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Life during the Second World War for my Grandad

My Grandad, Harold Silver, was 10 when the 2nd World War started. His 11th birthday was a month after the war started. During the war he lived in Kirk Ella, a village five miles from the centre of Hull. Until just before the war he had been living in the centre of Hull five miles away. At the time war began he was just about to start secondary school in Hull. After the summer holidays, when war had started, the school was closed to build shelters and protect the windows. So for several weeks he had to go back to his primary school and wait for the secondary school to be safe.

Grandad was not evacuated, but a lot of his friends in Hull were. He had a bomb shelter in the garden. First of all he had a temporary wooden shelter. This was later replaced by a brick shelter with thick walls and a concrete roof. When the air raid sirens sounded his father, mother, baby brother, grandmother and him went to the shelter, where they could sleep in bunks. When there was a frequent bombing in Hull they sometimes went to sleep in the shelter at the beginning of the night. It was a bit stuffy without enough ventilation. When there was bombing on Hull he sometimes peeped out of the shelter door and could see the explosions and fires and the searchlights in the distance.

Although there was so much bombing in Hull, no bombs fell in Kirk Ella, but he always felt that bombs might fall nearby. He said it was often scary to go anywhere (cinema, theatre and so on) in case the sirens sounded. Because of the bombing no one was allowed to let lights show out of the windows at night, so that enemy aeroplanes couldn’t find their way by the lights. His family had what were called ‘blackout’ curtains that had dark linings. The lights couldn’t be switched on in rooms without blackout.

When there was heavy bombing in London some of his aunts and cousins who lived there went to stay with his family. His uncles sometimes came at weekends, because they stayed in London for work during the week. The men often stayed out of the shelters to act as ‘fire wardens’ keeping an eye open for fires caused by what were called ‘incendiary bombs’.

My Grandad met three kinds of soldiers during the war. Some of his uncles and other relatives were soldiers or airmen, and they often came to see him when they were ‘on leave’. They came in their uniforms and told him lots of stories. They seemed quite happy to be in the army or the air force, but they missed their homes and families. There were also American soldiers ‘stationed’ near him who made friends with people he knew and they sometimes visited him. Also, nearby was a camp for French soldiers. He used to go and try speaking French to them sometimes and sometimes, one of them would go to talk in French to his class. They were not very happy. They could not go home to their own country, which was occupied by the Germans.

During the war food was rationed. There wasn’t much meat or cheese or eggs. Other things were only available sometimes – like fruit or fish. People couldn’t get some things at all, like bananas. Chocolates and sweets were rationed so he didn’t have many. He ate some things that people rarely have now like spoonfuls of malt or rose hip syrup, which supplied vitamins, and other things to keep people healthy. One thing he ate for the first time was Spam. It was meat that you can still buy in tins in the shops. It came from America and people sometimes bought slices as part of their meat ration. Grandad loved it, because it was tasty.

During the war, Grandad liked listening to the radio. There wasn’t any TV at that time. He liked finding out what was happening in the war. Grandad liked having lots of his family coming to stay and talking to neighbours and others about what was going on. He didn’t like having to get up in the middle of the night when the sirens sounded and he didn’t like not having enough sweets and chocolates. He couldn’t go on holiday during the war but on one occasion he went with a cousin and a friend to stay on a farm near Hull. He remembers trying to drive the horses at harvest time but he didn’t do it very well. One time, he went to stay with a cousin near Morecambe to visit an Uncle of his who was stationed there in the Air Force.

Grandad didn’t think he was very scared during the war. Even with the bombing five miles away, Kirk Ella seemed a bit safer to his family. There was a scary feeling going into Hull the next day and seeing all the buildings that had been damaged or destroyed the night before, especially when he knew people had been killed and injured. But on the whole he doesn’t think he felt scared.

Grandad can’t remember anything else particularly interesting about the war. But he does remember a most interesting event that happened soon after the war. When he was 17, he met someone called Pamela Cutler who four years later became his wife!

By Josef

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