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PART 4

FUND RAISING
People helped the war effort in many ways. There were aluminium collections when housewives surrendered their saucepans and kettles to be melted down to build aircraft. Iron railings everywhere disappeared. Then there was the Spitfire Fund;
periodically we used buy 6d (2½p) and 2s 0d (10p) National Savings stamps and these would be stuck on a bomb which was, eventually, to be dropped on Germany, and the cash raised went towards paying for another Spitfire.
There used to be wonderful fetes in the playing fields at St. Johns School where all the money raised went to the war effort.
PROPAGANDA
We were constantly exhorted to save — fuel, coal, water. There were posters which asked ‘Is your journey really necessary?’. Then there was the Squander Bug. This was a round, green, furry gremlin with a Hitler moustache and quiff and it was covered with black swastikas. It was supposed to gobble up resources if it was not watched. There was a ‘life-size’ (almost as tall as me at the time) model of a Squander Bug in the Gas Show Rooms and it used to fascinate me.
‘Careless talk costs lives’ and ‘Walls have ears’ posters were everywhere. It was all taken very seriously but there were the inevitable moans about shortages. The way people used to do this was with ‘Chad’ cartons with his ‘Wot no….’ - smokes, sweets, butter, etc., and he appeared chalked up on walls everywhere.

FAMILY CELEBRATIONS
My aunt and uncle who lived with us had married near the beginning of the war. It was during the winter because my aunt wore a beautiful while velvet dress and carried a sheaf of white lilies. I was very upset because she would not let me be her bridesmaid. I did, however, very innocently, have my revenge upon her though. Some time after the wedding my mother aunt and I were on a crowded bus to Dorking and as we passed the Parish Church I piped, at the top of my voice, with ‘That is the church where you got married isn’t it Auntie Margaret? You had to get married didn’t you?’.’ Why did Auntie Margaret have to get married?’ asked my mother. ‘Well! She had her wedding dress and everything, didn’t she?’. I could not understand why everyone on the bus roared with laughter.
My cousin Lily got married in January 1945. Everyone rallied round to help out. I was very proud to be able to help with the wedding cake. It was the real thing, with proper royal icing! Not an imitation iced hollow cake with a sponge cake underneath! All the family had clubbed together and saved the fruit. I helped clean the fruit, (it still had all its stalks- no pre-washed dried fruit then), and dried it in the airing cupboard. The icing sugar had rock-hard lumps in it that had to be crushed before the icing could be made, we got the lumps out of the sugar with rolling pins and then sieved it. This time I was bridesmaid. There were four of us, the two small ones in shocking pink satin and the grown-ups in apple green. The reception was held in All Saints Church Hall and we had a live band playing during the evening. I can see my Auntie Nan, the bride’s mother, playing the drums. I thought she was so clever, I had no idea she was tipsy! After the wedding I used to go over to my aunt’s house each day and I was given a small bag of the icing and cake crumbs, it was almost better than sweets.
I was bridesmaid on another occasion, though that honour should have gone to my friend Sheila Groves, whose parents were friends of the bride’s parents. Unfortunately Sheila got measles just before the wedding. There were no little girls in the bride’s nor the groom’s families and, as I was the same size as Sheila, they asked my mother if I could deputise. I wore a long pale blue crepe-de-chine dress, a white Juliet cap and long white gloves, all of which I was allowed to keep after the wedding. Sheila was livid and it was a long time before she would talk to me! I don’t think she ever forgave me.

There were two more weddings where I was bridesmaid, Auntie Mary - a courtesy aunt - (a friend of the family from Sunderland, living in Leatherhead) asked me to be her attendant. I wore dress of turquoise georgette patterned in white, it was very pretty. The second wedding was my Uncle Vic and Auntie Margaret’s and this was held in Sunderland. It was after my father came home but before he was demobbed from the army and he had to wear his uniform. There were two bridesmaids on this occasion, my cousin Joan in pink and me in blue Swiss dot crepe de chine and we wore black patent leather shoes. After the service we all went to a studio to have the photographs taken. Joan and I were thrilled to bits when we were taken into a make-up room and our faces were smothered in green powder! The photographer went straight up to my father and warmly shook his hand and said congratulations to him. It was a bit embarrassing when we had to explain that he was not the groom. Joan was a year older than me and she was allowed to have a pair of ankle strap shoes but because I ‘wasn’t old enough’ I had to wear plain T-bar shoes. I was so jealous of Joan, more than anything else in the world I wanted a pair of ankle strap shoes!

PEACE
About a week after my ninth birthday, as I walked home from school one sunny May afternoon, my friend Diana Cooper ran out of her garden gate and shouted that the war was over. My reaction was to tell her not to be so stupid. When I told my mother what Diana had said, and how silly I thought she was, my mother explained that the war really was over.
Later that afternoon, when the older children had come home from school, we all went out into the fields and woods behind Albany Park Road and collected wood for a bonfire. This was built just where the entrance gates to Therfield School are now. By the time we were finished the bonfire was huge. That night when it got dark everyone came out into the road. All the curtains of all the houses were left open and all the lights were switched on — unbelievable after so many years of total blackout! There were no street lights of course.
Chairs and tables were brought out and food and drink appeared and we had a wonderful party, we sang and danced. It was the first bonfire that I could remember and it was so exciting. The only person who did not come out was Mrs Thomas who lived four doors away from us. Her husband was in the army, a Captain, and for this reason Mrs Thomas thought she was a cut above the rest of us, even though we all lived in three-bed roomed semis! The retired Major who lived next-door-but-one to us joined the party and thoroughly enjoyed himself.
DADDY
Before my father was sent to India and when he came home on leave my mother’s greeting was ‘Oh! Its lovely to see you, when do you have to go back?’ My father would get really cross and would say ‘Let me get in before you ask me when I go back.’ He was issued with a ration card, of course, but he never realised how little tea and sugar we got each week (about two ounces of each) and he liked his tea often and very sweet. When he went overseas he used to send us parcels from India. They were beautifully packed parcels, very strong cardboard and were covered in cotton material which was stitched around the parcel and the address was written in black pen. It was like Christmas every time a parcel arrived; there was always orange pekoe tea and sugar, tins of butter, tinned meat, jelly crystals and always something special for me. Once it was a pair of beautiful chaplees (sandals) which were completely covered in gold thread embroidery, they were my pride and joy. Another time it was a fountain pen with my name engraved on it in gold. My mother thought I was too young to use a fountain pen so it was put away until I was older.We never saw that pen again although my mother searched for it on numerous occasions! My father sent quite a lot of Benares brass items, cobra candlesticks, boxes and a 40-year calendar. One day a disaster occurred - the parcel must have been very roughly treated and all the packets inside had burst and we were faced with a heartbreaking mixture of tea sugar and jelly crystals. something was salvaged.Ever resourceful, my mother put the whole lot into a bowl of cold water to dissolve the sugar and jelly crystals and afterwards the tea was spread on cloths on trays and dried in the airing cupboard, so at least
The rations were very meagre by today’s standards but I do not remember ever being hungry and most people were, in the main, very slim and fit on our wartime diet.
Before he went to India, my father, then a lowly bombardier in the Royal Artillery — (though he did come home a sergeant in the Indian Army) - and Captain Thomas (a wartime commission) happened to be on leave at the same time. They met in the road just outside our houses and my father said good morning to him but Captain Thomas threatened to put my father on a charge because he hadn’t saluted him. He yelled and ranted at my father, making such a fuss that the Major came out. He tore Captain Thomas off a strip and told him not to be so stupid — since when did long-standing neighbours salute each other!).
COMING HOME
One day I was playing in the next door garden with my friend Shirley when she suddenly screamed and ran down the path. When I looked there was a soldier standing at the gate. Shirley ran up and down the path like a mad thing! She was shouting ‘Mummy! Daddy’s here — Daddy! Mummy’s here’, she was so excited that she didn’t know whom to run to first. It was wonderful — he had been away for a long time just like my father.
In September 1945 my mother received a telegram from my father. It said ‘Arriving Soton’ followed by a date. My mother was so puzzled, she had never heard of Soton and she thought it was somewhere in India. The Major had been in India before the war so my mother went to ask him where it was. ‘Why, my dear’ he said ‘that is short for Southampton; it means he is nearly home’.
It was a wonderful surprise because we had no idea he was on his way, but we still did not know exactly when he would be home after five long years in India and Burma.
I was awakened one night by my mother gently shaking me and saying ‘Anne, Daddy’s home!’ I can remember reaching out and the next instant my arms were around my father’s neck and he was carrying me down stairs. Everyone from across the road was there, my grandmother, aunts, uncles and cousins. My father had arrived at Leatherhead station very late on the mail train and was faced with the walk home, carrying a very heavy leather suitcase and his kit bag. The postman who was at the station collecting the mail had said he would be proud to drive my father home.
When my father had gone away my cousins Ted and Fred had been quite little boys (aged nine years old) and he did not recognise them- he was waiting to be introduced to the two tall young men. The pair of them almost had a fight about who was to be the first to try on my father’s bush hat! My father had brought home all sorts of presents. There was a set of silver bangles for me I recall, and bags and bags of sweets - the strange thing is that I can remember only the mint chews!

We were lucky as a family — all our men came home. A few cracked windows and ceilings was all the bomb damage our homes sustained but we had not lost any of our loved-ones.
My father was never fully fit after his time in India and the Burmese jungle (he suffered several bouts of pneumonia during his five years out there) — even though he was demobbed as A1. For years afterwards he suffered recurring malaria bouts and pneumonia (thank God for antibiotics!) and the army food had played havoc with his digestion and he suffered with an ulcer. The most important thing though was that he had come safe home to us. That was a great relief to me as I had been bullied at school because my father had been away for so long. One girl in particular regularly told me that my father had been killed because he never came home on leave like the other children’s fathers and that my mother was keeping it a secret from me.
AFTER THE WAR
It was strange just after the war had ended because things did not change too much. All the silver barrage balloons had disappeared from the sky, I don’t remember them going but suddenly they were not there any more. The anti aircraft battery at the end of the golf course (off Kingston Road, just about where the club house is now) was dismantled and the guns taken away and gradually the square concrete anti tank traps went. There was a used car yard near Fair Oak Lane at Chessington and for years after the war there was a fighter plane on top of a pile of cars.
There were still shortages and rationing lasted until the early 1950’s. About a year after the war ended I remember being on holiday in Sunderland with my Nanna, and my cousins Joan and Brian were there from Scotland. Suddenly there came the news that a sweet shop in the town had sweets off the ration! My cousins and I pelted over the Monkwearmouth bridge into the town and joined the queue. We were allowed to buy a quarter of a pound of sweets each (they probably cost 6d per quarter pound (2½ p) - and we walked back to my Nanna’s house very happy with our spoils. This really was riches because the sweet ration was 2 ounces a week. My cousin Ted had a girlfriend and on a Saturday he would come over to our house, say ‘Hullo!’ He would then sit and read the paper, and when he had finished he would say ‘Goodbye’ and then, as an afterthought would say ‘Have you got any sweet coupons?! ’A man of few words, my cousin Ted! We always teased him that we hadn’t any left but we always found some coupons for him.
Then there was the time that we heard that a shop in Dorking had rice. My mother gave me some money for the rice and bus fare and, with my friend Barbara Outram, I got the bus to Dorking. Barbara and I came home very proud with our bags of rice. I cannot imagine anyone today doing such a thing!
A lot of equipment was sold off as war surplus after the war and my Aunt Alice bought a parachute. I think she intended to make underclothes with the beautiful silky material. However, my cousin Tom got his hands on it before it was cut up and, going up to his bedroom, he strapped it on and jumped out of the window. As he lay on the garden path with a broken leg, all he could say was, ‘It didn’t open!’ I think he was about 12 years old!

The 60th Anniversary D-Day reunion and celebrations have brought back so many, many memories!

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