大象传媒

1. Childhood Memories World War II

I was four years old when the war started. I remember my mother saying in a worried voice 鈥淚t looks as though we shall soon be at war.鈥� Not knowing what war was I thought it might be fun. She explained, 鈥淲ar is dreadful, people fight and kill one another.鈥�

My brother was at Handsworth Grammar School. They were all evacuated to Stroud in Gloucester. We went to see them off at the station. A whole train full of children going away from home. I didn鈥檛 go. Mom thought I was too young, although I found out in later years that my sister in law, who was one day younger than me, went off with a label round her neck.

Dad, helped by a neighbour, built an Anderson shelter in our back garden. He planted a rockery on top. Every house had a shelter, unless they shared with next door. We lived in Greenhill Road, Handsworth. Our neighbours shared our shelter. My dad couldn鈥檛 go to war, he鈥檇 been badly injured in an accident when he was a lorry driver, and so he joined the Home Guard.

We were all issued with gas masks. At Rookery Road school we all continually practised putting them on. You went nowhere without it. We also practiced what to do in air raids. We all had allocated areas to go to. One was the boiler-room. It was dark and absolutely packed with all of us children lined up against the walls. Fortunately we only went down on one occasion 鈥� the practice run.

The air raids started. A warning signal like a siren went off and you rushed out to the shelters. Bombs were dropped and you would find whole areas devastated in the morning. You heard of people you knew who had died. On the way to school you would see that the local shops had become a wreck overnight. The newsagent鈥檚 shop was bombed. The owner had been standing on the step. All the men who hadn鈥檛 gone to war were air raid wardens. (I think some women were as well). We children would explore the bombed buildings and one of the things we collected were pieces of shrapnel. If you had a piece of shrapnel you were greatly envied at school. Shrapnel was a piece of an exploded bomb. The metal casing having been blown apart.

We had ration books. We could have a quarter of a pound of sweets (in a month, I think) I鈥檓 not too sure of the amount, but there were not too many sweets to come by anyway. My mother used to make a sort of chewy chocolate paste, which set into a block, out of Benger鈥檚 food (a food supplement you could buy) and cocoa powder. We had powdered milk and powdered egg. I thought powdered egg was quite delicious.

One night, after a bad raid, my father came home and cried because of the devastation he had seen. I had never seen my father cry. It frightened me. He said the shops are all gone, and the houses opposite, people and all.

We went to stay with my Uncle and Auntie in Leagrave in Luton, for a holiday. They were near enough to London to see the glow in the sky as the city burned. One afternoon there was an air raid. We all crammed into the cupboard under the stairs and I heard my first flying bomb. These were the rockets that devastated London. Everybody listened. They had their own distinctive sound, like a throbbing noise and when the noise stopped they just fell out of the sky. This one wasn鈥檛 destined for us. I can鈥檛 imagine how the Londoner鈥檚 survived that terror every night. The flying bombs were not able to travel as far as Birmingham.

I remember one night when the air raid warning went and was immediately followed by aircraft dropping bombs. There wasn鈥檛 time to get in the shelter. We ran into the entry between our house and next-door. The houses were villas, built in a long row with an entry between every six houses. We lay face down while bombs whistled as they fell and we could feel the ground shake with impact, but we escaped. Later an Air Raid Warden came to tell everyone that a land mine had been found on the allotments in Oxhill Road, the next road to ours. We had to go because it might explode. We all went to Rookery Road School. It was late evening. We lay in the cloakrooms on the hard floor. The place was packed. The morning came. Some of the moms and older children started to organise games for us younger ones. It was funny to see grown-ups playing 鈥淭he Farmer wants a Wife鈥� and 鈥淥ranges and Lemons鈥�. Just before lunch we heard the mine had been diffused and we could go home. I remember noticing that my black shoes were white with dust, chalk dust I suppose. We walked home and found that my elder brother, who had been on his fire watching duty at the factory where he worked, was in bed. He had come home from duty, somehow managed to walk past the wardens who were patrolling both ends of the street and got into bed. He said he had wondered where everybody was but he was tired.

The sugar ration didn鈥檛 go very far. I think it was 2 oz per week. Once at my grandma鈥檚 house, my uncles were laughing about the fact that there was no sugar. One had a particularly sweet tooth. He noticed that I had some boiled sweets with sugar on the outside. He scrounged one and put it in his tea and stirred like mad. We all laughed and wondered how it would taste, but he stirred it up, drank the tea and then ate what was left of the sweet.

Billboards bore posters that said things like 鈥淕o easy on bread, eat potatoes instead鈥� and 鈥淒ig for Victory鈥�, and everyone was expected to 鈥淢ake do and Mend鈥�. Barrage balloons hung in the sky to deter low flying planes. There were big crates in the streets to put all your waste paper in and huge metal tanks that held water to put out fires. At the cinema there was an advert, which showed how paper could be made into ammunitions. It showed a bus ticket curling up and being transformed into a bullet. On the radio we constantly heard reports of the Germans in the Maritime Alps and a guy nicknamed Lord Haw Haw gave propaganda broadcasts on how well Germany was doing.

Finally VE Day came. Victory in Europe. There was great celebration in the streets. There were long tables of food for parties with the whole street present. Finally, after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, we had VJ Day. Victory in Japan. More and greater celebrations, dancing and flag waving. Houses with notices welcoming home their soldiers in their demob suits, all pinstriped in either grey or navy, maybe some black. As identical as a uniform but much more acceptable.

Jean M Smith

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.