´óÏó´«Ã½

This story has been added to the People’s War website by Jenny Graham of the Lancashire Home Guard on behalf of John Meehan and has been added to the site with his permission…

I remember the Christmas of 1942, it was just before my eighth birthday on New Years Eve and I had to be admitted to Wigan Infirmary because of a Mastoid on my right ear. I was given a Christmas present that year because I had to spend my Christmas in hospital; my brother and sister were so jealous. It was a battery operated search light to go on a truck and I'll never forget the excitement of receiving that present. It almost made up for being in hospital. I was the only child in three to get a present that year - and not the most popular!

Our family were very poor. We lived in small rural village and my father had been a farm labourer before he got called up, he was stationed in the tank regiment and eventually finished up in Germany. My mother stayed home and looked after the family. I remember the day that he got his papers. I was about four years old and my Mother was washing our clothes with the dolly tub and posset. My father came through the door with an envelope in his hand and my mother burst into tears at the sight of it. Dad laughed because it was something he had been expecting. He left within two or three weeks.

The next time I saw him was when I was admitted to hospital that same Christmas. He had been home a couple of times in between but I had been staying with my Grandparents so I didn't get to see him; I stayed at my Grandparents' farm whilst my mother was expecting, two years in all. I remember stealing vegetables for my Grandma from my Grandfather's cabin whilst I was there. He sold vegetables from the farm and had a horse and cart which he used for his rounds. He kept all his produce in a cabin at the side of the house, tightly under lock and key, my Grandmother was not allowed to go in and help herself. She would often ask me to sneak through a gap in the side of the cabin and steal some vegetables for tea. I think Grandfather would have actually made her pay for them had he known. I don't remember there being much fruit around at that time - I'm sure I was 15 before I even saw a banana!

When I was there I remember watching all the aeroplanes flying over on their way to Liverpool. They were mostly German bomber planes passing over. I loved watching them. When we moved back to Chappell Lane I would look out for the soldiers through my bedroom window. They would march down the road in two columns with tanks following them, it was an awesome sight. There was an American camp about a mile and a half from our house at Jolly Tar Lane and their tanks would train on the sand dunes at Ellerbeck Collery near Adlington. Behind our house was the main railway line and all the children would sit on the embankment waiting for the trains with the soldiers on to pass. The soldiers would throw toffees and cigarette packages out of the windows to us, hundreds of different types. They were all packaged differently, particularly the American ones. There was one brand, Passing Cloud I think it was, that had a beautiful packet. We would wave to all the soldiers and follow the train down the embankment collecting toffees and cigarettes.

Toffees were on rations then and they still were in 1950. When I was fifteen I went to Ireland with the local youth club and when we arrived in Dublin there was no rationing on sweets, it was heaven! I bought a whole box of Wrigley's Spearmint.

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