大象传媒

I was unaware that war was going on around me and that I should have had two parents. I should have been an April baby, but arrived late on a very hot day. It was on May 6th 1942 at 6.30pm weighing in at 6lbs. My birth place was Shrewsbury, Shropshire, England. This was where my mother went to after she had been bombed out of her home in Islington, North London. My father was in the RAF serving King and Country in World War Two.

I became the daughter of Mr and Mrs Tom and Alice Sparkes, and was given the name Kay. Two years later with my mother and now a younger brother Graham, we moved to Castle Cary, Somerset, UK.

When moving to the small market town of Castle Cary my mother had to go to the post office to up date our identity cards. The post office worked closely with the National Registration. We all needed to have identity cards to show at any time. I still have mine and it was valid up until 6th of May 1958 which was my 16th birthday.

I used to hear my mother say 鈥淗ow long have you been home?鈥� to someone wearing uniform. I would think 鈥淗e doesn鈥檛 live here鈥�. Little did I know the serviceman was home visiting his family on leave from fighting in the war.

I have noticed people of today think war ended over night. In some senses it did. The bombing and fighting stopped.

When war ended there were civilians displaced. Soldiers, sailors and airmen disfigured and without limbs were returning home from battle. Children from the British cities, who had been evacuated at the beginning of war, were returning to their home towns. But some stayed as they were older and had settled into local employment.

Adults expected to be eventually reunited with love ones. Some had not seen each other for as many as two to three years or even more. Children like me were experiencing a daddy as a stranger invading our home. For children it was the beginning of our invasion.

Army lorries towing large guns and being driven by troops were the traffic of the day. Now we were at peace planes would fly over and the people who would be working would rush outside to see if the plane was a Wellington or a Spitfire. It was safe to look up rather than run for cover. There was no more wearing gas masks for ten minutes every day for us children.

Signposts
I remember seeing a signpost for the first time, thinking 鈥淲hat a good idea. Why hasn鈥檛 any one thought of that before?鈥� In London all spires were removed from churches for safety reason at the beginning of the war, as were the signposts to confuse the enemy.

Milk
Our milk was deliver by Mr Williams who was the farmer. He would arrive in his van with the churns at the back. He would measure out the milk in gills with a long ladle and pour it into a jug. He lived in his farmhouse with his wife and two sons. They helped on the farm and with milking the cows, near Castle Cary Station.

At the time when I was at Junior School our Old English Sheepdog, Sally became a proud mum, to nine puppies. My Father needed extra milk for Sally to drink in order to keep the puppies alive and didn鈥檛 want any of them to die.

My father told me years later that he had to buy the extra milk on the black market. If this had been discovered at the time, my father and Mr Williams both could have risked imprisonment for selling and buying milk without coupons. Eight out of the nine puppies lived. They were beautiful.

Sweets
I remember coming in from school one day and my mother who was excited had lots of small packets wrapped in coloured paper. She gave me one. I looked at it, and said 鈥淲hat do I do with it?鈥� She tore the wrapping off the top and rammed it in my mouth, saying, 鈥淓at it of course.鈥� I bit a large piece off and with too much in my mouth I didn鈥檛 like it as I felt it was too sickly. It was a long stick of toffee called a Punch. That was my first experience of seeing and eating sweets.

Ration Book
When I was about ten, I was allowed to use my own ration book when buying my own sweets with my weekly pocket money of 6d (2陆 pence). I often bought a Crunchy Bar for fourpence, with tuppence left over. I was so pleased when the lady of the shop told me I didn鈥檛 need my ration book if I was to buy a Crunchy Bar, as they had now come off ration. From then on I always enjoyed the freedom of not having to take my ration book along with me, and the lady didn鈥檛 need to cut out my small coupon.

Bananas
Bananas were new to us. I heard of a boy who wouldn鈥檛 eat bananas. He was offered his first banana when travelling on a train. As he ate into it he couldn鈥檛 see any more.

He had not realised the train had gone through a tunnel and there were no lights that came on in the carriage. Once the train had come out of the tunnel and he could see again he said he would never eat other banana, as bananas caused temporary blindness.

Clothing
I appeared to be well off with clothes. I had one set of clothing to wear for a week, while the other set was being washed, dried, ironed and then aired on the clothes horse in front of the fire ready to wear clean the following week. We always put on our clean clothes on a Sunday morning. Bed linen, towels and table cloths went to Wincanton Laundry.

My mother had no washing machine at this time. She would wash it all in the sink with her rubbing board. We had one tap with cold water. My mother would fill the sink with a little cold water from the kitchen tap and then top it up with hot water from the kettle.

Rubbing Board
The bar of soap would be in the reservoir of the rubbing board. All clothes would be rubbed up against the rubbing board to rub off any dirty marks. We were a little better off than some, as we had a best set of clothes as well.

Clothes we grew into
The clothes we had we had to grow into. I remember having a new large long vest, far too big for me. The top part didn鈥檛 keep me warm because most of this new vest came down to my knees. My mother told me to tuck it into my knickers, or unmentionables.

I had a great problem with socks. My mother would buy new socks far too long in the foot for me. I would tell her, and she would say turn the tops of your sock over your toes and tuck them inside your shoes. I would have great difficulty then putting my shoes on.

My toes would be cramped up inside my shoes. My toe nails would eventually grow through making holes in my socks. My mother would then darn them. With the washing and rubbing and me wearing them, the darns would rub down smooth. By the time my socks fitted me, and felt nice and comfortable to wear, I would beg my mother not to throw them out.

She would say 鈥淵ou can鈥檛 wear these socks! They have too many darns in them.鈥� I had to start all over again with new socks that were too big for me. What a crazy mother I had, just to make my coupons go a long way. I still suffer from bad cramp in my toes, even today.

I lived through infant and junior school with my ration book. As I entered senior school in 1953, I still had a ration book, but things were coming off ration slowly, but not so with a school PT kit which was still on loan to each pupil from the school.

For PT (physical training) and school games we didn鈥檛 own our school kit. What we wore was supplied by the school. The PT Kits must have been purchased before rationing was introduced, which began in 1941 and when I started at Ansford Secondary Modern School it was September 1953, twelve years later.

My PT lesson was on a Friday, last period. At the end of the lesson each pupil who had worn the kit at the last lessons, had to take the kit home to be washed, and if necessary sewn up, and then brought back to school on Monday morning clean. I was a first year, (11 years old). The class that had PT on Monday morning first period would benefit by wearing the kit clean. By the end of a Monday seven girls could have worn it, and by the end of the week, five days later, 35 pupils could have worn it.

Make do and mend
The ones who took it home to wash it never had the opportunity to wear the kit clean. I never noticed if the kit smelt, but it must have done with 34 different girls wearing it before me. They were also becoming thread bare and lots of sewing was needed over the weekend, as we never got the same garments each week. Our school motto was not 鈥榤ake do and mend鈥� but we certainly lived up to it 13 years after the war had ended.

Bomb Sites
At the end of my student days, 1964, bomb sites in London had been cleared to make way for car parks.

After we married the first house we bought was built on a bomb site at Abbey Wood, London, in 1971. The house that stood there before had been bombed in 1942. When we came to clear the garden we found chicken wire, leather sole, a china ornament, false teeth, a bicycle tyre stuffed with straw and an unexploded cannon shell.

It took a long time to recover from the effects of war.

Written by Kay Sparkes wife of G A Foulger.

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