大象传媒

Viv Newbold told this story, she has agreed to the 大象传媒 terms for entry of stories to the website.

I felt quite put out because it was only the under fives had a green ration book that were allowed to have the proper oranges and the orange juice that was lovely, and they were allowed to have the milk chocolate. We had a blue book which was just for a child; the adults had a white book. I had to have the plain chocolate which was horrible, it really was bitter.
The people next door had children under five, after they鈥檇 finished with their Ostermilk we used to have the tin and make a hole through it just under the lid, and thread some string through and use them as stilts which was quite funny till we fell - that was great fun.

My sister and I (not my eldest, but the one a little bit older than me) we used to nearly come to blows about who was going to get the new ration and clothing books which were a pinky colour (sheets and clothes were rationed). When we went to the shop to buy something the shop assistant would just cut a tiny bit off the coupon. It had to be done so precisely so it didn鈥檛 prevent you getting something else another time. Also we used to like to check through the books to see what was still on ration and we always looked in the end to see where the sweet coupons were. We had two pages of sweet coupons half the page was done for quarter pound amounts and the other half for two ounce amounts. Two ounces wasn鈥檛 much but it was a lot to us. Before sweets actually came off ration there was a shop, quite a long walk away, where 鈥� if you took them a pound of sugar they would give you a pound of boiled sweets, I think you had to pay a small amount, you used to have shapes like fish that were as big as a large goldfish, they were really nice.

In the early days my mum would look after all the sweet coupons. So this gave each person approximately a pound and a half of a month. She put them all together to give us a lot more; they would be out into a big dish. Once I lost my coupons and I went up the road with my eldest sister to get some sweets, on the way back she had to sample them. My mum realised that there weren鈥檛 as many as there should have been, so she was told to take them back 鈥� my sister had to say that she had taken one.

I remember another time at school; I didn鈥檛 get on at school and I was with my older sister and we were coming home from school, I must have been about five then, and she would have been eight so she would have realised the dangers. We heard the siren, she said 鈥渃ome on run鈥� 鈥� she ran and left me. I just toddled on and suddenly this very nice, friendly policeman came up and he said 鈥渨here are you off to?鈥� and I told him that I was going home from school and at the time I thought he was really, really sweet. I told him what I had done at school and that I was going home for tea. When I was older I realised that he was doing that to stop me being afraid. When we got to the top of my street I said 鈥淚 live down here鈥� 鈥� he said 鈥済o on then, run along鈥� no fear in his voice at all. I couldn鈥檛 reach the door knocker and I kicked on the door, my Mum opened it, grabbed me, and said 鈥済et in!鈥� 鈥� I was really frightened.

In that particular house I found it very, very frightening 鈥� obviously it was an old house; I don鈥檛 know what happened there but the top of the house had no banister on the stairs. My dad built a banister for safety and I could not be in that house alone even when I was in my twenties. It was horrible, I just used to sit absolutely rigid with fear, and I can鈥檛 explain that I was just scared. As soon as I heard somebody鈥檚 key in the door I just sort of relaxed and nobody knew what I was feeling. Apparently people heard footsteps on the stairs at nigh time and the people next door had said about their house as well, so something horrible must have happened there.

Halfway down the street a good friend of my sister at the time told me that one house in a whole long terrace of houses just got flattened and everybody got killed. The two houses either side stood right there with no problem. On the opposite side of the road a lot of places were flattened and the teenage boys used it as a racetrack for their bikes, gradually it was made into an official speedway track which stayed that way for quite some time.
Further up the street, on the same side, was one particular house that had been bombed, looking in the window, a bay window, coming through the green door on the left right in front of me would be the fireplace, and to the right of the fireplace and in view of the window was a toilet which had obviously been blown there by the force of the bomb. As a child I found it quite fascinating that people would have a toilet in their front room near the window.

Did we play 鈥榢nock down ginger鈥�? - I didn鈥檛 personally but other children did. They would tie a piece of thread to somebody鈥檚 knocker, hide round a corner or on the other side of the street (to find a shelter), and flick the thread which would knock on the door. The person would come out and see that there was nobody there, the other children used to run off, but I used to dawdle off and experience all the fun of the person getting quite annoyed. Actually I was surprised that the resident didn鈥檛 realise what was going on, because they just thought that surely as they opened the door the knocker would have lifted because of the thread on it. But nobody seemed to have discovered that.

Another thing that we used to do; some of the children in our street, and the next street, used to do our own entertainment. It took a day to get it organised, I was a bit older then. At the time I had started tap dancing, which I quite enjoyed, and my friends next door was very good at doing summersaults, and somebody to tell silly jokes, and we sued to charge the other children a ha鈥檖enny or a penny to come and see us. If it was outside our door my friend from next door used to provide lemonade and biscuits at the interval. We all had a jolly good time. The children in the next street also used to do a show and we would have to pay our ha鈥檈nny or penny, and it was great fun.

I remember going with some more children to the top of the street where there was a pawnshop. There was a young girl there and we used to go in and play, our mother would give us some lemonade powder that had already got sugar in it. We all accepted it as the done thing, we would go to the outside toilet and with a spoon or something we would take the clean water out of the toilet bowl and empty the powder in, it was disgusting but those were the things that went on.
Of course if you dropped any food you never thought that this was going to make you ill, you just picked it up and ate it all 鈥� it was too scarce to waste.

People were more kind and considerate in those days, if you hadn鈥檛 got something and they had, they would share it; not like today where 鈥榶ou can鈥檛 have it鈥�.

When my dad was taken into hospital the woman next down came round because I didn鈥檛 like being on my own. I stood outside the front door, I didn鈥檛 like going too far and she came along and would sit with us. I can鈥檛 see it happening today, unless you are friends. We weren鈥檛 friends, just neighbours.

We had the front door key on a piece of string, nobody tried to get in; they wouldn鈥檛 do that sort of thing.

We had a Morrison shelter, and when the war finished my dad took it to pieces and put it together again in the back yard and we used it as a bike shelter.

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