大象传媒

This is one of the stories collected on the 25th October 2003 at the CSV's Make a Difference Day held at 大象传媒 Manchester. The story was typed and entered on to the site by a CSV volunteer with kind permission of Ken McGuire.

Wartime Memories

My earliest memory of the war is when we were taken into school one day and put on lorries and driven into Manchester, then put on trains rumoured to be going to Blackpool, eventually we ended up in Fleetwood. We were taken off the train and taken to a community hall, just across the road from the old railway station in Fleetwood, given a drink and something to eat. Suddenly we realised we were surrounded by 鈥榦ld ladies鈥� some must have only been about thirty five, but to us they looked ancient. When they got up and were looking around us we realised that we were being selected to go to people鈥檚 homes.

My younger brother and I were taken to a house in Birch Road in Fleetwood. From day one I didn鈥檛 like the lady at all, her husband was alright, he was a professional accordion player, a little too old to be called up, but he used to entertain the troops around Fleetwood and Blackpool. After a few weeks we went across Fleetwood to another lodging, I鈥檓 not sure why. Maybe it鈥檚 because we used to collect snails from the dry stone wall and race them on the chair backs in the kitchen. I鈥檓 not sure. So we moved to Bold Street in Fleetwood, not far from the promenade, and I couldn鈥檛 believe my luck, it was a 鈥楽weets and Tobacconists鈥�, we thought we鈥檇 cracked it, living in a sweet shop. What we didn鈥檛 realise was the sweets would rapidly disappear because of the lack of sugar, because it comes from the West Indies and places like that.

The lady we lived with was a spinster, she was forty and was very stern and religious, I think she was a Methodist. We were there from the tail end of 1939 and most of 1940. I can remember in 1940 looking from the promenade and the sea was crammed with boats, we didn鈥檛 know what was happening at all. A chap leaning on the rails said, 鈥檌s your dad on one of those boats son?鈥� so I looked for a big one and said, 鈥檋e鈥檚 on that one there鈥�. He looked very serious, put his hand in his pocket and gave me a penny. I felt guilty as we had always been told not to tell lies, but when I looked at the penny I could see, four 鈥楿ncle Joe鈥檚 Mintballs鈥� a bag of 鈥榖roken biscuits鈥� or a 鈥榩enny apple鈥� so I put the penny in my pocket.

I didn鈥檛 know at that time that my father was lying wounded at Dunkirk, and many boats including these were sailing across the channel, along with the Royal Navy, to rescue these men.

Towards the end of the year our mother, who was trying to keep our little house together, decided she wanted her boys back home for Christmas. Our land lady said to me,鈥� it鈥檚 your birthday in December Kenneth鈥� she always called me Kenneth, I hated it,鈥漞ither open it on your birthday or open it for Christmas鈥� I thought I鈥檒l save it for Christmas then I鈥檒l have two presents to open. When I opened it, it was what every seven year old boy wants, a book of common prayer! So I had to smile, grit my teeth and write a letter of thank you. I鈥檝e still got the little book at home. I think as a grown up she had realised that Britain was on its own, and the only thing we could do now was pray and hope the war goes the right way.

We arrived home just in time for the Blitz, Christmas Eve 1940, night after night after night, bombs, bombs, bombs. Whilst we鈥檇 been away they had build air raid shelters in our gardens, when you heard the air raid sirens, whatever you were doing, you dived down into the shelters, slammed the door and waited until the bombers had finished their work. I can remember during one raid my Mother thought we鈥檇 missed the all clear signal, so she popped her head out of the door just as a bomb dropped, her hat blew off her head and we never ever saw it again. She was extremely annoyed as she鈥檇 paid about five shillings for it and she was quite proud of this little hat. We spent hours the next day looking for this hat, it probably ended up in Blackpool!

After a few weeks of severe bombing it was decided that we better go back to Fleetwood, what we didn鈥檛 know was that Hitler had decided he might like to bomb Liverpool and if he had any spare bombs he鈥檇 drop them on places like Fleetwood on his way back. We stayed there until the tail end of 1941, when we came home. Life went on as usual, I resumed back at my original Primary School. The bombing had lessened by then and the Americans had come into the war by then, after Pearl Harbour and the Battle of El Alamaine things were probably going to get better. What we didn鈥檛 realise was that my Father wasn鈥檛 going to come home, he and my Mother had split up before the war, we weren鈥檛 quite aware of what was going on at the time. We were still quite proud of him as he鈥檇 had two wounds, one in Dunkirk and one in North Africa.

One of my friend sat school had been hit by a piece of shrapnel, we thought this was great, to us it was like a badge of honour, we all wished that we could have been wounded too! He was very proud of this hole in his arm Roy his name was, I still remember him.

At the end of 鈥�42 and into 1943 mother was finding it very difficult to look after us and asked if I would like to go and live with my grand parents and aunts and uncles in Nottinghamshire. Really we had no choice, you had to do as you were told, so we went down into the countryside in Nottinghamshire. There were woods fields and a little more food. I was the thinnest little boys you had ever seen, in fact years later when I went into the Royal Air Force, I was the tallest light weight boxer in the Royal Air Force, six feet one and a half, weighing just over nine stone, I only had eight fights, I don鈥檛 like boxing.
Anyway, we went there and went to the local primary school, some of whom we slightly knew, we didn鈥檛 do too badly. The adults in the house were strict disciplinarians, our up bringing wasn鈥檛 pampered.
The rationing in the cities was quite severe, but in the countryside we could grow our own vegetables, you could actually keep pigs illegally, as it was against the rationing rules.
Sugar had virtually vanished, butter was 57grams per week if it was available, this is what people forget, the things had to be available. Some things were like gold, you would have killed for sugar.

When I was at my grand parents they built a camp at the side of the village, we thought it was for British soldiers, but infact it was for Italian prisoners of war. These lovely sun burnt men in the brown uniforms with the white patch on the back came, after school we鈥檇 go and listen to these strange men talking in this strange language. One day one of these POWs came up to the fence and taught me my first word of Italian which was 鈥榗igarette鈥� I didn鈥檛 know what to do, I didn鈥檛 smoke, he mimed the action to me. I thought about it, lots of people in my house smoked, so when it was clear I鈥檇 steal a cigarette from each of the packets, then the next day after school I鈥檇 rush down to the POWs and in exchange for cigarettes they would give me coffee wit sugar in. this went on for months and the adults never cottoned on, each one must have been blaming the other for the theft of cigarettes from their packets.

My memories of the air raids are not very pleasant, but after bombing raids we used to go onto the local golf coarse collecting bits of shrapnel, and used to make collections of these, we would swap pieces and various fragments with your pals, tailfins of incendiary bombs and things like that. I do remember looking from the north side Manchester to what I now know was Piccadilly, and it was on fire, the whole sky was orange, I believe they had to dynamite some of the ware houses in the centre to make a fire break.

I was part of a tribute to a Lancaster Bomber that had crashed. The plane was coming back from Germany after a bombing raid, it had engine problems. When it crashed it missed our house literally by about 15 feet and crashed near the banks of the River Irwell, hitting some houses. The person who instigated the tribute was far too young to remember the war. When I first spoke to him he told me that his grandmother had been one of those who was killed when the plane hit the houses. The memorial is in Agecroft Crematorium.

Eventually after being sent back to my old school, Miss Turner our head teacher, called our four classes into the main hall. She was crying, she said to us,鈥� Children, the Germans have all surrendered, the war is over, you may all go home鈥� every door in the school was open and it was cleared in about 15 seconds I think!

What ever food had been saved was put together and we had a party, everybody was happy. Even adults didn鈥檛 shout at you for a day or two, the war was over!

I think it must have been more of a relief to them than it was to us, for me it was a bit of an adventure.

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