大象传媒

Memories of WW2

I was born in January 1939, and was too young to recognise when war broke out.

My father was at first a tram driver in Sheffield. When I was very young, he came home after an attack during the blitz and told my grandparents 鈥� his parents-in-law 鈥� that his tram had been hit by an incendiary bomb in the town centre and completely burnt out. Fortunately, it was 鈥渃hange over鈥� time and the tram was empty. This was the day that a big hotel in the city centre 鈥� Maples, I think it was called - was destroyed and many lives lost. The bomb site remained undeveloped for many years, with a civic reluctance to build on what was regarded as a funeral site.

My parents were poor, as my father鈥檚 health deteriorated because of asthma. He became a storekeeper for the corporation transport department, and many necessaries were put together from throw outs from the tram sheds. For instance, he made blackout blinds from strips of wood left over after repairs to buildings and vehicles. These were used as frames to be covered over with waxed cloth, and pegged outside the window. They seemed to work. He also made us bedside tables out of wooden orange boxes, and very welcome they were.

My mother, for her part, made bed sheets from bleached sugar bags 鈥� rough to the body, but clean and cheap. She worked as a typist in the city centre, some 5 miles from home, and sometimes walked both in and out to work. We all walked miles in those days. As a small boy I once helped mum to carry a table from my grandparent鈥檚 house to ours. This was about three miles. The annex to my primary school (Marlcliffe Road) was in Wadsley village, a good 2 or 3 miles away, and my friends and I walked it every day. There were no non-working mums with 4 by 4s in those days, and we were probably fitter for it. I suppose the streets were safer, too.

We had a corrugated iron Anderson shelter in the garden, but never used it during air raids. My parents couldn鈥檛 see how the house could be hit and the shelter remain untouched when it stood only a few paces from the house. So we hid under the stairs, I gather, or under the table 鈥� much as I did during thunder storms. The shelter remained in place for years after the war, and became my den until I gashed my leg on its corrugated side, and was banned form further playing in it.

My paternal grandfather was a policeman. He was killed at the age of 35 from a blow on the head with an iron bar when investigating a burglary. His wife remained a widow until her death about 30 years later, embittered by her hard life.

My maternal grandad was a market stall holder, and suffered from epilepsy. This didn鈥檛 seem to stop him from working, or from exercising his ceremonial functions as a lodge master of the Royal and Ancient Order of Buffaloes (鈥渢he Buffs鈥�). When still very small, and while the war raged on, I remember being at one of the Lodge鈥檚 events, where a huge pair of horns presided over the proceedings. When my grandad died, the horns were given to his widow, along with his ceremonial apron, and they eventually passed to my brother and me. We sawed them up to have one each, I鈥檓 afraid, burning a hole in each so that we could blow them like huntinh horns.

My maternal grandparents lived in a street where all the houses were connected by a tunnel that ran from one cellar to the next. Wooden bunks were installed and the cellar roofs were reinforced so that they could act as communal shelters. I don鈥檛 remember them ever being used 鈥� but I wasn鈥檛 always there.

Long after the war was over, my grandma was much affected by the cellar. As she got older, she began to hear organ music coming up the cellar steps, which was the beginning of what I guess was Alzheimer鈥檚 disease. It seemed so sad that a safety device 鈥� the cellar shelter 鈥� should play on her mind so much.

For as long as I can remember my dad had a 1927 Triumph motor bike with a sidecar shaped like a torpedo. The headlamp worked on a mixture of carbide and water. It was a silvery colour, with little red lenses set in the side and fitted with a slatted deflector so that it was less visible from the air. We travelled hundreds of miles on 鈥渢he bike鈥�, my mum and me in the sidecar, my brother on the pillion and my dad driving, in his big tram driver鈥檚 gloves. It was a very unreliable machine and my dad spent most of his spare time trying to do things to it, mainly to stop water getting into the magneto. In the end my mum grew to hate the Triumph, as it broke down so often. The most spectacular occasion was when we took our first holiday by the seaside in 1946. The bike broke down half way to Cleethorpes, and we spent wet hours pushing it to a garage before we could travel on to what turned out to be literally a flea-ridden boarding house. We were so badly bitten overnight that we left to come home again next day. Fortunately, the bike behaved itself going home. I remember the small of petrol, buying it with petrol coupons and despair when the price went up by one old penny a gallon. We kept it in an old coach house, rented along with several other bike owners. The smell of fuel and the lingering smell of animals and hay in the brick floor was unique and evocative 鈥� warm and cosy.

I was six when the war ended. I have no recollection of bombing raids except the above, but I do recall the dismal wail of the sirens, which made the blood run cold. Otherwise, I have no memory of fear 鈥� no doubt a tribute to the calmness of my parents.

I do remember how cold the winters were! I got into bed in my clothes, and usually changed into my pyjamas when I had warmed up, if I was still awake. My best ever Christmas present was a stone hot water bottle. There was no heating in any room except the kitchen, where we had a coal fired Yorkshire range. We kept coal in the cellar, which also acted as a cool place for food, as we had no fridge. (If I came home from school without my door key, as mum and dad were working the only way in to the house was down the coal shute. Better to remember the key!)

It was 1953 before we had a gas fire installed in the sitting/dining room. Regularly until well after that, we woke up with ice inside the windows. We lived on a hill, and the great childhood pleasure was sledging down the street. If there were any cars 鈥� and there were not all that many - the streets were so icy that they couldn鈥檛 get up them. Winters always seem to have been snowy in those days, and my legs always seem to have been chapped. When winter ended, there was the excitement of going out into the local park and seeing the grass again. Simple pleasures in a simpler age.

David SMITH

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