大象传媒

WAR TIME IN BASINGSTOKE by Betty Blake

Betty was at the High School in Basingstoke

Evacuees
When the War was first declared there were a lot of evacuees sent to Basingstoke from Portsmouth and Southampton. I was only 14 and a bit at the time and people from my form and from parallel forms at the Grammar School went down to the old St John鈥檚 School and we used to help with these poor little mites coming from Portsmouth and Southampton, gas masks round their necks and a label on them, it really was pathetic. We had to help an adult 鈥� they came to the station, an adult took them on foot from the station down to St John鈥檚 School and then there were people down there with lists of names and villages to match up with them and for two or three Satudays we had to help get them on the correct bus for wherever they were going to be billeted as evacuees. Some of used to go on the bus and at one point someone said, 鈥淲hich house are you going to?鈥� I said, 鈥淚鈥檓 not an evacuee!鈥�

I think there were just a few billeted in Basingstoke - we鈥檇 got Thornycrofts works here and the station, which was a junction anyway, and Wallis and Steevens, an engineering firm, and I suppose it was thought that perhaps it wasn鈥檛 as safe as a house in a village might be.

Air raid shelters
My father and my grandfather did a lot of really hard work digging a pit in which to put the Anderson shelter in the garden. It was really very successful except when at one point we had a tremendous amount of rain and it was just slightly damp inside. But there鈥檚 one thing I most remember about that. They鈥檇 made steps or a little ladder or something to go down. In the house adjoining us there was an elderly widow and her little Welsh terrier called Taffy. He wasn鈥檛 very big - but my goodness, he looked after his mistress! My father cut a section out of the fence that separated our two houses so that this lady could come through, should there be an air raid warning, it would save her going out into the road and back round. Well, Taffy got to know the sound of the air raid warning and as soon as he heard it the little wretch used to dart through the hole in the fence, down into the air raid shelter and sit on the easy chair, There was one easy chair down in the shelter, the others were all wooden-seated and -backed and so on. So no-one else ever got a seat on the easy chair. I was really frightened of him, I suppose he could have given a savage bite. He was really small but he鈥檇 growl like mad if you went anywhere near him. Anyway, I don鈥檛 think we ever spent a complete night down there but it was 鈥� let鈥檚 say, cosy, apart from when it was damp. I think we must have had a primus stove or something, which now strikes me as being primitive and also very dangerous in a way, because there was only one way out and that was up these steps and they were very narrow and very difficult.

We also, later on had a Morrison shelter in our front sitting room and looking at the sitting room now I just wonder how it all got in there.

The invasion scare and air raids.
I had someone with whom I was particularly friendly at the High School and she and her parents lived in Southern Road. We were both only children and I suppose in a way that threw us together. We did a lot together, we both liked athletics, we both liked country dancing, we were both in the choir. Her parents occasionally would go out for an evening so she would come down to sleep with me and then if my parents wanted to go out I would go and sleep with her 鈥� it worked out very well. Once when she came down we had an invasion scare when the church bells were rung. And she and I sat on the bed in our small front bedroom 鈥� I don鈥檛 know how we both got in there, actually, because it is only small, but anyway, we sat on the bed there in our dressing-gowns listening to obviously very martial orders being given. And every time we heard a vehicle go down the road or any time we heard someone go down the road we could hear the Home Guards who had been posted at the bottom doing their 鈥淗alt! Who goes there?鈥� and 鈥淲hat鈥檚 the password?鈥� and all the other things that go with that.

And then on another evening when she came and stayed with me and we hadn鈥檛 yet gone to bed 鈥� I think at that point there hadn鈥檛 been an air raid warning but we鈥檇 heard a very strange noise. And we went to the back door to have a look and see what was going on and there was a whole row of 鈥� well, we didn鈥檛 know what they were at the time, but it turned out they were incendiary bombs, right up across this field that was behind us, and in fact they went right up to Crossborough Hill and one of them fell through the office of the headmistress at the High School. So when we went to school the next morning I think we were told we could go home for the morning but we had to go back again in the afternoon.

Bombs on Basingstoke
One Sunday afternoon in the summer, my parents and I were standing on the back door step wondering whether we鈥檇 go and sit on the lawn or something, and suddenly my father said, 鈥淟ook at that strange aeroplane! I don鈥檛 like the look of that!鈥� And it appeared to be following the railway line and we saw it drop a bomb on the railway line somewhere beyond the Basing area. And after that was all over the sirens sounded 鈥� well, of course, the air raid was over.

There were bombs in Church Square on two occasions. My mother knew,the wife of the blind organist at St Michael鈥檚 [Mr Anstey}, who had got three children at home and one was in the army, and the girl was in my form. And so on each occasion Dorothy and her younger brother came up to sleep because they were told they couldn鈥檛 stay in their house because no-one knew whether there were any unexploded bombs there.

There were also some bombs dropped in the Cliddesden Road. And there had been an air raid warning. All the cloakrooms at the High School had brick walls put in the middle of them as a kind of anti-blast device, so when there was an air raid warning you all had to troop into the cloakroom 鈥� you can imagine it, we thought it was fun, but I鈥檓 sure the staff thought it was anything but. We certainly felt the vibrations from those bombs.

During the time that one of the lots of bombs were dropped in Church Street there was also one dropped up in Burgess Road. I know there were two or three people killed in Church Street when the first bomb dropped but I don鈥檛 think there were any fatalities when the others came.

So it wasn鈥檛 so bad as being in Southampton. We could see the glow in the sky from London and Southampton. I went away to College when I was 18, to Hereford, which was about as deep into the country as one could get. And the two years I was there we had one air raid warning. So when I came home there were fairly frequent air raid warnings, I was absolutely petrified. I wouldn鈥檛 go upstairs to bed, I slept in the Anderson shelter.

Rationing
The family who lived next door but one to us, the bottom house of the Lane had two small children. My father was working on the railway and he did shift work so he had an extra cheese ration. And he didn鈥檛 like cheese at all. So at the second house I think they had extra eggs and some extra fat. They were very fond of cheese and they only had the basic cheese ration. I was at college so a grand sort of exchange was set up. Mother would give Muriel some cheese and Muriel would give Mother some fat, and Mother would make a sponge or something and send it down to me at Hereford. I was the beneficiary of that.

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