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MY CHILDHOOD MEMORIES OF WORLD WAR II
Neville J Wilson

I was 2 years old when World War II started and I can still recall some of those times.

My first memories of infant school were during the war years of being taken to school on the back of my mother鈥檚 bike in a wicker basket-chair. After the first two weeks I had to walk to and from school every day (including returning home for lunch) with my brother the school was just over half a mile away but it seemed miles. Sometimes we saw metal streamers in the street and on the telephone lines which were dropped by the German aircraft. Although we were told not to, we used to pick them up and take them home to use as wind streamers.

In the afternoon at school we were made to lie down on oval shaped rush mats for a sleep. I didn鈥檛 like this and used to cry every time that I didn鈥檛 want to go to sleep, nowadays I feel like crying if I don鈥檛 go to sleep in the afternoons!

Our sports lessons were taught by the young lady students from nearby Homerton College (a girls only College) who took us to their playing fields to teach us to play football, It all seems to make sense now why there were not many male teachers around - they were serving in the war, so it was left to the college students who were very enthusiastic, anyway we all seemed to enjoy it.

We always had to carry our gas masks with us at all times in case of a gas attack, which fortunately never happened. The Air raid sirens were a daily event and warned of German aircraft in the area. It could sound at any time - when we were on our way to school or home we would run to take cover in the bomb shelters at the closest place (home or school). If the warning sirens were sounded whilst we were at school we had to gather in the playground and were taken into a large concrete purpose made shelter. Inside we sat on slatted wooden seats and I remember singing songs like 鈥楾en Green Bottles Hanging on the Wall鈥� to pass the time away until we heard the 鈥楢ll Clear鈥� siren. The 鈥楢ll Clear鈥� sirens which lasted a little longer and were of a different tone to the warning sirens so we could tell the difference. To people now it might seem a bit frightening, but you must remember that young children then knew no different way of life.

At school I remember receiving large tins of drinking chocolate to take home, a gift from the Canadian people. All food and clothes were on ration at that time. Each person had a Ration book where tokens were removed when purchasing those items that were rationed. The sorts of food that were rationed were meat, sweets, groceries like sugar, butter, cheese, milk, eggs, jam and tea.
We grew vegetables in our garden and kept chickens in the gardens so we could have fresh eggs. One of the popular slogans in the war was 鈥楧ig For Victory鈥� and was meant to encourage people to grow their own food.
We were allowed about 1/4lb of sweets each per week - which didn鈥檛 last long and there wasn鈥檛 much variety either! Foreign fruit like bananas were not seen until the end of the war.
All the family had identity card numbers. and I can still remember the entire families numbers to this day. After the war this ID number became people鈥檚 national health number.

At home I lived with my parents, 2 brothers and my sister. We also had 2 evacuees from London who came to live with us to escape the bombing there which was very severe. We also had 2 lodgers staying with us, who were aircraft technicians and worked at Bourne Airfield maintaining Bomber Aircraft. This made a total of 10 of us living in a 3 bedroom house.

All the children slept in the downstairs front room in a 鈥榙ouble decker鈥� Morrison shelter - named after a Government minister (see the attached picture)

The shelter was made up with angle iron frames with a steel top and grilles on all 4 sides which would have protected us from the blast of a bomb attack. We also had a dugout out shelter at the bottom of the garden which we did not use very often it was very cold, dirty and damp. It had a corrugated iron roof covered with earth and I believe we used this before we had the indoor Morrison shelter. If the raids were in the daytime (which they often were) we would get under the wooden dining room table, making sure our dog Trixie was with us. There was also a concrete built bunker, called a pill box, in a front garden opposite our home and I remember sheltering in it some nights with other neighbours. I do recall some night raids when you could hear the low flying enemy aircraft fly close to our house and hearing my father diving in the front door as one approached. On one occasion a small bomb dropped at the bottom of our road turning over a garage. There was also an incendiary (fire) bomb dropped through the roof of the attached house next door. Fortunately it did not explode and my father recovered the bomb casings which we kept as a souvenir for a while.

At night people called Air Raid Wardens (ARP) patrolled the streets to fight any fires caused by the bombings and to ensure the blackout was maintained. People had to keep their curtains shut tight and lined with black material to prevent light from escaping from their houses because this would alert planes to possible targets. There was no street lighting allowed at night, cyclists did not have lights and cars had blinkered headlamps.

There were very large water tanks positioned in the streets at various points, which we call Static Water Tanks. These tanks could be used by the fire brigade to fight fires caused by bombings. The tanks were approximately 4 foot high by about 30 yards square and I remember the water being very smelly. Children often played around them and sometimes fell in, which got them into big trouble when they got home!

In the field behind our road was a deep ditch which had very steep sides and water at the bottom. We used to fish (and fall) in it. They were specifically dug out to make a tank trap to stop any enemy tanks cutting across the countryside and there were many scattered throughout Britain鈥檚 countryside.

As many men were away serving, women took over many of the working tasks which the men traditionally did. Women could be seen working on the land, in the factories and driving buses - which was very unusual at the time, but nothing unusual these days. In the summer time the clocks were put forward 2 hours (instead of the 1 hour we do now) to allow people to work longer to get in the harvest from the fields. Of course this made the summer days seem very long as it did not get dark in midsummer till around 11 pm. Because of the shortages of raw materials to make military hardware, metal railings and metal fencing from the fronts of houses and land were cut down to be re-used to make war materials. This could be clearly seen throughout Cambridge - and the rest of the country I presume.

We would often see a lot of military personnel in the area during the war - especially Americans, who held a special fascination for us with their smart uniforms and badges. I remember my brother and I approaching them in the street and with our favourite question 鈥淕ot any gum chum?鈥� They always seemed to be chewing gum and would often oblige with a couple of sticks. One time some American soldiers camped in an orchard down our road and when we went to investigate they gave us some Flapjack which, of course, we had never had before. We also collected their badges and stripes and any other memorabilia as a hobby.

During the war it was not unusual to see the streets were full of convoys of army trucks carrying troops about, or to see prisoners of war (POWs) walking about. They had baggy uniforms with large markings on them (big squares/circles) to distinguish them from other people. The POWs were used to help people work in the fields. The prisoners used to live in camps and made wooden toys to sell. I remember having one of the toys - 4 wooden chickens on a board which pecked in rotation when a weight (attached to the board with strings) was swung round. They had a pyrograph decoration and splayed out wooden tails.

Things were very scarce in those days and I remember only one person in the street owned a football. It had a leather case which we used to fill with an inflated cycle inner tube all screwed up inside and when that burst we filled it up with straw. We did have comics - the best being American (because I don鈥檛 think many were printed in this country). One of my favourites was called 鈥楥ommando Yank鈥�. Of course, there was no television in the homes in those times and we had to rely on the newspapers and radio, which all the family listened to together in the evenings. One of my favourite programmes was a comedy programme called Itma starring Tommy Handley.

The skies were often filled with formations of planes which flew very low and made a tremendous droning noise. We used to know every type of plane and we would see them go off to raids over Germany and later return. The sky at night would often be filled with Allied searchlights scouring the skies for signs of enemy aircraft.

When the war finished I remember we celebrated with a massive street party. The road was closed, tables were set up in the middle of it, where we ate drank and played games in celebration. In the evening there was a firework display - which nearly ended in tragedy when the fireworks, in the pocket of the neighbour who was organising the event, ignited causing him to catch fire. I can still recall my mother calling out 鈥渞oll him over鈥� which they did to smother the flames. Fortunately he recovered but it was a frightening experience for everyone.

After the war was over we often went to London by train to visit the evacuees that had lived with us and their families. From the train window you could clearly see the scale of how devastated London had been by the constant. It seemed to look like this for a long time before it was rebuilt and even now when I visit London you get the feeling that every demolished building is a bomb site.

It something I will never forget

In the post war period 1950s my two brothers and I were conscripted into National Service. My eldest brother went to Egypt and my other brother (RAF) and I were sent to Germany. In the town I was stationed in Germany (1958), we had to go into town to visit the cinema. On one occasion whilst waiting for a bus, a Large VW van pulled up and the German driver asked us if we wanted a lift to town. There was about 4 of us and of course we all accepted his lift. Whilst we sat in the back of the van it appeared he must have been a builder or carpenter by the tools he was carrying and he told us of his wartime experiences. He was a Prisoner of War in the UK and was sent to a farm in Scotland to work. It appeared they treated him very well and he really appreciated it and said they were very good to him. When we stopped at our destination he gave us all about 3 marks each which was worth about 5 shillings (25p) which was a fair amount considering we were only paid about 拢2 per week. I will never forget his generosity and it proved that most of the German troops were people just like us, and not all Nazis as we as children thought when the war was on.

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