大象传媒

My name is Michael Lloyd. I was nearly 8 in 1939 when war broke out. Unusually, I was not one of those many children who was evacuated. I little at a little town called Bromsgrove situated between Worcester and Birmingham, and it as not considered a danger zone. However, there is another aspect of my circumstances, which is very highly relevant in that I was a blind child, and in those days I had to go to a special school, which was a residential school, and my school was in Birmingham, which was a danger zone. I understand that all over the country, the authorities requisitioned premises in the country to deal with this particular situation and one of those places Zion Hill House in a little village called Wolverley, near Kidderminster. Now in Birmingham we had a good big playroom where we could spread ourselves, and a good playground where we could do likewise, and more importantly, perhaps, we knew where things were.

When we were taken to Zion Hill House in that September, things were very different. The whole surround was rural; however, like children everywhere, we wanted to 鈥榮uss-out鈥� the place. We had the usual sense of adventure, which permeates, I think, that age group possibly more than any other, and we explored the lawns, and we had a particular place, which we called the undergrowth, and I well remember various members of the school saying, 鈥淚鈥檓 going down the undergrowth鈥�. It was a wooded place and really there was very much less of it than I think we imagined. Another part of this premises was somewhere else that we named the holly house. This was an open sort of wooded area and there was a big entrance, which really was like a house.

At Wolverley we were not fed all that well, possibly due to rationing, but one thing we were fed with, pretty-well every day, and it鈥檚 disgusting I think, all though I don鈥檛 think you can get it now, and that was each of us had to have a spoonful of Virol! It was considered to be very nutritious. We did have a radio, a battery radio that is, as although the school had an electricity supply, this was in fact a locally-generated supply for which batteries were charged, and I understand that on occasions they weren鈥檛 charged all that well because the lights were not available for those who could use them in the evening, which was a bit tough. But radio did form an interest for us, and we listened to schools programmes; although I only remember one which nobody else seems to remember. This was News Commentary for Schools broadcast at five-to-ten, Monday to Friday, I think. I remember it because I remember a particular item from it which was broadcast in 1941 which concerned Rudolph Hess鈥檚 landing in Scotland. But I think the whole programme was designed to give youngsters of our age, a perspective on the war. Another programme which I almost heard, in very different circumstances, but nevertheless at Wolverley. We were made to sleep in a cellar; boys on one side, separated by staff, girls on the other, and the staff had a radio and I remember a programme, and I鈥檓 sure it existed, I鈥檓 not making it up, called Saturday Night Gaslight but I don鈥檛 remember anything about it. It was a variety programme somewhat like Garrison Theatre, which was also the Jack Horner current programme, which was broadcast at that time. Well, Saturday Night Gaslight was something I鈥檝e never heard of since. In that year, 1941, I was taken, in the middle of a term, to the senior department of the school which was again, situated in a rural area, this time, not far away from Wolverley but it was a place called Kinlet Hall, a 17th century building which was again, requisitioned for the purpose, which had a very long drive. It had three gates that separated portions of this drive and it was alleged to be about a mile long.

Well, I was saying that the food wasn鈥檛 much good at Woolverley; true, but it was worse at Kinlet. Conditions were really Spartan there, and we鈥檙e going back to the lighting because the lighting system at Kinlet was unique in my experience; in fact I鈥檝e never heard of this situation in occurring anywhere else. It was with its own lighting plant, but unlike Wolverley, which had a plant which charged batteries, Kinlet鈥檚 lighting was direct from the dynamo.

Every evening, Mr Garbett, the sort of general factotum, started up this dynamo. We lads liked to go and see this happen. I remember going into the shed which housed all the equipment, and he started up the dynamo, and of course, all the lights went on if they were switched on but they could only go on when the dynamo was functioning. This was turned off round about 11 o鈥檆lock at night, so that the whole school was in darkness from about eleven till six-thirty or seven the next morning. I don鈥檛 know why there weren鈥檛 lots of accidents but I never heard of one.

Kinlet Hall was a very old place, as I say in the 1700s it was a big rambling sort of hall and it had three courtyards under which ran the cellars. Again, something new to our experience although we were not allowed to go into the cellars. I stayed at this school until 1942 when I got a place at a grammar school and went back in fact to Worcester. Now Worcester College was a very different place. An RAF chap apparently came there in 1939 wanting to requisition that building but he changed his mind, which was just as well for the college because the college had been founded some fifty years before and was renowned over the whole country for its academic results. Something which may not be all that popular these days. The college was very different and we were allowed much more flexibility. The war was going on but we were going on with it in this case going into Worcester and by ourselves in the circumstances, was a great adventure and we used to go to the shops, particularly to the radio shops because that was a particular interest of several of us. And I remember going into one and seeing a device, again, which I haven鈥檛 heard of since, called a transformer light. I think it cost six and threepence. It was like an ordinary bulb in that it had it had a bayonet fitting, but the fitting was attached to a transformer direct. It was very heavy and you plugged it in the light, and the light at the other end was probably a six-volt torch bulb, which was shielded. I think they were quite popular for lighting halls so that when you had visitors and the door was opened you didn鈥檛 have to think about the blackout on the spot.

At Worcester we were fed much better, and indeed there was another concern. Sugar like so many other products during the war, was rationed, as we all knew, and those of us who liked it certainly liked it. And we had, yes, even in those days, we had a student鈥檚 union. I suppose we鈥檇 called it a school union in those days, and we demanded a ration of sugar per week to be held individually in sugar tins. Well, we fought this for a long time, but we won our way in the end.
But it was at Worcester that I also had another benefit, or I should say we did, in that there were food parcels sent to this country of which previously I鈥檇 been completely unaware, sent from Canada in this case, and they were usually tins of jam and other commodities as far as I know but the one I had anyhow was a tin of jam and then of course it bolstered up the improved food supply but nevertheless lads of that age can never get enough to eat can they? So we benefited from those parcels and also we benefited although is that the right word, from dried egg 鈥� which was something else. We habitually had for breakfast.

One other memory of the war concerns my home. We went home for the holidays, of course, and as I say being in Bromsgrove which wasn鈥檛 bombed, although there was one bomb in Bromsgrove, just one as far as I remember, and it wasn鈥檛 dropped when I was there. There was a bomb incidentally when I was at Wolverley, dropped between Bromsgrove and Wolverley and we heard that so you can tell how close these places were. They were about ten miles apart I should think. Anyhow, this bomb was dropped at Wolverley but in Bromsgrove there was another feature. Compulsory evacuation of people in bombed-out parts of Birmingham, and this affected us in this way. Where there were spare rooms, these were commandeered by the authorities and you had no option but to accept whoever they sent. We had several people during the war who were accommodated with us, my brother being away in the Forces. One couple came, and they brought me a blackout torch. It wasn鈥檛 much use to me personally as you can appreciate in the circumstances. Again, something I鈥檝e not heard of or seen since. It was an ordinary bakelite torch and it took the usual sort of torch battery of those days, a number 8 battery, which became very scarce but this again was shielded round the top so that there was only a very small amount of light just from the centre of the top.

Those are my chief recollections. Wartime was certainly a time when I felt, even as a young child, that people pulled together and faced the emergency with that degree of cheerfulness, which meant that people stuck together all the time.

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