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This story has been submitted to the People's War website by Angela Cutting of Leicester City Libraries on behalf of Ted Humphreys and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

I was nine years old when the war started in 1939. When the first air raid warning sounded I was playing with my friend in Oxhey Park (near Watford, Hertfordshire). We took refuge in a slit trench that had been dug by the Home Guard in anticipation of combating the German Hordes if they should invade. When nothing happened we home to tea.

My mother, father and sister (she was seven at the time) lived at number 1 Green Lane, Oxhey, Herts. My main memories of that time were:

1. Watching German planes flying overhead, picked out by searchlights.

2. Standing in the front garden at night, wearing my dad's (Home Guard) steel helmet and hearing the "whoosh" of a piece of anti-aircraft shrapnel that went by my head, far too close for comfort!

3. Hearing a flying bomb (V1) drone overhead. I could not see it due to heavy cloud.

4. Sitting up a tree in the back garden noting all the aircraft that passed overhead.

5. Dad was in the Home Guard. He was exempt from the call-up as he owned a grocery shop in Harwoods Road, Watford. As Dad owned a motor bike he became a Home Guard Dispatch Rider, complete with some type of fibre crash helmet!

6. He kept his Sten Gun in the wardrobe and I used to take it apart to clean it.

We slept every night in the cellar of a near neighbour: the Misses Thomas. One night we heard a roaring noise as a bomb passed overhead. I am told that this so upset us all that Mum and Dad decided to move us to North Wales. My father could not come with us as he had the grocery shop to run.

We went to Betws-y-Coed, North Wales, but before we could find a cottage to rent we stayed with a Mrs Jones at the base of an enormous slate tip. The first meal that Mrs Jones gave us was very salty porridge that we could not eat and we very quietly had to tip it into the stream that ran at the side of the cottage! Dulwich College had evacuated to a large hotel in the village and I attended as a 'day boy'! My sister went to the local school.

I used to pump the organ in the Parish Church. The wooden handle was still in situ when I visited there recently. I have great memories of North Wales, running over the hills and streams with not a care in the world.

I remember that we went to the local circus and that when a big box was opened in the circus ring, a large lion ran out. There was no cage and the trainer had to grab the chain that was around the beast's neck and loop it over a stake that had been driven into the ground!

When we returned to Oxhey later in the war I was sent to Harrow High School. The Headmaster was Mr Thompson who took us around the area in a large open top car. His father-in-law used to watch on the roof for flying bombs (Doodlebugs) and he was supposed to ring a bell when he saw one coming our way. Often there was a big bang when one hit the ground and then he would ring the bell!

Dad's Grocery Shop

After being caught sliding off a hayrick with my friends I was taken home by a Policeman. Mother had to get out of the bath to answer the Policeman's knock and she appeared at the door in her dressing gown. She was horrified over the incident and my parents decided that, to save me from a life of crime, my spare time would be taken up by working in dad's grocery shop. I do not remember if I was paid. Wasn't slavery abolished in the 18th century?

I became the original 'Granville' complete with a bike with a small front wheel The reason for the small front wheel was to accommodate a large wicker basket that would be overfilled with groceries that I was expected to deliver to customers up to a mile away. Mrs Harrison used to tip me 2/6d and there was also an old lady who gave me 1/-, but I did not like that visit as when she opened her door there was a dreadful smell of urine, b.o. and cats. When it rained I wore a voluminous cape that tended to scoop up the rain onto my body!

My duties in the shop consisted mainly of weighing out margarine, butter and lard that were cut our of blocks about one foot square. In the back room there were bulk containers holding paraffin and vinegar that were dispensed into metal containers. I did not like going down to the cellar due to the spiders, so I used to throw empty boxes down the steps. One day I accidentally threw down half a box of eggs into the cellar. I was very popular with the customers as broken eggs could be sold "off the ration"!

Menus 1939 — 1950s

My father knew the greengrocer, the butcher and the fishmonger — between them we did not starve! Dad used to have what he called a "stock pot". Over a period of weeks bones, meat and other left-overs were put into the pot, reheated numerous times and dispensed as a lovely soup. How we never got food poisoning I shall never know.

We ate sheep hearts, sweetbreads (animal's pancreas), kidneys, liver, "Bathchaps" (pigs cheeks), tripe, pigs trotters and a lot of fish. I used to go to a friendly fishmonger who sold me a herring for 1d (old money). At my request he squeezed its nether region to reveal that I had got a hard roe as I did not like soft roes! At Christmas we had chicken. One year it was an old broiler chicken which never did soften enough to eat!

My sister and I had a lovely childhood and we look back to the 1940s with great warmth.

Ted Humphreys
Countesthorpe
Leicestershire

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