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Wartime in Widnes, My Memories

My name was Muriel Coombs and I am one of five children, two girls and three brothers. We were brought up in West Bank, Widnes near the Mersey River and we lived in a terraced house in a tight knit community. Every Sunday we went to church and 3rd September 1939 was no different. I was14 I was sat in St Mary’s church when the vicar announced that he was closing the service early so that we could return home to hear the Prime Minister’s speech. We had already heard, on the radio, that if Germany invaded Poland, which they had, we would be at war. In his radio message Chamberlain declared that we were at war with Germany, now it was a reality. I remember my Dad, Harry, had been in the First World War and was worried about the ‘gas’, because this had been a ‘big killer’ in the trenches. The family started to make changes to the house. My Dad took the back gate off and fastened it over our back window and all the women were busy making blackout curtains. The older men were recruited as ARP wardens, Fire Watchers or joined the Home Guard or Special Police. They did their usual jobs during the day and then worked night shifts so many nights a week.

After the initial shock nothing happened for a while we just carried on as usual, nobody knew what to expect. Then they started to recruit men into the armed forces. Many of our neighbour’s sons were ‘called up’ and my brothers were in the army because they were over 18. At eighteen we were just kids, we had never been abroad, our idea of an annual holiday was a day out in Southport.

Many women started to work in the factories to take the places of the men. I started to work in a glass factory when I was sixteen. Glass workers were exempted from the ‘call up’ I am not sure why but we made glass phials, pipettes and flasks for measuring chemicals. Coming home from work on 16th October 1944 I met my boyfriend, as I always did. We walked on to my house and then he went on to his Grandmothers he was quiet and I thought there was something wrong. When I got home I found that we had had the brown envelope telling us that John was dead! We all dreaded getting the brown envelope. I was very close to my brother and still miss him now. My other brothers were lucky and came home!

Life wasn’t really dull our neighbours were inventive, we had dances and the Hartland and Zion churches had concert parties. Clothes were made from old sheets and curtains, lots of people used henna to colour their hair. Before things got really tight, which took a few years, we had lipsticks and jars of Ponds Vanishing cream, and minute bottles of perfume. My favourite perfumes were ‘Mischief’ and ‘Evening in Paris’ which cost 6d each. I had to save up for these little luxuries, at 16 I only earned seven shillings and sixpence a week, about 37 pence today. We mixed gravy browning and painted each others legs, you can imagine the fun we had using an eyebrow pencil to draw the line up the back of our legs to make it look as if we were wearing stockings. It must have rained some nights when we went out but I don’t remember the gravy browning washing off!

The dances, and concerts where in our neighbourhood, and people of all ages went to them. There were men who were too old to be ‘called up’ and they formed a band and were really good. At that time there were very few burglaries, we had nothing to steal anyway! There were only about 2 murders a year so we felt quite safe and we had far more freedom than people have now! The black out did cause some problems because you couldn’t see where you where going. I can remember taking the bus to go and see a friend. As usual I took my knitting, it was only when people started falling over and cursing as they came out of the pictures that I realised that I dropped the ball of wool way back and inadvertently provided a trip wire for the unsuspecting cinema goers. I had to retrieve it because wool was scarce then!

I met my husband when we were 17! I was on my way to my friends when I saw this dashing man in a navy overcoat and scarf. It was love at first sight, corny but true and we are still together now 56 years later. At the time he was a marine engineer and who was repairing ships until he got called up for the RAF. A 48hour working week was normal then, and he was studying at the Technical College three nights a week. As a result our courting consisted of seeing each other for one hour as we walked home from the Technical College. At the weekend we had the choice of going to 8 cinemas and a theatre all in the small town of Widnes. Unfortunately we only had the money to go to one of these! In those days the man paid for everything there was no idea of a woman sharing the cost. So when we didn’t go to the pictures we could look in shop windows, there were no shutters over them unlike today.

My husband went 5 times to Liverpool to volunteer because he really felt he should be in the forces. Each time Coopers, a ship repair firm, where he worked said he was an essential worker and stopped him. He was a good engineer and at 18 he was repairing ships on his own, even though he wasn’t qualified at the time. I can remember one of the ships he repaired being sunk by a mine, it really affected us all.

There were many shortages, queues everywhere but we were healthy and our mothers did a great job with powered eggs and milk. Rationing didn’t stop until 1954 but some things were not rationed. For example offal was not rationed and when word went round that the butcher had some there would be long queues around the shop. You couldn’t go to any butchers you had to register with them, ours was Wrights butchers, this was to ensure that everyone had a fair chance of getting meat. You could also get fish, we ate lots of fishcakes, more potato than fish mind you! There was also whale meat, very tough as I remember and of course we had Spam, I have never eaten it since! For my wedding cake I had a false two - tier creation with a small sandwich cake underneath! People saved canned fruit for special occasions nowadays you cannot imagine anybody getting excited over a can of peaches but we appreciated them then. In 1949 a sailor returned and he bought a bunch of bananas, lots of the children had never seen one!

These are just some of my wartime memories.

Muriel I. Woods

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