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Life in Hackney, London

This story was submitted to the People’s War site by Dorothy MacKenzie for Three Counties Action on behalf of Grace Drackford and Joyce Davis and has been added to the site with their permission. The authors fully understand the site’s terms and conditions.

In Victoria Park Hackney, the council dug big shelters with stacked beds all along the walls. There were all different corridors and at then of each corridor were toilets, which were really big drums. There were no doors, only heavy Hessian sacking soaked in Jeyes Fluid. When you went to the toilet you could hear all noises.

Our elder sister worked in Wickham’s in Aldgate. When they’d come home (we were already in the shelters) they’d make big jugs of cocoa to bring over. Sometimes the sirens would go and they had to run and all the cocoa would spill out — we didn’t get cocoa on these nights!

After that the Council put Anderson shelters in peoples’ gardens. As we had a large family we were given two. Dad and our brothers put them facing with a large gap in between. They covered it with earth and planted flowers on top. There were two wooden bunks and the walls ran with water due to the damp. One time Mum saw a mouse and fell off her bunk with fright.

On Hackney Common we watched them inflating barrage balloons and we saw them going up in the sky. When the sirens went there were ack-ack guns going round the streets and parked outside the houses. Big searchlights would sweep the skies and when they spotted enemy planes, they started firing. The house would shake it was so noisy. You could always tell if the plane was a Spitfire or a Hurricane by its sound. If it was a Messerschmit or Junkers 88, the sound was so different you knew you had to get away quickly to safety.

Even after the bombings we’d still go around playing. There was no TV and there were battery radio as there was no electricity to plug the radio in. On Sundays we would sing along to hymns on the radio (like Songs of Praise) and listen to ITMA.

Friday night was bath night. We had a metal tin bath hanging in the yard. The copper would be filled up to fill the bath. With nine of us it took ages. The last ones got the dirty water and then it was taken to the garden to drain the water away. Mondays was washdays and the copper was in the scullery and we used to light a fire at the bottom. We used soda in the boiler. While the washing was boiling we had a big butlers sink and a washboard to wash collars. We used Sunlight soap and we’d skin our knuckles on the board. Then it was out of the boiler and into the sink for rinsing - then to a big mangle to squeeze all the water out. If it was a nice day we would hang the washing out; if it was wet it would be on pulleys in the house. It made the house like a sauna.

One time a V2 bomb fell on our friends’ house and killed all of them. Our windows in our house fell in due to the explosion. The Doodlebugs we could hear coming over and when the noise stopped you knew that it was going to fall — you ran for shelter.

There was a POW camp near where we stayed with Italians and Germans in it. We were encouraged to take these POWs into your homes to make company and feed them. When they went home after the war, they sent food parcels to us. We corresponded for years after the war.

Grace: I worked in a factory and one day I decided not to go to work and instead went to Hackney Marshes to see the soldiers. The factory sent the Air Raid Warden to see my father, as they were concerned as to where I was. I can still see my father riding on his bike towards me, absolutely furious. I got into terrible trouble and was grounded for weeks.

Joyce: I used to help in a grocer’s shop — nothing was packaged, and we had to weigh everything including biscuits, fruit and grain. There were coupons in ration books. There was a flat scale and wooden butter spatulas where we’d weigh up the butter and put in greaseproof paper. Eggs came in wooden boxes and I used to take home cracked eggs; nothing was thrown away. Each person had weekly ration of 2 ounces of cheese, 1 egg, 1 rasher of bacon. Bread was not rationed until later in the war. Dad was friendly with the grocer as he used to come to the air raid shelter, so he gave him extra ham.

After all the schools closed we went to Percy Road School where there was a mixture of all ages of children. There was a coal fire at one end of the hall with a fireguard. We were allowed 1/3 pint of milk, which used to be put beside the fire to heat up. We went to school at 3 years old and after lunch beds were brought out and we had 1 hour’s sleep.

There was a cinema in Well Street Hackney, across from where we lived and we were given an old sixpence to go for pie and mash before going to the cinema. The cinema cost 2 old pennies.

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