´óÏó´«Ã½

This story was submitted to the People’s War site by Dorothy MacKenzie for Three Counties Action on behalf of Mrs Greta Hewitt (nee Groves) and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site’s terms and conditions.

At home my father was a printer by day and a NFS fireman by night - sometimes three or four nights a week. During the bad times like the Blitz and the V1 and V2 attacks on nearby London and Luton, he looked very tired. Just over twenty years before he was a soldier on the Somme. I still have his trench maps. I feel sorry for the men of his age who bore the brunt of two world wars, bad enough to be old enough for one! My mother also did a sterling job with all the rations and fed four of us with a hot mid-day dinner as well as a high tea of something on toast every day — no school dinners to help mothers out then!

Regarding food, one thing that makes me smile now is that after church on a Sunday morning and after school on a Wednesday I was sent round to our butcher’s house to walk his dog, as his wife was an invalid. When I took the dog home after a good walk on the Sunday, he would give me a paper parcel with liver or kidney in it, which my mother always leapt on and made good use of. I had to walk the dog in all weathers for that reward — good thing I’ve always loved dogs!

When people say that ‘most people traded in the Black Market’ during the war, this is not so. Real Black Marketeers were despised and when they returned after a spell in prison, they were shunned for their greed. However, most people were able to get a bit on the side. Ours was a man my father worked with who had a few hens in the back garden. He would sell him four eggs now and then at a shilling each, which was expensive but with the ration at one egg a week that extra forbidden boiled egg (eaten with four slices of bread) was a luxury. Also the arrival later of Spam (special pork and ham) from the USA and sometimes an omelette of their dried eggs was another big treat. We must remember that anything imported at that time was hard fought for, as many seamen died bringing food and fuel to us. Some ships were still in sight of the coast of the US when the German U-boats blew them up. We learned to savour every meal. Even today I waste nothing in the way of food.

As I was only a schoolgirl I was not allowed out in the evenings. How I envied the older girls who were sometimes taken by coach to Bassingbourn Camp (USAF) and to the Corn Exchange in Bedford to hear the famous Major Alwyn Glen Miller and His Band. I did listen to his broadcasts and loved them. Oh the tears when he was lost just before Christmas 1944!

Sometimes our war-worker and her fiancé would take me to the cinema. That was so good of them! She was a lovely girl who had come as a refugee from Czechoslovakia by train from Prague. Her name was Marian Leitner and her fiancé was Jimmy. She married Jimmy and I am very regretful that I lost touch with her during the 1960s as I would so love to see again someone, who when she lived with us, was like an elder sister to me. Letchworth was a big industrial town during the war and instead of evacuees we all had war-workers living with us. We were lucky to have Marian living with us, as there was no choice.

I spent a very exciting VE day in Letchworth and then in August a wonderful VJ day in London. My parents and I saw the Royal Family and Mr Churchill on the balcony of a very boarded up and war-damaged Buckingham Palace. Something else I will never forget.

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