大象传媒

Transcription of a group session held at MALSC 9 March 2005.

Norma Crowe: Local Studies Librarian, MALSC

MW, from Welwyn in Kent. Born in 1938.

SW, born in Strood. 8 years old when war broke out.

Eva (S's sister), lives in Strood, 16 when war broke out.

JN went into the army in 1939 when he was 20 years old

D 鈥� working in Australia

OC born 1923, 16 when war broke out living in Rochester

EA born in Gosport in 1921 moved to Medway Towns about 1932/3.

VT born in 1915. Lived in London

DH 6 months old and lived in Sidcup when war broke out and was evacuated and started school in Leeds

SO born in Chatham. Six and half when war broke out and living in a house adjoining a drill hall in Jarrow where my father was stationed. He went to France and we came back to Chatham.

Air raid shelters

SO?EA?: In 1940 I moved to Southampton to live with an aunt of mine and we had an air raid shelter and I remember being in it on the night that Southampton was bombed and that was a most dreadful night. When I went into Southampton the next morning I could look across the tops of all the shops on both sides of the road. I could see the Bargate at one end and the park at the other end. It was a terrible night. From there I joined the WAAFs.

DH: We had a huge air raid shelter, brick-built, with a reinforced roof. We did have soldiers billeted with us during the war, but we would go straight into the shelter at night and sleep in bunks. I don鈥檛 know why we had one like this 鈥� it was there for years and years afterwards.

E: We had a shelter in the garden and I remember quite clearly. In our road )Hawthorn Road, Strood) a bomb dropped and there was a fatality across the road. The other person fortunately was out at the time. The other lady was under the table with her little girl and it was that table that saved their lives. It was an experience I shall never forget, very very frightening.

SW: I remember the Andersen shelter being built. I recall Dad digging the hole, about two thirds or perhaps more was buried, then earth was shoveled over the top. Dad put some floor boards down inside and we had a mattress on that so we all literally slept on the floor. We were quite a large family and I remember insects crawling across my sister鈥檚 face and hearing her screams. You were laying in the dark and these things were crawling across you 鈥� not very nice. It was damp and musty. We only used it for a while and then we got a bit cocky and we used to lay in bed when the air raid siren sounded. We didn鈥檛 want to go down there. There were direct hits on some of the shelters where people died anyway, but looking back on it I suppose it was a bit silly of us.

SO: I hated all the creepy crawlies in there, but it was something you had to do. I remember on one occasion, I had a sister who was a very chubby little girl, and we had had instructions that when the siren goes you should get into the shelter. She was being very slow taking her shoes off and we could hear things going on, so we pushed her and she went flying straight down onto this bed. We all thought it was very funny at the time.

MW: My grandfather was killed in our shelter at Welwyn. That was June 1944, the V1鈥檚 鈥� he was killed in the shelter. The rest of us had been evacuated to Oxford, Christmas 1940. We came back in 1945.

OC?: We never had a shelter, we had a very sturdy table. They were made like then. My father used to stand out the front when the air raid was on and I kept calling for him to come in but he never got under the table.

NC: Did people had to pay for the shelters?

Group: No, they were supplied free but you had to put them in yourself. Sandbags over the top, lot of people put earth over the top and planted vegetables etc.

Food

NC: That brings me onto the next subject 鈥� food. How did you survive?

SO: A lot of people in those days kept rabbits and chickens. I lived with my grandmother at the time in Luton, Chatham, and I don鈥檛 remember us being short of food. But then children鈥檚 perceptions are different. Our mothers could have been going absolutely spare trying to feed us and we would know. But I do know we had lots of rabbits. Men in those days also had allotments, so I don鈥檛 think it was as bad as it might have seemed. Also we didn鈥檛 have sweets in those days, you just couldn鈥檛 afford them. We weren鈥檛 used to have sweet things that we have now. (Didn鈥檛 they start making Dolly Mixtures with some sort of chalk or something? They were horrible.) I think we relied on ourselves more 鈥� we didn鈥檛 expect to go to the supermarket, they weren鈥檛 around then.

E: when there was a queue, you just joined it as there was food at the end of it.

??: I remember my son spitting out his first banana as he had never tried one before and he was about three then.

DH: We had dried bananas because my uncle was a vegetarian and we acquired them that way.

SW: I like that word 鈥渁cquired鈥�. The black market perhaps. Our dad had tame rabbits he bred and chickens he kept. He also poached rabbits to keep us going. We were never really hungry. With the eggs, some of them we would take to the shop and swap some eggs for some extra sweets as they were on ration, so that was a bit of under the counter stuff really. We also used to have cough drops from the pharmacist to replace sweets.

Group: Victory V鈥檚, licorice wort.

School

NC: Some of you were at school during the war, can you tell us about that.

SW: Our school was Temple Farm School. I remember black sticky tape being put on each pane of glass in the windows in case there should be any shattered in an impact. I was evacuated. I remember being evacuated from Rochester Station and I remember it being a dull unpleasant morning and the station was packed with children and mothers all upset with the move. There were teachers there as well. On the way from Rochester up to London where we needed to change (we were on our way to Yorkshire) there was an air raid warning when we arrived in London and we all had to go into the Underground and waited for the raid to finish.
On reaching Yorkshire I remember these dark brick walls and arches. Everything looked dark 鈥� it didn鈥檛 seem to be in colour, that was the impact it made on me. I was evacuated with my brother. I didn鈥檛 enjoy it at all. We were eventually fitted in to one house with a woman who had three children. She belonged to the WVS. My first memory of going through her front door was of burnt Yorkshire puddings which stayed with me. We were fed with a roast joint with horrible thick yellow fat on it and we had to eat it all. My little brother craftily put the fat in his pocket rather than swallow it. But I was swallowing it whole to try and get rid of it 鈥� ugh, unpleasant memories. I think we were evacuated when I was 12 and I was 13 when we came back, so we weren鈥檛 there very long, but we did go to school there. My brother was 4 and half years younger than me he went to a different school to me. I found that very embarrassing as well 鈥� I was a very shy person and it was all strange people. The fond memories are of the father of the house. He had an allotment and I used to enjoy going there with him and he grew raspberries and made jam with them. Because there wasn鈥檛 the sugar about, I鈥檓 not sure how they made it, but I remember this 鈥渇ur鈥� on the top of the jam every time you opened a fresh pot.

SO: I was evacuated and my mother and little sister came. We had recently lost my father and I don鈥檛 think she could bear to be separated so we went to Wales. I can remember we had to leave early in the morning as it was a long journey to Wales in those days. When we got there it was late at night and we had missed our stop. We didn鈥檛 get off at the right place in Wales and we were taken by police car back to a place called Abertwizzle. That鈥檚 where we stayed for 18 months and we quite enjoyed it there. We made igloos out of the snow. My little sister although she was too young insisted on coming to school as well. We quite enjoyed it but I don鈥檛 know what my mother suffered. She was recently widowed, what did she go through?

SW: They didn鈥檛 express themselves then, it was all held within and they put on a brave face.

Work

NC: What sort of jobs did you do during the war those who had left school?

VT: The day after war was declared on the Sunday, I was married and living in a flat in Peckham, I went to go to work as usual on the Monday morning (in the office of a small firm, Credit Drapers (Tallymen as they used to call them), in Peckham High Street) and all the staff were standing outside waiting. After several hours we found out that they had all evacuated as they were all a Jewish firm and I think they got a bit scared. They just left the business and went and we just all lost our jobs on the spot. We hung about all morning and then we found out that their house was empty and they had all gone. After that I did fortunately find another job along the road. After that I had about six jobs and eventually joined the WFS the Women鈥檚 Fire Service in Greenwich. The fire station is still there in Greenwich but its called Greenwich Hotel. I lived at Bexley Heath then and went by bus. We did 48 hours on and 24 hours off. I was a watchroom attendant taking calls etc. When we were off duty we were expected to go and help the ARP people if there was a heavy raid and I did that several times. Some of it was quite amusing, some of it was quite frightening.

E: I used to work at the paper mill and just after the war broke out I got a job at L鈥�.?, that鈥檚 the ammunition place. I was there about two years and then I volunteered for the ATS in 1943. I did my training at Guildford and I went to Berkshire and then back into Surrey. I was a mess orderly, waited on the troops and they could be a handful believe me! One day bringing out these mess tins 鈥� three tins, meat at the bottom, vegetables on the next and trifle on the top. I came out of the kitchen and the top one came off and I had to run in and get another one feeling very embarrassed. They wouldn鈥檛 let it rest for a few days. They used to call out 鈥淒ropped any more tins Ginge!鈥� and 鈥淲here鈥檚 the trifle Ginge!鈥�. I felt really silly. They were really friendly but you know what blokes are when they鈥檙e young!

OC: When I started work after I left school at 14, I became a butcher boy. The pay was about 25s a week for all hours. Christmas time picked up with sale of chickens etc. Then I got myself a job with a bit more pay at with Style and Winch, on Gas House Lane, as a drayboy, going out with the lorries and helping the draymen and unloading the barges that came down the river with beer. We stood out on the quayside one day and there was a raid going on and that was the day that a plane came down on Temple Street. At dinner time we all got on our bikes and went over and had a look. That was my working life until I went in the services, in the army, in 1942 when I was 18. I ended up in the REMEs and went to Italy and North Africa.

?? I joined the WAAFs in 1940. I was sent to Derbyshire for a while, then I went to Pembroke Dock and then to Pembray in South Wales. Then I had a note to say I had been posted to 16 group in Gillingham. I met my husband, he was an instructor in the Royal Marines in the barracks at Chatham. We got married in November and I was billeted on him! So we had a flat in Gillingham and we were there until my son was born in 1944. Then I left the WAAFs to have him. Yes, it was great. Mind you I had to do 鈥渏ankers鈥� on a number of occasions because I was late on parade in the morning. 鈥淛ankers鈥� means I had to clean the toilets. (Definition = punishment for defaulters). I worked in the tunnel three nights a week taking all the messages, because it was coastal command. I was taking the messages of aircraft brought down. Next to my office was the Ops Room and I absolutely dreaded going in there because so many of the pilots had lost arms, legs or an eye and see these poor soles. That was in Gillingham in Prince Arthur Road.

NC: I had no idea that that was there.

MW?: They don鈥檛 advertise the fact that its there, number 16. We have tried to get access to the tunnel, up at the Royal Aeronautical Society in Medway, and have been refused access.

?? I worked for the senior medical officer, he had a Nissan hut on the left-hand side of the road near the tunnel. I remember one day seeing a German aircraft going over and a bomb dropping out of it and hid under the table. It landed on St.Mary鈥檚 Island.

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