大象传媒

The War in Ruislip Manor

I was born in May 1933 and remember hearing the radio broadcast on Sunday 3 September 1939 by Neville Chamberlain informing the nation that we were at war with Germany. My parents and I were at my grandparents鈥� house that day and the atmosphere was sombre. I remember my grandfather saying something to the effect that we had beaten the Germans before and we would do it again. At the age of six I did not understand how war would affect our lives but I was soon to find out.

We lived within a few hundred yards of Northolt aerodrome which was an R.A.F. fighter station and we were told by the police to evacuate our house and move to a safer area. This was because as we later discovered all the aircraft hangers at Northolt were camouflaged to look like houses. My parents decided to ignore the evacuation order and we did not move.

As a precaution during the first weeks of the war my school was closed while air raid shelters were constructed. Group of 6 to 8 children met in people鈥檚 homes and teachers visited and taught at home. My home was used as a classroom for a group of children and we were taught in the morning by a teacher and were left some school work to do at home in the afternoon. This system only operated for a short time until it was deemed safe for us to return to school.

My father鈥檚 diary records that we all went to try on and receive our gas masks on Sunday 25 September 1938. Anticipating that Germany might use poison gas against us we had all been issued with rubber gas masks which we had to keep with us at all times. The gas masks were supplied in cardboard boxes with string forming a loop so that the box could be carried slung over the shoulder. The boxes although strong were not intended for prolonged daily use and I had a canvas cover with a leather strap into which my box was placed. At school we had frequent gas mask drills. The teacher would tell us all to put our gas masks on. This was done by inserting the chin into the mask and then pulling the top of the mask by straps fixed to it over your head, then running the fingers inside the mask by the ears to make sure it had formed an air tight fit. We soon found that by blowing hard when wearing the mask a satisfying 鈥渞aspberry鈥� sound could be created as breath forced its way out by the side of the rubber mask - a sort of facial whoopee cushion! Naturally this practice was frowned upon by the teachers, and it also had the disadvantage of steaming up the celluloid covered aperture so that it became difficult to see.

When the air raids started we would leave our classrooms as soon as the sirens sounded and go into the shelter which was a long tunnel made of galvanised iron and covered with earth. The floor had wooden duckboards and there were narrow wooden benches on either side of the tunnel. It was very dark as there was no lighting in the shelter but the teachers carried battery lanterns and kept us amused by reading Enid Blyton stories. Depending on the lesson at the time we sometimes hoped for an air raid as we preferred listening to the stories! We were not allowed to leave the shelter until the All Clear siren sounded and this often meant that we were late getting home from school. If an air raid warning siren sounded when we were walking on our way to or from school we had to either return home or get to the school shelter quickly depending on which was the nearest..

The war created shortages of many items including paper and pencils. We were taught to use our pencils carefully right down to a stub and to write on both sides of the paper. This is a habit which is still with me.

Petrol was rationed during the war and most private cars were laid up for the duration of the war. This meant that the streets were very safe to play in. I used to walk home from school with friends and on the way home we would stop and play marbles in the gutter. We played another game on the pavement with cigarette cards ( a card used to be given away with every packet of cigarettes and they were collected into sets). We would place a cigarette card on our left hand and flick it with the middle finger of the right hand aiming at a garden wall to prevent the card flying too far. Then the next player would flick his cigarette card trying to cover all or part of the card on the ground. If successful he would win the card. We often took an hour or so to walk home from school stopping every few yards to play. We also used to play conkers when they were in season. Hoops and spinning tops were also popular and could safely be played with in the roadway.

To help the war effort our school encouraged us to collect acorns which were used to feed pigs, and rose hips which were used to make rose hip syrup, a valuable source of vitamin C. On my walk to school it was possible to go along the lane which was open land on one side with the back gardens of houses on the other. Along the lane it was possible to gather acorns and rose hips and on one occasion to see a German land mine with its parachute which had been caught up in trees and had failed to explode.
At school we had a mid morning and mid afternoon break when we all had a third of a pint bottle of milk to drink. The bottles, which were delivered to the classrooms in metal crates, had wide necks and cardboard tops which had a small circle punched in them so that a straw could be pushed into the bottle.

My father worked in Finsbury Square, London in a 鈥渞eserved occupation鈥� which meant that he was of more use continuing in his employment than by joining the armed forces. He was, however, an Air Raid Precautions (A.R.P.) Warden, and most evenings on his return from work in the City he would don his uniform and go out patrolling the streets. During the war there was a strict law preventing light being shown from any building as this might guide enemy bombers to centres of population. It was one of the many duties of A.R.P. Wardens to enforce this law and one could often hear a shouted command to 鈥減ut that light out鈥�. We painted parts of our larger windows with black paint and put up thick black 鈥渂lack-out鈥� curtains. Motor vehicles and pedal cycles had to have their lights shielded so that they gave only a narrow beam of light. There were no street lights and kerbstones and the mudguards and running boards of motor vehicles were painted white so that they could be seen by pedestrians 鈥� often too late as there were many road accidents. Pedestrians used hand torches with tissue paper over the lens to cut down the intensity of the light. Torch batteries became very scarce during the war years.

Another precaution was to cover all windows with netting so that the blast from a bomb would not splinter the glass and cause injury. On the London Underground on which I travelled frequently all tube train windows were covered with netting glued on which made it difficult to see where you were. Travellers used to peel back the netting so that they could see the name of the station when the train stopped. London Transport ran a poster campaign of 鈥淏illy Brown of London Town鈥�. Billy Brown was a polite bowler person wearing a bowler hat and I particularly remember one poster on the Underground designed to prevent travellers peeling away the protective netting from the windows. The poster showed a man peeling away the netting and Billy Brown was saying 鈥淚 trust you鈥檒l pardon my correction, that stuff is there for your protection鈥�.. A wit had written underneath 鈥淚 thank you for your information, I cannot see the ruddy station鈥�. We learnt to remember the sequence of all the stations on the various lines in order so that we got off at the right one.

(to be continued in Part 2)

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