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Yes, the war was a terrible experience for everyone, it was 5 years that we would all wish to forget, but you cannot forget times like that. Some of the strongest feelings you had were that you would never see your family and friends again, or that their house would be bombed in the night and they would all be killed. Nowadays it would take a lot of believing, but in those days it was an everyday thing, you did not know if you would be there, alive and well, in the morning. These were the things you had to grow up with.

Very few people had a motor car. If you had one you were probably in business or a boss of one. Petrol was very scarce, and if you knew of a garage that had some you could not just drive in and fill up as the petrol was rationed, and you were only allowed your quota, which was very little. Most cars you saw were not run on petrol but on gas. It was not uncommon to see a car with a gas bag on the top, and in some cases the bags were as big as the car and used to wobble all over the place!
Another thing I would like to tell you about is ‘Barrage Balloons’. These balloons were massive things, and when fully filled with gas were let up into the sky on a strong steel cable. They must have been the size of 2 houses, and being right up in the sky when German planes came on a bombing raid they would fly into the cable and crash. This was an idea that worked because they pilots could not see the cables in the dark. The balloons also made the bombers drop their bombs from much higher up. We had one of these balloons at the back of our house, and sometimes when they were brought down in the morning, after being in the sky all night, they might be found to have been leaking slowly. Some of the shapes were then very funny, all floppy and droopy. Another sight worth telling you about was, that if the planes had been shooting at the balloons and one was hit it would explode and come down in a mass of flames to the street or maybe into your garden.
The morning after a raid your main thought was to find out if your family were all OK, and as the rest of our family lived quite a long way away the only way to find out was to go down and see for yourself. There were no buses or tramcars because the roads and streets were blocked by all the bomb damage, so you had to walk. You may say ‘why not telephone?’ Well, nobody had telephones in those days, but it would not have made any difference because all the phone lines were torn down during the bombing.
It was not just the houses, shops and factories that were getting bombed even the streets and roads were being hit. When the ‘street’ got hit more often than not a water main or a gas main, or both, would be damaged. The firemen had to turn off the supplies, but this caused further problems because if the water was off they had nothing to fight the fires with. Almost every street corner had a steel tank, about 16ft x 8ft which contained thousands of gallons of water for the purpose of fire fighting. The tanks had EWS on the side, which stood for Emergency Water Supply. Another precaution taken was that every house, shop, office, even tramcars and buses had sticky brown paper on all the windows so that when there was an explosion near by it prevented the windows shattering and therefore causing more injuries. Later the trams and buses had sticky gauze on the windows, which was impossible to see through, and together with the blackout you did not know where you were on the journey.
During the war everything was hard to get. In fact everything that could be used to help the war effort was required. Wastepaper, rubber, tin, anything that could be melted down to make things for planes and tanks. There were hardly any tins; they used boxes or bags. If your house had railings in front they would be taken away and melted down. Railings were also taken from parks and churches, and in fact anywhere that had railings. Nothing was thrown away even food scraps. Every street had a pig bin and any food waste had to go into that. It became part of life. The winters were very cold, but you still had to go into the air raid shelter, and believe me it was cold and damp down there. A wonderful invention came about; it was called a siren suit, similar to a boiler suit being all in one, complete with a hood. At first they were made of blankets, but later when they proved to be invaluable they were made properly, and you could buy them in the shops. In the end almost every child and adult had one. They really proved to be essential. One other item that was to prove useful was the earplug, as the noise of the guns firing at the planes was deafening and nearly shook you off your feet. It was hard to believe that this whole thing went on for five years, although things did get a little better later.

I am now nearing the end of this short, personal diary style picture of everyday life during the years 1940-1945 as a child. I would also like to write about some of the good days and the really bad ones that happened during this period. A horrible one that still lives in my memory is the time when, on hearing the air raid sirens, 2 or 3 tramcars, with quite a number of passengers on them, stopped in Durning Road opposite a school which had an air-raid shelter in the basement. During this raid a direct hit blew the school to bits and the people who had taken refuge in the cellar were killed when the boilers burst. The basement was sealed off and remains so to this day. There were many such tragedies, no doubt too many to relate, but one that I can remember actually seeing was on the dock road. At this particular time horse and cart carried most deliveries. There were, therefore, many stables for these horses all over the place. There was quite a large one, one of many, on the dock road, which received a direct hit during a raid. The scene was indescribable, scores of dead horses could be seen everywhere. Another happening I recall was the night after a raid we were walking to see our relations. When we arrived at the local railway station, which had an embankment and bridge, it seems that an ammunition train had received a direct hit with a stick of bombs. The train had been blown to bits, causing it’s load of guncotton (used in bombs and shells) to be blown all over the area. It was midsummer, and everything was totally covered in cotton wool, the telephone wires, the houses, and the roads, and made it look just like Christmas, but on a grand scale. No one will ever see anything like this again, and of course no one would want to.
It did not matter what you wanted from the shops, you had to queue for it. It did not matter which shop you went into you would have to take your place in the queue, and very often, as a child, your mum or dad would say to you ‘go and see if a certain shop had such and such in. When you went to that shop, if they had what your mum wanted you would join the queue to save a place for her or your dad. Quite often by the time you got to the front, after queuing for half an hour or so,
what you had gone for was sold out.

I am now reaching my final thoughts of the war, as I knew it. The bad times and the not so bad times, although there were not quite so many of these, you had to make your own good times. It comes to mind that the dance halls were a good place to go, not just in the evening but during the day as well, being one of the few places where you could try to forget the harsher times of this period. I can remember the local halls such as The Rialto, The Grafton, The Locarno, and the one near where I lived was the Broadway Hall. Although being too young to really appreciate these dance halls, we did get in, mainly to watch. You were not immune to the war even here; many times you were just beginning to enjoy the music with your friends when the air-raid sirens would start. It was then all down to the cellars, where you were all packed in with the smell of Woodbines for the lucky ones, and Pashas (a foreign cheap cigarette) which gave off a terrible stink. Again you could not just go to the shop for the cigarettes of your choice, you had to take what they had, which was more often than not a foreign one, and they were horrible. Maybe it was a good thing as not many children smoked then.
Being children during the war was a handicap as schools were closed during the blitz and you had to attend private houses. There were no exams as there are today, and only lessons for maybe 2 hours during the morning, so schooling was very poor. It was probably OK for those who were not at all interested in lessons, but for those who wanted to learn they were helped in the best way possible, but it fell far short of a good education. I was interested in wanting to know more about things, maybe this was some sort of inheritance because my dad was very well educated, often standing in as a teacher in school during his lifetime. I remember it was him who taught me most things that I wanted to know, so I am sure that it was this that enabled me to get by as well as I have done, whilst not being of high standard I have certainly got by with no trouble of any kind. So the war was an experience of utmost feelings. We had to do everything for ourselves. We missed out on many things that are taken for granted these days, food, clothes, sweets, toys and pretty well everything. Many children lost not just their homes, their mums and dads, but their own lives as well, so we are the lucky ones, the ones who can look back on these terrible times and say ‘we got through it’, and not only that but made something of themselves in the future. We try to forget these bad times, but they are always there in your mind. You cannot forget!

‘This story was submitted to the People’s War site by ´óÏó´«Ã½ Radio Merseyside’s People’s War team on behalf of the author and has been added to the site with his/ her permission. The author fully understands the site’s terms and conditions.’

Story typed by the author, and submitted by Mr Ogden’s sister: Miss Carole Ogden in his memory.

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