大象传媒

Submitted to the site on behalf of Alan Astle by Stafford Library.

I was 9 years old when the Second World War began and can recall many aspects of the war as I saw it as a young boy.

I can remember very clearly Neville Chamberlain's broadcast announcing that we were at war with Germany. The whole family listened to the wireless and it was received with a stunned silence. My younger brother and I went out immediately into the street which was silent and empty. We were expecting something extraordinary - sirens, bombs, aeroplanes - yet there was nothing! It was not long before the sirens were being tested - it was a sound which will never be forgotten and was to be heard on many occasions in the following years.

I remember certain things leading up to the Declaration. For example, I remember the scare over food shortages and the possibility of rationing. My mother started a small hoard of tinned food which was placed under the floor boards in one of the bedrooms.

Early in August 1939 my brother and I went on a short holiday to one of my aunts living in South London. Why we were allowed in view of the impending war I shall never know! How we enjoyed it! We had our first view at close hand of a barrage balloon which was tethered at ground level at the end of the road. We also witnessed the hundreds of refugees leaving London. Our holiday was shortlived because it was not more than a few days before our mother arrived to bring us back home.

Throughout the war we all listened to the wireless avidly, especially the Six O'Clock News. We believed all that was said, fortunately little realising that many items were very much exaggerated in an attempt to maintain morale. I will always remember the reporting of the Battle of Britain with the number of British and German planes lost. It was like listening to cricket scores. The numbers were always well and truly to our advantage. I remember vividly the Battle of the River Plate and was most disappointed when the Graf Spee was scuttled!

We also read the newspapers with great enthusiasm. I loved the maps showing the arrows indicating advances and retreats - mainly retreats during the early part of the war. I remember the issue of gas masks to us in school. I hated wearing mine. It was not long before the cardboard box was exchanged for a metal cylindrical case. This we carried everywhere.

Once the war started schooling was on a part-time basis because of the lack of air raid shelters. I well remember being given work to be completed at home - I enjoyed that!

Talking of air raid shelters I well remember my father and his brother putting one in our back yard. They tired early of digging the hole and put the shelter in at a depth of about a foot and a half, which was not sufficient! It was not long before some official came along and told my father to dismantle the shelter and to start again doubling the depth of the hole. As children we had hours of fun in that Anderson Shelter, especially when it was kitted out with bunks, blankets and so on. It was used occasionally during air raid warnings, especially at night. Our family had one problem - my grandmother, Nanny Astle. To put it politely she was a little "broad in the beam" and we couldn't quite squeeze her into the entrance. Consequently she would remain in the house squatting under the kitchen table!

Not too many bombs fell on the Potteries. But whenever they did fall and they were in the vicinity of Shelton we as boys would always visit the site and view the damage, little realizing the horror of death and injury.

Great store was made by boys of souvenirs of the war. I well remember that just after Dunkirk many of the French soldiers and sailors being billeted in Trentham Park. At weekends they would come into the Potteries and would walk past our house on their way up to Hanley Park. The children in our area would walk with them and if they were lucky would be given something like a tunic button or a badge which would be treasured for the rest of the war. My brother and I had quite a collection in our bedroom. We had buttons, badges, pieces of shrapnel, cartridge cases, but pride of place was a defused incendiary bomb! On our wall we always had the latest map showing the progress of Bomber Command over Germany. I will never forget the names like Dortmund, Dusseldorf, Hamm, Essen, Cologne, etc. The targets were marked by red bombs and the bigger the bomb the more the target had been attacked. We at the time did not realise the enormous casualties inflicted on the German population. The news items always referred to the targets as being strategic and military and the bomb aiming as acurate!

There are many other aspects of the war that I can refer to, for example the Blackout, the ARP Rationing and the Ration books, the cessation of many leisure activities such as the closure of the public swimming pools and the activities in the public parks such as the rowing boats and fishing.

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