大象传媒

The most pervasive element in my early memories is undoubtedly the war.
The first datable memory of my life is the blitz bombing of Coventry on 15th November 1940. We heard the air raid warning and had to make our way to the shelter which Dad had built in the back garden, well away from the house. He carried me, aged nearly 3, with Mum carrying my sister aged nearly 2 and Nanny bringing up the rear. Coventry was just over the horison to the east. We could feel the ground tremblingfrom the impact of the bombs and the whole skyline was ablaze with searchlights and incendiary fire. I don't remember being frightened but I'll never forget it.

We'll fight them in the Gardens!

The only other specific direct incident I recall(we were relatively safe in our countrified corner on the very edge of Birmingham) was in the summer of 1943. We children were just getting up from our afternoon nap. We looked out of the back upstairs window and screamed with terror. A long file of soldiers with mud-blackened faces and tree sprigs in in their helmets for camouflage, carrying their rifles at the ready, were silently crouching their way up our back path and round the side of the house. We were convinced that they were the enemy and that our time had come. Our screams quickly brought Mummy and Nanny up to calm us. It turned out that nanny had been out gardening and had been approached by a squad of soldiers on exercise, who had asked her permission to use our garden as a short cut. After being asked what side they were on and being reassured that they were us and the other side in the exercise were them, she had let them through! What a fright! There was a wart-time joke about a stranger in Whitehall asking a disillusioned Army Officer,"Which side is the War Office on?" "I wish I knew!" was the perplexed reply.

How the war affected us.

The war did affect us, of course in many ways. Ww who were children won't forget in a nhurry the dreadful periodic experience of donning our little 'micky mouse' respirators, with the restriction to our breathing, the musty smell and the steaming up of the transparent panel we were supposed to see out of. Nor will we forget the frisson of fear at the wail of the air-raid warning, or the relief when the all clear sounded. Shelter was another matter. The garden reteat was improved on later, when Dad built a much bigger shelter on the side of the house, which obviated the need to go outside. We used to love climbing onto the flat concrete roof and years later when I visited the house in 1990, I was able to enlighten the owner as to the origin of the cement platform he had found a mysterious 18 inches below the surface when he in turn, was building a garage extention on the same spot! He had also been intrigued by the strange nook in the corner of the kitchen, which Iwas able to tell him had once housed the copper boiler in its brickwork setting, in which Nan and Mum would do the weekly wash- endlessly pounding up and down with a wooden plunger to agitate the clothing or bedding. It was the 1950@s before we ever had even a primative washing mashine. Later, when the intensity of the bombing dimished, we would sometimes sleep in the dining room under the solid oak table.
the main source of information and entertainment was our good old pre-war radio with its accumulator battery, which had to be periodically discharged. The 大象传媒 was the only broadcaster in those days, but listening to 'The News' was an unmissable daily ritual, while shows like 'Workers' Playtime an Tommy Handleys 'I.T.M.A.'(It's that man again0 did a lot to keep us happy and cheerful.

A lot of information (and propaganda) came via leaflets and posters. Catchy phrases and little rhymes were the order of the day. The Doctor's waiting room wall would remind you that 'Walls have ears' and on the buses it would be,

'Coughs and sneezes spread diseases,
Catch them in your handkerchievses.'

Posters everywherewould bid you to 'Dig for Victory', or advertise National Savings schemes, Hospital fund-raising events or pleas to contribute to the Spitfire Fund.

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