大象传媒

This story was submitted to the site by the 大象传媒's Peoples War Team in the East Midlands with Beryl Bickstaffes permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions."

Barrage balloons were situated to the East of most Eastern and East Midland towns and cities as a deterrent to low flying bombers but they proved quite effective against Flying Bombs too and were a great sight. Nowadays some are flown over newly opening large shops or supermarkets to advertise but there is nothing like seeing several hundred up all at once with not a double wingspan between them. We were not the only country to suffer from the flying bomb 鈥� liberated Belgium also suffered heavily. They were situated at Peenemunde and, when this was captured, some of the scientists working there went to work for some of the allies after the war in the space race and there was quite a bit of rivalry over who had the best Germans.

Whilst in London we saw a doodle bug hit a church tower on its way to the ground and one or two others actually hit but, fortunately, only already bombed areas not standing buildings.

During the summer school holidays we were sent by bus out to farms south of the city to help with farming, the work varied according to need. I was very poor at this. We had to move up and down sewn fields removing weeds and bits of other foreign bodies. The farm laborers lived in appalling conditions. There were often several cottages to one hand pump of water and also sharing a couple of non water closet toilets. Most of the men went out in the fields urinating when and were they wished. This caused much embarrassment amongst the girls. These conditions existed only a half or three quarter hour bus ride from the centre of town. My home then was no palace but it did have running water and a private water closet. It was some years later that I discovered that there were some areas of back to back housing in Nottingham where similar conditions existed.

Later in the war U went for the summer holidays to stay with Aunt Maud and Uncle Burt in Cornwall. He was a vicar of Chasewater parish. Pre-war he had been a missionary in Nigeria for many year and they came back to England at the beginning of the war dodging u-boats all the way here. During the first world war he had been in the army and was blinded in one eye during the Gallipoli debacle. My Aunt had founded a twinnery in Nigeria (when twins were born it was assumed that the father of one was an evil spirit, as they didn鈥檛 know which, they used to put both babies into a largish jar with a narrow neck but a big base and leave it in the bush). My organized spies in the villages who would tell her when and where twins were born and she would then go out with Christian helpers to rescue the children with the aim of taking them home with them. If this did not prove successful, they were brought up in the twinnery and found jobs when it was time to leave. Naturally, they were brought up as Christians and, quite frequently, the jobs found for them involved working in hospitals and schools as they had had quite a good education. Aunt said that their parents were quite envious of the employment they had 鈥� or was it the money that went with it?

With all the troops around Nottingham city, it is hardly necessary to say that there were loads of military police in evidence too. They could only reprimand, or promise summary justice, to troops of their own persuasion eg. British Army MP鈥檚 dealing with British troops etc. Other could 鈥渉ave their names and addresses took鈥� and passed on to their own authorities at their base. This also applied to foreign troops. MP鈥檚 of all persuasions had a reputation of being a mean and miserable lot, they certainly walked around with an officious swagger and superior mien.

When one went shopping no goods were wrapped and none were provided. One took ones own. This meant, for instance, that when shopping for vegetables one had to order things correctly so that, potatoes did not go on top of plums when poured from the measuring pan into ones bag. Everyone carried bags around with them in case there was anything non-rationed for sale and many different fancy types of folding bags to carry about in handbags were produced.

In order to help things 鈥済o round better鈥�, my mother used to put the weeks ration of butter and margarine into a basin, chop it up small, add the cream off the top of the milk and mix this by hand until it resembled the easy spread margarines that we can buy nowadays. When buttering bread one soon learned how to spread this mixture on with one side of the knife, removing a lot of it with the other, at least the resulting slice was not dry. When she made tea, provided everyone having tea took sugar she would put several saccharine tablets in the tea pot and only a very small spoon of sugar into each cup. Nothing was wasted and any left tea in the tea pot was strained into a vessel for boiling up later. There was no instant coffee as we know it today available, just proper ground coffee, when one could get it 鈥� it wasn鈥檛 on ration. Sometimes on my way home from school, I would call in the Kardomah caf茅 and shop and sometimes was lucky enough to get a half pound of coffee; a major treat.

Every year our school speech day was held in the Albert Hall and our music teacher, Barton Hart, would concentrate on producing a second half of music on a grand scale. Each year he organized something to capture the flavor of the war as it was at that moment, for example, after Italy changed sides we did choruses from some of the Verdi operas, when the aid to Russia campaign was at its height we performed Prokofiev, when our troops were in Egypt and North Africa we did excerpts from Aida and when there was fighting in Palestine we did excerpts from Samson and Delilah and some Jewish folk songs. These items were always so well received that people would come in during the interval just to hear the music.

Of course housing was at a premium with so many dwellings being bombed and after the war returning soldiers had to bring their wives (some of them from foreign countries) to live with their parents 鈥� this did not results in a great deal of harmony, especially when children were involved. The government had a scheme for quickly erected , pre fabricated houses intended to last only a few years until the country got onto its feet again; they lasted well over 20 years and were liked by the people who lived in them. Many larger houses were divided into flats 鈥� very often not properly, just some rooms on a floor with a shared bathroom but many people considered this better than living with in laws.

Towards the end of the war my mother and I were shopping and were in Arkwright Street outside C&A not far from where our bus was machine gunned earlier when something caused mother to step into the road and the back door handle of a car tore through her upper arm. There seemed to be sawdust flying but it was infact mothers flesh. I remember catching her she fell and screaming. After what seemed a long time when I was shouting 鈥淲on鈥檛 anyone help her鈥� two soldiers came and held her and carried her across the road into Boots, where the senior chemist on duty said that she had to go into hospital and an ambulance came and we went to the general hospital. She was in hospital a long time. Initially the Nottingham General and later the Cedars on Mansfield Road. I had my first experience of keeping house . Because the news had got around locally, the butcher would often slip me extra bits of ration meat and I remember trying to fry kidneys whole in a frying pan with little success. Father was very tolerant. We were only allowed to visit twice a week at the hospital and I got into terrible trouble at school because I played truant on Wednesday afternoons to go and visit my mother. I don鈥檛 know whether I thought that , if I asked permission and it was denied and then went , they would be cross, or whether I thought that they might not miss me. Still I knew that she needed to be visited, her clean clothes taken her as well as few luxuries not provided in hospital such as fruit and our chocolate and sweet ration. Her ration book was kept in the hospital. I suppose mine was too when I had an appendix operation just after the war. I was one of the first people locally to have an abdominal operation by spinal injection anesthetic. This was quite frightening , one could feel pressure etc but could not feel pain and could see the surgeon at work but there was a little curtain over ones chest so could not see down to the operative area.

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