大象传媒

I was just 9 years old on September 3rd 1939. I remember Chamberlain's speech telling us we were at war with Germany followed a few minutes later with the first air raid siren of the war. I helped Dad pull some furniture in front of the windows and we hid under the dining room table. It was a false alarm, but we then had to put sticky tape patterns on the glass to stop it flying everywhere if a bomb dropped near.

Within a few days, Dad, who had retired from the Navy in 1934, having served in the first war, was called up and sent to Portsmouth. Mum and I left Harrow where we had lived since 1934, and stayed with my Grandmother who lived in North End Portsmouth until we found a house in Alverstoke near Gosport. After Dunkirk, the Blitz started, and we went over to Portsmouth at the weekends to be with Grandma as she was getting bombs near by.

My cousin who was a lot older than me, had got married just before the war. His wife lived a few streets away and had two small babies. They were bombed out and spent the night in a water filled gutter, with her on top of the babies to offer some protection from the bombs which were still coming down. Shrapnel was a problem as it came down even after the all clear had sounded.

At school we had been issued with gas masks which were fitted, I think by an ARP man at our school. This fitting process was very important for the mask to fit properly. There were however, three things about these gas masks. One, they were smelly to wear, being made of rubber. Two, it was very difficult to understand what the wearer was saying, and three, we found that with a bit of ajustment, soon passed on to everyone in school, that on breathing out a very rude noise could be produced.

Someone decided that if it was O.K for lessons to be continued in the air raid shelter with bombs falling, it was equally OK for lessons to continue in the event of a gas attack. In view of the problems for the teachers described above, we only had one trial lesson.

On the subject of Gas Attacks, at about this time, ie August of 1940, we had diamond-shaped panels attatched to posts in the country side. These diamonds were painted with something that changed colour in the event of a gas attack. For several days, as soon as I was up, I got on my bike and rode up to see if it had changed colour. I then rode back up the road and reported that there had not been a gas attack in the night. After some days it was pointed out to me that that if there had have been it was unlikely I would be in a position to report the incident. An example of this can be seen on a tiger moth training aircraft at the Shuttleworth collection at Old Warden aerodrome.

We shared an air raid shelter with some friends a few doors down from where we were staying in Alverstoke and me and Dick, (my best friend) insisted on sitting next to the door wearing our toy tin hats. He was armed with an old air rifle which only fired a slug if he pointed the gun down and shook it. I had a blunt penknife which mum wouldn't let me sharpen in case I hurt myself. With these fearsome weapons we were going to protect our families from the Germans. I found out after the war that the beach near us was on Hitler's Sea Lion plan.

From Portsmouth Dad moved us to a village near Hazlemere in Surrey. I didn't like the country much although now I find it a very pretty area. Something I do remember was "helping" the farmers with the Harvest (so this must have been in August 1940). As the harvester went round the fields, the farmers stood with their shot guns shooting rabbits, and the kids ran around trying to catch one. What would the Health and Safety people say today?

We were there only about six months and went back to Harrow where I was much happier. The schools I attended at the time are still there and don't look very different. On a recent visit I took photos of them for the scrap book. At the back of our school there was a council tip and allotments. There was also an AA gun and a large bomb crater. Which in fact was a fort to be defended from the Indians, or on occasions was a bicycle race track. We were not very far from Northolt aerodrome, we could, being small, sneak under the barbed wire and sit and watch the planes taking off and landing. This was a Polish spitfire base during the battle of Britain. One day, we were happily minding our own business when a sentry caught us and told us if we weren't out of there within five minutes he would shoot us. We were and he didn't.

At school we had victory weeks, when we did things for the war effort, all I can remember is that we had competitions. Some of us made models out of Meccano. One year this was described by the head master that the boys had created some remarkable erections, this brought some titters from the older boys but was lost on us youngsters.

Collecting bullet cases and shell fragments was everybody's hobby. We collected after an air raid, anything with German words on was prized. As the war progressed the bullet cases became bigger, presumably cannon shells. We collected them in shoe boxes.

At school a lesson was called current affairs, a map was kept on the wall and pins were put in to show where the battles were taking place. The Russian names had us foxed, especially as we tried to pronounce them. As the war progressed we had further visits from the police and ARP people about not touching unexploded bombs or the latest type of bomb which was an anti personnel bomb called a butterfly which came down like a sycamore leaf and jumped into the air and exploded when touched.

Then came the V1's, or doodlebugs which made a very distinctive sound and was quite safe untill the noise of its engine stopped and it was time to take cover . Then came the V2's which you didn't hear coming. We were told the first one was Brentford gas works exploding by accident. The government did not want to frighten us, but when they became a regular thing they couldn't hide it any longer. It was luck the war ended when it did for the Germans were far ahead of us as far as weapons were concerned.

Food, we never went hungry but everything was rationed. The strange thing was that because of rationing everyone had the right amount of food to keep them healthy. No McDonalds for instance, junk food had not been invented. So unless we got shot or bombed we were alright. Strange thing was that rationing got worse in the years after the war.

Entertainment consisted of an occasional trip to the cinema where you had to queue for ages to see a film that you can now see on 大象传媒 Two on November afternoons, and jolly good they were too. Our favourites were Danny Kay and Abbot and Costello, not to mention the latest western, where the goodies wore white hats and the baddies black ones. The had fierce fights but they never lost their hats. We had an excellent theatre a short bus ride away that always had a very good pantomime.

The strange thing about this time is that it's all clear in my memory and I can't remember anyone being frightened. I can remember looking out of my back garden at night and seeing the horizon to the east glow red and people saying that the East End had copped it tonight. Our particular friends came from Bethnal green and had left many family and friends there.

As a postscript to this, if you watch some of the Ealing films made in the years after the war, such as The Blue Lamp or Passage to Pimlico, you get a very good idea of what London was like after the Blitz. Especially the films in black and white, which is the way I remember it.

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