大象传媒

Leisure Time

NC: I would like to ask you one more thing. What did you do in your leisure time, on high days and holidays?

VT: Most people did not have much spare time.

SW: Cinema was very popular in those days. In Strood there was one we called the bug-hutch in Station Road (The Gem) and there used to be one opposite Woolworths (Victor?). I remember being in there when an air raid warning sounded and it would come up on the screen and we could leave the cinema if we wanted to. There as a dug-out across the road that we could go to. But if you were engrossed in the film, you just sat tight and finished watching it. There were also the dance halls.

E: When I was in stationed in Surrey , once a week on a Tuesday, we used to go to a Canadian dance though I cannot recall where it was.

MW: (some memories of films he saw during the war)

??: Standing outside pubs with an arrowroot biscuit and a shandy!

VT: During the time when I worked in the War Office in London. During our lunch break we went into the Tate Gallery and get a cheap lunch. It was quite lively up there as there was a lot going on for the American servicemen, dances etc. Travelling was pretty horrible then. There sometimes had been a bomb overnight and you all had to get out and hang about until the line was cleared.

Black-out and bombs

SW?: One of the bad things was the black-out. Through the winter it was already dark enough and we had no street lamps and we moved around in the dark and you could easily lose track of where you were going if there was no moon that night. All the windows were blacked out as well. Wardens would walk the streets and if they saw a chink of light coming through the curtains they would call out 鈥淧ut that bloody light out!鈥�

??: I put the light on in the bedroom and my father gave me hell and when the warden came to the door he said he could see it miles away.

?? One my vivid memories was on the very first day of the war. We were living in Bridge Road in Gillingham which were the Royal Marine police quarters in those days. My father was a Dockyard Policeman. I remember the sirens going for the first time and I said to my mother, 鈥淲e have to go down to the dockyard. Come on Mum鈥�. And she stood by the front door and said 鈥淚f I鈥檓 going to die, I鈥檓 going to die in my own home!鈥�. She would not budge and I was so scared because I didn鈥檛 know what to expect.

VT: When Churchill said in 1939 that war was declared and five minutes later the sirens went off and everybody thought it had really started.

SW: I remember standing on the back doorstep. You had the excitement as a child watching the dog-fights and hearing the guns off and then going off and collecting shrapnel from the roads after it was all over. We saw the dog-fights and even someone coming down in a parachute from the back door. On one occasion we could hear a bomb coming and Eva was in the toilet at the time and she came running out pulling her knickers up. Little things like that were amusing memories of a really rough time that everybody suffered. But people were light-hearted 鈥� they had to be.

SO: I can remember in Luton Road, I was in a house with my little sister and my grandmother, my mother was out at work in a canteen (in the Salvation Army Building on the Brook) after my father had died. We were playing snap and my young uncle was there, he wasn鈥檛 a great deal older than me. I had my legs wrapped around a chair and we heard this 鈥漌heeeeee鈥� and everyone disappeared and I was rigid as I couldn鈥檛 get my legs from around this chair. There was a great bang at the back of the house, breaking glass etc and grandma said we had better go down to the shelter, as usual after the event, collected everything up and went to go to the back door and young uncle Arthur said don鈥檛 go that way, that鈥檚 where the bombs fallen. So we went out the front door and I can vividly remember opening the front door and of course it was pitch black at night and there were silhouettes of figures running against a police down the road, not very far away, that had been hit. You could see people running to the house with the flames behind them and the crunch of broken glass under their feet. So this little group out the front, along, down an alleyway, along the back down to the shelter until mother came. She had to walk from the town about 10 o鈥檆lock at night and found us in the shelter. In the morning we discovered that the bang and the crater that was supposed to be in the back yard, was only the galvanized bath that had fallen off the wall. It was terrifying at the time.

SW: The doodle bugs were fun, you played Russian roulette with those. You heard them coming and you knew once the sound cut out it was going to dive. So all the time you could hear the engine you knew you were safe, but as soon as a it cut out, you never saw the street clear so quick.

DH: I cannot remember much about them except for one incident, the only one I remember which made an impression on me, in that the engine cut out and there wasn鈥檛 a bang. So we were so used to it, I can only remember that one that didn鈥檛 explode!

?? My mother and I were mushrooming one day on the freebounds at Kingsdown and we thought we heard a doodle bug coming over and it cut out and we sat huddled together waiting for bang and in fact it wasn鈥檛 a doodlebug at all, it was Lancaster bomber that had gone into the sea near Dover.

MW: It was a doodlebug that killed my grandfather, well not just him, there were 10 killed all together.

?? The pilots would try and tip their wings (of the doodlebugs) so they dropped somewhere harmlessly.

SO: You could tell the difference between our planes and the enemy planes. They had a different tone.

MW: They used to say 鈥淚鈥檓 coming, I鈥檓 coming鈥�.

SO: I can remember the first time I heard a doodlebug. My mother was walking home late at night and she said to her mum that there was a funny sort of noise in the sky just like a motorbike.

?? The first one I heard was in July 1944, because my son was born in 1944 and he was seven weeks old when the first one went over, when I was in the flats in Gillingham. I think it was the 7th July.

MW: I think the earliest was 23rd June 1944.

SO: The Newcomb diary (outfitters) in Chatham will tell us these dates. Their company secretary wrote a diary every single day throughout the war. It had a line per day, with local, national and international events.
?? 1940 when the Blitz was on, I was walking from Rochester to Chatham and I was going over where the laundry used to be in Chatham. I walked over the fields and through the alleyway, that鈥檚 still there today, by Chatham Station on the Chatham/Maidstone Road. All of a sudden there was an explosion and a landmine had gone off at Ordnance Street, Chatham. Then it was all quiet, you could hear a pin drop. I came across an old boy with a stick and I could hear another 鈥渟wish, swish, swish鈥� as another landmine was coming down on a parachute 鈥� the wind going through the cords. This chap still kept walking and I thought I had better to go over to him and pull him down. Then the second one went off and the debris was coming down. It was comical really, but serious. And he got up and said 鈥淲hat鈥檚 the matter then?鈥� So I said 鈥淎 bombs just dropped!鈥� 鈥淲hat?鈥� He was stone deaf and didn鈥檛 hear a thing!

SO: When the bomb went off in Ordnance Street, someone in Luton Arches had their door blown off, so the damage was quite extensive.

SW: We had one at the top of Hawthorn Road. I don鈥檛 remember how many houses. I remember seeing the devastation. There were a lot of houses on both sides of the road. They exploded the gas main as well up there so that added to the damage. My friend and myself wandered around picking up personal belongings of other people and not seeing any harm in it. Picking up other people鈥檚 property. Thinking we had come across a goldmine and we got told off by some passersby and reminded that people were dead and this was their property. We didn鈥檛 think anything of it at the time. That was the attitude you take up when you鈥檙e in the middle of it.

VE/VJ Days

NC: I would now like you to think about the end of the war. Do you have any memories of any celebrations you took part in?

DH: I cannot remember the end of the war particularly. I have a photo here of a street party (Rosebury Avenue, Sidcup)that was held but I do recall my father taking my brother and me to Trafalgar Square on VJ Day.

VT: My daughter was born in 1943, so she was two, and we had a very large street party in Welwyn.

OC: The day the war finished, we were having a concert party in the canteen just outside of Rome, Italy. And there was a group of South Africans (Army). I went down to the billet and listened to the wireless as we were expecting something. Afterwards I went back and shouted 鈥淭he war is over!!鈥� and they didn鈥檛 take a blind bit of notice. They were all watching the stage and enjoying themselves. It was all male, no females.

SW: I was living at Hawthorn Road, Strood with the family. Everyone was always friendly, you knew everyone else. VE Day, all the tables came out in the road. You all shared the grub. Whatever you had, you put it out on the table. The exciting moment was when the piano was pushed out onto the street. You always had someone who could play the piano. People were dancing, dressing up and looking utterly ridiculous in their gear but it was all fun. A friend of mine, had a teenager son. He was quite embarrassed at the way his mother was dressed. She was wearing a Union Jack as a nappy with a massive pin holding it up in front and she had skinny legs and she didn鈥檛 give a damn, she was dancing away and her poor son was so embarrassed. We all walked round the streets saying silly things, dressed up, we were just so relieved it was over 鈥� the tension had gone. It was the neighbourliness that was great. That鈥檚 gone now.

SO: My father had died and his brother had died and another uncle had lost a leg, so it was tinged with sadness, but for that brief moment we were all relieved. We had lived in fear for five solid years. It takes some understanding.

SW: One of our brothers was killed during the war and I never did understand how my mother felt because they didn鈥檛 really talk to you. As small children, you didn鈥檛 really know how your parents were feeling about things. Being a parent now, I understand what an awful time it was for them. It was after VE Day that you took stock and you sat down and thought about who you had lost. You could re-build your life but they weren鈥檛 going to be there to help you.

SO: For adults who had lived through it and waited for the telegram to come every single day and not just for one person. The chance of losing someone in your family was high. I can remember when the telegram came for my mother, she was out and my uncle took us down into the shelter. I can still hear the 鈥淥h no!鈥� I can hear her screaming now. That was June 1940 and the war had just started. If he had lived 24 he would have been in England. I have the report of what happened. It said that CSM Higgins was shot by a panicky Frenchman. That was in the early hours of the morning and later that day, the rest of his unit were coming home. She had to work then, she was living with her widowed mother.

??: My twin sister met a neighbour in Strood town who said that she was sorry to hear that Jim had been killed. She never said anything at all to mother when she went home, she held it in. After we got back from Dunkirk, a few weeks after, I wrote out a note on a piece of paper and gave it to the Salvation Army ladies and asked her if she鈥檇 post it which she did. When the postman delivered it, she wouldn鈥檛 believe it was from me or open it. She said 鈥淛im is dead鈥�. I wrote on it that I had arrived home and would be writing later and would be coming home. From that day, she went down hill. When I went home, she still couldn鈥檛 get over that I was alive. She never got over it and after a few months she died. I got compassionate leave but they could extend it any longer. I was sent to the Middle East and I had been there two days and I had a telegram to say that she had died.

?? At the end of the war, I came out in 1947. My wife had a prefab up King Arthur鈥檚 Drive. That was a terrible winter. I had to go round every morning and brush the snow off the inside of the prefab. This was one of those American ones. I would sit over the fire with my Army great coat on to keep warm. As for a job, there were jobs that they said we could have. The one they gave me was at Sidcup and I lived in Strood, so how was I going to get there. They didn鈥檛 pay you to travel. Anyway, I got a job locally and you have to get back into civilian life 鈥� took some doing. I had a demob suit from Burtons and a pork pie hat. You had your old uniform and the suit. I ended up with a Burberry and a posh suit, all Burtons. We had no money when you came out, not a penny. All the jobs that were available were delivery and I worked for the Co-op in Strood delivering bread. I did that for two years. Bread was delivered to the door. The average man鈥檚 wage was about 拢3 a week.

VT: Everyone was in the same boat, so you didn鈥檛 feel underprivileged. Nobody had anything.

SW: We had our share of factories at Strood 鈥� Shorts Brothers etc. As kids we used to watch the sea planes take off and go over the bridge.

Group: Do you think we have gained anything through the war? What have we gained by it? All these people gave their lives and all they got was a medal. The conquerors are not always the victors.

SO: I think they have got our respect though. Why we feel differently about the war is because we saw some marvellous courage from ordinary folk and ordinary folk were allowed to make a contribution. We must not deride that sort of feeling.

NC: I think people are now realizing what they have lost and there are now attempts to bring these things back and part of that is doing this sort of thing, making people aware of how we got to where we are today and realizing that our history and our culture are important.

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