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I was two years old when the war began in 1939, living in Grosvenor Road, Aldershot, opposite the Municipal Gardens. Even at that age, I can remember when they took the iron railings down and the cannons that used to be in the park, for scrap at the beginning of the war. My dad was a soldier and left the Army in about 1930. When he got called up to join the war he was still suffering from malaria he’d caught in India, so he didn’t have to go. He worked for the civil army department in Aldershot, doing stores labour. My mum was not called up because she looked after my Grandad who was injured in the First World War. I remember we had a long cast iron stove heated by coal with an oven by the side of it where mum did most of the cooking.

Although some people had a shortage of coal, it was very complicated in our house since my grand-father got a special allowance. I gather it was because he’d been injured and my dad also got a special allowance because he did heavy duty work for the war. The best thing was, the stove burnt wood and in those days there were a lot more trees in Aldershot so we could always keep the stove going. Other rations made some food particularly memorable. We managed to get cod-liver oil as a supplement, a terrible thing, actually cod liver oil suspended in chalk to help the stomach. The Government issued orange juice that came in little bottles, about the size of lemonade bottles today, that was really good stuff! It was concentrated and one tea spoon would make a really strong glass of orange juice.

I started school in the September of 1942, at West End Infant School, still at the top of Queen’s Road, Aldershot. It was very easy to get to from my house as there was not much traffic to worry about. If anything school for me was a happy time when in classes of forty or fifty we could make up two or three football teams in every class and just enjoy ourselves. Bearing in mind there was quite a shortage of teachers, the class probably tended to be quite big until I passed the exams and went to grammar school. By the end of grammar school, after the end of the war, the class size was down to twenty or so people. I always think I got the best view of the education system because in my early days, of the war, the teachers were quite old because the younger ones were in the Army. The year I got to grammar school some of those who had been in the war came back and started teaching, getting into their thirties. The 1944 Act of Education changed everything so I had both systems. At school, during the war, we used to have regular air raid practices where we had to go down to the air raid shelters in the grassy strip at the edge of the playground. It was quite good fun and we boys used to slide down the banks, and sit and recite our times tables and do spelling bees. After one little boy got injured, the Canadian soldiers came and built us some steps. If you go to the Municipal Gardens, you can still see the two flights of steps that don’t go anywhere. I don’t really remember the gas mask drills themselves but the cardboard boxes masks came in, were made out of really cheap cardboard. We actually used them to carry our free bottle of milk out to the playground with us. Several boys couldn’t drink cold milk and were allowed to warm them by the fire for half and hour- I can’t think what they did during the summer!

When we weren’t in school we sometimes listened to the radio that ran on lead acid batteries which weighed about two pounds. Since we were only allowed to get them charged up once a week, in our house we’d listen to the six o’ clock news if dad was there but apart from that we didn’t listen to it much. My thing was toy soldiers- I was lucky enough to have some to play with. Then we played things like cigarette cars, marbles and in season, conkers! I suppose cricket and football took up most of my time though. And every Tuesday night, the air raid caution people practiced their fire drills at the end of our road. They had some buildings made out of tin and they set fire to part of them, climbed down ladders with people on their shoulders and put the fires out. We had to watch that! I used to also go to the cinema with my sister, who was quite a few years older than me. I can’t honestly remember going to watch any football games at Aldershot although I know there were a lot of international players with the Army at the time. However, I did go to the Recreation Ground at the end of the war when one or two regiments were parading. I recall the Canadian and the Hampshire regiments putting on fire work displays there.

I do remember the two V1s that dropped in Aldershot. One exploded half a mile from my house and broke my window. When my father got home from work that evening he fixed it by taking a sheet of glass from a painting in the living room. It became a bit of a joke for me and as far as I know the same piece of glass is still there. The second V1 landed on some greenhouses at a local farm, which we used to use as a playground. There were big fences around it but little boys had a way of getting over fences if they really wanted to play.

For me, a young child during the war, they’re all good memories. I know for a lot of people things were sore. We didn’t get sweets, we didn’t get ice cream, we didn’t get bananas, or oranges, but I’d never got used to having those things so I didn’t mind. I think the thing we did have was freedom. There was no traffic to worry about and we could quite happily be let out into the park until mum would shout ‘come home’. My mother and father were part of a large family and I had lots of family in the local area to play with. One aunt’s father owned a farm and we’d go out to feed the pigs and the chickens and collect the odd egg. Rationing went on till the 1950s, in the case of sugar and such. My friends and I used to buy chicks at the market, fatten them up and sell them. I wouldn’t say we made a million but it was good fun. All in all the memories are good. Yes it was a terrible time for some but, being so young, it didn’t really affect me. If anything it was a happy time when you could go and play, do what you like, go to school and meet your friends.

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