大象传媒

My Childhood during WW11
At the beginning of the war, I was nine years old and living with an aunt and uncle in Birmingham. When the air raid sirens would start in the middle of the night, the bombs were already falling. Every house in our area was supplied with an air raid shelter. Some were steel framed and had a thick top which people put in their house in one of the rooms and you climbed inside if the bombing started; others - which my uncle had - were called Anderson Shelters and made of corrugated steel. We had to dig a six-foot hole in the ground at the bottom of the garden. As a child, I used to play at the bottom of the garden, as there was a wonderfully large oak tree and a little copse with bluebells and ferns. I would play there for hours, making mud pies and in a world of my own. But then when we put together the air-raid shelter in the ground, which was something like a miniature Nissan hut, it ruined my little area. It was covered with earth and most people - being English - built a garden over it. We had bunk beds down there and kept a supply of food etc. About two or three streets away, what was a park, became an antiaircraft site. One night we watched a searchlight locate a plane and actually saw it shot down. We also stood on our lawn and watched as Coventry was being bombed as we lived on the easterly side of Birmingham. Of course all we could see was what appeared to be fireworks in the sky.
Each street had a designated person to be the air raid warden who would have a helmet and patrol the street to make sure no lights were showing through the blacked out windows and doors. My uncle was our street head warden and as each warden came on duty, they had to check in at a particular house, which at the time was our house. Everyone had to carry his or her gas mask, even school children. When the bombing started, it was best to leave a front window or door and a back window or door open, so the blast from the bombs would go straight through and not break windows (that was the theory which seemed to work, unless you had a close or direct hit). This one night that I recall very vividly - the bombs were falling, the sirens were going and my auntie was trying to wake me up. As I came running down the stairs putting my on 鈥渟iren suit鈥� (an all in one outfit with a hood). I could see through the open door the red glow on the houses opposite and I thought we were going to be blown up. We hurried down the shelter as fast as possible. But next morning, we were still expected to go to school at Fentham Road, and I would meet up with my friends and we would look at all the bombed houses etc., and craters especially around Six Ways, Erdington where there was a huge hole caused by a land mine. The boys' school was bombed and we had to share our girls school with them, alternating one week mornings and the next afternoons, with the boys on the opposite part of the day.
Most people during the war had an 鈥渁llotment.鈥� The council ploughed up nearby fields and/or parks, and divided them into strips of land, which could be rented for a nominal fee. The idea was that vegetables could be grown to help with the food supply. Most people had one and most would erect a shed to keep the garden tools etc. inside. My aunt and uncle used to have a prima stove (i.e. Coleman stove) so we could make a 鈥渃uppa tea鈥� - which was greatly appreciated after pulling weeds, or digging rows to plant potatoes, or whatever we did. It was certainly a great experience, but there was always too much food, so my uncle would take it round the neighbours, or to my grandmother around the corner. Anyway, it tasted wonderful.
During the years 1943 through 1945, after taking the 11 plus, I attended a school in Aston, Birmingham. It was still wartime and, due to the shortage of men away in the forces, women went to work (probably for the first time in their lives) if they had children at home who were fourteen years of age or older. My auntie went to work in a munition factory in Birmingham. She was all of four feet something, very small in build, but she loved it. It was her emancipation. She worked on 40 millimeter shells, and, in due time, she had muscles in her arms as hard as tennis balls, so she called them her 鈥�40-millimeter arms.鈥� As this was going on, in our summer school holidays, it was arranged that we students should be sent to camp for a month, mostly to work in the fields to help the farmers gather their crops and also to do some school work. We were sent to Bidford, near Stratford on Avon. Big army bell tents were set up housing eight students in each tent, so on the left side of the field was for the girls and some on the right side of the field for the boys, and the teachers鈥� tents were along the middle. Our beds were palliasses (some kind of sack filled with straw). Some tents were set up for schoolwork and one for First Aid. For some unknown reason, I was selected with a boy to be the firstaiders. I guess I had a soft nature and could handle splinters etc., which, together with blisters, was the main 鈥渇irst aiding鈥� we had to cope with. Our lessons were great, as we went on field trips to old Norman churches and studied the architecture; went to the Shakespearean Theatre at Stratford and saw King Lear. Typing was done (on manual machines, of course) and we learned to draw pictures or names using the letters "x" and "y" - instead of the old humdrum typing of letters etc. After lunch, we would all change into whatever old clothes we had and off to the farms we would go in big trucks. The first field I worked on was picking strawberries. The farmer, being a wise man, said we could eat as many we liked. Strawberries were a luxury for wartime 鈥渃ity鈥� kids, so of course we ate as many as we could, and the lines of strawberries were so long, we could hardly see the end of the row. Needless to say, it didn鈥檛 take us long to be sick of eating strawberries, and it took me many years to face another strawberry. It was an adventure and being in the country, we had no bombing in that area, even though it was not that far from Birmingham.
The war finished in Europe (Victory in Europe - VE day for short) on May 8, 1945 and there was jubilation everywhere. All through this period of time, I had a friend who lived up the street. She was a very Irish Catholic, and I would go to her church, The Abbey, in Erdington village. They had such a wonderful youth club, with girls nights and boys nights, and on Saturday both boys and girls could go. There would be priests there and they would play records and dance. You could only stay in the club to age 21. I really loved those days. When VE day finally came the club was going to put on a special evening with a bon fire and games and a lot of fun. The priests were always there to act as chaperones. After a lot of begging, my uncle said I could stay out till 11:00 p.m. (Very late as 9:00 was my curfew time). My friend and I were excited and ran all the way (at least three miles) to the church. There was so much activity, and having lived in complete blackout all through the war, it was wonderful to see streetlights, fireworks and bonfires everywhere. We were having such a good time and finally we asked one of the priests for the time and when he said 1:00 a.m., we were in total shock. I don鈥檛 know why they had allowed it to go on so long, but I guess they too were enjoying this feeling of relief from bombing etc. My friend and I ran all the way home knowing we were in deep trouble.
Sandbags were piled by the doors of our houses, in case of fire from incendiary bombs. My uncle鈥檚 house had a big wooden front door, as well as a vestibule, (hallway) with a glass door inside. Whenever the wooden door was shut, that meant everyone was in bed. The minute I saw the wooden door was shut, my heart sank. My uncle had never been angry with me, and as I rang the doorbell, I rang several times, and finally, a bedroom window shot up above me. A voice bellowed down 鈥渨ho鈥檚 there鈥� and when I answered, he said, 鈥渘o-one by that name lives here.鈥� I sat down on the sandbags and cried. I didn鈥檛 know what to do, I was only sixteen. I considered going to my grandmother around the corner, but at that time of night, I knew she wouldn鈥檛 be up. Finally, the window opened again, and a key came down on a string. I heard footsteps bumping down the stairs inside and the glass door was unlocked. My uncle took me by the ear and stood me in front of the big clock in the living room, and asked if I could see the time. I think that was the only time in my life, he came near to giving me a spanking, but fortunately he didn鈥檛. He just didn鈥檛 speak to me for a week and I really had to apologize over and over to get him to come round. Finally he did, and the incident was never mentioned again, but I never forgot, either.
Betty Fraemohs White

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