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Bridget White A School Girls war

The first time I ever saw my mother cry was on the day in 1938 when Neville Chamberlain came back from talks with Hitler in Munich and saying ‘peace in our time’. As far as I was concerned that was the day the war started. I was ten years old and, from my perspective, if the grown —ups were crying there must be something pretty terrible happening. In fact my mothers tears (believe it or not) were tears of relieve because she chose to think Chamberlain had got it right. Her memories of the first world war were still very much with her and any hope that we were not to be plunged into another blood-bath was a straw to be clutched at. During the following year of course it became increasingly obvious, even to a ten year old, that Hitler was not to be appeased and war was inevitable. Goodbye Chamberlain. Hello Churchill.

During the year 1938/39 all kind of preparations were hastily made. By the time September 1939 came round everyone had stiffened up their sinews and it was a time of firm resolve. Again, from a childes view, the thing I remember at school was the issuing
of gas masks. We all had to try them on and were told to keep a small piece of soap inside the mask to wipe over the eye-piece to stop them from misting up. We had to do mock air-raid practices going down into the shelters actually wearing our gas masks. The shelters had been hastily dug into a bank at the far end of the playing fields and were very and smelly and the masks were very uncomfortable and gave all headaches. Thank goodness we never had to wear it ‘for real’ we were far enough from London to be fairly safe from bombs and the expected gas attacks did not materialise. At this time many hundreds of sandbags began to appear — mostly in the doorways of public buildings ( such as Police stations) and protective blast walls were also erected at prime sites. This kept the men busy and all the women were hard at work making blackout curtains, as every window had to be close curtained to prevent any chinks of light which might aid enemy aircraft.

The day war broke out-yes I do actually remember it, we all sat round the wireless listening to the Announcement. We lived thirty miles from London and immediately a couple of car loads of friends and relation drove to see us. In London the air—raid sirens had sounded directly after the announcement that we were at war- it was only a false alarm everyone thought we were about to be bombed there and then. It was pretty frightening but at the same time exciting- at that stage and through the time of the ‘phoney war’. During that time young men rushed to enlist in the forces and the older men and women sprouted armbands of every kind to show they were all ready to ‘do their bit’. There were Air Raid Wardens W.V.S. (the R for royal came much later ). L.D.V. Local Defence Volunteers- later to be the Home Guard , Ambulance Drivers, Billeting Officers ( mostly to see to the housing of evacuees),Special Constables — even we children were issued with Dispatch Rider labels and we had to take messages by bicycle from Colonel Wilcox to Captain Lanyon who were organising the LDV. They had both been officers in the first world war and Knew How Things Should Be Done. It all sounds pretty farcical now but I think at the time it was essential to keep busy and feel you were being useful.

My father was one of the first to join Dad’s Army. It may all seem a huge joke now —but then it was all very serious. I can remember the first Sunday morning Drill Parade. My father actually had a sporting gun to take along but some of the others shouldered brooms and garden spades and if Hitler had miraculously appeared there wasn’t a man there who wouldn’t have done his best to slay him. My mother even kept a loaded air pistol in her desks drawer with which she was quite prepared to shoot out the eyes of any invader! At the time I certainly believed her and felt much safer to know she was ready to attack.My father’s first night duty was to patrol the railway bridge at Bourne End. In order to make this more enjoyable he would buy a crate of beer from the Railway Hotel and position it in the signal-box then it was the order of the night to down a beer, march across the bridge looking for Germans, back to the signal box and time for another beer. Looking down from the bridge he would have been able to see the open space of Cock Marsh where old cars were placed at strategic intervals to prevent the landing of invading planes and on the horizon would have been the barrage balloons tethered on the outskirts of London to entangle marauding bombers.

Later the whole scene became much more serious. My father was in London all through the blitz. He was a Quantity Surveyor assigned to the Ministry of Works and Buildings and their job was to assess any bomb damage to vital buildings and to get such as munition factories up and running in double quick time.

I was sent off to boarding school in the depths of Dorset where school gates clanged behind us at the beginning of term and apart from walking to church in a crocodile on Sundays we never saw the outside world. We were allowed to listen to the news on the wireless which during the darkest days of 1942 and 1943 made pretty cheerless listening. The main thing I remember was a sense of relentless gloom. Food was scarce , heating minimal and clothing practically unobtainable. Sure we had clothing coupons but then it was a case of finding a shop which had any stock. I know when I was sixteen I was still wearing the same raincoat I had when I was eleven. We wore lisle stockings and had to sit in the evenings darning and even patching them. One of the many things in short supply was elastic so I remember when a suspender broke it was a question of hitching things together with a string! I also recall making myself a bra out of two handkerchiefs and some tape- but it had to fit pretty closely as there was no elastic for ‘give’.

It is pretty ridiculous to think of such petty things when a bloody war was raging throughout the world but it was the discomfort and minor restrictions which filled my little life. ’Careless Talk Costs Lives’ ‘Is Your Journey really Necessary and everything you wanted to do was against the War Effort and we learnt to make do and hope for the best.

All through the darkest days at home we had a single tin of peaches in the larder which my mother decreed was to be opened when Kharkov was recovered by the Russians. We daily studied the newspaper maps to see just what the position was on the Russian Front. Why Kharkov? I’ve no idea- nor can I ever remember that it was freed as it must eventually have been but I think by then we’d lost interest in the peaches.

One of the things we were free to do in the school holidays was to play by the river . We had our own punt and a small sailing dinghy and one day we broke the punt pole. A friend of my parents who worked in some hush-hush department of the war office ( everything was hush- hush in those days) took pity on us and wrote a memo requesting that an eight foot wooden gun — barrel ram with a metal hook on one end should be delivered with all speed and secrecy to a hidden gun emplacement at a map reference so-and -so ( actually our private piece of river frontage). It duly arrived in a camouflaged vehicle and we were able to punt once more. Not perhaps the best use of military machinery but it caused us great pleasure.

Of course I remember all the big events of the war — Dunkirk, the Battle of Britain , Pearl Harbour, the Battle of Alamain, but they are all to well documented to need my twopennorth.

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