大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by a volunteer from Northumberland on behalf of Ada Lee. Mrs. Lee fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions, and the story has been added to the site with her permission.

I was born at Bedlington, Northumberland and I was six years old when the Second World War started, by which time the family lived at Benton (Newcastle) and I was just getting into the swing of school at Benton Church School. After the declaration of war, suddenly we didn鈥檛 go to school any more but a group of children who lived nearby came to our house each morning and Miss Foster, our teacher, came with a blackboard under her arm and a big bag of books. Written across the top of the blackboard, in green letters, was 鈥淲ills Woodbines鈥�. In the afternoons we were allowed to play.

Other things that struck me in those first few weeks of the War included: Gas street lights were not lit and the man who used to come round to light them with a big pole was not to be seen; The church bells at Benton, which used to play every Sunday, were stopped and not heard, again, until after the War; And, it was not long before my Mother and Father, Ada (nee Nichols) and Wilfred Cully, took me to the school rooms where I tried on a funny thing over my face, something I soon learned was a gas mask. The straps were adjusted around the head, so that air was prevented from passing down the sides of my face to my nose and mouth. Everyone was given a gas mask, adults and children, and babies got funny-shaped ones called 鈥淢ickey Mouse鈥檚鈥�. We later had to take them to the Air Raid Precautions (ARP) men, to have green air vents taped onto the bottom, to prevent some sort of gasses getting into our lungs. We had a jar of ointment, to put on our skin if we were burnt by Mustard Gas. We had to carry our gas masks in a box over our shoulder every time we went out, in case there was an air raid.

At the onset of War, I was too young to fully understand everything that happened but I know, now, that within days my Uncle Joe (Joseph Wilson 鈥� Service Number D/252) was lost when HMS Courageous was sunk on 17 September 1939. He was thirty-nine years old at the time, an Engine Room Artificer who was in the Royal Navy Reserve. I have the letter my Grandmother sent to my parents, to tell them of Joe鈥檚 loss and to say that she was helping Aunt Edie (Edith), her daughter, to get her affairs settled. Their family home was at Murton, near Seaham. Uncle Joe is commemorated on the Plymouth Naval Memorial,

Later, Aunt Edie joined the Women鈥檚 Royal Naval Service, more commonly known as the W.R.N.S. or Wrens and moved to Plymouth. Her daughter and my Cousin, Margaret was about the same age as me. Following the loss of her Father and, probably, when Aunt Edie joined the Wrens, Margaret was sent to a Naval Boarding School at either Plymouth or Dartmouth. During school holidays she often returned to stay with our Grandmother who also lived at Murton and sometimes I joined her, presumably because the family thought I would be good company for Margaret.

Father, Wilfred Cully, was Curate at Benton (Newcastle) when the War broke out. Cully might not be a common surname but it is one of long standing, having been recorded in the Domesday Book as a family that came to Britain with William the Conqueror. Probably, it has Danish origins.

Returning to my story, early in the war while the family still lived at Benton we were given a very special treat from one of Father鈥檚 parishioners, Mr. Searle, I think. He took us for a run in the country in his car, which was very special for me because not many people owned cars in those days and it was good for us all because petrol was rationed and, therefore, scarce. Somewhere in the countryside, we were stopped by a Policeman and a man in Army uniform, perhaps a Home Guard man, I don鈥檛 know where because in wartime all signposts were removed so that German spies could not use them. They asked few questions then they asked Father for his identity card because he had his clergy collar on. Apparently they had information to the effect that German spies were dropped by parachute dressed as Nuns and Vicars. Unfortunately for Father, he did not have identity papers with him but the Policeman and the other man must have been convinced that he was genuine as he was simply told to produce his papers next day at a local Police Station.

It was not long before the family moved to Fenham, also a suburb of Newcastle where, because he was at home, in addition to his normal duties as a Curate at St. James and St. Basil鈥檚 Church, Father undertook A.R.P. work, which entailed him putting out incendiary bombs dropped during air raids. In 1943, Father was appointed Vicar of St. Mary the Virgin鈥檚 Church at Willington, near Wallsend and Howden. There, he was the Padre to two Army Camps, one near the church along the road from the Vicarage, the other near a long-disappeared golf course. He would hold 鈥淥pen Nights鈥� on Sundays when three or four soldiers would be invited home. He also organised dances every Friday night in the Church Hall, which an active Badminton Club used on Wednesday evenings and Saturday afternoons. Whenever Father was not otherwise committed, for example to conducting marriages or funerals, he was forever to be seen on his bicycle on his way to or from visiting people. Mother, of course, helped him in whatever way she could. Many children were evacuated from Tyneside during the closing months of 1939 but not me. Perhaps because Father remained at home as a man of the Church, Mother was determined that her children would not be evacuated.

Air raid shelters were built at school, in the yard. I think this must have been why we were not allowed to go to school when the War started, until the shelters were built. We had to practice getting into lines and marching in when the air raid siren went. We sat on wooden benches, which ran up each side of the oblong brick shelter. To keep ourselves occupied we sang songs like 鈥淛ohn Brown鈥檚 baby has a cold upon its chest鈥�, with actions! Gradually, everyone was either supplied with a shelter at home or they could use communal ones. When I was seven years old we moved to Fenham where we had a table shelter, which was made of steel and was as big as a bed. We put a mattress in it and you could crawl into it and lie down or just sit.

A lot of air raids were at night time, so I always seemed to be woken up and got out of bed to go down to the shelter in our living room. My sister, Ruby, who was ten years older than me was always grumbling and sometimes she would not get up when the siren went. One night, three bombs were dropped across the Town Moor in a straight line for our house. I thought the last one had dropped in our back garden, Ruby couldn鈥檛 get down the stairs quick enough that night! Later, Father took us to see the massive craters created by the bombs, which had thrown up huge boulders of rock. When an air raid was on the trolley buses stopped running in case electric sparks off the overhead wires attracted enemy aircraft to drop bombs. I remember the night the goods yard at Manors Station (Newcastle) was bombed, the sky was a bright red glow, all the food and stores there was set alight and burned for hours. Another recollection about the consequences of air raids relates to a raid on Willington Quay, in 1942, when Miss Ethel Perry鈥檚 face was disfigured by flying gas. The shards were so small and numerous that hospital doctors felt unable to operate on her, and for years afterwards pieces of glass were removed only when they reached the surface of her skin. Whether or not there鈥檇 been an air raid, we children still had to get up and go to school each day. I was late getting there one day, I cannot now remember why that was but I can remember being strapped for it, which I thought grossly unfair!

When I was about eight years old, with some friends we used to make up plays and show them to people for which we charged one penny per person. The proceeds were used to buy wool, to make gloves and scarves for the soldiers. It was at about this time that I joined the St. James and St. Basil鈥檚 Church Brownies at Fenham. One of the first things we did was to wind up bandages on a little machine with a handle, to send away for the war effort. I was in the Elves six and the motto we sang was 鈥淭his is what we do as Elves, think of others not ourselves鈥�. I can remember monthly Church parades when our Colours were carried down the aisle with great ceremony.

The weather during the winter of 1941 was harsh, with much snow and ice. Walking along Wingrove Road one day, I remember enormous icicles, three feet long, hanging from the gutters of houses I passed by. Most, if not all houses were cold places during the winter months. Coal was rationed and, usually, only one fire could be burned, this in days long before central heating became the norm. Often, lead water and waste pipes would be split open by the cold so most houses, certainly ours, had lots of buckets!

It would have been in 1941 that Ruby, too, joined the W.R.N.S. and left home. A year later, my Brother, Norman, left sixth form at school and went straight into the Royal Navy, so I was at home on my own with Mother and Father. When War was declared, Ruby travelled from Benton to Gosforth each day to work at Boots the Chemists. She went to Felixstowe for her basic training to become a signals operator, first at Ipswich and later at a Fleet Air Arm Base, I cannot now remember where. Most of the places where Ruby worked were in underground bunkers but I can remember her relating one tale of a bomb that exploded and blew her up the stairs! She went to the Fleet Air Arm Base as a Leading Wren but the accommodation there was over-run with mice and rats, which Ruby could not stand so she asked for a transfer elsewhere but I think she must have lost her 鈥淟eading Wren鈥� status.

Other things I can recall Ruby telling me or doing. One Christmas, she came home on leave and got the train from Newcastle Central Station to Howden. She was carrying an officer鈥檚 bag she鈥檇 acquired from somewhere but a sailor stole it, so she lost most of her clothes. The Police refused to act because the theft was in one area but we lived in another Police district (Walkerville) and they could see little or no prospect of finding the culprit and recovering the bag. I remember Ruby crying a lot when she got home, so much so that I gave her my Christmas money. On another occasion, she must have been smuggled aboard a ship because she claimed to have been over to Belgium during the War. On a much happier note Evidence of this took the form of her giving me a lovely pair of red leather sling-back shoes, which she said were from Belgium.

Norman spent the whole of his war serving on destroyers and other convoy escort vessels that protected trans-Atlantic convoys. He joined the Royal Navy in 1941 at eighteen years of age. At one stage, he spent a month at Chatham but he did not meet the grade to be commissioned as an officer, something he always regretted. After the war in Europe ended, he served aboard HMS Chequers, a Captain-class destroyer commissioned on 13 September 1945. The ship was sent to the Mediterranean, to patrol the seas off Palestine.

When Norman came home on one leave, I was presented with a pair of white moccasin slippers with red bows, which were from Iceland, a country he must have visited several times during his time on Atlantic convoy duties. On another occasion, we had moved from Fenham to Willington and Norman was keen to see the friends he鈥檇 left behind, so off he went to Fenham for the day. On his return home he told me that he鈥檇 brought me a present and, from under his tunic and much to my delight, out came a little puppy, soon to be named Patch.

The photograph that illustrates this story is of me, probably taken when I was about nine, in what was a pale lilac coat with a grey collar. It was taken at Fenham just before our move to Willington and it was one, really, that was intended as a keepsake for Norman. However, that coat reminds me of another tale. When I started Church High School in Jesmond (Newcastle) early in 1943, the only piece of outdoor-wear school uniform that could then be had from Isaac Walton鈥檚 store in Newcastle was a hat, so my lilac coat had to be worn with that hat and how odd it looked! At the time, most things were rationed and coupons were needed to buy them although it was only a fortnight or so before I got the rest of my school uniform. However, one thing that mustn鈥檛 have been rationed was the iced buns that we were able to buy after school from White鈥檚 bakery shop on Clayton Road. One day, I was standing at a bus stop wearing my school uniform 鈥� this must have beeen a year or two after I'd started at Church High School - and devouring an iced bun. When the bus arrived who should be on the top deck but our Headmistress who, the following morning, admonished me for 鈥淓ating in public in school uniform鈥�! Rationing continued for several years after the war ended. As late as 1954, when I was married and we set off for our honeymoon my husband, Colin Lee, and I had to take with us our ration coupons!

I must record another sad event during the War, the loss of Ernie (Ernest) Luke (RAF Service Number 1592685) who was only a few years older than me, someone I was close to and always knew as my Cousin although, in fact, he was my Father鈥檚 Cousin. His family lived at Netherton, near Bedlington where his Father, Bob (Robert William Luke), was the colliery electrician. Ernie was always nuts on aeroplanes, so much so that he joined the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve before the War and he volunteered to serve with the RAF as soon as he was qualified to do so. He held the rank of Sergeant as a Wireless Operator and Air Gunner serving with 166 Squadron. At the tender age of twenty, he was lost when taking part in an air raid over Germany, on 1 February 1945. He was air crew flying in a Lancaster bomber, and I know he is buried at Durnbach War Cemetery in Germany.

The Vicarage at Willington was a large house on three floors. It was on the opposite side of the road to the church and its large gardens included a tennis court. So big was the house that the top floor was requisitioned by the authorities for use as billets. Soon afterwards, we had an Army Captain Bell billeted on us. He was followed by a Navy Commodore with, I think, his wife. After that, we had a mother and her three children who had been evacuated from London at the time the capital was subjected to attack by V-1 flying bombs and V-2 rockets. Later, the accommodation was given over to my Uncle Bob and his wife, Aunty Eleanor, who moved in when he retired from his job. It was while they lived with us that they received notification of Ernie鈥檚 loss. When Uncle Bob moved in we started to grow vegetables, and keep hens for their eggs. To me, the hens were pets, so when I came home one day to find that one had just been killed for the table, all I could do was exclaim 鈥淭raitors鈥�!!

In closing my story, the reader will appreciate that I was young even when the War ended so my understanding of events, at the time, might have been limited. Nevertheless, I was left with a strong sense that, throughout those war years, everyone pulled together and worked as a team 鈥� apart from the thief who stole Ruby鈥檚 bag, of course! Generally, there was a very positive feeling, a sense of purpose in the country.

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