´óÏó´«Ã½

At outbreak of war I was aged 10yr and living in a Wiltshire village near Bradford-on-Avon. No TV then and radio rarely on since it needed a charged-up accumulator, also no newspaper because the small family income didn’t warrant it. Consequently I was barely aware of impending war, except I already possessed a gasmask and I remember people were joyful when Chamberlain returned from Munich with a document from Hitler promising — ‘Peace in our time’.

I was staying with maternal grandparents on 3rd September 1939 while we sat quietly beside the radio at 11am for an important announcement, then Premier Chamberlain declared ‘Since I have not received a further communication from Hitler our Country is now at war’. That afternoon at least 100 aeroplanes flew overhead assigned to military airfields so already things were changing.

Next day each household was visited to find whether spare bedrooms were available for London evacuees. I recall Grandfather constructing a wooden bed frame but no children came to this hamlet. A blackout was required for each window so we didn’t show any light and street-lamps were switched off for duration of the war. Immediately petrol was rationed with businessmen receiving coupons so the few private cars owned by gentry were laid-up till after the war. Headlights were masked to allow just a slit of illumination so pedestrians knew a motor was coming but the driver had a very restricted vision of the road. Most country folk used a bicycle as means of transport and signposts were removed so invaders wouldn’t know where to go. Soon men appeared with oxy-acetylene cutters to remove all iron railings for melting-down to make into munitions.

The Ministry of Food opened an office for each community where we got Identity Cards and Ration Books. We had to register annually with a grocer so stores had sufficient to supply each customer with his weekly needs e.g. 4oz. sugar, 4oz. butter, 8oz. margarine, 2oz.tea, 4oz. bacon, 2 eggs. At the butcher’s we got 4oz. meat, 2oz. corned-beef and 2 sausages. Also we had coupons to get either a bar of chocolate or 4oz. sweets per week and clothing coupons that barely sufficed to keep us dressed. I recall most women knitted, being the most economical way to make coupons go round while discarded clothes were unpicked so wool could be used again. Since clothes were darned and patched to keep them serviceable I soon had leather patches on elbows and cuffs of the school blazer and segs in my shoes to prolong wear. When a shop received a limited supply of an un-rationed item a queue of people would form able to purchase one each. I quickly learned - if you see a queue join it then enquire after what we were lining-up for.

It was no longer permissible to ring church bells unless parachutists were seen so everybody could be alerted about possible invasion by the enemy. After a year it became less likely we would be invaded, yet the bells did not ring again until peace was declared. We became familiar with air-raid sirens, being a warbling sound for approaching enemy planes and later a sustained note for the all-clear. The air-raid warning gave time to hurry to a shelter before bombs were dropped. At school we practised alarm drill and I recall places where I shared a reputed safer place with fellow pupils. These were either beneath floor-level alongside the boilers, or across the yard into the fuel-shed, or into master’s cloakroom having few windows. Sometimes we pushed school desks across the classroom to touch the wall then crouched underneath. We spent a frightening half hour there one day while fighter planes screamed overhead to break-up an enemy formation.

I started at local Grammar School in September 1939 where an enthusiastic master taught PE and sport and how I enjoyed the gym with its wall-bars, climbing ropes, vaulting horse and benches, while for games I was learning to dribble a football around posts and getting the steps right with a correct stance for jumping hurdles. By Christmas-time all young masters received call-up papers, so the rest of secondary education was with young lady graduates plus grey haired men who stayed beyond retirement. An arthritic master with a limp took boys PE and sport, but after one boy fell and dislocated his shoulder we never used the gym apparatus again. We received no skills training in football or cricket and inter-school sports matches ceased. The town swimming baths were taken over by the army and if I occasionally visited a seaside the beaches were mined and barricaded so opportunities for learning to swim were virtually nil. The girls had a PE specialist so their gymnastics hockey and tennis continued but for the boys we were sent on a cross-country run for games and just occasionally played unstructured football with little idea of the rules. Our text-books were tatty, there was minimum equipment for science and little opportunity for artistic expression, yet it was war years so school reflected the restrictions being experienced in every-day life.

Everybody was expected to do voluntary work to help the war effort. I recall my parents doing a turn of fire-watch duty, staying awake armed with a stirrup pump in case incendiary bombs were dropped, but this soon stopped because the risk within a village was negligible. My father was in LDV (Local Defence Volunteers) equipped with a pickaxe handle and arm-band, ready to defend us against enemy parachutists. Ladies were trained at the village manor in how to administer bandages asking older children to act as patients. Next the Home Guard was set-up then for realistic practice a platoon from one town would attempt to infiltrate its way into another’s territory. Each Sunday the Home Guards practised throwing hand grenades into the local quarry.

I was a messenger boy when people were evacuated to our village after some devastating air-raids on the city of Bath. Each Saturday morning I did a round with a wheel barrow to collect waste-paper for recycling to save valuable resources. We were encouraged to pick rose hips in the autumn for small recompense to be made into rose-hip syrup rich in vitamins.

Living in the countryside meant I had little direct experience of war. Sometimes an army contingent would be under canvas in a local field to switch on its searchlight as enemy bombers flew towards Bristol so they could be shot down. Also when RAF bombers limped home from a raid, searchlights may sweep towards the horizon and indicate presence of an aerodrome. For several weeks prior to Normandy landings I saw scores of gliders, probably from Keevil airbase being towed across on practice missions, then at D Day I saw them pulled during the night en route to France. When war was over I reached the age group to be called for National Service but that’s another story.

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