大象传媒

My first recolection of the war was when i was 6 years old and was evacuted with my sister(Joan)from Lagate Lane school on foot to the local railway station, we were located in Billets in Keswick. Which i hated. I have no recolection of school there still being only 6, the only memory i have of that time is break time where all pupils gathered in the school hall and were isued with mugs of milk.On returning to shields school days were varied few and far between as insufficient room in shelters for all pupils, half the school went mornings and the other half went on afternoons. One could not leave home without ones gasmask.
Worst memories were the darkness and the blackouts i.e all windows of shops, houses all and every buildings were draped with blackout curtains or shutters,all borded up during the night, street lights, motor vehicles, torches were visered, so the minimle amount of light was exposed.
Virtulally every night we were hit by air raids, living on the coast of the tyne and the wear the ship yards, coal mines and factories were bombarded.
My mum was an air raid warden, and she gad to do extensive training i.e first aid, poisonis gas drills etc, she always had to carry with her on duty gas mask, tin hat, whistle and a gas rattle plus a torch. consequently on mams trips on duty my sister on i had outings to the air raid shelter, but, Joan would not always comply, she used to end up in the bedroom wardrobe only half awake, eventually our bed was set up under the stairs.
Near the end of the war our house was used as a tempoary recuporation billet for allied, injured personel. They included Canadians , Americans etc
These Laidies and Gentelmen were easily spotted around the towns for their standard isue bright blue suits. We had 1 Canadian gentalman that stayed at our house, he'd had been badly injured, consequentley as all our toilet facilities were down stairs we were turned up side down in as much as the main bedroom came downstairs and the mian bedroom became the sittingroom to better cateor to his needs.
Back to school days during gas mask and air raid shelter drills pupils were isued with emergancey ration biscuits(harder than dog biscuits) also from time to time, drinking chocolate powder anddried milk powder were given to us which we procieded to lick off our fingers like you would sherbert, which by the way you couldnt buy because of food rationing. Everything was rationed, food, clothing, shoes etc
We got by, by growing our own veg adn keeping our own live stock eg we used to purchase day old chicks and them up in an indoor incubator untill they were old enough to be fed outdoors.
A fuuny memory of mum, one night during a raid when she was on duty she summoned a college by blowing on a whistle to report a fire on a farm up beside marsden cliffs. Subsequentley all emergencey vehicles were called in case any kind serious of damage was done. On aprouching said fire after a severe repremand from area control, doubled up with laughter, tears streaming down her face, my mum found out that this was only a fire red and beautiful sunrise.
Dad hasnt been mentioned yet, he was exemped from the military services, dont no to this day why this was, he worked for a local houlage firm and did long distance removals. He used to see him on a monday morning and maybe not see him for 2-3 weeks at a time. We did however discover quite a number of years later that he could be stopped by military police or army personel to clear all kinds of vaults from banks to museums to deliver them to safer places.
My sister and i in the holidays or when bombing got really really bad we were sent to live with relations in Harrogate or Wheatherby. In Wheatherby on a farm called Cabage Hall Farm we used to help the lamd girls with fruit picking and hand milking. Milk was poured in to big metal churns, placed at the farm gates to be picked up by the milk marketing board. In rural areas fresh milk was delivered by horse and cart, carrieing churns, householders would come out of their homes with a jug and ask for how many pints of milk they required. This was ladeled from the churns by the milk men.
The only thing is dinners were along time coming because there was no electricity, we used a fire range, this consisted of metal hangers from the top of the fire to hold a cauldren or the handel of a large kettel, there was an oven at one side for cooking pasteries etc and it was a coal or wood burning fire.
Rabbit stew was always on the menu on the farm but you couldnt kill your own live stock.
The one thing i do not remember about the end of the war was the so called street parties, i do not recall ever seeing, hearing or even being invited to them.

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