大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People's War site by Durham Clayport Library on behalf of Ken Willis and has been added with his permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

I was almost 8 years of age when war was declared on the 3rd September, 1939. Everything came to a halt, schools remained closed, cinemas closed, there were no football matches and everything which attracted large crowds was discontinued. Air Raid Precautions became the priority and life revolved around this. It was a hectic time and for most people a worrying time. The very Sunday morning that war was declared the air raid sirens sounded and my father who was at his allotment came hurrying home to make sure we were alright. As children we were unaware of what war meant but our parents had seen newsreels of the Spanish Civil war and the devastation that aerial bombing could cause.

With no school to go to we spent our days watching the preparations for war. Men digging trenches to become makeshift shelters and later frenzied activity of gangs of bricklayers building air raid shelters in back yards. Others digging holes in their gardens to house Anderson shelters made from galvanised corrugated iron. As time went on an effort was made to bring back some kind of normality 鈥� schools were open part-time, that is the ones that could be used. My infant school was taken over by the military to house soldiers and the junior school was turned into a first aid post and this meant that the senior school had to be shared by junior and senior pupils while the infants shared the Church of England School in Dairy Lane with the pupils there. At first alternate days, then mornings one week and afternoons the next week. Eventually the army moved out of the infants school into the Miners Welfare Gymnasium and it was taken over by both infants and juniors with over fifty to a class. At first the soldiers were new recruits and they were drilled in the junior school yard. The yard was overlooked by Newbottle Street which was the main shopping area for the town, usually known as 鈥渢he street鈥� , and was a major source of entertainment for the shoppers and the old or unemployed men. Discipline on basic training is usually very harsh and the drill instructors were very scathing if a recruit was not up to scratch. They had a huge vocabulary of insults and their language was often very colourful. Their behaviour generated a great deal of sympathy for the eighteen year old recruits particularly from middle aged ladies with sons also serving in the forces. On one occasion at least the yard was invaded by one formidable lady who proceeded to smack the drill instructor across the face with a pair of kippers which she happened to be holding at the time and she gave him a large piece of his own treatment and her language was as colourful as his. She was eventually escorted from the scene and soon after that incident the drill was carried out somewhere more private.

As the years passed different regiments were billeted in Houghton, the Royal Berkshires, the Royal Armoured Corps (the Pandas as they became known), a searchlight battery and later some American G.I鈥檚 on the Glebe field. The parade of young females, both local and from further a field, up and down Dairy Lane each Sunday afternoon was a sight to behold.

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