大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People's War site by CSV/大象传媒 Radio Nottingham on behalf of Mr Ashby with his permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

Everyday I used to listen to the radio during the war. I remember a chap on the radio from Germany - he was actually a traitor. His name was William Joyce or 'Lord Haw Haw'. I vividly recollect his voice when he came on the radio. He would say, 'This is Germany calling, this is Germany calling, of the Reich Stations Hamburg, Bremen and Calais'. One day, he said that the clock in the Old Market Square in Nottingham was 2 minutes slow. They went and checked the clock, and it indeed was 2 minutes slow!!! Lord Haw Haw would talk about how many British aircraft had been shot down in raids, trying to lower British morale. He was very well known and I remember his voice vividly.

The entertainers of the day were Gracie Fields, Vera Lynn to name but a few. They used to entertain the troops and their songs were played on the radio. I also remember George Fornby playing the banjo on the radio.

We listened to the radio every day, and it was our main source of entertainment, apart from the picture houses. There was the King's Picture House on Bath Street, the Scala Picture house, the Ritz on South Street and the New Theatre at the bottom of Lord Haddon Road. At the New Theatre there was also a stage where they used to show stage shows.

At the beginning of films they used to sometimes show newsreels or clips of the British army. These stories were usually just made up - propoganda to give the people a boost. They would sometimes show clips of the Desert Rats, with informarion about the numbers of P.O.W's we had taken.

I remember the songs that the soldiers would make up that became popular. The 8th Army in Egypt made one up:

'Where do we go from here,
Now that we've got Bardia,
We've captured Buk-Buk,
And we've got Tobruk,
Where do we go from here!'

In France, another song was:

'We're going to hang out the washing on the Siegfried Line,
Have you any dirty washing Mother dear?'

These were funny little songs that used to help keep up morale.

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.