大象传媒

Typed by UCN Community Volunteer

When war was first declared, none of us understood what was happening. Father dug a trench in the back of our garden for our family and our neighbours either side of us. Later on we were issued with an Anderson shelter by local authority. This was made of iron and you buried it half under ground, and then covered it with the left over soil. We grew marrows on it! Whenever the siren sounded, we made our way to the air raid shelter. Mother would always prepare a box of biscuits and flasks of cocoa for our two evacuees and us. Mother had furnished the entrance with a sack so that we could have a candle inside and benches either side. In the far corner was a bucket, shielded by a length of curtain, which was an emergency toilet. We had an old whippet dog at the time, called Jack, and he was always the first down the shelter for his cocoa and biscuits!
On the nights of the Coventry raids the sky was full of aircraft, which fortunately passed over us and the sky to the northwest was bright red. You can鈥檛 imagine it, it was very frightening, we were never sure if the bombs were going to come down on us My uncle Alf was a fireman and he had to go to Coventry to help clear up. He never talked about what he saw.
One thing I can remember, we had a four foot close boarded fence between the gardens of our neighbours and when we went down in the dark to the shelter there were female glow worms along the fence. We wonder if we had disturbed them whilst digging for the shelter, as we had never seen them before or since.
One evening, in full summer evening light, my mother, Freddie the air raid warden, his daughter Joan and myself were chatting at our garden gate when we heard what sounded like a noisy motorbike. We saw this small aircraft that was coming from the East. The engine cut out and Freddie made us all lie down against the fence. Fortunately the Doodlebug sailed on and crushed at Creaton. Normally in London, when the engine cuts out the plane dives to the ground and explodes, it was one of the horrors for Londoners. In London they used the underground as a night shelter and come out afterwards to see if they had a house left!
My father was a taxi driver and so at night he used to be in the town centre fire watching, keeping an eye on all Saints Church and the buildings around it. Mum was recruited to work for scientific products, they were housed in the Sears factory in Stimpson Avenue and they were making wireless parts for aircraft. My aunt Eve, who had a very unusual vision, was able to write figures on minute radio parts. Mum did office work, as that was her previous experience.
Everything became rationed, we had ration books for everything: meat, sugar, fat, cheese, and clothes. Our neighbours had their own hens, which we fed our scraps to and they would give us eggs in swap. If we had a few extra eggs, mother would keep them in waterglass, in a large jug and it would preserve the eggs for several months. Sweets were on the ration and I sold my ration for money to feed my rabbits, which I fattened up, and sold for half a crown each for their meat! Clothing coupons did not allow us to have many clothes, but because I was tall, we were measured at school and if we were above a certain height (or even width!) we were given extra coupons. I got to a point once when I only had three coupons left and I went buy a new mac. Three coupons would only buy a plastic mac but the men in the shop (I'm not naming the shop!), took pity on me and allowed me to purchase a heavy duty white riding mac. Unfortunately, the first time I wore this, to visit the local cattle market, I got a bit too close to a cow and the mac became brown stained! It did wash though. We had to be adept at make-do-and-mend. My mother made me a skirt of navy blue serge from two pairs of father鈥檚 trousers, using the legs, because the seat was shiny and worn. Jumpers, we unpicked and re knitted them using more wool. Mother made some curtains for the bedrooms that doubled up as blackout material from sacking which she dyed and embroided with heavy wool, from unpicked jumpers!
I went to the convent in Abington Street and we travelled to school on the bus, using a weekly bus pass, which cost 10d. At the convent we had Saints days and as I was not a catholic, this meant a day off school! Quite often a group of us would travel the town on our 10d bus pass! School milk was half penny for a third of a pint. In the winter, the milk would freeze and start to grow out of the bottle, like a candle would! The convent was barricaded with sandbags and the lower ground floor was considered to be an air raid shelter.
The evacuees that we had had come from Willesden and had lived in flats there. They had never been in the country before. They had come from a family of four children, we had two and our two neighbours had one each to keep the family together. I found out that their mother did her washing in London, in a communal washroom in the flats and the washing was dried indoors, which accounted for the grey colour of their underwear! Whilst the evacuees were here, we only did half time schooling, we went to the school in the mornings and they had the afternoons, taught by their own teachers who had evacuated with them. Our teachers used to take us out in the afternoon for walks and in inclement weather we were taken to church halls. Our teacher, Billie Izzard, would attempt to teach us to appreciate poetry. The Lady of Shallott, Lord Ullen鈥檚 daughter and similar! Billie was very good at giving science lessons. One day he decided to teach us how gas is produced. Unfortunately he had the formula a little wrong and we had a major explosion! All the children ducked behind their desks. Billie was led away bleeding! Two weeks later, we had the same experiment but it was successful this time!
Spaces around the town were used for camps by the forces. The space between Birchfield road east and the Headlands had for many years been used by children as a playground. It belonged to the brewery who planned to build a pub but building had been stopped due to the war. One morning the Canadians arrived, we children soon found the source of chocolates! They lived in tents and were quite interesting to watch with their field kitchen. We also had the Polish at one stage, later on the field became allotments in the campaign to dig for victory. Everyone was encouraged to dig up their flowerbeds and grow vegetables. My father dug up the roses and even my bed of pansies was dug up which I had planted myself! We grew as many vegetables as possible. My mother specialised in growing tomatoes, this was before the days of Tomerite fertiliser and she had the recipe for her own plant food. This involved a bucket of sheep manure, collected from Rushmere road by me and then mixed with animal blood, obtained from the butcher. The smell, as one walked down the garden, was indescribable, but the tomatoes were delicious!
Northampton was used by London theatres to present their plays and ballets in The New Theatre, which was bigger inside than many of the London theatres. Unfortunately, later on the theatre management began to put on vaudeville acts with a lower standard and the theatre was closed. It was 3d and 6d up in the Gods. Also, workers education programme put on concerts in the Guildhall. We had musicians and a pianist, Louie Kentner, there was not much room for the full orchestra and the percussion group were acrobats to get around their instruments! These concerts were very cheap to encourage us to appreciate music. Saturday night we always went to the rep (Northampton Repertory Theatre) with a different play every week. Their pantomime was wonderful! All the serious actors being silly. Errol Flynn was there learning the trade and chasing the women! We had some really good actors there. One of the convent girls, Barbara Mitchell, went on stage under her own name, appearing in television and films.
The best thing about the war was the way people cooperated. There was a friendship that is now missing. Families kept together. My mother was the oldest daughter and because she only had one child, whereas her sisters both had three, she was the help and advisor to them and the contact between all members of the family. Folks would leave money on the dining table to pay for window cleaning, insurance and such like. The front door key was hanging on a string inside the letterbox. It was unknown for people to enter the house and steal things. If you were visiting a relative, and they were not in, you were expected to help yourself to a cup of tea, and in my mother鈥檚 case, do the washing up!

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