´óÏó´«Ã½

I was born in Northampton in August 1938. My first memory of the war was when we all moved to Birmingham. My mother worked in an arms factory- I believe it was for BSA- and my father was an electrical engineer, so he went off somewhere, I don’t really know where. What I remember of the bombings was being put to bed and the doodlebugs as they were called: the whistling sound and then absolute quietness and then the explosions. On one occasion I believe one did hit some houses three or four doors from where we was living in Moseley and I can remember everything being blown in, a draught, and fire, and a fireman came and picked me up, put me in some clothing and took me to a shelter. I don’t know where my mother had got to, but I eventually found my parents. My mother was in a shelter, we had these small little candles and a drink was brought to me- it could’ve been cocoa, or something like that. It was very warm, and we had to stop in there for most of the night. When we came out the next morning it was just to see all the houses that’d been bombed, fire still smouldering, smoke. There was quite a bit of activity- they were trying to clear the roads and the pavements, and everybody was just going into the houses to try and see what damage had actually been done.

Another part of that would be me going to school. You had to take your gas mask. As my mother was working I was left at this nursery school and my teacher was Miss Apple- I always remember that name. There was one occasion when we had to evacuate the school and we were told to go and run into some woods near the school and we all had to sit down in the woods and be very quiet.

We then left Birmingham because of the bombings and we moved back to Northampton- that’s where my grandmother was. The rough part of that was that I had to go and get the coke from the gasworks in a pram. I had to get wood too, because all the oranges came in boxes, and we had to collect all this wood for the fire. My grandmother used to tell me to go down to a firm called Adnitts in Northampton, and just go round the back and see a certain man- I think his name was Jack- and he used to give me some very soft paper. That was our luxury toilet paper that was, other than that it was the News of the World!

I can always remember my grandmother. Every Wednesday, I used to have to go and get her two bottles of Guinness from the off-license, and her friend used to come up and they used to have the radio on, and they rolled the carpet back, and moved the chairs, and they used to dance, and my grandmother’s friends used to come in, and it seemed like the house was full of people dancing, and I was trying to get to sleep!

Various things happened with the war, which was still going on. They had these shelters in the streets, and the Anderson shelter in the garden, which we kept some food in, and water, and made it as comfortable as possible. And then, on VE day the ´óÏó´«Ã½ Home Service brought the news that the war had finished and I heard the church bells ringing and people shouting and cars were going by. After that there was a big process of getting ready for the celebrations — banners were put up in the street, ladders were obtained to get everything up and balloons and everybody had to get the tables out, with tablecloths. The men had beer, of course, and I think we had something with burdock, like a cordial, and orange and so forth- all the drinks. Every parent made sandwiches and cakes- fairy cakes, large cakes, and all sorts of sandwiches. We had a little sports competition with all the children in the street- egg and spoon race, sack race, running up and down the street- and then somebody got the gramophone out and wound it up for the records to be put on, someone else switched the wireless on and connected all that up for the news, for everything to be relayed to us, and then the celebrations started- it was just partying and partying and partying until the very early hours of the morning. And we used to have a man come round, to turn the gas light off in the street- but that night we climbed up and left it on! And of course there were lots of soldiers and airmen and seamen who I’ve never seen before, all related to people in the street, and of course it was all joyous celebrations.

© Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.