大象传媒

Granny what did you do with your tin hat? Granny did you have to run? These were the questions Christopher asked. I thought his father was fed up with my stories, but one day, Rob, his father said, why don鈥檛 you put some of this on a disc, and so here is some of it. I would like it to be a well constructed dissertation, I didn鈥檛 unfortunately keep a diary, and I never did anything outstanding, but at least I am digging down into my memory and putting something on tape.

I remember being in the kitchen on a sunny Sunday morning, September 3rd 1939, when the declaration was made that we were now at war with Germany. Not having experienced war I couldn鈥檛 really understand why mother cried so much. It was, of course, only 20 years since the terrible slaughter at Verdun, the Somme, Ypres, and The Dardanelles, which was where my father鈥檚 brother was killed at the age of 18. I understand he was a very tall, athletic boy, and my mother was the first to hear of his death because a photograph of his girlfriend was found in his pocket, but it had my mother鈥檚 name and address on the back. His name is on the cenotaph in Hamilton Square, Birkenhead along with the thousands of others who gave their lives. There is a photograph of his grave in my photograph album. My father served on H.M.S. Resolution and H.M.S. Westminster in the Royal Navy for four years, always on the Northern Patrol between Scappa Flow and Russia. He was actually in Archangel when the Russian Revolution broke out. He certainly had to run back to his ship that night.
He married my mum during that war; he had known her since they were Sweethearts in the Band of Hope, when they were teenagers. He was a fortunate man to return safely. Mum鈥檚 brother, Rob, was torpedoed and rescued 3 times and arrived back in Liverpool on one occasion wrapped in a blanket and a pair of shorts. It was the memory of all this, I am sure, that made my mother shed so many tears that September morning.

Well that is the background, it is now time for my war, and I know I will be sidetracked.

I went to Wirral Grammar School when I was 10, and after School Certificate I went to a well-known Commercial College in Liverpool. Thence with 140 words per minute shorthand I went to a firm of food importers in Liverpool. I was in that first appointment when war broke out, and there were sad times when men鈥檚 calling up papers arrived and we had to say a very horrid goodbye. Then one day a girl typist disappeared suddenly, disappeared just like that and we were told not to talk about it. It was significant that she had spent most of her life in Norway, and was BI-lingual, and Germany did of course attack Norway. When the air raid siren went off, a man was allocated to each girl to carry her typewriter and we all hurried down the stairs into the cellars clutching our notebooks, and we typed down there, until the all clear blasted. Never a moment鈥檚 working time was lost. The warning siren was like a police car noise now, and the all clear was just one long moan, and we were always so relieved to hear it.

During the time August 1940 to October, the Battle of Britain was raging. That meant fights in the air in the south of England, and it was the very brave young men in the Spitfires and Hurricanes, that prevented the invasion of our country, because we were nowhere near ready for a ground war.

It was when this air battle was won that the bombing began, and Liverpool and Birkenhead became Prime Targets, because of the geographical situation with America, who although not in the war were providing us with food and ammunition. It was at this time that Churchill had said to the Americans 鈥淕ive us the tools and we will finish the job鈥�, and of course there were a terrific number of ships being built at Cammell Lairds in Birkenhead. The men there were working full out. I worked hard and sometimes long hours. Many nights I would run up Mathew Street dodging great Shire horses, parked there with their wagons and nosebags, as I dashed into the underground station. Mathew Street is, of course, now famous for the Beatles.

When I got to the station there were hundreds, wrapped in blankets seeking shelter on the platforms. It was a case of stepping over people to get on the train, and stepping over more people when I got out at Birkenhead and I was looking for a bus to take me home. After the bus station in Birkenhead was bombed there were few buses left intact, and if it was raining we had to put our umbrellas up because there were no windows. Thousands were being killed in large, horribly erected, air raid shelters, particularly in Liverpool, and although the news was kept from us at the time, thousands were also dying from Diphtheria, a deadly disease, mostly contracted through overcrowding in shelters, and appalling sanitary arrangements, and lice were rampant.
Walking through the streets, after 1940 was hazardous, there were walls of sandbags everywhere, huge water tanks were placed at strategic positions. There was rubble and dust and miles of hoses all over the roads and pavements, and now we grumble about uneven pavements, and claim compensation.

In the business section of Liverpool only the statue of Queen Victoria remained untouched, as she guarded the public lavatories underneath. Some men came straight to work at the office after they had been out all night helping to fight fires and they looked so weary and dishevelled because they had been out such a long time. We were unaware of the might of Germany when war broke out, and out unpreparedness, but nobody knew quite what to expect and all was quiet for a time except for the odd reconnaissance plane. We were all given gas masks in boxes, which hung round our neck on string. We had Identification cards to carry and identification bracelets on our wrists. All the streetlights went out, and our windows had to blacked out with thick black curtains, and you were in trouble if even a tiny chink showed through. We also glued net curtains to the windows to stop the glass flying around if they were blown in, and there were no lights in trains or buses. Every morning I went over to work in Liverpool by ferryboat, and whatever the weather we always walked round and round the top deck, in a kind of procession, everyone walking at the same brisk pace. A minesweeper always went in front of us. Convoys gathered here in the Mersey waiting for the Royal Navy to guide and protect them, always adapting to the speed of the slowest ship. This was a time when huge liners full of troops waited for a week or more in the river, and the ferry boats used to go as near as possible so that we could wave to everybody. Little did I think that years after I would marry one of these men who鈥檇 sailed from Liverpool into the unknown.

For days I just had time to get home, get into warm clothing and get into the air raid shelter. Mum had flasks of coffee ready to help us through the night. We didn鈥檛 have an air raid shelter of our own because Pa dug an Anderson shelter into Mrs Robinson鈥檚 garden. Mrs Robinson lived on her own next door; she was elderly and very nervous, so we shared. It was really quite amazing just how strong these Anderson shelters were. They could take a tremendous amount of stress although they looked quite flimsy. Mum always wore her fur coat, obviously if she was going to die she was going to die dressed up and warm. But every time she climbed through the fence to the shelter she left a bit of fur behind, like sheep do on barbed wire.

Pa came into the shelter when things were getting hot, as they say; he was an air raid warden and always liked to see that all the neighbours were safely in their shelters. He always wore a white duffle coat, he鈥檇 worn a white duffle coat on the ship in the First World War and he was not going to do anything different in the Second. The people who lived opposite to us had a very novel shelter, two huge barrels were dug into their back garden. When Pa was checking all was well with them he used to shout 鈥楤arrels tonight鈥�, and the two lids of the barrels would go up and two heads would pop out and they would shout 鈥極K鈥�, a bit like Bill and Ben the flowerpot men, but a bit eerie in the darkness of the night.
Being in an air raid shelter for many hours was frightening especially when there was much activity overhead. I remember listening to the drum, drum, of the planes 鈥� the Heinkels and the Dorniers. The ships in the river were always a target for bombers at night, and of course there were mines floating around, and new wrecks were continually appearing 鈥� but they couldn鈥檛 all be blown up to make a clear passage because of the Mersey Railway tunnel underneath, and the new road tunnel as well.

I think that here I should tell you something about rationing, because in 1940 food was becoming scarce.
Every one was encouraged to dig up their gardens and plant vegetables. My father and another friend even hired a piece of ground and grew enough cabbages and potatoes for the district; it was called Digging for Victory. Ships were being sunk and the situation was serious, so Rationing started. We could have 3oz of sugar, 4oz of bacon, 2oz of tea, 2oz of butter, 1oz of cheese, and 4oz of margarine. One week you could have 4oz of butter and 2oz of margarine, and I hated little butter week. You didn鈥檛 have butter and jam on your bread. You could have meat up to 1 shilling and ten pence, and any amount of offal the butcher would give you, after much grovelling. Through the kindness of a friend we always managed to have a chicken at Christmas 鈥� what a treat! Soap and soap powder were rationed too, and that was hard luck on people in our district as the water was hard and we needed more soap. Coal was rationed and there was only enough for one fire per household, so we put comfy chairs in the kitchen and lived in there. Our beds were downstairs in the lounge, and the dining room and we had a mattress under the stairs as well. The frying pan was never washed because there might be a minute amount of fat in the bottom to be used again and again. Dried egg, now there鈥檚 a thing, it turned out as a brilliant yellow powder which could be mixed with milk to make scrambled egg, or it could be made into an omelette with the texture of leather. I don鈥檛 remember bread being rationed, but there were only four kinds, big white, small white, brown large and small, rolls didn鈥檛 exist. I must not forget to tell you about the wonderful plain cakes my mother made from medicinal paraffin, we didn鈥檛 use it for bowel problems in our house, and it was used instead of margarine to mix with flour and sugar to make cakes. The cheese we had was one kind, bright yellow and hard as nails. We still had milk every day, but you couldn鈥檛 have the milkman of your choice. Because of petrol restrictions certain milkmen did specified areas. Our milk was delivered by a lady from a local farm, who carried the bottles in baskets on the handlebars of her bicycle. She wobbled very precariously from side to side, and how she didn鈥檛 fall off no one will ever know. Of course clothes were rationed, coupons for these and I was very lucky, for some unknown reason I had just bought myself two pairs of shoes at one time 鈥� I鈥檝e never done such a thing since. One happened to be a pair of good, clomping, brown brogues, and they lasted me in bad weather and fine throughout the whole of the war, even with summer dresses. We had very hard, cold winters during those years and stockings cost coupons as well as money, so there were many blue legs. Mind you we were always proud of long darns and lots of them, we often resorted to calamine lotion mixed with a little camp coffee, and as we always wore stockings with a seam down the back, a line had to be drawn with an eyebrow pencil. Tights of course had not been invented.

If a girl was to be married a collection was taken, not of money but of coupons, to enable her to buy a new dress. Up to this time we had never seen Nylon or really heard about it, but there came parachutes, used ones or seconds, and if you could get hold of a parachute you really were in heaven. You could make knickers by the dozen and underskirts galore, big flour bags made good pillowcases, a bit rough but they did the job.

Continued...
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