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Snapshots of a War Baby

This story was submitted to the People's War site by a tutor from Link into Learning on behalf of Pauline Udale and has been added to the site with her permission. She understands the site's terms and conditions.

I was born just four months before the declaration of the Second World War, on May 3rd 1939 on the outskirts of the city of Birmingham. I was the only daughter of a schoolmaster and we lived in a modern suburban house in Castle Bromwich. It was set on a hill within sight of the rural fields of Warwickshire yet overlooking what transpired to be an area of highly significant strategic value, namely the Spitfire factory and its neighbouring airfield and industrial sites.
As I became aware of life around me I felt secure and safe in my home environment. Little did I realise the significance and poignance of what to me were commonplace events.
My earliest recollection was of a large photograph of a young man in an airman's uniform which was placed on top of our wireless in the dining room. I did not understand the heartbreak it must have caused when my mother told me it was her brother Leslie, who had been killed in the war, a fact that I just accepted. I discovered many years later, when researching my family tree, that he was a 22 year old pilot by the name of Leslie Walpole and in the Royal Airforce Volunteer Reserve. On June 19th 1940 he was wounded whilst flying his aircraft. He was well known for his flying skills and legend has it that he was commended for his successful endeavour in bringing the aeroplane home before dying of his injuries.
Another vivid memory is the eerie sound of the air raid warning which would signal to my mother that it was time to place me in my cosy flannelette siren suit before taking me through the intense darkness of the night, down the garden path to the air raid shelter. I could not see a thing, only smell the freshness of the plants, and feel the cool dampness of the grass as we made our way to a place of safety. Well do I remember going down the slippery brick steps and the musty smell of our underground sanctuary. My father would light a candle and I was fascinated by the flickering shapes on the walls. There were camp beds and blankets and usually a warm drink, although I cannot remember whence that came. We had two compartments to our shelter and the roof was covered with earth, grass and buttercups. I was never allowed to play around it in the day time, inspite of being a curious and energetic toddler.
One night this inquisitiveness got the better of me. Soon after my father had stepped outside to observe the aeroplanes, with a sudden rush, I made my escape as I wanted to see them also. There they were, shadowy shapes flying in formation towards us. Again the perfume of the night air, the earthiness of the shelter and the frightening white beams of light, tracing across the midnight sky following the droning planes, stay vividly in my memory. The sound of their engines came quietly at first and before reaching a crescendo my fleeting glimpse was cut short as I was sent scurrying back to our hole in the ground. Luckily no harm was done to us that night and somehow my father could always tell whether the planes were 'ours' or 'theirs'.
However, it was soon decided that we were too near the likely action and that Birmingham schoolchildren should be evacuated to the country. My father was involved in the taking of his school, High Field Road, from the built up area of Alum Rock into the Hinckley district of Leicestershire. I was taken with my mother to my grandparents who also lived in the Leicestershire countryside. Although they had a substantial house and garage business in the tiny hamlet of Pinwall near Atherstone, life was quite primitive in the country compared with ours. But I loved it!
There was no mains sanitation so it was an adventure going to the toilet in the little brick room down the garden. Water was obtained from a well, also in the garden, but conveyed to the house with the aid of a pump at the kitchen sink. Some water always had to be kept to pour back down the pipe before it would work. The garden was a busy place with pigs and chickens and all the home-grown vegetables. Milk was delivered in a churn from a nearby farm and my grandmother would fetch it in a jug which was then placed on a stone slab in the pantry. The pantry was as big as our whole kitchen in our modern house. She would cook on an open range and I can still smell the aromas of the fresh herbs she would use as her pots boiled and sizzled on the fire.The kitchen was always warm and welcoming. We were never hungry and we seemed far removed from the war, yet only 20 miles or so from Coventry.
The small quantities of petrol that were sold then were mainly to local farmers and I remember my grandfather storing his coupons behind the mantel clock. My grandmother had the remains of a small sweetshop situated in the hallway of the house. Usually I had to be content with just the wonderful smell of pear drops and toffees as the ration book ruled. One luxury they did have was a telephone,a daffodil-shaped one with a separate ear piece. A notice hung outside the garage saying ‘You may telephone from here’ as there were no others for miles around.
Walks in the fields were idyllic. I just loved to clamber over the nearby stile and wander amongst the cowslips and violets with the long grass tickling my legs and the providers of our milk grazing peacefully beyond. The days were heralded by the sound of the cuckoo in spring and it always seemed to be sunny.
Sometime later we returned home to find the windows of our house had been blown out by some incendiary device and friendly German prisoners of war were restoring services to the street. The daily round of horse and carts continued to bring us our bread and milk. The car in our garage with its wonderfully smelling leather seats was still there. I loved to sit in it and could never really understand why we never went for rides in it. There it stayed until it was towed away at the end of the war and it was many years before my father could afford another one.
Much of our daily routine became centred around the wireless programmes. Workers Playtime, Forces Favourites and the news bulletins I remember well. Wartime songs such as Run Rabbit Run and The White Cliffs of Dover etc. were as familiar as nursery rhymes. In the evening there would be cocoa and bed before my father went off fire-watching or to his A.T.C.
Great excitement punctuated the ‘mundane’ when my uncle, my mother's second brother Donald, arrived home on leave ,often in the middle of the night. He would throw gravel at their bedroom window to wake them up. I treasured the gifts he brought back for me for years, namely an exquisitely made parachutist doll and beautifully fine and soft turquoise cotton pyjamas from Egypt.
Living above the airfield I would spend much time in our garden watching the training of airmen, both parachuting from a balloon basket or looping the loop in the pretty Tiger Moth bi-planes. I am totally fascinated by aeroplanes to the present day.
Eventually I remember being taken beyond the bomb sites, to the centre of the city, to watch the troops parading through the streets on their return from the war. Huge union jacks were hanging from all our windows and there was much cheering, waving of flags and playing of bands. We had a street party to celebrate something called VE day with more flags, jelly and blancmange. Everyone took their chairs - my father, school benches - and trestle tables were erected in the centre of the road. There was a huge bonfire and an effigy of Hitler was burned on it.
The grownups were forever talking about their favourite topic — PEACE.
I remember asking , as I was held aloft on my father's shoulders to see the celebrations, 'Daddy, what is Peace?'

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