大象传媒

I was four when I first became really aware of the war. I had seen soldiers walking about in uniform. Then one evening I heard a strange droning noise coming steadily nearer.
I looked up and asked "what's that noise, Dad? "
"That's Jerry on his way to bomb Bristol".
My cousins Gill and Tony lived in Bristol, where my uncle worked at Robertson's jam factory during the day and as a voluntary fire-warden at night.
Dad went on, "Don't worry, they'll all be down in the Anderson shelter by now".
On our next visit we were shown the Anderson shelter. I was glad I didn't have to sleep in it as it was so dark and damp.
Gill and Tony slept under the stairs so that they wouldn't have to go very far to the shelter in the garden. That looked much more fun, they had their teddies, coats and gas masks. We had to practise putting on our gas masks at school, and even one with a Mickey Mouse face didn't stop the awful feeling of being suffocated.

Dad went with my uncle on his warden's round. They had been to their sister's wedding, and dad was still wearing his best suit. Ordinarily, this was worn only on Sundays, or to weddings or funerals, being brushed after each event and hung up carefully in the wardrobe. Suddenly, a bomb fell near them and they were showered with debris from a collapsing building.
"Lie down," screamed my uncle.
"But I'm wearing my best suit," protested dad.
Finally my uncle pushed dad to the ground. The next day dad drove through Bristol, passing still-burning buildings and back to the safety of Cheddar and his grocery store.

I remember helping dad sort out the tea, sugar and fats coupons, and counting them. Nobody talked about diet then; they were only too pleased to be able to get anything to eat. Great care had to be taken that food not on ration, but scarce, was allocated fairly. I shall never forget my great aunt's thin-lipped grimace, and accusing finger stabbing at my father when she reported seeing banana skins in a neighbour's bin.
"Why didn't I get any?".
"All in good time," said dad.
"I'm working my way alphabetically through my list".

As Cheddar was considered a safe place, children were evacuated from Bristol and from Vicarage Junior School of Stratford, East London. Cheddar British School doubled in size, and for a time local children used the school in the mornings and the evacuees in the afternoons. Some of the evacuees had head lice, which made for very ill-feeling between the mums of the locals and of the evacuees. Many of the children were billeted into houses where they had spare bedrooms. My grandmother had a large house and she was given five girls to look after. However, Gran made the most of it, and soon had them well trained in doing household chores to keep them busy.
"Satan finds work for idle hands to do," was her motto. The girls did not appreciate this at the time, but on return visits they did say how useful the training had been for when they had their own homes to run.

Whilst the Generals planned their campaigns, my parents used equal determination, skills and ingenuity in trying to give their children a good Christmas. Owning a shop was a bonus, as goods were delivered in boxes. Best of all were the wooden boxes from New Zealand, containing butter. Dad used the wood to make a framework and bed-head, and cut up a hessian sack that sugar came in to make a wonderful doll's bed. This was big enough and strong enough to hold my young sister. Mum cut out sheets, and even a little blue quilt, from old bed linen. Dolls donated by girls now grown up, and more interested in the soldiers, completed our Christmas presents.

Living on the Mendips we had access to its' wooded slopes. Cutting down trees was not approved of, so care had to be taken in getting a Christmas tree. Dad took me, a large cardboard box and a pen-knife, well honed on the whetstone. We walked on top of the hill, but there were people about, so we walked half-way down the stone steps of Jacob's Ladder, and took a path leading from it at right-angles. We saw what we wanted, and whilst I kept a look-out on the steps, dad cut down the tree and carefully put it in the box. In those days, getting away with something added to the pleasure.

Like most families in Cheddar, my parents rented a few acres of land, on which they grew enough vegetables to feed the family. In summer they grew strawberries as a cash crop. Anyone who could produce food did well during the war years, and this enabled my parents to buy their own home.

Any sort of machinery was scarce, and we considered ourselves very fortunate when a friend offered to lend us a horse to pull the plough. Fortunately, the horse was used to this work, which dad wasn't, and the first day a large area of ground was ploughed. But in the night the horse escaped by kicking down the door, and had joined a group of horses on top Mendip.

Dad and I trudged after them, and after a very hot morning, reluctantly having to play hide-and-seek with the horses, we managed to corner our horse against a cliff. Then, dad held out a handful of oats, and the games were over.
"Would you like to ride her?" he asked.
I was rather worried at first, especially as there was no saddle or reigns, but I accepted gratefully as I was so tired.

On our way to school, we had to pass a stone barn which held two Italian prisoners-of-war. They were locked up at night, but had to work on the land during the day.When I told my parents that I was too frightened to walk that way to school, dad took me, balanced on the front of his bike. As we passed the stone barn, we passed them coming out. They waved and smiled. They seemed so friendly, that I couldn't understand why we were fighting them.
"They won't hurt you, they are only too glad to be out of the war," said dad.

Another time, on our way to school, we heard a steady runbling noise, and found we couldn't cross the main road due to a seemingly endless convoy of fast-moving tanks and armoured cars. We had to wait so long, that we were late for school. Normally, our headmaster, Mr. Tyson, would have been very angry, but on this occasion he listened to our stammered apologies, and told us to go quietly to our classes. Later, we learned that they were on their way to take part in the Normandy landing.

My father was a local Methodist preacher, who had to drive to local churches to take the services. I was sometimes taken with him as a treat. Coming out from church, one particularly stormy morning, we saw that a large number of apples had been blown onto the road. A serious discussion followed as to whether it was right to take someone else's apples. Then a car drove past, crushing many of them. That settled it. In war-time, it was wrong to waste food. The surviving apples were picked up and shared around.

Driving back to Cheddar from Shipham, we passed two American soldiers, and so we offered them a lift to their camp in the Gorge. In return, they invited us to a film-show there - the first I had ever seen (black and white, of course).

A year later, the war in Europe ended, and in school this was celebrated by a special tea, which included meat and fish-past sandwiches, finishing with stawberries served with a sprinkling of sugar.

Then, one evening, my father took me up the gorge. We took an old rubber mat to sit on, and watched the fireworks. Wires had been criss-crossed across the gorge for the fireworks to travel along. As a grand finale, a cascade of yellow and white fireworks fell like a watrerfall down the sides of the gorge. We could see the dark silhouettes of the soldiers, at the top letting them off.

Afterwards, the evacuees returned to London and Bristol, the soldiers returned to civvy-street, and life lost some of its' unpredictability and excitement.Mrs Marilyn Hawes nee Carter

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