大象传媒

WORLD WAR 2 - OBSERVATIONS OF A CHILD

Veronica Lawrence

The second world war began when I was 4 years old and my memory of it are those of a child who had just started school when war was declared.

The hot September in the playground in 1939 was full of peace, and interesting too.
Parents talked in serious ways about war, and things began to gradually alter all around.

I watched, together with my little sister as our parents endeavoured to fit brown paper across the window because we children were afraid of the guns; they said it was so that no light would show outside because an air-raid warden would knock at the door and shout 鈥淧ut that light out鈥� if any was showing outside.

Gas lamps along the road - about one third of the height of present-day ones, were not lit-up making it extra dark at nights.

We had a small, old wooden radio and sometimes there was a man talking very seriously on it and we had to keep quiet while parents listened.

At the school, sand-bags were placed like a wall half way up the outside of the school by the playground, they looked large and heavy and were there in place one morning when we arrived and were to stop flying glass if a bomb fell nearby.

We lived N.W. of London and it was nearly free from any bombing as enemy aircraft were aiming for London itself and passed over us.

At the end of our road anti-aircraft guns were positioned on the roof of the Kodak factory and they gave a loud, vibrating thud when firing which was nearly always at night and they seemed to almost shake the house; We often had to get-up with our parents to sit in the cupboard under the stairs because of danger or because we children were afraid of the guns.

Everybody around went to bed partly-dressed in case of having to get out-side quickly, and beds were moved down-stairs for greater safety.

The siren went when there was enemy aircraft nearby; it was a penetrating, wailing sound and when the danger had passed the all-clear sounded. The sound of the siren sent goose-pimples down ones back, so to speak.

People had air-raid shelters in their gardens which were half sunk into the ground and they ran down into them if there were bombs about.

As I grew a little older I went to the shops with my family鈥檚 ration-book and I bought the allotted amount of cheese, eggs, tea etc. for that week 鈥� I think each person was allowed one egg a week, as food supply was affected by the war-time.

The lady next-doors鈥� husband was a soldier who was away all the time and there was an elderly lady on the other side of us who was out scrubbing her back doorstep every Saturday morning.

The war-time conditions of living were quite hard and we were often cold or hungry, or both and it was usual for many children to have chilblains on the back of their fingers (sores from the cold), and one or two teeth which were bad. Distractions of war-time caused many difficulties.

By the time I was 8 years old, the war seemed as though it had been on all my life and I said to my mother how wonderful it would be when the war was over and everybody would be singing in their houses and my sister and I laughed in great expectation of it.

War- time news was on in-between films at the cinema - Soldiers running and fighting, tanks going along, ships at sea with gun-fire. We young children only knew about the war in so far as we experienced it on a day to day basis and through the 鈥榳ay鈥� of the people around us.

War was 鈥� Dark encompassing cloud, hard living times and sirens sounding, and people gathered together and singing.

Occasionally we were with a crowd of people who were cheery together and sang songs, now known as the war-time songs.

Brick, flat-roofed shelters went up along the road at some point for people to sleep in them on bad nights. Everybody had to wait until 10pm at night before they went to the shelters; we went several times. There were three-tier bunks along each side and every morning a large jug of tea was delivered to each shelter.

One day my sister and I were standing at the back door of our house when we saw a flying-bomb go silently across the sky overhead 鈥� the first we had seen, as they usually came at night. We stood rooted to the spot for a moment and it took a dive into the mid-distance showing its short fiery tail as it went down,

We called to our mother that there was 鈥榓 naughty airoplane,鈥� as we called them, and she hurridly shut the door and dragged us further inside.

Because we were just outside of London and most of the bombs were aimed for London itself, they passed over us without coming down.

At one stage early on, gas-masks came into being and we were shown how to put them on and to breathe in them. (They had a not very nice smell inside), but we never had to use them.

Sometimes after dark we went outside with our parents and were shown the wonderful spectacle of the sky filled with very long beams of search-lights moving and criss-crossing about the sky. this was to keep enemy air-craft away and to spot any which were coming. The sound of enemy planes was a slow continuous drone and different to the sound of our planes.

At the end of 1943 or 1944 my sister and I were evacuated to Sheffield for a year as the worst raids there had ceased.

We waited with our mother at the main-line station for the big old steam train to come in to the station and we wore our winter coats, with gas-masks in their card-board box slung accross us by its strap and labels with our names on, and carrying a small case with things we would need .

The platform was crowded with children ready waiting for the train and parents seeing us off.

There was a treat in store once we got on the rain; on all the tables there was an apple and an orange waiting for each person, which made it look like Christmas-time.

When we got there after dark in the evening (and the journey seemed very long), we were taken into a large town-hall where all the tables were laid for a meal and everything was well organised.

After supper people came to choose the children they were going to take home for a year 鈥� It felt quite strange going off with somebody we had never met.

After what seemed like a couple of years we were on our way back home. It must have been early in 1945 as the war was very soon at an end and great celebrations began and there were long party- tables down the centre of all the side roads with flags and balloons and party hats.

The celebrations went on for a week anyway, and the tables were left in the roads for the following days.

When the war had ended, it was as though a curtain had been drawn aside leaving the way clear for everybody.

Our father took us to London from time to time and we saw the bombed-down
Buildings with dark., ugly shadows of war on them, holes where windows had been, walls standing detached, and craters in the ground with the rubble of bricks etc.

I was 10 years old then; The 1940鈥檚 were eventually replace by the 1950鈥檚 - Many new buildings, plans and fashions in clothes came about. People moved into new council houses and the National Health Service was set-up.

In the evenings halls were filled with ball-room dancing and music and the cinemas were crowded with cinema-goers 鈥� And the years of war-time evolved into new ways and life, in the whole of the nation.

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