大象传媒

FORTY years ago, when the Battle of Britain raged above us, and the bombs began to rain down on us, there was a group of people who rose to the occasion in a way that was all their own.

The powers-that-be did not appear to notice their war effort, but they did their bit all the same. They were the school children of the time, my generation, around five to twelve years old when the war started.

We were too young to understand the word war, or why our mothers wept. At first only bewildered excitement filled us. The schools closed. Some of our friends were evacuated. Brick air raid shelters were built in our back yards. We were left to amuse ourselves while our parents were pre-occupied with gas masks and ration books, and most of our fathers left home to fight the enemy.

The phoney war soon ended, however, and we had to adjust to the real thing. The schools reopened, and we settled into our routine. By day we went to school, clutching our gas masks. By night we hurried, sleepy-eyed, to the shelters. In between we were the messengers, the queue-formers, the information gatherers, the eyes and ears of our neighbourhoods.

We had strict instructions never to stray from our own front doors without permission. Indeed, there was nowhere to go, except for the odd picnic in Backhouse Park.
Swimming baths and the beach were forbidden. School trips were non-existent. Home to school and back again was our limit, in case of air raids. On the way to school we wandered off course as far as we dared to inspect as much bomb damage as possible.

We gazed wide-eyed at the havoc wrought by the bombing which had terrified us during the night, crouched in the shelters, covering our ears against the explosions and gun fire, trembling in our mothers arms.

When we surveyed the ruined Victoria Hall, we remembered dancing on the now shattered stage. When we saw Binns destroyed we were awe-stricken. Such a wealth of household items our mothers could have used now burnt and broken. When we skirted round the wreck of the Victory cinema, we sympathized with one of our friends whose grandmother was killed by that landmine.

Descriptions of the bomb damage we carried home, as well as whatever information we had collected on the way. Maybe Woolworths had combs or soap. The fruiterer had oranges. The ironmonger had a few kettles. A draper had yarn which would knit gloves and pixie hoods for school in winter. We were given what money could be spared, and raced to join the queue.

When coal was scarce, we took buckets and formed a queue at a house a few streets away. Sadly that source of supply stopped abruptly when her family were killed in an air raid. The longest, never-ending queue was for fish and chips, the only food not rationed. We knew ration books inside out. It was important to ensure that the grocer marked off the right squares, or cut out the right number of coupons when we ran errands. And empty jam jars were like gold. No jam jar, no school milk.

The wireless played a great part in our lives. From it we learned how to make do and mend, how to make sweets with dried milk, how many recipes dried egg could be used for, and the words of the war songs. The moon was also of great concern to us. When there was no moon, the whole town was as black as pitch at night, but when the moon bathed the town in dazzling light, we felt only fear that there would be an air raid, because "he could see where he was going, and hit his target for tonight."

Yet our childhood memories are happy. Double summer time gave us long days when we used every inch of the street for our games. No motor cars disturbed us while we forgot the terrors of the night in the intricacies of dilly-I-go, lamp oil, French cricket, skipping ropes, hitchy, poor Mary sits a weeping, and the very daring game of swinging round the lamp post. As evening wore on, the barrage balloons rising in the sky warned us of the coming night's ordeal.

Vague is the memory of our street littered with bricks and glass and slates when we were bombed out. Much clearer is the memory of the fine street party we had when the war ended. Milburns bakery donated cream cakes. Afterwards a huge bonfire blazed as we celebrated the simple fact that the horror was over and we were still alive.

By God's grace we would grow to be adults.

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