大象传媒

This story was submitted to the 大象传媒 People's War website by Tim Ford on behalf of Laura Harrison and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the 大象传媒 Peoples War Project and it's aim to create the largest online archive of stories of a nation at war.

3rd September,1939 Britain joined in war against Germany - and Adolf Hitler Dictator. These are some of my personal memories of life at that time in Shieldfield.

All men aged 18 years and over were conscripted into the forces - Army Navy and Airforce. Men not quite fit enough formed the Home Guard, as in " Dad's Army" but not quite so funny.
Everyone left at home was supplied with a gas mask and an identity card to be carried at all times.
Women worked in factories, in jobs previously done by men. My mother made shells for guns in Vickers Armstrong's factory. Some joined the Land Army to work on farms while farm workers were away fighting in the war.
All spare metal, even garden and park railings were cut down to be smelted for the war effort.

Today's recycling is not new - just an old idea once forgotten. Two slogans were often used:-

"WASTE NOT WANT NOT"
This lead to two bins being supplied per household - one for food peelings and leftovers which was collected regularly and taken to feed pigs; the other for tins bottles and rubbish. Ashes and cinders from fires and soot from chimneys was used in gardens and allotments to grow more food. Stale bread and cakes were made into puddings. Baked eggshells, dried and crushed to a fine powder, were used for scrubbing and cleaning pans.

"MAKE DO AND MEND"
All clothes were mended and altered as much as possible. Woollies unravelled and re-knit. Sheets or blankets dyed to make curtains. Mother cobbled our shoes and cut hair. Instead of stockings women used coloured liquid to paint their legs, and if very clever, they would draw lines for seams down the back of the leg.

Quilts were home-made. Sheets were 'turned', especially in large families,ie. if the sheets were worn in the centre, they'd be cut down the middle and sown edge to edge and re-hemmed.

Old clothes were sorted into colours, cut into half inch wide strips three inches long and sorted into batches for making clippy mats - very long lasting. The mats were made on home-made frames. Cane carpet beaters were used, as sold today!
No wallpaper was available and walls were painted with distemper (the old version of today's emulsion paint), contrast panels of rag-rolling or stippled. Mock panelling with paper striped borders, pasted and painted.

Ration books were issued containing coupons for buying all foods, sweets,clothing and shoes, furnishings and furniture. Money wasn't the object as goods couldn't be bought without coupons. Wartime products bore a special "utility" label, meaning useful - basic materials made economically but hard wearing.

We had no luxuries, occasional fruit if a ship could get past German U-boats. Rationing continued 10 years after the war.
For a party or wedding people would donate food or coupons for catering. I also remember the British Restaurant on Newbridge Street, opposite the Goods Station gates, which provided hot cheap meals.

AIR RAID PRECAUTIONS

In the blackout, street lights were dimmed torches were carried but also dimmed, heavy blinds and shutters were put on windows. Glass panes were taped with brown paper strips (similar to masking tape) which attempted to reduce the shattering of glass in an air raid. Wardens patrolled the streets for any chink of light that a pilot in an aeroplane might see. They would knock on the door and shout "Put that light out!"

Barrage balloons on steel cables were attached to the ground, and floated like huge silver elephants in the sky. The nearest one was in Saville Row. Searchlights like massive torches were manoeuvered by ground crew - their long beams of light pierced the night sky to pick out any planes. Anti aircraft guns were placed on special sites to shoot them down. German bomber targets were the Tyne Bridges and factories, but they also hit churches hospitals and houses. Streets which were demolished were later used for army practice.

I lived close to the Goods Station in Newcastle which was packed with sugar, flour, and other food stuffs waiting for distribution. I would have been about 8 yrs old when it was bombed. A lump of shrapnel from the explosion shattered our window and was embedded in the inner wooden shutters. It burned for weeks. A relative was a relief fireman at the blaze. The bombed building was German-built, bombed by Germans and although demolition companies tried to flatten it, eventually many years later a German firm was contracted to flatten it. Some of the men lodged at my mother's house.

Air raid shelters were made brick or concrete reinforced with metal rods. They were built in streets or back lanes - two or three families were allocated to each. Inside was slatted benches and lanterns on the wall for candles. Some had wooden bunks; some people installed matresses. Families collected a box of emergency rations and blankets ready for if they had to rush out when sirens went off. They stayed in the shelter until the all clear sounded.

Another slogan was:-
"CARELESS TALK COSTS LIVES"
There were German spies in this country, just as we had in theirs, so we all had to be careful.

A special air raid shelter in Newcastle was the Victoria Tunnel under the city. It was built for coal wagons from Seaton Sluice pit(last century) to the Quayside.It is still there but plans are now to use parts of it for modern development. As children we walked through it on our way to Sunday School and it was like an underground adventure. The entrances I knew were beside the Hancock Museum on Claremont Road and at The Haymarket under the green between St Thomas's Church and The War Memorial. The exit was at Shieldfield Park.

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