大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People's War site by CSV/大象传媒 Radio Nottingham on behalf of Jennifer Wilson with her permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

I was born on 09-05-39, just before the start of World War II, and we lived in Elmdon Lane, Marston Green, Birmingham, very close to what was then Elmdon Airport. My father had been in World War I, having volunteered at 16, saying that he was 18.

By the time I was 2 there were many attempts to bomb the airport and sleep was virtually impossible on a regular basis. My parents had stayed up all night watching Coventry burn in the distance.

Because of this it was decided that my mother and I should stay with her parents at 62 Ruddington Lane Wilford, where it was safer. My father was working at Metro-Cammell, Saltley, Birmingham (which he did for the whole of his working life). He went into lodgings at a farm in Wigginton, Tamworth. He joined the Royal Observer Corps there. He cycled to the station each day to get the Birmingham train, visiting us in Nottingham at weekends.

Eventually, when I was about 4, we were able to rent a house at 130 Gillway, Tamworth and our furniture was brought out of storage. Being very young during the war I have a few early recollections of it. Living with my Grandparents (who also had a London boy evacuee for a short time) I can remember the black-out blinds my father made. My Grandfather, a compositor, used to wheel me in his barrow to the allotment and got me water to drink from the pump. We used to sit by the fire and he made me sandwiches, a luxury because of the rationing. We were never without home made butter and eggs because my father brought them from the farm, as well as the occasional rabbit.

I was 6 just as the war ended. My mother and I met my father at the station and he had a fairy bicycle for me - I don't know how many children had had it before me. On my birthday I had a Union Flag fixed on the lamp bracket and a special sponge cake, with icing, and little Union flags with pins like flag sellers used to have, all around the top edge. I had that bike for years until I had another larger second hand one.

Because of shortages of everything during the war years, toys were a luxury and always looked after - my teddy bear is now 64. My father was a designer/draughtsman and very handy. He made me a dolls bungalow (not house) from hardboard which had a drop down back. The furniture was made of carefully folded cardboard and brown sticky paper, and then painted with enamel paint which made it very sturdy. There were pictures made from cigarette cards, of flowers, and lights and a mock electric fire which ran off a battery.

During the war the opportunities for going out in the evenings were comparitively rare. To keep himself occupied my father made miniature copies of our dining room, lounge and bedroom furniture. It was all made in teak or oak, French polished, and seats upholstered in rexine (the forerunner of vinyl) and the tea trolley even had tiny wheels on it. My mother made bedding from scraps of material. It is something I've always treasured and still have it 60 years later.

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