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The year is 1939; the clouds of war are gathering. Then on that fateful day, the Prime Minister, Mr N. Chamberlain, announced ‘As from midday today, we are at war with Germany’. Life seemed to change. To a seven year old life held a touch of excitement of battles to come. How that was to change.

One of my earliest memories of the war is of my father and neighbours digging large holes and erecting Anderson Shelters. We had a single shelter away from the house, but the neighbours who had no garden walls built a large shelter across the middle garden, to hold the families of Mr and Mrs Lack, Mr and Mrs Spokes and Mr and Mrs Ploughman (see the photographs below).

Another memory is of standing in line to collect my gas mask (they smelt of rubber, and the window to see through steamed up so you could not see). But my father, who was now the local air raid warden, had a forces issue mask, with proper eyeholes and a flexible breathing tube to the filter. I was very envious of my father’s gas mask, because I had a Mickey Mouse type of mask.

As the ARP Warden, my father was in charge of the air raid point (a meeting point for ARP, police and wardens to co-ordinate any emergencies from an air raid). The air raid point was in a large, empty Victorian house between Adelaide Street and Upper Hester Street. The ground floor rooms were used for storing fire buckets, stirrup pumps and sand bags etc.

Fire Defence meetings were held in the large rooms on certain evenings, usually finishing with a game of darts. Later, the ladies joined the gentlemen and held knitting evenings, making Balaclava hats and gloves for the forces. People came with their complaints of, and suggestions for, the war effort. Very soon whist drives and beetle drives were arranged. These evenings became very popular, and at Christmas there was a Grand Poultry Drive. This was a whist drive, with a cockerel as first prize, and small Christmas goodies, usually donated by Mr Timms the Chemist, Mr Laugder the Greengrocer, the lady at the Pot Office and many others. And so it became a general meeting place for many. One could say that this was Semilong’s first Community Centre.

The main job as ARP Warden was to check that no lights showed from any windows, blackout curtain or anyone lighting a cigarette in the dark streets. This led to the famous saying of the ARP of ‘Put that b….. light out’.

The blackout was to put a lot of stress on my father, who was a bus driver, if he was on the late shift and driving in the dark, with only headlights with masks fitted, to give a small dim light (modem car sidelights give a much brighter vision). Can one imagine driving for four to six hours in rain or fog with just white bands painted on lampposts, etc, and every other comer kerbstone painted white to guide you?
The other job he and other drivers had was to pick up the evacuees from Castle Station, and drive them to their destinations in the county. I remember him coming home in the evenings and sitting in his chair and crying. The pitiful sight of some of the young and frightened children, for many, their first time away from home and family, was too much for him. Most had never seen sheep or cattle, and they did not know what they were when they saw them in the fields. I wonder how much counseling there was in those days. We had a young woman and her baby as evacuees for some time. My grandparents, who lived in Essex Street, had three evacuees, two sisters and one other. The two sisters were a handful:
They came from a rough East End family. The single girl, named Joan, came from Islington, and got on well with the family, and kept in touch with them right up till they both died. Every Sunday till the end of the war, John and my grandfather would sit and do the News of the World crossword. There was no TV in those days.

Then the young men of Semilong began to join up. Mr and Mrs Lack, the next-door neighbours had three sons join. Jack, the eldest; then Reg; and Ron. Reg was killed outside Caen soon after D-Day. He was shot in the leg by a sniper. His brother, Ron, saw him being carried back to the field dressing station, and was told he was OK with a leg wound but, unluckily, the bullet had pierced a main artery and he died from his wounds in the field station.

The St Paul's scoutmaster, Den Gates, also left to do his service, so his father, known as Pop Gates, who was also the caretaker at St Paul’s school, took over the troop while he was away. We .held troop meetings in the Memorial Room at the back of the Iron Room, as the Iron Room had been taken over by the army who billeted soldiers there.

Another wartime campaign was 'Dig for Victory'. Everyone was encouraged to grow vegetables to help with the shortage of food. Many lawns and flower gardens were dug up, and potatoes, greens, etc planted, including part of the church grounds, where the new vicarage now stands. Many families took on allotments for growing food.

Living at 85 Semilong Road, we had an extremely long garden, with a greenhouse, and a father who loved gardening. Also, we had a few chickens at the top of the garden, so we lived very well compared to some people. It was amazing how people improvised with the meager rations. I had an aunt who lived in Hackney, and she used to make what she called egg and bacon pie with dried egg powder and the small bacon ration. Later, it became a fashionable party snack known as Quiche Lorraine, but in the war it was a great delicacy.
Another wartime delicacy was melon and ginger jam in tins, sent from South Africa. I remember a very decadent treat my aunt used to make for the two of us. It was a slice of bread and jam which was topped with Nestlé’s condensed milk which was more easily obtainable in the war than now.

Although Semilong fortunately missed the ravages of a blitz, the appearance of the area changed. The most devastating was the confiscation of all the beautiful cast-iron railings and gates at the front of many houses in Northampton, including Semilong. It was claimed they were needed to make metals for the war effort, including aluminium pots and pans. Unfortunately, most of the railings and gates were made of pig iron and were of little use for armaments. If one looks at many of the older houses, with front gardens, in Northampton and Semilong, many of the stumps left from the broken gate pillars can still be seen."

Northampton had only two bombings from the Luftwaffe, the first a bungalow in Bants Lane, early in the war. The other time, a lone raider dropped a stick of bombs in the cemetery and St Andrew's hospital in Billing Road.

On the night of the Coventry blitz. I remember standing outside my grandparents' house in Essex Street, seeing the red glow, on the horizon of the city burning, and the sound of the German planes flying overhead.

The biggest damage Northampton suffered was the Stirling bomber that crashed in Gold Street. Without hitting one building or All Saints' church, but leaving a trail of damage. Although it was a miracle that none of the bombs remaining on board exploded sadly, the whole crew died as most of them were too low for their parachutes to open in time.

Later in the war, we used to stand in the garden on summer evenings and watch the Lancaster bombers grouping to go on a 1,000 bomber raid. The sky was covered with small planes like a starry night. A magnificent sight to perform an ugly deed.

The racecourse being the main play area for the children from Semilong, it was a loss when they built an army barracks on most of it. So we had only small pockets of grass to play our games on.

Later, when the Americans arrived, there was a certain amount of friction between the
'Tommies' and the 'Yanks'. The saying about the Yanks was that they 'were overpaid.
oversexed and over here'. This led to Military Police patrolling the town centre, with the 'Redcaps' for the Tommies and the 'Snowdrops' for the Yanks, so-called for the white helmets they wore. The 'Snowdrops' had a reputation for not standing on ceremony. They waded in with their batons, and asked questions later.

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