大象传媒

Escaping from the bombs

In August 1940, my family were living in a suburb of North Liverpool near the estuary of the river Mersey. Docks and shipping were three miles away. We knew that war was declared, because mother had been sticking strips of parcel paper across the windows. This was to prevent glass splinters from flying into our sitting room, in case of bombs causing shattering! We had been given gas masks in little cardboard boxes with string handles.

My mother had received a package of 'ration books', which contained 'points', coupons with which you could buy butter, sugar, tea, cheese and other basic supplies. My mother made carrot jam and potato scones. Marmite was not on point.

Clothes and fabric and wool were on points. You had to unwind an old jersey if you wanted a new one, and wrap the wrinkled old wool round a hot water bottle, to straighten it out and use to knit another.

In 1940 we heard that there would be air raids, targeted on our ports, and factories, railway junctions and docks! My father was rather late for buying indoor and outdoor air raid shelters. He looked around the house for strong places and decided that the big farmhouse table in the scullery would be safe enough to protect us for a while.

We had a family rehearsal for an air raid one evening, and we all managed to squeeze under the table and my mother had found some peppermint humbugs to suck, for treats! It seemed an adventure, but when the air raid siren really went, one midnight, it didn't seem much fun! We could hear the planes rumbling over us in the sky and the 'whoosh, -crump, -crash' noises, as bombs fell.

In fact, one bomb fell on the house of our head girl at school, and killed all her family.

The next day, my father and mother talked seriously together, in low voices. My father said that it would be safer if my mother drove the four children up to the Lake District, (where we knew a farm that had a camping field) and stay there until the danger of bombs was past. My father and I couldn't go because we had jobs. I was seventeen and waiting to get into 'teacher-training' college. I was helping in a nursery school near the docks, on which there were now daytime raids! We had shelters for the little children and their teachers and when the siren went we picked up torches, bottles of orange juice, blankets, pillows and buckets and led the lines of toddlers into the dark caves, holding each other's hand.

We amused them with songs, stories, some dozed, and we cuddled those that sobbed.

When my mother arrived in the Lake District, she began to enquire at police stations for directions to farms with camping grounds.

She made 'sleeping bags' for everyone so the car was packed with useful things. A stove, a tent, gumboots, macs and spare coats. Her courage was strong! She hadn't long learned to drive - there were no driving tests in those days, and she actually could not reverse the car very well! But they found the farm, where they were welcomed. People were fleeing from the towns and it was hard to find any rooms, but the farm had to take in 'evacuees', so they were glad to have Mother and her family because they already knew them, from holidays, over years.

My mother eventually found a cottage to rent near Windermere and also schools for the children. They joined the local chapel and contributed to the choir, and the life of the village, keenly. My mother took a course in emergency catering where she helped to provide meals, free of 'points' for mothers and their families. My father came up to visit as often as he could, and I bought my future husband to visit on the Christmas of our engagement! We had met in Kindergarten, when we were five and six years old! Then we all dispersed to our lives in "Post-war Times", and I am so pleased to offer you some of my "People's War memories", and hope that you might find them interesting!

Delia Hemmings. 20/5/04

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