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In the early part of the war my daily routine changed relatively little. I still went along to school some 300 yards away in Glebe Road, where was the elementary school that catered for all ages up to fourteen. It was here I participated in May Queen celebrations and took the Eleven-Plus. Our teachers were either elderly males or middle-aged women, but this had been the pattern at Glebe Road pre-war. When I went to the Grammar School in September 1941 a similar pattern was repeated, but with significant differences. The males were largely over fifty, but supplemented by twin novelties — one or two ladies were brought on the staff for probably the first time and we had one young teacher (Mr Cobbold — Chemistry) who held a great fascination for us, as it was rumoured he had been invalided out of the Commandoes. He made a great impression on me, when at the first lesson he took, he surveyed the class and saying not a word took an iron clamp stand and bent it in two before staightening it out again. We gazed in silent awe and, unlike some other staff, he never had any difficulty with discipline in our class.
We went to school with our gas masks in their squat, cardboard boxes, slung over our shoulders and we had gas mask drills. Fortunately we never had to don them in earnest, but initially we were interested in their novelty and in the different types. Mine and my mother’s were common or garden gas masks, but my young brother originally had a large incubator-like contraption into which he fitted completely. He then graduated to a Mickey-Mouse type for toddlers. My father was issued with a much more grandiose affair that had a large gorilla-like headpiece that incorporated two large, goggle eye-pieces and a thick tube ran from the jaw to a canister at his belt that held special filtering chemicals. The carrying of gas masks at first obligatory and involuntary eventually gave way to a sporadic carrying until finally our gas masks were stored under the stairs where they remained from the spring of 1942 to the end of the war. I can’t remember the government ever collecting the things, but at the outset everybody, bearing in mind what had happened in the 1914-18 trenches, expected gas attacks at any time.
The blackout caused most disruption. No longer were the gas standards lit each night and the few cars and lorries were fitted with slotted covers over their headlights and sidelights were made smaller by black insulating tape. Hand held torches were also masked to decrease their beams. But we still went out at night to our regular activities. Cubs was on a Wednesday night and our Akela was Kath Waters, the daughter of the butchering family, whose shop was in Wrawby Street. Our ‘den’ or club house was in an upstairs room of semi-derelict buildings behind and between the shop and the Congregational Chapel. Friday nights and usually Tuesday nights were choir practice nights: Tuesdays were boys only and Fridays were boys at 6.30p.m. and the men joined us at 7.30p.m. These practices were held in Church House, a Victorian dwelling on the site of the present Church Hall. Church House was presided over by Miss Grundy, an elderly fierce lady with copious white hairs sprouting from her chin, who had no love of grubby choirboys who messed up her rooms. The practices were held in an upstairs room with hard chairs, a chenille-covered table and an ancient piano that was rarely in tune, especially after we choirboys had been banging on the keys before the practice. The organist/choir-trainers who tried to wring hymn tunes from this failing instrument were successively John Bradley, Eva Turner, Harold Chesher and Miss Bly.
During the war I never went hungry and somehow my mother managed to prepare at least one hot, cooked meal a day. We ate at lunch-time and my father used to have his meal reheated when he came in from work. He was travelling extensively around much of Lincolnshire and particularly in the winter months he was often late because of the black-out, Humber fogs or pressure of business. He sometimes would come in at gone 8 p.m., hurry his meal and dash off to perform his night duties as a special constable starting at 9 p.m. We had our ration books and our identity cards. My number was TMCB 119/3 : some things you never forget. The ration book had multi-hued coupons stamped with the names of various foodstuffs and weekly dates. Mother went to Rowbottoms in Bigby Street for most things, but a few were with Varlow’s in the Market Place. I think Mother must have continued with her pre-war routine and continued to make her weekly visit to the grocers on a Thursday afternoon, calling first at Rowbottom’s, where Mr Rowbottom would ceremoniously cut out the appropriate coupons in the ration books for ‘sugar’ or for ‘marge’ and then go on to Varlow’s where the scissors would excise the coupons for ‘bacon’ and for ‘cheese’. You didn’t put all your eggs in one basket — except there were very few fresh eggs and we had to make do with dried egg powder. Fresh eggs were a luxury and if one of his ‘country cousins’ gave Dad on his Lindsey Blind round three eggs, that was indeed a red letter day. It was also the reason we choirboys liked to go to sing at the Harvest Festival at Cadney Church, because in addition to the sixpence we got, we received a fresh egg from the donated produce.
There were no coupons for sweets and Mrs Stephenson at no. 24 Central Square could no longer buy or obtain the sugar to make her famous peppermints or coconut ice. Whenever news reached us of a consignment of sweets or confectionery at some little shop in the town, we would hare off and queue for a long time for whatever was available — a small Cadbury’s chocolate bar, a liquorice stick or even for dolly mixture. Mrs East in Woodbine Avenue and Mr Binns in Wrawby Street were where we were most successful. The sweet-shop owners had unimaginable power in those days, but we rarely heard any complaints about favouritism or other abuse of power.
I have said that my father was a Special Constable, but other middle-aged neighbours also had their particular roles. Our close friend, Mr Alf Rands, was on duty at the nerve centre of our local defence administration to co-ordinate the efforts of all the services. It was somewhere near the police station, but I never knew exactly where, nor ‘Uncle’ Alf’s precise duties. Mr Bill Denton from further round the Square was an air-raid warden and he could have been the model for the warden in ‘Dad’s Army’. ‘Cabby’ Cabourne, the Art master at the Grammar School, was something important in the Home Guard and very Mainwaring-esque, though he had only three stripes. Other neighbours were ambulance men, fire-fighters and Red Cross nurses. Those neighbours who worked shifts at the Scunthorpe steel-works were excused these extra responsibilities. I was greatly envious of those near contemporaries who were old enough to be recruited with their bicycles to act as messenger boys. Even my mother was recruited in mid war to be a fire-watcher. She and her friend, ‘Aunt Lil’, were put on a rota and their duty was to circumnavigate Central Square and report any incendiary bombs that were dropped. I think they must have been given some rudimentary instruction in how to use a stirrup pump in case of an emergency. Fortunately such an emergency never occurred. I can’t remember where the stirrup pump was stored, but somehow after the war it surfaced in our shed and was much used over the years to spray the cabbages with soapy water from wash day as a deterrent to green fly. Mum and her friend certainly had tin hats and possibly an arm band, but no other equipment. Since they were just patrolling the Square, I’m sure my brother and I were left at home and in bed to sleep; baby-sitters were unheard of in those days, for the word is of post-war coinage. One night Min and Lil had the fright of their lives and nearly saturated their voluminous pink knickers. There was some air traffic and the Pingley Camp searchlights and others were probing the skies. Min and Lil were gazing skywards and revolving to catch sight of any enemy aircraft. Suddenly there was an almighty bang and half-suppressed screams. However, there was no danger. The two ladies, eyes heavenwards, had come back to back in their rotation and their tin helmets had crashed together with the sound of a thunder clap.
The wireless played a vital part in informing us of the progress of the war and in sustaining our morale. I am told that I did hear some of Winston Churchill’s stirring speeches to the nation verbatim, but they made no inspiring impression this twelve year old at the time. However, I can remember having to be still and listen to the speeches of King George VI on Christmas Day. News bulletins were turned on at one o’clock, six o’clock and nine o’clock. More important than all these was the programme that was a ‘must’ on Thursday nights at 8.30 p.m. — ‘ITMA’. It was essential listening with Tommy Handley, Jack Train (the multi-voiced favourite), Derek Guyler and the inimitable Mrs Mopp. The catch-phrases from this programme littered our daily conversation — and still do….’Can I do you now, sir?’, ’I don’t mind if I do’, ‘After you, Claude — No, after you, Cecil’ and of course we never did forget the diver. I was amused by Rob Wilton and his ‘The day war broke out’ soliloquy and Harry Korris, Lovejoy and their ubiquitous friend, Enoch. Everything stopped at our house on a Saturday night when it was ‘In Town Tonight’ and for Henry Hall’s Music Night and ‘Much Binding in the Marsh’ with Dicky Murdoch and Kenneth Horne. Frank Randle, ‘Gillie’ Potter, Arthur Askey, Eric Barker and Billy Cotton all gave pleasure and added to our vocabulary other watch-words that enlivened our conversation. In the memory they all coalesce — I’m sure some of these entertainers were post-war too.
It would have been an unmitigated disaster if the wireless battery had run out between 8.30 and 9.00 p.m. on a Thursday night and I did my best to ensure we had a freshly charged battery at that time. We had two sulphuric-acid batteries that were interchanged and charged at Proctors, who had a house, shop and garage at the Grammar School Road end of Glebe Road. Many surrounding families had their batteries charged there, others went to Sass’s near the Monument. All the batteries for charging were connected up and an electric charge passed through their plates. It was fascinating to watch the bubbles attached to the plates winking and then detaching themselves, moving slowly to the top of the acid. Sometimes the battery wasn’t fully charged when it was tested and we had to come back later. I was never scientifically inclined, but I can well remember the huge pipette with a monstrous, bulbous rubber head that was inserted into the battery and squeezed to see if the float would come up to the required level. A Mr Bains was in charge of this area and he practised the testing with all the flourishes of a celebrity chef, while we waited breathlessly to see if he would pronounce himself satisfied with the state of our battery. I would exchange the used battery for the recharged one and pay my threepence, then return home, gaily swinging the battery alongside my bare, short-trousered knees. Most weeks I would make the journey down Glebe Road with the old sulphuric acid filled battery and return with a charged up one. I can’t remember having any accidents, but there must have been a real danger of acid burns. In those days the Health and Safety agency was unheard of and its nannying would have been derided. Care and common sense were enough and not legislateable.
The Grand Cinema in Wrawby Street, next to the White Horse and facing up Cross Street, was also important to our morale-boosting, leisure activities. It was owned and run by a Mr Webster (who had a fine house on Wrawby Road) and had been a place of enchantment for Brigg’s townsfolk since the early thirties. I was a regular at the Saturday afternoon ‘rush’, which was the matinee for which we invariably queued up with ill-concealed impatience, then pushed and shoved our way forward when the doors were finally opened, paying our tuppence before dashing to grab a seat as near the front as possible. I was rarely able to go upstairs to the balcony for those seats cost as much as a shilling, but sometimes I made my way furtively and urgently upstairs to the more resplendent and scented toilets during the interval if there were a long queue for the cramped and usually malodorous facilities downstairs. Such visits were frowned upon and the way was usually barred by a burly assistant. However, I remember I was on one occasion able to elude the guard and answer the insistent call of nature, but my relief was curtailed by being unable to return downstairs because of a newly stationed guard. I hastily concealed myself in a dark corner of the more opulent dress circle and watched the second half of the programme from there with a guilty conscience and much nervous glancing around .
At the Grand we were regaled with the various gripping and comic adventures of Will Hay and his two amusing side-kicks, Moore Marriot and Graham Moffat, in places ranging from darkest Africa to gun-running Ireland. George Formby also brightened our Saturday afternoons and we added his catchphrase — ‘Turned out nice again’ - to our repertoire. With him we twanged imaginary ukuleles and waited at the lamp-post on the corner of the street, until a certain little lady came by. It was at the Grand that I saw Noel Coward performing his heroics in ‘In which we serve’, Eric Portman in ‘The 49th Parallel’ and the more relevant to our daily lives, ‘One of our aircraft is missing’. American films gave us some sort of a foretaste of the Yanks who were to be stationed amongst us in the second half of the war and who wrought such havoc upon the local post-pubescent girls with their exotic charms, their nylons and their tall stories. They were also to attract our interest and invoked daring cadging by some of my more adventurous contemporaries — ‘Got any gum, chum?’ However, it was Abbot and Costello, the Bowery Boys and the Three Stooges who were our regular celluloid fare together with Pathe News.
From about twelve or so I played an insignificant part in the war effort. I was adept at scouring and scavenging around the Square for items that could provide scrap metal and was especially adept at persuading Mother and our neighbours to part with unusable aluminium saucepans. Mind you, they were only unusable after they had been repaired at least twice by circular discs (about an inch in diameter) which were screw-bolted in the bottom to cover holes that regularly appeared in the thin metal. However we collected assiduously aluminium pots and pans that could be melted down to be made into frames for more Spitfires and Hurricanes. ‘Wings for Victory Week’ was a time to remember. There were many fund raising events and efforts to collect re-usable scrap and it culminated in a big parade through the town one Saturday afternoon. There were marching airmen, an RAF band and a number of lorries festooned with patriotic flags and carrying parts of aeroplanes, working guns and other fascinating memorabilia . By this time I was at the Grammar School and to my dismay was put in Saturday afternoon detention on that particular weekend for some forgotten misdemeanour. ‘Tiger’ Richards, the Latin master, was taking the detention and his nature belied his nick-name, devolved from his initials,’TGR’. He was a soft touch and he obviously wanted to see the procession himself. So it was agreed that he would escort us down to Wrawby Street to witness the procession on condition we were ‘good’. We went — and we were. The Navy and the Army had their special fund-raising weeks and I must have taken part, possibly appearing on concerts organised among schoolchildren. I seem to remember being in a choir and Purcell’s ‘Fairest Isle’ sticks in my mind, but with no great clarity.

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