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I was what they called ‘a war baby’ — I was born in 1943. My personal experience of the war can only be through the stories and anecdotes from my family. I do, however, remember the Mickey Mouse gas mask which remained stored in my toy cupboard for awhile after the war. I also remember the piles of blackout curtains which gathered dust in one of the garden sheds for many years.

My parents were married during the war and my father was in the RAF stationed at an aerodrome near Manchester so travelled between his base and his home which was Bourne in Lincolnshire. He drove a Morgan sports car which had to be painted dark blue because of the blackout.

These are fragments which I expect chime with the experience of other people.

The bombings: Lincolnshire had munitions factories and aerodromes (one of the famous being RAF Wittering). The county was regularly targeted by the German bombers and in broad daylight. My grandparents’ house in Stamford was close to a manufacturer of munitions (Blackstones) and both my grandfather and my mother worked there. Unexploded bombs frequently meant that the family had to evacuate the house over people’s back gardens. Granddad built a substantial air raid shelter in the garden, which after the war became a storage area for coal. The story is told of one neighbour who in a panic fled her house and fell into the crater made by a massive unexploded bomb. One bomb did explode when my mother and her sister were fortunately in bed under the covers. All the windows at the back of the house were blown out and shards of glass were embedded in the far walls.

The Americans’ arrival: I was a baby is a big black pram when the first American troop trains arrived. My Mother would take me on the train from Stamford to Bourne on the east coast main line through Essendine (where the LNER set steam speed records). She told me the story of how one day she had left me ready for the station master to take across the line ready to embark and had gone on an errand. When she came back, a troop train had been and gone and there was her baby with a pram full of bubble-gum and a face smeared with chocolate from the confectionary thrown from the train windows. Well, I was a chubby thing with a quiff of blond hair on the top…

The Coventry Blitz: My mother and father were in Coventry the night of the ‘big blitz’ when the gas works went up and Coventry burned. My mother claimed that she and my father sat on a road outside the city, shocked. A German bomber picked them out in the Morgan as the countryside was lit up like day and fired tracer bullets at them. My mother claimed my father jumped into the ditch and she sat ‘paralised with fright’ in the car. The Germans missed or I might not have been here today.

Firing at people: the above story leads me on to one which I have seen documented in various books. The munitions factory mentioned above (Blackstones) was subject to constant attack. My mother worked in the typing pool and one day they were fired on by a German bomber. All the windows were shot out and the ‘girls’ hid beneath their desks.

Family: my Aunt (my mother’s sister) was in the Red Cross and we have lots of pictures of her in her uniform. Her fiancée was in the RAF and for most of the war was in Canada training personnel. He recently went back to visit where he had been stationed during the war. My other grandfather (my father’s father) owned a local bus company and many of his buses were commandeered for the war effort. Troops were quartered in his business property and that of his neighbour including those who were parachuted into Arnhem. There was much sadness at the great loss of life at that battle. When we visit my mother’s, aunt’s and grandparents’ graves in Stamford cemetery we also stop and reflect beside one on our pathway. It is that of a childhood friend of my mother and my aunt who died early in the war when loading bombs ready for a mission. Like many others he died so young — the ongoing tragedy of war .. lest we forget….

Clothes and things: My mother told me she had various business suits at the start of the war and she sent them back to the factory to be ‘turned’ when they got worn i.e. they were unpicked and sewn back together again on the reverse side (these were tweed suits and very expensive). She recalled being offered ‘black market’ silk stockings and some people buying them and finding that the feet were missing … They darned and patched their stockings and my granddad had his own ways of mending the family shoes. Some girls painted a line down the backs of their legs to simulated seamed stockings. She said when she was expecting me, my grandmother cut up one of her pink laced corsets to provide her support for her pregnancy. In those days, people were discrete about such things and there were not the maternity clothes available.

I do remember the Utility marks on bedding and clothing long after the war. And, of course, I remember sweet rationing and ration books. I remember that many of my toys were made out of wood by my granddad — a duck on a piece of string, a little farmyard … I wish I knew where that went.

Food: Stamford and Bourne are market towns and many houses, certainly on the outskirts, had big gardens. Granddad grew all the vegetables and the garden was full of fruit trees and soft fruit bushes. My grandmother bottled the fruits. Thus in such areas people were not especially deprived. In those days people did not have fridges. I do remember milk which had ‘turned’ being hung in cheesecloth from the outside trellis to make cream cheese. Nothing was ever wasted and that is a legacy of our generation — we clean our plates and do not throw away food unnecessarily.

Sandra Jeans (married name)
Date of Birth 5th February 1943
Stamford, Lincolnshire family

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