大象传媒

Memories of the second world war

I was a child during the second world war and viewed it then from a child's prospect. We knew that the men and women where fighting and that the Germans where the enemy. Installed in us where the terrible things that the enemy where doing. One abiding caution that remains with me is the empathic instruction not to pick up sweets from there streets as on the way home from a bombing run dropped poisonous sweets over big cites to poison all the children. As sweets where in such short supply one can understand the fear that possibility that parents felt. Whether there was any factual evidence for the dropping of sweets I never found out.
During the second world war I lived in a house in south London. The house was next day to a main railway line and marshalling yard. The other side of the railway was the royal arsenal. At Woolwich which covered a large area on the banks of the river Thames. So we where subjected to severe bombings by day and night. One got used to air raids. At night the whole family slept in the Anderson shelter in the back of the garden and got quite used to emerging in the morning to survey the damage. Some times all was well. Other times a stray bomb intended for the arsenal or railway hit a house which was no longer there.
Children went to school just the same as to day. One difference was as food was rationed the government tried to ensure that the children got the enough vitamins etc. So at mid morning break everybody had to drink a large mug of milk that was brought in large 2 pint (1 quart) bottles nobody was allowed to refuse, so if you didn't like milk that was to bad. After you had drunk your milk in the morning every body had to line up and was given a teaspoon of cod liver oil and malt of virol. This was a dark brown sticky syrup that tasted strongly of fish and malt. How much good it did I am not to sure.
Because of the bombing it was considered that 5 to 6 year olds where not getting enough sleep. So on returning to class after lunch break at about 1:30 PM all 5 and 6 year olds had to lay down on individual camp beds and stay still and quiet until 3 PM.
Recycling is not a new invention. Salvage was the buzz word of the day. To this end every street had a house that had a large sack hung on the wall. Everybody put all there waste paper in it. Also most street corners had a 'pig bin'. This was a large bin where everybody deposited some of there kitchen waste - potato peelings , cabbage leaves, old stale bread and cake etc. This was collected daily by the local council and turned into pig swill to feed the pigs on the large farms on the marches close to the river - what happened to the pork one never knew. The most exciting aspect of salvage was collecting shrapnel after a bombing raid. All children had large collections of there favourite pieces not so favourite pieces where taken to the local scrap iron dealer who would give you a few pennies for it.

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