大象传媒

This story has been gathered, written and submitted to the 大象传媒 People's War by Ann Hayes.

The man always stood at the school gate with a hammer in his hand and a long wooden box on a cart. As we turned out of the gate to walk along by the canal on our way home he shouted, 'Five nails for a farthing, ten for a halfpenny and here's your hammer to knock the nails into Hitler's coffin.'

There was always a queue to spend our pocket money - no sweets, biscuits or ice cream to spend it on, so we spent it on nails instead.

And how we hammered those nails into the box, this was our way of helping the war effort. All our fathers were away (mine was in the RAF), so along with rationing, the blackout, air raid sirens, gas masks (Mickey Mouse if you were under six) and the map on the dining room wall with the coloured pins which my mother moved every day after we listened to the six o'clock news on the Home Service, this was our way of helping the nation.

I can still remember the feeling of satisfaction as the nails were hammered in and some children thought (I did not) that Hitler really was in the box - but I reasoned that if he had been then the war would have been over and this was only 1944, another year to go!

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