大象传媒

A few days ago I posted here my account of my experience as a child in WW2. This account was written for my grandson, Matthew. What now follows is an account by my wife of her experience during WW2, also written for Matthew.

Dear Matthew,

WARTIME REMINISCENCES of MARY BATE

My memories of the 2nd World War are rather different from those Granddad has told you about, as I wasn't exactly an "evacuee", but I was sent off at the age of 11 to the boarding school in Cheltenham where your great-grandmother had been sent during World War I. In 1938 there had been what became known as "the Munich Crisis", when the Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, had made a sort of peace agreement with Adolf Hitler in Germany, but nobody thought it was going to work. So - I left Bromley High School and in January 1939 went on a Great Western Railway steam train from Paddington to Cheltenham Spa, with my trunk - full of very expensive uniform - going "luggage in advance".

I had gone back to school early at the beginning of the September term that year and heard Chamberlain announce on September 3rd, when everyone was sitting near a radio at 11am: "We are at war with Germany".
We then had to be sent to various places around the country as the Government had decided that it wanted the College buildings - even the swimming pool was boarded over and made into Government offices (which is why I never learnt to swim!) Our year was sent to Lilleshall Hall - a stately place in Shropshire with peacocks in the grounds - and we had lessons in one huge room where you could hear the others being taught. In spite of this, that was the only time when I did really well in a subject (Maths)

After putting phones in all the music rooms and thoroughly messing us about the Government decided they did not need the place after all - I think they only did it to try and fox old Adolf - and we were able to go back to the college buildings for lessons. Apart from food rationing, we did not see or hear much of the war - except at breakfast time when we had to listen to the news - and I would hear that there had been another bombing raid on London and knew that any left-over bombs would have been emptied over places like Bromley on the way back to Germany. I then had to wait for the next letter from home to find out if they were OK. They did have one bomb drop on our tennis court into deep clay and your great-grandfather's five houses all around were not damaged. My next letter from home showed a picture of my mother with a little wheelbarrow trying to fill in the hole!

In the holidays we closed our house (the other side of the bomb crater) and lived with your
great-grandparents,(Granny and Wawa). We spent most nights sleeping in their basement and could hear the sounds of the 'Ack-Ack' guns and bombs dropping, but we were very fortunate having no-one killed. The only one of the family in the forces was your g/grandmother's cousin Laurie who was a "desert rat" in the Eighth Army with General Montgomery, and he came home OK. Your great-gran was a Supervisor in the NAAFI (which stands for 'Navy,Army and Airforce Institutes', which are canteens for the forces, and she had to drive around areas like Croydon, which must have been pretty hair-raising. Early in the war, she drove a mobile NAAFI canteen which she took to Biggin Hill aerodrome to serve the airmen there.

When we were home for the holidays I think we had enough food but my grandfather would not take a single ounce over the meat ration he was entitled to. I can remember making scrambled eggs for two with a whole packet of 12 dried eggs! I can also remember your great-gran filling up her store cupboard with loads of tins of food ready for the "invasion".

I left school in 1944 while the war was still on and when Hitler started sending over flying bombs ("doodlebugs") and rockets, the Vls and V2s. When the Vis came over with their distinctive roar, the engine would suddenly cut out and there was a terrible silence while you waited for the explosion - very frightening. The V2s did a lot of damage and there was no warning that they were coming. At this time I was going up to London on the train from Bromley to a Domestic Science course at Battersea Polytechnic, but I don't remember that any of these wretched bombs dropped anywhere near - we must have been very fortunate.

I can remember not having any stockings in the winter as I had run out of clothing coupons, and on the cookery course we were rather short of ingredients like meat,sugar.eggs and dried fruit.

(Footnote: about two or three years ago, Granddad and I went on Le Shuttle to St Omer in north-west France (Granddad wanted to use his shareholder's concessionary ticket to take his car through the Tunnel for just 拢1 each way). We went to see the remains of the concrete blockhouse which the Germans built in the forest of Eperlecques in order to launch V2s against London. Allied reconnaissance planes spotted all the activity that was going on. They did not know what was going on but decided to bomb whatever it was anyway. This was just as well as it prevented the Germans from using it to launch rockets. You can still see the concrete walls which stand 22 metres high with a roof 5 metres thick.)

So Matthew - this is bit different from Granddad's account of the war - but I hope you find it of some interest.

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