial garage next to our house.(The garage was being used to store the Americans鈥� equipment.) The soldiers were trying to light a fire on the spare ground between the Garage building and our house, in an effort to warm themselves.
It was a bitterly cold winters鈥� day, and the snow was nearly up to the tops of my Wellingtons. Mother couldn鈥檛 stand to watch their struggle. She muttered to me that they were only young lads and promptly went over to them armed with several newspapers a few glowing coals from our living room fire- and half the fat from the chip pan!

She was barely five foot tall, still wearing her 鈥榳rap-around pinafore and looked a strange figure as she organised the group of twenty-odd very tall soldiers into a competent squad of fire-lighters. She had some making newspapers into the paper 鈥榗urlers鈥� we used to start the domestic fires. She told others to chop smaller pieces of wood, which would catch alight easily. When the fire was reasonably started, she made them a brew of her precious coffee in a large jug, even lending them some of our beakers.

Their gratitude was amazing. These tall men were all around Mother, hugging her and saying lovely things to her. I was fascinated by their accents. I saw Mother blushing and she soon came back into the house.

Next day, a jeep pulled up outside our house and a soldier knocked on the door asking to see my mother. He was a military policeman wearing a white helmet and white gaiters as well as normal uniform. Mother was petrified! She listened to the sergeant as he read out the order of the day that had been issued. The R.S.M. or American equivalent, had agreed to let the guards on duty at the Garage, come to our house, so long as my parents allowed them, in order to have a warm drink of coffee, during their guard duty. It was worded in what Mother would call 鈥榲ery flowery language鈥�, They were thanking her very politely indeed for her generosity to the soldiers. As Mother would say in later years, 鈥淲ell what else could I do? Some of those lads had never been away from home before!鈥�

Indeed, some were only eighteen years old.
From that day, my wartime memories were happier. I would walk into home, to find the living room packed with soldiers, all talking in casual drawling voices. They were full of good humour and always extremely polite. They called my mother 鈥楳om鈥� but my father was always called 鈥榮ir鈥� or 鈥榤ister H鈥︹�� They never attempted to use first names. They brought apples, big red juicy ones, at a time when there were none in local shops. They replaced the sugar, tea and coffee that went into their drinks. If they caught colds, Mother dosed them with hot lemon drinks and aspirin. If they were homesick, they would sit for hours talking to my father seriously, in their free time. They told us one morning that they were 鈥榰nder orders鈥�. Obviously they didn鈥檛 know exactly where or when they would leave. We said our goodbyes, little realising they were heading for the D. Day landings鈥︹��

We received many letters. Some with lines of writing obliterated. Then the letters became much fewer. No one told us children about the horror on the beaches.
In 1970 I met one of those former American soldiers. When he first came to England he was a student teacher. I was less than ten years old. When we met again, he was a Director of Education in New York State, and I was a teacher in Stockport! How wonderful to meet again, after so many years!
In my home I have one black and white photograph of a group of young American soldiers. They are standing and crouching, smiling at the camera. Snow is on the ground.
**
Children of this era were not expected to join in with adult conversation. We kept quiet, but couldn鈥檛 help overhearing what parents and grown-ups were discussing. We did as we were told, so as to avoid getting into trouble, but we weren鈥檛 daft.
I heard about 鈥� The Black Market鈥� and wondered where this place was. Father wouldn鈥檛 have anything to do with it. Mother would acquire certain groceries through 鈥榝riends of friends鈥� and would sell and share these goods, making no profit for herself, but thereby gaining more contacts, who in their turn would provide other openings for Mother. She often told stories in later years, of the time when she brought home a suitcase full of groceries, just before a Christmas holiday.

Whilst struggling to alight from the bus with her loaded case, a police sergeant came to her assistance. The bus stop was very close to a central police headquarters. Feeling the unusual heavy weight of the case, the sergeant looked straight into Mother鈥檚 guilt-ridden face, winked and said, 鈥淵ou been away then have you, Missis? Brought all the kiddies some presents for Christmas then?鈥�

On another occasion Mother had a quantity of butter. Before she had chance to weigh it out fairly and share it with friends, she had stored it overnight in the shelter- the coolest place on our property. It was carefully parcelled up in various layers of greaseproof wrapping. Unfortunately this was the night we were burgled. Three youths broke in to our shelter, where we also stored our bicycles.

Mother had to do a very quick weigh-out and distribution of goods before we were able to report the theft of the bikes! Amazingly the Police caught the thieves and our bikes were returned to us. But Mother never 鈥榙ealt鈥� again.

We were occasionally able to go over the Pennines to a farm in North Yorkshire. Father saved his precious petrol coupons until he had enough to buy petrol for the journey, and then drove our tiny Morris eight horsepower car up via the unfenced Woodhead Pass road. Mother needed eggs and a few hens, so that we would all have a healthy Christmas, with plenty to eat. We treated the day as a holiday, glad to be out of the smoke and smog of Winter. For once we could wander in the fields, be near the animals in the shippons, watch the Life of the Farm and forget the confines of town life. We usually fell asleep on the return journey, wrapped cosily in the back of the car, a large travelling rug covering us. .

It also covered the hens, dead but still in their feathers, and the eggs, which of course we were not supposed to purchase that way鈥�.

Suddenly, ahead of us on the twisting hill road, we saw that the Police had set up a road-block. Mother and Father had an immediate verbal divorce as Father dissociated himself from all criminal negotiations. My older brother and I sat sleepily on the back seat, our tousled heads just peeping above the rug. The egg boxes on the seat sat snugly beside us. Our feet dangled above boxes of hens, in the rear seat wells. As a rotund policeman approached our little car, I shrank even deeper into the travelling rug. Our eyes must have been like saucers.

Father made a last comment to Mother, something like, 鈥淚f they find the eggs, we may have to forfeit the car you know!鈥� I was frightened, in my child鈥檚 mind I visualised my parents being shot at dawn standing against a brick wall. I had seen such heroism in the wartime films.

At last the policeman reached our car. Ahead of us, his colleagues were questioning drivers, looking at licences and peering into car boots. There were about seven or eight vehicles in front of us. What did the policeman do? He looked into the car, smiled at me, and said, 鈥淲ill you pull out here Sir? Those kiddies look worn out. We鈥檙e after finding some real criminals tonight. Just drive past the block there and get them two home to bed. Safe journey!鈥�

We drove on into the dark night. Nobody spoke. They were after real criminals like they said, not ordinary folk, doing their best to survive, besides it was nearly Christmas after all. We wouldn鈥檛 get many presents. We didn鈥檛 ask for what we couldn鈥檛 have. When Mother gave me a banana to eat, soon after the war had ended, she was horrified to see me try to bite into it with the peel still on it! I had no experience of bananas, after all.

On V.E. Day and also on V.J. Day our family was in London. Everyone was noisy shouting, laughing. Everywhere was crowded. We stood outside Buckingham Palace and watched King George the sixth and Queen Elizabeth and the two young Princesses, Elizabeth and Margaret come out onto their balcony and wave and smile at the thousands of people waiting to see them. Winston Churchill, the Prime Minister, came onto the balcony too.
Later that day, I met a very colourful character, called Prince Monolulu. He was very tall and he was brown-skinned and had a very smiley face. He wore a head-dress of ostrich plumes, which made him look like a giant to me. He was often seen on racecourses, giving tips to punters, forecasting the winning horses.
He predicted that when I grew up I would be a great singer and that my brother would be a sailor. I hope he had more success with his horses, because my brother did National Service in the R.A.F. and I went into Education!

The deprivations of wartime gave me an appreciation of natural beauty, of the value in conservation, of the futility of war. As young children we played games where Allies fought Germans, instead of just cowboys fighting Indians. As a young adult, I made friends both American and German. I learnt from them directly, that they did not want to fight a war with my people.
I have one wish for the future. Let there be and end to wars.

**

M. Blackburn October 2005.

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