大象传媒

Domestic Life
At home there was considerable activity putting brown tape across windows to reduce the effect of flying glass splinters. Windows and doors were provided with extra layers of curtain to prevent the emission of light.
The lamplighter no longer went on his twice-daily journeys at dusk and dawn; when darkness came, it was really dark! Double British Summertime was introduced the following year to 鈥榠ncrease鈥� the hours of daylight available, though I never really understood how this worked!

Torches were masked with paper, car headlights fitted with masks to prevent beams. My father was fined 7shillings and 6pence [37.5p], roughly the equivalent of two days pay, for riding his bicycle with too bright a front light. My Mother had to go to Court as we could ill afford to incur the additional penalty of half a days pay which attendance at Court would have cost. Luminous lapel buttons were a novel but somewhat ineffective method of preventing people bumping into each other in the unlit streets.
Even the normally mundane activity of passing through an exterior door now became a tortuous exercise in ensuring that the curtain was secure behind you before opening the door. ARP [Air Raid Precaution] Wardens and Special Constables patrolled the streets, their presence in the dark revealed only by their frequent cries of 鈥淧ut that light out!鈥�

It was some while before air raids actually interrupted our lives, but when they did it was very real, although in comparison with what other localities suffered, we were fortunate.
Initially we slept as normal, but as reality grew upon us new measures were introduced. Street shelters took some time to erect and we relied upon the resourcefulness of our parents.
It was known that structurally the staircase offered considerable protection from falling masonry, and so our father put shelves into the cupboard under the stairs and these became our nightly bunks. However they were impractical and uncomfortable. Version two was to erect a double bed in a ground floor room and slide a mattress beneath it. The side was then protected by a settee laid upon its side. Going to bed became something of an adventure - almost like being a miner!
One of our relatives was fortunate enough to have a garden and they obtained an Anderson Shelter made out of corrugated metal sheeting. This was partially submerged in the ground then covered with the soil that had been excavated. It was equipped with beds for the children but unfortunately became so damp as to be unusable.

Eventually communal street shelters were erected. One type had semi circular steel sheets bolted together, then placed upon dwarf walls of slabs to give extra height. The ends were sealed with sand bags, and the roof was similarly covered. Families were allocated to each shelter and immediately set about making them habitable with furniture and beds.
In other areas reinforced brick shelters were constructed. These were smaller and each had two escape routes.

As a child, I thought air raids were fun. I cannot recall spending a whole night in a shelter, rather we were aroused by the mournful wailing and scurried to get dressed in warm clothing and dash a hundred yards or so to the shelter in the next street. On the way out of the house, we collected items such as candles and lamps that had been set out the previous evening. I also insisted on having sandwiches and a bottle of water 鈥� as if we were going on a picnic.

Whilst the atmosphere was one of camaraderie, the adults also were concerned about the outcomes 鈥� what would happen if a bomb did fall on our houses? We could hear the whistle as they fell and the crump as they exploded. Unless they were very close we could only speculate what was happening and where. Adult males were frequently to be found outside the shelter trying to speculate what was happening, and naturally the youngsters wanted to be there too.

On one occasion, when we were embedded under the stairs, my father was standing on the step leading to the back yard when there was a horrendous sound the like of which we had not heard before. He dashed back into the house saying, 鈥淕et under those b--- stairs they are coming over in their thousands!鈥� The noise continued for quite period and occurred on subsequent nights. Whilst relieved that it was not 鈥榯housands鈥� of German bombers, we were puzzled as to what it might have been. It took some time, such was the secrecy, before we found out that it was the ICI chemical works at Billingham venting off steam to form a cloud to obscure their location.

The day following any air raid there was intense speculation as to what had happened the night before and who, in the local parlance 鈥渉ad copped it!鈥� We usually had to wait until the Evening Gazette became available to get a real picture, although I am sure that they were under constraints as to how much or how little to reveal. Needless to say there was huge speculation and news travelled quite quickly once people got out and about to resume their daily activities.

The nearest occurrence was a direct hit on several houses in Shakespeare Street about 400 yards from where we lived.
One night, after the all clear had sounded, we went to a vantage point on Linthorpe Road from which we could see a huge conflagration about half a mile away where the Wellington Hall and several shops were well ablaze, but mostly our most urgent desire was to get back into our warm beds and get to sleep.

Ironically, one of the worst experiences occurred quite late in the war, early on a Saturday evening in Winter, when a Hudson bomber on the flight path into Thornaby aerodrome shed its bomb load on houses close to Linthorpe Schools, creating a considerable amount of damage.

Schoolchildren spent the morning walk to school seeking 鈥榮hrapnel鈥� to add to their collection. Bullets were highly prized, and if one could obtain a piece of an aircraft you quickly assumed a high level of what would now be known as 鈥榗red鈥�, but mostly it was shards of metal from shells fired from out AA batteries.

It is my recollection that, for children, it was an unreal atmosphere. We could not comprehend what was happening although we did know it was of tremendous significance somehow. We read the newspapers [the headlines at least], and knew that British Forces were not doing well. We listened, with our parents, to Churchill, and were stirred. We listened occasionally to Lord Haw Haw and were as sceptical as only children can be. Our sleep and education were disrupted. Our family split by evacuation, and yet we carried on as if nothing could change for us, blissfully unaware of the real consequences if things should go badly wrong.

We could not escape the everyday reality. Rationing restricted our diet. Passage to other parts of the town restricted by concrete barricades. Even children were obliged to have their own identity cards that had to be produced. Town names and direction signs were removed. Iron railings acetylene burned from houses and churchyards to help with the war effort.

I was fortunate that none of my relatives were directly involved in the conflict itself. Father and uncles had all served in the First World War and had their mental and physical scars, and were exempt, except for duties such as Air raid Wardens and Special Constabulary. No one in my immediate circle had any relative killed, so the horrors of that were unknown.

A neighbour had a son captured by the Germans, and we knew that he could receive Red Cross parcels. A number of us ransacked our houses and had what amounted to a 鈥榯able top鈥� sale to raise money for one for him.

I cannot say that I felt any serious loss at my brother and sister being evacuated. Both had different experiences, my brother having a bad one initially, but having the time of his life on a second placement in Pickering. My sister was more fortunate, being settled with a stable family with a daughter of their own.

We were allowed one visit to see them and I recall the excitement of going on an excursion in a bus to see them. It is difficult to comprehend what we now take for granted
being such a momentous event. Packing the sandwiches, boarding the bus, travelling roads that one never knew existed, the wonder of the countryside, all so much to take in!

My sister was lodged with a family on a railway station, which increased my interest several fold. I recall being allowed to wave the red and green flags 鈥� even though there were no trains, it being a Sunday!

My Father had served in the Army in the First World War, and had been wounded several times. This precluded him from serving in the Armed Forces, but as mentioned previously he was required to perform various local functions. Later in the war, as the threat from air raids diminished he was obliged to go away to undertake 鈥榙irected鈥� labour. He was sent to an airfield under construction hear Helmsley and had to live in lodgings in Scarborough, from whence a special train made the daily journey packed with other workers.

Winter 1941 was bitter and prolonged. It seemed as if everything possible was conspiring against us. The news of the war was far from good. Rationing restricted our diets 鈥� sweets, the comforter of all children, were very restricted in choice 鈥� even milk chocolate was a thing of the past in order to conserve milk production, a substitute called 鈥榖lended鈥� being introduced.
Coal was rationed making keeping a warm house virtually impossible.

Horse drawn milk- and coal-carts struggled through the deep snow to deliver their loads. One always felt sorry for the horses! Deliveries, especially of coal, were unpredictable. Unemployed workers were set to clearing the pavements of the more important roads. The main lake in Albert Park was frozen and, for the only time I can recall, we were allowed to walk freely on the ice.

Keeping warm was a major occupation and many people suffered with burst water pipes. One similarity with today was that one could never get hold of a plumber quickly!

Barricades made of concrete blocks were constructed across various roads, at a fairly early stage in the war. Whilst impressive, in hindsight there seems to have been little strategic thought in their locations. Some were in quiet back streets, serving very little purpose, whilst others appeared to have been constructed to make the job of bus drivers more difficult.
Some rendered roads impassable to vehicular traffic, others had a narrow opening to allow traffic to pass through. This opening was supposed to be closed with vertical girders in the event of attack.

Private cars were not prolific on the streets even before the advent of war, and virtually disappeared after the declaration. A few people who required them for special purposes converted them [to run on coal gas], I believe. This required a large bag to be installed on a frame on the car roof to replace the petrol tank. Although I cannot recall any accidents, they must have been a serious hazard to any one in the vicinity had one exploded!

Many fields and parklands sprouted a rash of concrete posts about eight feet high intended as a hazard for enemy gliders should they land. Road direction signs disappeared

In Albert Park a Barrage Balloon was set up manned by WAAFS, which became a great source of interest to the youngsters 鈥� especially when there was a thunderstorm, when it was hoped it would be struck so that we could see the consequent fireball! Quite why Albert Park, I cannot imagine as even to me one balloon in isolation did not appear to offer much in the shape of protection when bombers could easily divert around it. So far as I recall there could not have been more than a score of these protecting the whole of the Tees Basin.

Ironically two of the largest incidents of destruction by fire were not attributable to enemy action, one was perhaps accidental but the other was arson. These conflagrations robbed the town of two of its largest Department Stores, Binn鈥檚 and Dickson鈥檚 & Benson鈥檚 [with its unique Arcade] within a very short time frame. Whilst Binn鈥檚 re-established itself in several other locations and eventually restored the original building, D & B鈥檚 did not seem to recover and eventually went out of business.

The basement of Binn鈥檚 was not badly damaged and was subsequently converted for use as a British Restaurant 鈥� perhaps a unique establishment that only the British could think of in a moment of patriotic fervour, for feeding a large number of people at relatively low cost 鈥� and the quality certainly reflected this!

Each year throughout the war there were special weeks set aside to encourage people to invest savings into specific sectors. 鈥楽ave for a Spitfire鈥� was one I recall, and there were others for the Navy and Army. A large notice board would be set up in the town centre with a climbing graph to indicate how close to the target we had got.

There is a contemporary fashion for wrought iron railings. If you walk around many areas of the town where various sized gardens front the house, small marks can be seen set into the coping stones. These are all that remains of the railings that disappeared as part of the War Effort 鈥� yet another small sacrifice to build more tanks, guns and ships.

Such was the voracious appetite of the blast furnaces that a First World War tank which had stood as a memorial in Park Road North, not far from the Cenotaph, was deemed to be of more use in creating a new weapon of war and disappeared in a good cause! Strangely, however, a Crimean War cannon, a feature of Albert Park, did not suffer a similar fate.

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