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The Second World War

I was born in the March of 1935 in Liverpool, Lancashire and therefore was four years of age when the Second World War started.

My clearest recollections go back to when I was about six years old, maybe a little earlier. I can remember diving under the table when the strident wailing of the sirens sounded and explosions were heard, and of how we were shepherded down into the cellar, which my father and uncle had reinforced with wooden beams and supports, for safety. Even as children we were taught to carry our ‘Mickey Mouse’ gas masks at all times, we initially thought of it as a game. Most adults complied with requirements to have their masks with them. Special constables, Air raid wardens and all kinds of auxiliary bodies became familiar sights in the streets. On two occasions I can remember having to be taken down to the underground railway platforms, Central Station, when we were caught outside during an air raid. People would huddle together for comfort and warmth and we would get the inevitable live-wire who got people singing the morale boosting songs of the day, ‘Bless ‘em All’ — ‘Pack up your Troubles’ and so on.

Some people had Anderson shelters near to their homes; the posh people in the suburbs had them in their gardens. There were many reports of crashed aircraft locally and of German parachuters being captured but I only ever remember seeing an occasional fuselage being driven through the streets.

All the adult men I knew were either in the Armed Forces or, those that were too old or unfit for active service were part of the auxiliaries. My father was a frustrated action man, he’d tried all kinds of subterfuges to enlist in the armed forces but because he had a double hernia, surgery in those days was very crude, he was rejected. He was an ambulance driver at first but then became a mechanic at the aircraft factory in Speke; he progressed to teaching the women riveters and welders. I think the ambulance service left deep wounds on his mind because of the casualties he saw, they had to collect as much body parts as possible from bombed buildings. He would come off shift with evidence of the blood, grime and smoke on him even though they washed at the ambulance station, he always seemed exhausted after his tour of duty and would sit smoking a Woodbine with a far away look in his eyes. Public swimming baths had to be used as temporary mortuaries and as emergency water supplies for the Fire Service. Emergency water supply (EWS) tanks were also erected at strategic locations throughout the city and suburbs. They were big metal oblong tanks emblazoned with the letters E.W.S. on the sides. After the war the locals used many of them as swimming pools during hot weather.

During daylight hours my friends and I would play, in our naive childish manner, among the sometimes smouldering debris of bombed houses, houses which the day before we had seen standing complete. It just seemed natural to us. Occasionally we discovered the odd finger, an ear or some other small pieces of a human casualty, but it never registered with us, death was not a thing with meaning although we recognised the objects; we would pick up such items and throw them at each other. During our play in the ruins we would often find pieces of shrapnel from bombs and recently used condoms, the Yanks (American soldiers) would indiscriminately discard them, and we would blow them up to make balloons. Shrieks of horror would erupt from us if one burst and fluid rained on us. We didn’t know any better.

There were times when we were taken outside after a blitz, to the top of Rose Vale, so that we could witness the conflagration of the docks after the bombing. The skyline would be lit up like a scene from hell; we could also see minor fires in other parts of the city areas.

Night times, after dinner and before bed, the family would sometimes sit around the wireless (radio) or play card games (mainly SNAP, later I progressed to whist, brag and poker) or I’d sit and read comic books. Dick Barton and Tommy Handley were two of our favourites on the radio, a lot of the programmes were news and information services or music, reflecting the American influence with their jazz and swing music. Occasionally we would hear the broadcasts made by ‘Lord Haw Haw’ but my father would shrug and call him a fool.

Women of all ages seemed to love the American soldiers because they always had a ready supply of nylon stockings (this was the period when women used various methods to colour their legs and then draw a black line down the back of the thigh and calf to simulate stockings), chocolate and other goodies. ‘Any gum, chum?’ was one catch phrase of the day. ‘Bloody Yanks’ the men would mutter, ‘Over paid, over sexed and over here!’

My parents had a pet shop on Netherfield Road (the family home where I was born) and, because they had exotic animals; monkeys, parrots and such, they were allowed certain fruits and other foods to feed the animals. My siblings and I used to have bananas, oranges and nuts — fruit that was denied to other people because of food rationing. Looking back now I realise the hardships my parents must have suffered and how well they took care of us. Although there was the rationing of food, clothing and fuels (petrol, coal and coke) we never seemed to go without. Our mother made some of our clothing from thin woollen blankets (our trousers/shorts would itch like hell and make our inner thighs red and sore).

During the war people became very resourceful making do with clothing and cooking. The war effort brought about lots of changes in most peoples lives, recycling — today’s big issue — was all the rage and very little went to waste, hand-me-down clothing was essential. Iron railings and gates were taken by the State from the public parks and private estates to be converted into tanks, airplanes, ships and ammunition. Tin cans, glass and paper was collected and taken to depots. Experts of various disciplines, backed by the Government, broadcast on the wireless (radio) with bizarre recipes and ideas to encourage the populace to vary their diets with the limited foodstuffs and utilise oddments. People were being persuaded to eat ‘Snook’ which was in fact whale meat! ‘Digging for Britain’ encouraged people to grow their own vegetables by starting allotments or even digging up the back yard, very few people had gardens unless they lived in the suburbs of the city. A big occasion was when the parcels arrived, sent from Canada, with apples and cocoa, chocolate and other goodies, for the community to share.

One of my jobs in the pet shop was to help clean out the animal cages. On hands and knees I would be inside the cages scraping and brushing the floors and walls of the cages, some of the cages were in the front window, the sight of me cleaning often gave amusement to passers-by. It was a family joke that the human baby had been sold and I was in fact the monkey from the window. Another task I had was to help with the bundling of kindling. In the basement were a large block of tree stump and a hand axe. My father, my elder brother (sometimes!) and uncle would collect floorboards from the bombsites and cut them into approximately eight-inch lengths. My job was to chop these pieces into kindling sticks and to bundle them up with string or wire, using a device that they had either acquired or made. My mother and younger brother would help whenever possible. My father and uncle were very adaptable, a couple of other methods they had for making money was to manufacture lead toys (the lead came from destroyed houses, water pipes and roof flashings); of military figures (soldiers, sailors and airmen), field guns, tanks, airplanes and various ships of the line, from the scrap lead. After dinner the dining table would be turned into a factory bench, the lead was melted in a large iron bowl on the big kitchen stove and then the molten lead was poured into the moulds. Mother and kids would clean the figures, paring the excess bits off the models, (sometimes we painted them) and then we mounted them onto cardboard that had been recycled from delivery cartons. They also had moulds to make plaster of Paris clowns and other figurines. The finished products were then sold in the shop. They even collected industrial electrical wiring cables and burnt the insulation off it to reclaim the copper wire for scrap for the war effort. Dense acrid, noxious smoke would billow into the sky; it was difficult not to get a lungful now and again.

One of Uncle George’s sons (Jimmy) did a delivery round for a grocer. He’d make deliveries using a bicycle with a basket on the front (the type Granville uses in Open all Hours). I was perched on top of the packages (usually they were wrapped with brown paper and string or in the emptied cartons) to start with, but on the trip back I would finish sitting in the basket itself with my legs dangling over the front wheel, most of the streets were cobbled and this made for a bumpy ride, plus the broken brick and other rubble from demolished houses didn’t help.

There are many happy memories of family gatherings; Christmas, Easter, weddings, christenings or any excuse for all the families to meet at one place. My paternal grandparents and two aunties lived in Cornwall Street and their homes were the central meeting places. Usually the adults were in one house and the children in another. We would play games, the most popular obviously being Postman’s Knock. Sometimes everyone would gather in one house, it got very crowded, and have singsongs around the piano — television was not a widespread influence then Another relative was Uncle Tom who had (again like Open all Hours) a corner shop — oh what glorious smells greeted one as they entered the shop; soaps, cheeses, meats, paraffin, spices and many other aromas wafted up our nostrils. As with Arkwright’s shop one could buy almost anything, it was a grocery cum hardware shop.

My sister was born during a particularly heavy blitz in the May of 1941. It was said that her names came from her time of birth, Irene (the nearest they could get to siren — the warning sound) and the month of birth!

Tramcars were the main public transport (there were some buses but they were mainly long journey vehicles). The trams rattled along the lines with the clang—clang of the signal bell, occasionally the arm (carrying the electricity to the tram motor) would become detached from the overhead cables and the conductor had to pull the rope to realign the pole onto the cable. We kids loved to skip on the back of the trams and get a free ride until the conductor chased us (it was a dangerous practice). Few people could afford motorcars; horses and carts were common sights in the streets. Goodness knows how the Corporation kept the roads useable with all the destruction they received?

By the time I was eight I was adept at killing and preparing; rabbits, ducks, hens and geese, for the table. Christmas was our busiest time; No bloody German was going to stop the good old British from celebrating the birth of Christ with excess food and drink. I must admit though that this was a time when most people visited a church, even if there was no wedding, funeral or christening to celebrate. It was the same at New Years Eve; churchyards would be a seething mass of revellers awaiting the pealing of bells to herald in the New Year. Men would grab the most convenient female and have a snog, then grab someone else.

Our first shop was next to a baker’s where they created miracles, considering the restrictions caused by the food rationing. The owners often gave us the treat of beef tea which was the gravy left over after they had cooked the meat filling for pies, smashing.

Sex to us seemed so natural. We had seen couples fornicating in the bombed ruins, and dogs in the street and various fowl doing what came naturally. Later, when my father evacuated our mother and we children to North Wales during the really heavy bombing, we witnessed horses and cattle, pigs and sheep being serviced. I would have been about eight when some friends and I (boys and girls of course) attempted to emulate the humans and animals, again in the ruined houses.

We spent many happy hours on one of the local farms, I well remember one day watching a farmer milking a cow, and then suddenly he squeezed milk up towards us, we laughed and tried to catch the milk in our mouths (it was lovely and warm). A delicacy that I enjoyed, I don’t think anyone else did because it had a sour taste, was buttermilk, a residue from the butter making I presume.

At the end of the war, 1945, I was ten and can well remember the euphoria when peace was declared VE Day (Victory in Europe), then later the Japanese capitulated, VJ Day (Victory over Japan). We watched the cinema newsreels with horror at the pictures of Belsen and other concentration camps, the condition of the Allied prisoners of war released from the Japanese camps and the violence and devastation of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. All this did not spoil the joy at peace, street parties were held throughout the country. Dining tables, trestles and anything else was used to make long tables down the centre of streets. All kinds of seating was used, chairs, benches, barrels, crates and so on. Residents used days of their rations to put on the best spread that they could. Women made flags and bunting from any pieces of rags and materials that they could find.

For me the war years were a period of adventure, discovery and learning. I can never remember feeling afraid, only a sense of being careful. We were lucky in that our house never received a direct hit and we had no immediate casualties, distant relatives lost their lives but we appeared to lead a charmed life. Only in later life could I appreciate our luck and have sympathy for those whose lives were devastated by WAR, people from all sides Allies and the Opposition.

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