大象传媒

I came into this world on the 8th of december 1938, during one of the coldest winters on record.The light of day first hit me in the face in the Surbiton General Hospital.Accordingly when my Mother took me home,(after the traditional very hard birth),all the pipes were frozen, so to bath me, my Father had to dig snow, melt it over an old style pot bellied cast iron boiler. Those were the days of no central heating, and I can remember as a child even on the coldest days the living room fire would be lit just before my Father came home from work at about 7 o'clock in the evening.That fire was the only way of heating the entire house and I can remember on wakeing, ice and frost on the inside of the bedroom window panes.
The 2nd World War was soon to break out and to an innocent toddler and infant this was to prove to be a vast, exciting learning curve. To young eyes the war was just normal, I knew nothing else, fear never came into it, bombs, the dog fights of the planes in the sky meant very little. Vaguely my mind goes to dark nights of the blackout,(when there were no car headlights, streetlights, or wlndow lights allowed),held in my Mothers arms watching the search lights picking out the German bombers, and the flashes of the British anti-aircraft guns as they endeavoured to shoot down the 'Hun'.
Later when i was walking, we boys could be found searching the streets, looking for parts of damaged aeroplanes or shrapnel from shells and expended ammunition. If by chance there was an almost complete crashed aeroplane the duty policeman or sentry would have their hands full to keep it safe from a gang of young vultures. Life just seemed full of fun and adventure, in the morning after a night in the Air Raid Shelter and the sound of bombs and gun fire, we would look to see how many houses in the neighbourhood had been destroyed.Later these proved to be wonderful playgrounds, and in the autumn the fruit trees and bushes were ours to plunder.Many times I went home with a sore tum' and the inevitable 'squitters', and had very little sympathy from my parents.
Our Air Raid Shelter was built by my Uncle Percy, from brick and concrete with a re-enforced concrete roof covered in pitch to keep out the weather. He also dug inside a pit lined with cement so we could sit bench like and our feet could dangle, but he forgot the drainage, so when it rained it became very wet. Shelter life to tell the truth was awful, damp and miserable, sleep was impossible with just a candle for light.To try to take away the damp odour my Mother put a pudding basin inside with Dettol and water in it. I thought it was milk so I drank it,my Mother spent a couple of hours pouring salt and water down my throat to make me sick. She thought I was poisoned and I think with my screams and struggles she in the end wished I had been.
We resided only 12 miles from London but just on the edge of the country, so to my young mind the sun always shone and in the summer we played in the near by fields,birds nesting, fishing in the Hogs Mill Stream and the occasional accidental swim was normal play.The Home Guard (Dads Army)also used the same fields for their manoeuvres so we took delight in watching their shambles with pitchforks and the like instead of proper weapons, only after a time did they receive guns, They seemed to make a lot of smoke?
With the majority of the men folk away fighting in the War women took over their jobs where they could.My Mother was employed by the Prudential Insurance Company as an agent, for this she received a company bike and briefcase. One day as she was collecting a ladies premium payment at her door a bomb exploded near by,they both ended blown down the hall and in to the kitchen, with the door and their knickers round their necks. One aspect of the job was the need to endeavour to sign a new policy after a bereavment, one day over the top of a deceased coffin on the instructions of the supervisor, this my Mother objected too.
Women also delivered the milk and bread, pushing or pulling carts around the houses up and down very steep hills, it must have been very hard work as they also started about six o'clock in the morning, there was little transport to get them to and from work.The bread cart was the favourite with us kids, we ran behind pinching lumps off the loaves and sugar and currents off the buns, hoping not to be spottedby the harridan pulling the cart. Dust Carts,(refuse collection), were pulled by horses so after one passed, there was a rush for the droppings of the horses, with people fighting to get there first so they could put it on there roses vegitable plot,(Digging for Britain).
Dad was too old to go into the War, also he had a heart murmur,(he lived to 90),by trade he was a good Commercial Artist and Cartoonist he worked in Stamford Street, London, every day travelling by train picking his way through the rubble left by the previous nights bombing.He worked overtime,unpaid,on a rotor Fire Watching, this meant standing on the office roof in all weathers while bombs fell all around him. He had a Tin Hat and a bucket of sand and a shovel so he could, in theory,put out any incendiary bombs that fell on the office roof,luckily he or his shovel were never needed.
On reflection, life was far from roses,I can see the sky glowing bright at night in the Blitz when the German Bombers set the London Docks on fire and this went on night after night.In later life one of my bosses told me he had been on Anti-aircraft guns in the Docks and due to the pressure he had a nervous breakdown, also one night he came across a trilby hat, kicked it only to find there was a head inside.The Germam bombers used the River Thames to navigate into London, and if they could not make it,either because of the British resistance or damage they dropped their bombs where they could. This was when the suburbs could receive the most damage, on one occasion a damaged German plane was crashing and just let loose his machine guns.As he crashed there was a trail of devastion, a man was killed in a shop doorway,and my Mother and my self were chased across a garden,where a friend dug up the bullets later in the day. Another day we took a family walk in The Home Park,(one of the Royal Parks at Hampton Court),and came across men digging deep pits,these we discovered were to be used as mass graves for use after heavy bombing or a gas attack or may be an impending invasion, I am glad to relate that to my knowledge they were never used.
A feeling of togrtherness between the community existed during the War that over the passing years has now developed into an 'I'm all right jack' attitude, everything now is so selfish in comparison.I would go to bed and some mornings never knew what strangers may have been taken in during the night,and sleeping in our livingroom.It could be a servicman of any rank or service, or a family bombed out of their home.I had a little tricycle and one day off I went,shot down a steep hill,no brakes,hit a brick wall and ended in a bomb site,then all went blank. Next thing I knew was waking up on our old leather sofa, an American Airman had found me, and he was to stay for a week.
My Mother was a very early Sergeant Bilco,somehow she could obtain most things in small quantities,mostly in the cooking realm, it was called the 'Black Market', if caught you would be in serious trouble. At one time we had half a pig hanging in our air raid shelter. Pig bins were on street corners, for the public to put into all the waste food, this was collected by some poor sod, and fed to pigs on official farms, and did those bins ponk in summer. Well, my Mother and some cronies kept their leftovers and it went to feed a 'Black Market' pig being reared in a dodgy farmer's field, this was the pig that was hanging in our shelter.The old girl had a sleepless couple of nights before her partners in crime collected their share of the plunder.
The Government tended to do very strange things,(nothing changes),one day a gang of workers took down all the iron railings and gates, this was for the War Effort,I heard that the iron proved to be useless,and when the War was over it was found rusting in heaps. Then there were the carrots,too many grown so they did not know what to do with them, the idea was spread that if eaten you could see in the dark,(remember the blackout),the carrots were eaten in weeks, it was a load of old cobblers, but the problem was solved.
Towards the end of hostilities, life was plagued by Flying Bombs, these were unmanned rocket air craft that flew with a throbbing purr.Their endurance depended on the amount of fuel carried and the wind speed and direction,this meant they suddenly cut out and down they would fall.The devastation was limited, but they tended to cause panic as fighter planes could not catch them in direct flight. Later this problem was solved with the introduction of the Typhoon Fighter. Later came the V.2 Rockets,they just came out of the sky and exploded, and were very scary giving no warning, also they had a much larger warhead and did frightful damage. One fell on a London Underground Station, killing hundreds of folk, so they just filled in the site buring them where they died,very, very sad.
After this my Father sent my mother and me down to stay with relatives in Weymouth on the Dorset coast.The journey to Dorset was made by train, I remember being in a carriage corridor sitting on our cases surrounded by servicemen, it was all very jolly and they took us under their wings looking after us kindly.It was not long after D-Day and Weymouth, with its flat sandy beach was perfect for the large landing craft to load with tanks, trucks munitions and men, all to be transported to France. We were billeted with an Aunt on my mothers side of the family,this proved to be one of my most unhappiest times in my young wartime experiences. To say that we were not made welcome is an understatement, my Aunt turned out to be a narrow minded miserable sod, we endured poor food even for wartime rationing, and bed bugs, were just part of the torment endured.
A fiew weeks before our stay in Dorset, I was sent to a small Private Prep' School and I hated it. These were the days of cloths coupons, so a school cap, blazer, grey shorts and socks represented a large investment, I therefore wore them all the time. I hated that School and lasted there only a couple of months, but had to continue to wear that uniform long after it was thread bare. In fairness it was a good School run very well by a lady and her assistant who were upset at my leaving.
Back to Weymouth, I was sent to a local School in my old uniform and made friends with the young daughter next door to where we were living.We had wonderful times bunking off School and playing in the fields, allotments and the local beach, where we picked blackberries and nicked fresh peas from the allotments.
American servicemen were very kind to us kids, they walked up to us and gave hands full of sweets,chocolate, and chewing gum, unknown luxuries to us urchins. 'Got any gum chum' was our shout, and they would hand us a packet of chewing gum with generosity. On day I had finished chewing a piece that had lost its flavour so I asked my Mum what I should do with it. For a joke she said 'stick it behind your ear' I did so and it went rock hard. I can still feel the pain after all these years as my Aunt held my head under a cold tap and scraped off the gum with a blunt dinner knife.Other times the Americans came ashore from their ships with large brown paper bags full of tins of Spam, Pineapple and assorted foodstuff,'here take this home to your Mum' they would say and it was like Christmas.I did not see a banana until I was 7 or 8 and then endeavoured to eat it intact with the skin, it was horrid and I wandered what all the fuss was about!
It was at Weymouth that I was to see the sea for the first time,and was unimpressed, the relatives did their best to get me to paddle, but the waves were very high and the water too salty and cold. It was many years before I went into the sea for a propper swim and enjoy it.
Our stay in Weymouth came to a sudden end, with a monster row between my Mother and my Aunt. All I can remember is being wakened from a warm bed, dressed in that same uniform taken out into the night, and welcomed into next door and sleeping with the family in their indoor air raid shelter. The next day we went to the station, took a train, and was glad to get home to the bombs.Thirty years later we were in Weymouth and did our best to find where we had stayed, but it had all changed, we came away not too disappointed.
Not too long after arriving home from Weymouth, or so it seemed, the War came to an end. First came V.E. Day ( Victory in Europe), and then V.J.Day (Victory over Japan),this gave us a better quality of life with the relaxation of the night time blackout rules and the dreaded Air Raid Wardens. These Wardens were the equivalent in terror as the Traffic Wardens of today,the smallest chink of light,and if reported, could lead to a heafty fine.
This was a grand time for kids, because there were Street Parties where we burnt dummies of Hitler on large bonfires, the fire in our street was so large and hot that it cracked our next door neighbour's concrete runway.All the street pooled their food and rations to make all sorts of cakes, sandwiches and jellies.The result was marvellous, we ate at tables on the road, with bunting hanging from the lamp posts and the children were given medals made from three penny bits(coins of the realm at the time)on red white and blue ribbons, then fixed to our shirts with a safety pin. The street was closed to traffic, not that there was a lot in any case, and we joined the adults in songs and dancing late into the night.I was very lucky because on a different occasion we were invited to another Street Party as my Mother had been able to help them out with a fiew extras, with her 'fiddles'!
Families were able to relax a little bit,go to parks,the pictures and such. My Father took me to the centre of London one day, the damage was astounding even to my young mind. On the now cleared Bomb Sites in the City of London they had exibitions of all the War paraphernalia, guns, search lights, ect',even many full sized fighter planes and bombers.
Now came the rebuilding, the Men came home in dribs and drabs, some to no jobs,they also needed to get to know their families as some had been away for years. Houses had to be repaired and rebuilt to enable families to return to their old neighbourhoods and start life again. Piles of new bricks were stacked in the street in front of the bomb sites to rebuild the homes for people to live in. These were great for us kids, we made the brick stacks into castles and burrowed in to them by removing bricks to make tunnels and dens.This was very dangerous, but no one seemed to care,these days the politically correct police would be wringing their hands to have the fun stopped.
Some of my recollections may seem to be all fun and frolic's, but it must be stressed that I was only about 6 years old when the War ended. Unlike today News was received weeks late and censored.When watching a T.V Documentary or a World War Two film and the sound of the air raid siren goes off it still sends shivers down my spine. I am sure that I can tell the difference between the sound of a German aircraft and one of the Allies after all of 60 years. I was very lucky, my Father did not go away to fight in the conflict so I had a near normal family life.Other children had their Fathers go away for years, unfortunately many never to come home again or be wounded or blinded. It was only later that I found out about, let alone understood the Horror of Dunkirk, The Battle of Britain, D-Day, The Atom Bomb, Burmer Railway and arguably the worst of all The Holocaust. Will we never learn?

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