大象传媒

This story was submitted to the 大象传媒 People鈥檚 War site by Wymondham Learning Centre on behalf of the author and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understand the site's terms and conditions.

When the war began I was a widow in my early thirties, childless and working for an insurance company in Birmingham. In 1940 I remarried. My second husband had been in the army between the world wars and was now too old to fight. Instead he worked at the BSA factory which was producing arms and motorcycles as part of the war effort. We were married at nine o鈥檆lock on a Sunday morning, and he had to go off to work immediately afterwards.

Birmingham was heavily bombed by the Luftwaffe. Morning after morning I walked the four miles to work over a crunchy mass of broken glass and rubble. Windows blew out as fast as they were repaired 鈥� after a while we got tired of replacing the glass and left them boarded up. We were always afraid of an incendiary raid after a bombing, because they were dropped into any fires that broke out and caused further explosions. After an incendiary raid the streets were littered with small bomb cases 鈥� vase-shaped metal cannisters five or six inches long, with small fins attached. These were dropped in what we called Molotov baskets, metal containers that broke open on descent and scattered the incendiaries over a wide area. I often wish I鈥檇 kept a case as a souvenir. I should have kept the one that landed on the roof of our house. We were in the Anderson shelter one night during a raid when we heard the firefighters shouting, 鈥淣umber three on fire!鈥� When we got out we saw that an incendiary had burnt through the roof over the bedroom and destroyed some of our new furniture.

Our two daughters were born during the war. When my first baby was due the bombing was particularly bad and I went to stay with a cousin near St. Albans in Hertfordshire, at her invitation. It was away from the continual shock of the air raids, though in the night sky we could see the reflected glow of London burning. I stayed in Hertfordshire for about a fortnight after the birth and then took the baby home to Birmingham.

We were frightened for our children, of course, and I was very frightened the night the BSA factory was bombed. My husband was on the night shift, and I could see the flames from our attic window.

One thing that sticks in my mind is hearing the whoomph! whoomph! of bombs falling during a sudden daytime raid when I was having a bath, jumping out of the water and running downstairs with no clothes on. I don鈥檛 know why 鈥� it was no safer downstairs than up. But generally we sort of accepted the situation. It was just the way things were. Every night we had everything ready to go into the Anderson shelter, including hot water bottles, food 鈥� what there was of it - and the baby鈥檚 carry-cot. We heard the planes go over on the night Coventry was bombed. We couldn鈥檛 understand why they had passed us by, so we got out and stood on the roof of the shelter. We could see Coventry burning in the distance.

A railway line ran at the back of the house and I remember a parachute bomb being caught on a tree near the line. It felt as though the whole street was holding its breath for days, waiting until the bomb squad exploded it. There were so many emergencies that they couldn鈥檛 all be dealt with immediately.

Most of the time there was no electricity or gas, and often no water. We always had a bucket of water in reserve in case the supply was cut off. You couldn鈥檛 do any proper cooking. I had a primus stove on which I could at least heat water for a hot drink. Food was terrible, though we didn鈥檛 really go hungry. Home-grown vegetables were easy enough to get, but there were no luxuries. About once a week I鈥檇 get a marrowbone from the butcher. He鈥檇 split it lengthwise and I鈥檇 make soup 鈥� that was our weekly joint. When my first daughter was a bit older she went to a small private school with an infants鈥� class. It was just at the end of the road and as we lived on the outskirts of the city, where there was little damage, I could take her to school on the back of my bike, leaving the baby at home in her carry-cot 鈥� fortunately she was a placid baby - and then ride to the shops and join whatever queue there was. Sometimes I ended up with just a tomato.

No-one had a car. My husband and I had bicycles, and a tandem with a sidecar and a child鈥檚 set on the back. We lived close enough to the edge of the city to be able to get out into the countryside quickly. We used to go out for rides on the tandem on Sunday afternoons, with the baby in the back seat and our little girl in the sidecar waving to passers-by. There were checkpoints at the city limits where we had to show our ID cards.

There was a real community spirit. The neighbours formed a whist club, and we鈥檇 take turns to hold a whist drive. We couldn鈥檛 go out at night - it was too dangerous, because of the blackout, and in any case theatres and cinemas were closed, so we made our own entertainment. Everyone helped everyone else. If anyone was ill someone would do their housework, someone else do the shopping and another look after the children. There was nothing people wouldn鈥檛 do for each other. Anyone who came into your home was welcome.

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