大象传媒

Primary School. 1938

First thing on a Monday morning after the teachers had called the register came 鈥淒inner money! Any one wanting school dinners this week form a line and have your money ready, no dawdling now.鈥�
They quickly formed a queue in front of her desk. Many months later when we were at war another queue formed on her instruction. 鈥淪aving stamps, I鈥檓 now selling them for who ever wants them, quickly now.鈥� I for one didn鈥檛 have a sixpence every week, (not even an illegitimate one!) but we all looked forward to the day when our card finally had the last of the thirty stamps stuck on by our teacher. This announced that we could now go to the Post Office and exchange the card for a little book and have our first National Savings Certificate.
It took over three years before I was able to stick my last National Savings Stamp on my card; and by then it was looking rather dog-eared! Well I鈥檇 finally got my card full! I could hardly wait to get home and show it to Mum. 鈥淲hen you come home this afternoon you鈥檒l have to go and get a savings certificate won鈥檛 you,鈥� she said. I could hardly wait to get up to Mr Morris鈥檚 Post Office on Arderne Road. With a big grin on my face I gave the lady my card and asked, 鈥淧lease can I have a stificate,鈥� as I pushed the card over the counter as far as I could reach. After she had told me I was a lucky little boy to have so much money, she was now going to lick it and stick it, but no. Gum face down she swiftly rolled it over a roller that was in a tray of water and stuck it on the first page. Now I was doing my bit to win the war. There were a lot of empty pages and I wondered how many I鈥檇 be able to fill as I said thank you and left the shop.
Sometime before the spring of 39, men and machines had arrived at school and started to dig very large holes at the far end of the playing field. It turned out that they were building air-raid shelters; there was one for each of the six classes.
They were fitted out with bench seats, one either side with a double one down the middle. These were made of slats like park benches, which gave us ridges across the back of our legs where our trousers didn't reach; this made our legs look like corrugated iron sheets. Near to the entrance they installed two chemical toilets, one for girls and one for the boys. At the other end there was a round escape hatch made of sheet steel with a metal ladder to enable our escape if we were in trouble. Not long before the start of my second year at school on 3rd September 1939 Britain had declared war on Hitler鈥檚 Germany. A few weeks before the digging had begun I was coming home one afternoon down Acresfield Road and I saw some men with black things hanging from their shoulders. They were calling at all the houses, I hadn鈥檛 been home very long when there was a knock on the front door, Mum opened it and there was one of the men. "Good afternoon madam, we are supplying all households with gas masks, how many people live here?鈥� We learned later that children in London had been issued with them as early as January 1938.
I spotted a different looking one among the many he carried, it was red and it had a funny floppy nose made from two thin pieces of blue rubber placed together, I found out that these flapped on breathing out. These were called Mickey Mouse gas masks, these had a different shape altogether, they had two round windows instead of the large one that were on the standard ones, it was hoped they would appeal to the younger children, a bit like a toy, so they wouldn鈥檛 be so frightened of them. They left me disappointed; they were for children of less than five years of age, far too young to appreciate their comic value in my opinion.
鈥淏ill, two adults and two children鈥檚, age six and ten for this house. Ta Bill.鈥� Called the man, and his mate Bill duly did as he was asked. When he handed them over they were in little cardboard boxes that had a thin rope handle so it could be carried over your shoulder. Using the one he had, he then showed Mum how to adjust the straps so they fitted correctly, and the right way to put them on, and how to use and look after them. 鈥淵our life may depend on them you know,鈥� nodding his head. He told us that we were to carry them everywhere that we went; we even had to take them to bed with us, yes even into the bathroom he emphasized
I must admit that I wasn鈥檛 very keen on the thing, but I tolerated it. However, after it had been worn for a while the little oblong celluloid window could sometimes steam up. As you couldn't take them off if you were under gas attack, we all hoped we wouldn't have to walk about in them as we wouldn鈥檛 be able to see a thing. Mum was advised that if she were to put a tiny touch of Vaseline on her finger then smear over the inside of the window it would stop it steaming up? We found another use for these gas masks in their cases; we used them as goalposts.
We also had to have gas mask drill at school, this took the format of making sure we could take it out of the box and put it on as quickly as possible, this took place every week just like the shelter drill. If the mask steamed up it was like playing blind mans buff; it was a great game! I鈥檓 sure the teachers got upset that we made a game out of something that was terrifying them.
Another way of making sure you got all the class giggling and laughing was to breathe out through the mouth hard. This caused the extra air to find another way out, and that was through the sides of the gas mask and your cheeks. The object of this was to make a trumping or farting noise; this also got the teachers attention. Did I occasionally see the hint of a smile on some of their faces? I鈥檓 sure that after the first few times of the teachers hearing it they鈥檇 put a stop to our little game.
When Dad first came home on leave from the army he showed me his gas mask. This one was far better than ours; it had two windows and a corrugated rubber tube that went into a round tin box that stayed in the carrying case that had to rest on his chest. I wished I could鈥檝e had one, but I did have a bonus, Dad let me hold his new .303 Enfield rifle. I pretended to shoot it from a hiding place behind a chair. To be honest I could hardly hold it. Seeing them at the pictures with the soldiers running about with them gives you no idea that they weigh half a ton.
A few years later a corrugated round tin became available for the carrying of our gas masks. But these were very expensive and few could afford them. Some people decorated their gas mask cases by sticking pictures of flowers on them; a few well off ladies had them incorporated into the bottom of handbags. It takes more than a world war to interfere with women鈥檚 creative genius.
Once a week, Air Raid Practice had to take place. A teacher would stand between the six classrooms and blow a whistle, or ring a bell. But after a while it was decided that these signalling methods were to be used only by the official Wardens during real air raids so they had to find another method of calling us. Then we鈥檇 take part in a (so called) organised dash across the playing field, and down into the shelter. These shelters always had that musty smell of wet earth that was tinged with the disinfectant from the chemical toilets.
During one morning assembly in the summer of 1940, we were told some important news. 鈥淣ow children we have an exciting surprise for you all, next week the King and Queen with the Princess鈥檚 Elizabeth and Margaret will be coming up from their palace in London to visit Manchester and some of the surrounding towns and villages. But that鈥檚 not all, because you children will be lining the route, for you younger ones that means standing on the footpath and waving at the Royal party. You鈥檒l all be given little paper Union Jacks that you can take home after.鈥� Children from other schools in the area would of course be doing the same.
Finally after weeks of mounting excitement the day arrived; all the pupils from the six classes of our school were lined up in three鈥檚, with a teacher at the front and one behind each class, we were marched off to take our place on Manchester Road, lining the route the Royal party would take. After standing there for some considerable time we saw a line of large black cars coming towards us proceeded by an escort of police cars and motor bikes. We waved our flags; and the Royals obliged by waving back at us. That was it; a glimpse of the King and Queen sat on the back seat and their daughters in the smaller seats with their backs to the driver and attendant, and the visit was over. For me the most exciting part of the whole visit was that I鈥檇 seen Princess Margaret; she was, I decided, the girl I wanted to marry.
On the way home from school I passed a cake shop. Religiously, once a week, I鈥檇 call in to buy a milk bun for a half penny. I took this ritual for granted, until late in 1942, they suddenly told me they couldn鈥檛 sell me one, as I hadn鈥檛 got a Bread Unit Coupon. I couldn鈥檛 understand what the lady was saying; all I knew was that I couldn鈥檛 have my bun. When I got home, Mum tried to explain that flour was made from wheat, and that it came across the sea in ships from Canada and America; a lot of ships had been sunk bringing it over for us. Also it was now illegal to make the nice white bread that most people enjoyed; we had to put up with what the Government called 鈥楴ational Bread鈥�. This was when the flour had been made with all the wheat grain, including the husk, which gave it the unappetising off white colour. We had to give the shopkeeper Bread Units, known as BU鈥檚 for all our bread and cakes. All these items were now part of the food-rationing programme.
During the school holidays Mum found me a job I could do on my own to help her. I鈥檇 been with Mum before to do this job; I was going to do the shopping at the Co-op in the village. Suspecting a slight reluctance in this suggestion of going to collect the rations she added, 鈥淧erhaps Harry will go with you; his Mum may want some shopping as well.鈥� This gave me some encouragement, and Harry did come with me on a few occasions.
This entailed a walk of about a mile, but coming back with a full basket; it seemed more like twenty. For a little lad it was quite a walk, but I enjoyed it really because the route took us past our favourite shop, 鈥楥onstables鈥� where we got our sweet rations. If Harry or I had an odd penny we usually went in and bought something like a Spearmint Chew to share.
When I got to the Co-op, I joined the queue on the Grocery side of the shop, to get what they called dry goods. These were soap, sugar, dried fruit, cocoa, jam and a host of other items. Sugar and dried fruit had to be weighed out into blue paper bags; these were of different shades of blue to distinguish the item inside.
An Adults Rations in 1941 for One Week

Bacon or Ham 4oz
Sugar 8oz
Butter 2oz
Cooking Fats 8oz
Meat (rationed by price) 1 shilling鈥檚 worth /12 pence in old money.
Tea 2oz
Cheese 1oz
Jam 2oz
Plus 16 points a month for other rationed foods 鈥� Subject to availability.

When you'd finished on the dry goods side you had to walk over to the provision side of the shop, and join another queue. There you鈥檇 hand over the slip giving the total LSD (Pounds shillings and pence) spent with Cyril or the other assistant. On this counter you were served with your family ration of bacon, butter, lard, cheese, margarine and eggs etc. When these items had been cut and you saw them on the scales, well, they didn't seem to warrant the amount of paper needed to wrap them up in; they were so small.
Once again we鈥檇 have the now familiar ritual of the 鈥榗utting of the coupons鈥� along with the adding up of our purchases. Just think, all of this on paper and by using their heads, no adding machines, calculators or electronic tills in these days. When we paid, they would write the amount onto a check. I think our number was 26105.
One morning on my way to school, on turning into Park Road I saw a lot of children and grown ups outside a house opposite the farm. Ominously, there was a police car there as well. Curiously, I ran up to find out what was going on. Now, if I was to give you a thousand guesses as to what had happened, I鈥檇 be surprised if you鈥檇 come up with the right answer. The reason the crowd was there in such numbers was that there was an aeroplane sticking out of an upstairs bay window. On first sight it looked like a Hurricane but in fact it turned out to be a Barracuda, a plane that I had never heard of before. It was a single engine aircraft used for training pilots and other aircrew we were told.
Though it was an interesting and amusing sight (the picture was in all the papers) we learned later that the pilot had been killed, poor man. Eyewitnesses said it appeared to them that he was trying to land in the farm field, but he didn鈥檛 seem able to get the plane any lower to land there. The people in this house must have had quite a shock, I'm glad to say that no one in the house was hurt. They were having breakfast in the kitchen. The aeroplane was still stuck there when we went to school the next day, but it had gone later in the afternoon when I returned home.
A few of us managed to obtain pieces of the plane as souvenirs. I had a piece of the cockpit window which was made out of thick clear Perspex. I was told it was quite a novel invention in those days. The munitions factory workers used it illicitly to make all sorts of things, such as small statues, mostly of ladies, animals, chess sets, and cigarette lighters. These ingenious and enterprising people would also make interesting and useful items from bullet cases and chunks of shrapnel. They said that they made them during their tea breaks and lunch hours, but I鈥檓 not so sure.

From 鈥楾IMPERLEY BOY鈥� by Peter Scott - Published by Churnet Valley Books Leek Staffordshire

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