大象传媒

At the start of the war, I was on holiday with my Mother in Southsea. My Father had died quite recently and we were having a break. War was declared and on the same day there was absolute panic in Southsea and Portsmouth with people trying to get away from the coast as quickly as possible becuase everyone thought we would be shelled, or bombs dropped on us! The siutation was so bad that the trains were crowded and people fighting and screaming to get away. Lots of people were injured in the rush but my Mother and I managed to get away eventually, back to Sutton Coldfield.

As a child I didn't know the war had started properly, until they started to build air raid shelters at the back of our houses. We lived in a row of rented accommodation and a brick built shelter was built between two houses for two families. Some people had an Anderson shelter in their gardens, but these were mostly people who owned their houses. I think the main problem was sharing with neighbours that you didn't like very much! Not everyone was very hygenic or friendly in those days! The lighting was with candles and we might have to spend two or three hours in the shelter befoer the 'all clear was given'. The worst experience was to be woken up froma deep sleep by my Mother, to be carried down to the shelter, and try adn carry on sleeping with the heavy noise of bombers going on overhead.
On a personal note, one air raid aved my life! Because on hearing the siren, my Mother fecthed me from my bed, to find me bleeding to death, as I had had 11 or 12 milk teeth removed from the dentist and the cokets were bleeding. Mother sent for the GP whop plugged me up. Wartime dentists were really bad! If you cried when they hurt you they slapped your legs and were very rough.
As far as food was concerned, I was never hungry, you just managed. Local shops had so called rgistered customers, but usually these had people they prefered. There were lots of programmes on the radio, which was a God-send, to tell housewives how to manage. My Mother was a great jam maker, she would make jam from Carrots, Marrows, Swedes, Turnips, anything! Everyone was encouraged to 'dig for victory' and sports fields were dug up everyhwere wo that people could grow extra food, which kept us going.
There was a great emphasis on everybody to collect or save metal of any description, to manufacture airoplanes and ships! It was quite obvious at the time that many metal railings were cut down adn taken away. Schools, civic builsings, private houses, evyththing was taken away to melt down. Saucepans, anything in aluminiun was also given. Today if you look carefully there is still some evidence of this where the railings were.
We were lucky, or unlucky, to live near Royal Airforce Sutton Coldfield, whichw as a so-called 'Balloon Barrage Station'. They were inflated and ascended on wire as it was hoped that aircraft would run into them or they would stop planes flying across Birmingham. They were taken out often on moblie carriers, where they could be inflated anyhwere, usually towards Birmingham. Sutton Coldfiled also had an extensive search-light barrage, and occasionaly we might go out and look at them.

As far as I know, nobody was killed in Sutton Coldfield as a redult of the bombing, but they did fall on the toen, and in Sutton park. We used to go out from school, looking for Shrapnel, and to see if we could find any craters. I remember my Mother taking me to Sutton Coldfield Co-op to buy a pair of shoes, and that previous night, it had had a bomb through the roof which had not exploded. I've still got my shoes! There was more bomb damage towards the Erdington area, this was nearer to Birmingham.
We carried on going to school as normal, and we did get some bad winters in those days with snow and ice. We used to have the off air raid in the day time, but quite often we would have a gas mask practice where we put on our nmasks and went into the air raid shelters under the school. They were pretty terrible things, smelled awful, and the only good thing about them was to make funny noises by blowing them in out.
Although we ahd a small house with three very small bedrooms, we did have several lots of evacuees, who were usally Mothers and Children, for varying peiords of time, mostly from London. It was difficult to understnad what they were asying as they wer Cockneys!
We had a lot of American's in Sutton Coldfield, they had very smart uniforms, they had wonderful food, and most of us tried to collect their beautiful badges, ask them for chewing gum and American comics! They played Baseball in Rectory Park and we used to go and watch! One of the chools in Sutton Cldfield, now called Plantsbrook, in Holland Road, was turned into an American Army Base as the main post office for all thr troops in Europse was at Sutton Coldfield. The AMericans were very prone to chasing after anything ins kirts, and alot of marriages suffered becuase of the American'a ttentions. Two women in my road lived with Americans, although their husbands might still have been alive fighting the war. Wives often couldn't find out what had happened to their husbands, especially air crew, they may have heard their husbands were missing but it could mean that they were prachuted, or P.O.W., or crash landed and were still at large. Usually wives of army peronnel were the first to know if their husbands had been killed. Quite a few of my neighbiours husbands were killed in the war. On a bright note, some of our local girls did marry American's and went to live in AMerica!I used to help children whose fathers were in the forces and with food parcels, and they used to supply us with powdered soups, sweets, Nescafe- all things we'd never seen before. I sued to go becuase my Mother was a widow. Although my Mother was a widow, she had to look after me, she was expected to do her part, and she was an air raid warden so she used to go out at night, to tell people to keep their curtains closed, to show a light when their was a chance of air raid was a criminal offence. She was also instructed in the use of a Stirrup pump, which is a pump you put in a bucket and spray water to put incendary devices out which i, they landed on a hose, could soon set it on fire. They were very hot and difficult to put out. A bucket of sand was alos used on occasion to put them out.
As far as delivered food was concerend, the milk, the bread, and the coal were all delivered on carts pulled by horses which meant that, as were were growing our own vegetables, we wanted the horse manure!!
I think as child we were well aware that the war was going well, with the announcements on the radio, and without the radio there wouldn't have been any information and entertainment. We had a programme oncalled 'It Mar' - the name of the chap was Tommy Handly. He kept us going through the war, all thr characters on his programme were very funny.
My Mother, who was not a lady klnown to have a drink, unfortunately got drunk on VE night, and I wasn't able to do anything with her. I was so embarrassed I went and hid under the stairs!

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