大象传媒

Strange how you push memories to the back of your mind and almost forget the past; how you try to pretend the terrors , the deprivations and the constant tension never really happened. Make no mistake, my parents, sisters, and all those on the Home Front were under constant threat of sudden death from the skies, but ofcourse our threat was never as great as for those in the front line. Our biggest enemy was `never knowing`, the waiting for something dreadful to happen any minute of the day and night. Ours was a mental war, we had to be scared into submission if Herr Hitler and his underlings were to have their way. Trouble and low morale at home would surely make our troops worry for the safety of their loved ones which would lower their concentration in battle and lead to their downfall... if that was Hitler`s belief then he got it entirely wrong. We all found an underlying strength we never knew we had, and it was a unifying bond that made us grit our teeth and get on with the job with fierce determination.

In the street we called complete strangers `luv`, we trusted one another to the extent our doors were often left unlocked overnight and even when the house was left vacant during the day; bicycles could be left outside shops without the need to lock them up. Indeed, on one occasion I left my bicycle unlocked outside Woolworth Stores in the High Street one afternoon and picked it up the following morning - that would be unthinkable today. It seemed everybody was your friend ready to help in any situation. Children could play unattended, my sisters and I could roam the fields and the woods without fear of molesters, paedophiles, rapists, murderers, or abductors. If there were any, we never heard of them and therefore they posed no immediate threat Their numbers escalated after the war as morals and manners were ignored or never taught, and the breakdown of marriages escalated perhaps as a result of the years of conflict. But enough! - you want to know about the war...

On September 3rd 1939 I was 11yrs of age, my sister Doreen 8yrs and Jean my youngest sister 6yrs. and we had retired to our beds. Children went to bed at a respectable hour in those days because it was thought we needed our sleep. Actually we used to gather together and spend an hour or so talking, reading or quietly larking about until a stern voice ordered us to get back into bed or else - !! I had passed my 11+ exam and won a place at Watford Central & Secondary School.

That night, I crept halfway down the stairs to listen to the important news we had been informed would be broadcast on the radio that evening. I heard Prime Minister Chamberlain declare that as from that day Britain was at war with Germany. I crept back to my sisters room and when I broke the news Jean cried, "Oh! Good". Angrily I retorted: "Oh no it isn`t. A lot of people will be killed and we may have bombs dropped on us". Afterwards, I regretted being so abrupt with her, after all how could I expect that awful pronouncement to mean anything to such a little girl when even I did not know?

A nation-wide black-out was enforced and everyone rushed to buy dense black material with which to make new curtains to cover the windows and the front and back door. All the street lights were fitted with shades and their power reduced, the colourful lights in Piccadilly Circus were switched off for the duration, and vehicles had their head and side-lights masked with what looked like shallow tin lids with two three-sided triangles cut into them and the resultant flaps prised forward 90degrees thereby reducing the glare and offering some protection from enemy aircraft. Walls of sandbags began to appear in front of entrances to buildins and workmen furiously dug trenches to make communal air-raid shelters. We bought rolls of sticky brown paper tape and and stuck them criss-cross style on every window to minimise the chance of the glass shattering if a bomb exploded nearby. It was meant to make us feel a little safer in our homes. We were issued with identity cards, and all the aliens were rounded up and confined in special camps, one was on the Isle of Wight. Here they were assessed for their loyalty to the realm, those who failed to convince the authorities that they could be trusted were retained and the others released. However, those of eligible call-up age were never permitted to hold a sensitive position in the armed forces.

We were all issued with gas-masks, specially large ones for babies, and each family received an air-raid shelter. Not much larger than a small garden shed the galvanised corrugated iron construction kit arrived in pieces complete with a sheet of assembly instructions. Father dug a deep oblong hole and carefully assembled it in situ. Completed, it sat half-in and half-out of the hole, we covered ours with sandbags before piling the earth from the hole on topl and around. A sloping pathway led down side-on to the shelter opening, no door had been provided but father made a cover that could be slid to one side for entrance and then slid back again when we were all inside. It was cramped but offered a degree of safety. Ofcourse, whenever it rained the slope channelled the water down and into the shelter, so Dad dug a soakaway, filled it with stones and covered it with an old grating.

At first, we had to make do with smokey lighted candles, but Dad soon ran a cable from the house and this provided a decent light to read by. It was immediately switched off whenever the sirens sounded. Dad made bunk beds for us children while our parents tried to sleepon chairs; but it was cold, draughty and extremely uncomfortable in such a confined space. Our combined breaths caused condensation to stream off the metal walls, made worse later when we installed a paraffin heater. As a result we only went to the shelter whenever the sirens sounded and later we ignored the shelter entirely and stayed in the house. Whenever aircraft came too close we hid under the dining room table; and then, when we realized our town was not on Hitler`s hit list we became quite indifferent to sirens and such.

The first six months have been called `the phoney war` because nothing very much appeared to happen to upset the daily rhythm of our lives, but behind the scenes the country was desperately trying to make up for its lack of preparedness. If the invasion we feared had taken place on September 3rd I am certain it would have been a different story because, as they say, `we were caught with our pants down`.

Our father was a fine musician, he played the euphonium, the largest of the wind instruments. He played in the local band before the war and this was now renamed the Home Guard Band and Dad was issued with an Army uniform. Our cousin enlisted in the Army but that was as personal as it got for us.

Earlier, in August, we had moved onto a new housing estate and parallel at the bottom of the street`s gardens was a spare stretch of field which the Council suggested we use as allotments for the duration. Since that meant we could supplement our meagre rations with fresh vegetables, families were soon furiously cultivating their plot.

Unbeknown to me, the little girl I was yet to meet and marry was living in a nearby town. She arrived late in the life of her mother who was aged 45frs in 1935 when my Jean was born.. Her two brothers were called-up. One went into the Air Force while the other joined the Army. During the conflict Jean`s mother worked as a cook for a large Pharmaceutical company. Because Jean was so young she could not be left at home and so, with her boss`s permission, she took Jean to work with her where she played quietly and happilt. Whenever the `raiders overhead` sounded, little Jean was quickly bundled for safty into the giant walk-in freezer, which was heavily protected with insulation.

We learned that our uncle Bill who had enlisted in the Navy had boarded the aircraft carrier HMS Illustrious. Repeatedly, we were told life was going to be tough, from that moment onwe were to suffer many deprivations., it was up to us to `do our bit for the war effort`, and we should make everything last longer than usual ( this meant putting cardboard in your shoes when the leather soles wore through.) We would have to grow our own food to supplement our meagre rations; recycle clothes; reduce electricity consumption by using lower wattage bulbs. This last measure succeeded in plunging us into a rather depressing gloom each night. People became Air Raid Wardens who walked the streets after dark shouting at people who allowed the smallest chink of light to show; other became Plane Spotters who sat on high buildings with their binoculars whenever the warning sirens sounded. Meanwhile the old guard became the Home Guard.

Rationing was imposed in stages: ration books were issued in January 1940 for butter, bacon and sugar; meat coupons issued in March the same year; for clothing in June `41; and soap in `42. We saved remaining pieces of soap until we had sufficient to melt together in a cup standing in a saucepan of boiling water and then left to cool into a usuable lump. I have often wondered whether this remained in the mind of the person who invented `liquid soap` after the war.

Rationing was a pain, more so when we became aware of the illegal trafficking in rationed goods on what was called `the Black Market`. Sweets became a forgotten item. Sugar being rationed prompted us to become versatile and inventive. My mother declared that henceforth she did not want sugar in her tea and we were treated to the occasional toffee apple, after she melted her sugar and poured a thin layer over the apples-on-a-stick. We had toi make do with podered eggs and National Dried Milk, but this had its virtues. Powdered milk, a small amount of sugar and cocoa powder mixed with a little water,then rolled into balls and left to dry became treasured wartime sweets. With a few of these together with Horlicks tablets to suck the novelty assuaged sweet-tooth yearnings. Children born during the war had never seen a real banana but a passable substitute could be made from boiled parsnips to which banana essence was added. Other strange recipes were published such as `Carrot Marmalade`.

When they rationed meat we were luckier than most. Our friend across the street was a butcher, and having a generous heart he often gave us a bag of fresh bones, these provided us with healthy soups, tasty casseroles and stews when vegetables from our allotmment were added. We learned a valuable lesson: healthy, satisfying meals need not cost the earth. Now there is a consequence of war no-one ever writes about!

My sister Jean was only five years old when the RAF fought the great aerial dog-fights over London which came to be remembered as 'The Battle of Britain'. Occasionally the combatents entered the skies above our hometown and, daft as it may seem, I recall standing in the open without a thought for my safety watching two Spitfires engaged in a fight to the death with two German fighters. Afterwards, I joined other children searching the streets for spent cartridge cases and pieces of shrapnel, since these were regarded as great trophies to show to school chums.

I was told the first German aircraft to drop bombs on us hit targets in the Shetlands, Scotland and ofcourse London, Coventry, Birmingham, Bristol and Liverpool were also targeted. To quote one writer: "Almost before the paint which obliterated the (railway) station boards was dry, bombs fell in the town centre, damaging the chuch and burning a decorator``s shop and the toy department of Trewins".

We won the Battle of Britain in September 1940, but it had cost both sides dear. Germany suffered the loss of 1,733 aircraft and crews, we lost 915. It has been said to have been the first turning point in the war for us, but it did not feel like it. The few bombers that did get through dropped the first of the incendiary bombs
consisting of phospherous magnesium remarkably difficult to extinguish at first. Sand turned out to be the answer to the problem and soon buckets of sand and shovels were standard issue to wardens and aircraft spotters, who already had buckets of water and stirrup pumps.

As the conflict escalated and developed into a 'baptism of fire' we had a lodger, a London firefighter who spent his nights in the thick of things when it seemes the entire city was ablaze. He returned each morning soaked to the skin and as black as a miner. Mother hung his clothes in front of the fire in an almost vain attempt to dry them out ready for the following night. London firemen fought every bit as hard as those at the Front suffering horrendous burns and losses.

We used to switch off the hall and landing lights, duck under the black-out curtain at the top of the stairs, and look across the valley towards London when the raids were at their height, watching the explosive flashes and the searchlights sweeping the night sky vainly attempting to pick out enemy aircraft. From extreme left to right the sky glowed and throbbed with a hellish yellow-red intensity and we agonised for the hundreds of anonymous people who had been hit.

If you ever get the chance to see an old black-and-white Ealing comedy film 'Hue & Cry', you will be able to see areas around St. Paul`s Cathedral that were flattened or burned to the ground because they were used (after the war) as settings to the film action. Vast tracts of land, once closely packed with ancient buildings, streets and alleyways were erased. If it had not been for the tragic devastation with its consequential loss of lives it might have been the best thing to have happened to 'the old lady' (London). Much of the infrastructure had become an eye-sore, dirty, cramped and rat-infested. Ah! they all said when the war ended, now we have a chance to re-design, re-build and make it all perfect. Unfortunately they overlooked the fact we were broke and their grand visions did not materialise.

By the beginning of 1941 the war was costing 拢11million a day, and that figure rose to 拢14million a day. My father was dismayed to learn that income tax was to be raised to an all-time high of 50%.

Realising the youth of Britain needed some form of relaxation, somewhere to go in the veneings, if only to keep us out of trouble, the governbment announced that schools could be used if youngsters would organise and run Youth Clubs. This proved to be an excellent idea! Drug addiction and violence were virtually unknown in those far-off days. It saddens me to see the depths to which society has sunk - we should be celebrating life not trying to destroy it.

My father left the railway and went to work at the local hospital. Then Hitler`s boffins came up with a nasty idea we called a 'molotov cocktail'. This was a cluster of incendiary bombs, each 'cocktail' looking like a section of a large pipe sealed at both ends, with small fins at one ends and a detonator at the other. These fell to a pre-determined height and the contents released to scatter and saturate an area target. They burned with a fierce white heat and were quick to start fires whereever they landed. Spotters on the rooftops ran around like maniacs trying to smother them with sandbags before they gained a hold. My father was on duty on the hospital roof the night it was showered with these monstrosities. In deperation he kicked some of them off the roof into the street below. Their combined prompt action saved the hospital and the lives of both staff and patients, but this was not a one-off occurrance. Other than the fires, the greatest effect the incendiaries had was to demoralise people and raise their stress levels.

Clothes rationing began in the middle of 1941. The war was not really going our way
even though for the first time we had radar to help us pinpoint enemy aircraft from June-on. Radar was a closely guarded secret and the War Office spread the rumour that our pilots icredible success in fiding the enemy in the dark was due to eating carrots. Carrots could make you see in the dark, they said, carrots gave you 'cat's-eye vission. Wow! We consumed our carrots with extra entusiasm. The truth did not emerge until after the war.

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TO BE CONTINUED IN PART TWO.

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