大象传媒

In 1939 we lived in a small 鈥渘on-parlour鈥� type house in a quiet suburb of southern Birmingham in a short lane between the Grand Union canal to London and the Great Western railway to London. On the other side of the canal bridge a new factory was built, we understood for Rover engine parts but it was always known as the 鈥渟hadow factory鈥� a term we children did not understand at all. Our family consisted of Dad, Mom, my sister Rose and me, Rose was 9 and I was 7. My father worked for a small family builder and my sister and I attended a local primary school. In the last few months of peace, the threat of war encroached little on our daily lives which, although there was little enough money in the household and little in the way of luxury items in the house, on reflection and with the benefit of nostalgia, we enjoyed a way of life which enabled us to live comfortably and contentedly.

We had a mains radio and a wind-up gramophone for in-house entertainment and a weekly visit to the local cinema. We had a cylinder 鈥淜ing Dick鈥� vacuum cleaner and an electric iron which was used plugged into the light socket !! No ring mains in those days. Our heating was provided by a coal fire in a range in the living room, the area above the fire level enclosed in two doors and the space used to air our clothes. We also had a 1KW electric fire for use on the landing between the three bedrooms in the very cold weather only. Bare linoleum floor covering was not conducive to warm feet when getting out of bed ! Our coal store, bathroom and pantry were off the kitchen, the hot water provided by an electric geyser over the sink and a copper boiler in which my mother did her weekly wash and which heated the water for our weekly baths.

On Sunday 27th August we were sitting in the garden on a gloriously sunny day when an aircraft, which we did not recognize, flew over and we saw the German insignia on it. Some years later when I worked for Alcan (previously James Booth Aluminium) in Kitts Green, Birmingham, I was shown an aerial photograph of the area around the factory taken from a German aircraft shortly before the war with an 鈥淴鈥� marking the factory site. I did wonder if it was the plane we saw on that sunny August afternoon !

On 1st September it became apparent that war was inevitable. My father was too old to be called up so he joined the Air Raid Precautions (ARP) organisation. We spent the weekend gathered around the radio listening with increasing foreboding to the events leading up to war. The quiet announcement on Sunday 3rd by Neville Chamberlain was greeted by acute worry on my parents part and by excitement on mine !

The 鈥減hony鈥� war still had it鈥檚 effect on our daily lives. We were issued with the gas masks in their familiar cardboard boxes and supplied with air raid shelters. The Anderson shelter which was the common one for domestic use was duly installed at the end of our garden but unlike so many people who merely dug a hole and planted the shelter, my father being a builder installed ours properly and embedded in concrete which meant that we enjoyed a water free if not smell free shelter when we came to virtually live in it. Many of our neighbours who had not taken that precaution were unable to use theirs in the bad weather to come as they were full to ground level with water. We had four bunks and a paraffin heater with a door across the entrance. The roof was covered with earth and rocks to make a pleasant rockery garden.
My father also built a blast wall in front of the living room window consisting of bricks built loosely with no mortar which apparently would prevent bomb blast from causing too much damage absorbing the shock wave to a great extent.

Nothing much happened during the rest of 1939 and early 1940 on the home front apart from getting used to ration books, identity cards and not forgetting to carry our gas masks everywhere. Schooling carried on as usual, we received instructions on the use of the gas detector boards which were placed all around, what to do with incendiary bombs, the use of hand pumps for firefighting, ensuring our windows were correctly blacked out every night before lights were switched on etc. Other noticeable changes were the placing of concrete solid cylinders as tank traps next to the canal bridge (they marvellous things to play with) and the installation of large water pipes above the main roads for use in firefighting in the event of the normal pipework being bombed and breached.

Several children were evacuated at this stage, mainly from more well-to-do families but in general we just carried on. In early 1940 when the German army blitzkrieg tore through Belgium and Northern France we came to recognize that war was with us and that we would be next on Hitler鈥檚 shopping list. After the miracle of Dunkirk we found the atmosphere decidedly different with a heightened awareness of the problems that lay ahead. The air raids started, mainly against military installations with Goering鈥檚 attempt to knock out the RAF airfields and fighter planes. Then in September the real Blitz started with Birmingham and Coventry being prime targets.

Every time the sirens sounded we would all troop down the garden and made our way to the shelter. If he wasn鈥檛 at work Dad would go the ARP station which was a lock up garage in the local garage and petrol station. Not a very good choice of placement with a petrol tank under your feet! We did not manage any sleep at all in the shelter but tried to keep cheerful until the all clear sounded. This might happen several times a night with continuous waves coming over. Towards November when the air raids were increasing in intensity, we started to virtually live in the shelter with my parents making meals as and when it went a bit quieter. Eventually day bombing tailed off and night bombing became the norm which was considerably more frightening with the noise carrying no indication of whether it was bombs or gunfire. We gradually came to tell the difference. We also became adept in recognizing the distinctive sound of German aircraft engines from our own fighter planes. One Sunday lunch time my father carried our Sunday lunch down the garden and at the moment of arriving at our shelter doorway and bomb burst about three hundred yards away in our school grounds and whether it was blast from the bomb or the shock of the explosion we don鈥檛 know, the result being that my father fell head first into the shelter and our Sunday dinner was spread all over the shelter.

One of the precautions taken was the limitation of people gathering in large numbers, I.e. cinema, theatre, football matches and for us a loss of schooling. Arrangements were made for all the children in the street to congregate in one house for two hours a couple of times a week for the visit of one of our school teachers. She would take our homework away for marking leaving us with another batch to do. We carried on like this for some eighteen months.

In November the main water supply from the Elan valley was breached and consequently we had water supply problems. Strangely enough we found that water was available from a well at an old farmhouse by our allotments which meant us children queuing up every day with buckets, saucepans etc for as much water as we could carry. As a result of the water shortage, typhus broke out in some parts of the city and as a result large numbers of children were immediately evacuated to quieter parts of the country. My sister went to Lydney in Gloucestershire and I was sent to a small mining town in the Rhondda called Pontycymmer. There was no effort made to keep siblings together !

On arrival in Pontycymmer, we were all mustered at the town hall and local couples came to choose their prospective evacuees. I was, perhaps one of the lucky ones in that Mr & Mrs Jones had a house with one of the few bathrooms in the town with a fitted bath! The majority had to make do with the tin bath by the scullery fire ! We had to go to school, of course, and found it somewhat daunting in that morning prayers consisted of the Lord鈥檚 Prayer in Welsh followed by a hymn also in Welsh. After a few weeks I was joining in and can still sing Calon Lan in Welsh. At Christmas, which was my first one away from home and family we had our small presents sent from home. Mine was a Dinky anti aircraft gun which fired match sticks, very topical. The family had relatives at Newton beach near Porthcawl and one weekend we went to visit. I went down to the beach and met three brothers from Birmingham and we played together and then found a disused railway track with old mining trucks on them. These mainly consisted of 鈥渢ipper鈥� type for loading stone or coal etc. Being adventurous boys we decided to have a ride on them since the rail track was on a gradient. The trucks did not have and connectors between them so we decided to stand between two trucks each and hold them together whilst we had a trip down the track. It worked well for a short while and then I lost my footing and fell between my two trucks and went under the rear one. Luckily it came to a stop and although I wasn鈥檛 exactly sure what had happened, my three compatriots managed to lever the truck off me and dragged me clear. They carried me to a pool of sea water and bathed my injuries which consisted of a four inch gash across my forehead, a similar one in my right shin and severe damage to my right hand. They carried me back to the house to the surprise and shock of my temporary parents. It took about a month for my injuries to heal, the most painful being the treatment for my injured leg which consisted of placing my foot and lower leg in a bucket of hot salty water every morning. My father and mother did manage to make to trip to see how I was getting on and, naturally enough, got a severe rocket for all the trouble I鈥檇 caused. I still have problems with my right hand though !

In March 1941 I returned home to Birmingham, the blitz and the water shortage having improved somewhat. There were obviously quite a few changes to the buildings around my home as a result of the bombing. The road next to my school had been hit but the school didn鈥檛 suffer too much which was lucky as it was constructed mainly of wood not that we would be using it for a little while yet. It was, however, a very bad winter and what with the shortage of fuel and the difficulties with road transport, people suffered to an alarming degree. Our house had a toilet which although was built into the house had to accessed from the outside. One morning the snow was above the door level and we had to tunnel our way to the toilet. To prevent the cistern from freezing up, my father lit an oil lamp under the cistern every night so at least the toilet was useable.

The other main difference to my homecoming was to find that due to my mother鈥檚 health, having suffered double pneumonia previously which nearly killed her, my father found that having to use the outside shelter was proving detrimental to her well-being. He therefore decided to install an Anderson shelter in living room of the house shored up with timber. Being some 8 feet by 6 feet in area it did not leave much room for anything else ! He decided to use the Anderson rather than the Morrison table shelter as he was convinced that the arched roof of the Anderson was stronger against falling masonry etc than the flat top of the Morrison. There was room, just about, for a settee, an armchair, a table and a sideboard. It meant that sitting in the settee meant that the fire was only three feet away but that was no bad thing what with the fuel crisis. This situation did in fact stay the same until May 8th 1945 as my mother refused to have it removed until the war was over. She even insisted on waiting for my father to come home from work before we started to dismantle it. My sister and I pleaded to be allowed to 鈥渏ust loosen the bolts鈥� to which she agreed. Needless to say by the time Dad got home we had taken the whole thing down and taken it out to the garden ! It was surprising what bits and pieces, toys etc we found behind the inaccessible wall of the shelter. The living room looked considerably large that I remembered it from four years previously !
The rest of the war years went by without many significant happenings. We enjoyed 鈥渄o-it-yourself鈥� entertainment variety shows put on by the ARP with singers, comedy acts etc., and we always enjoyed the sing-songs included. Our church did receive a direct hit which demolished the central aisle and the right hand nave. Leaving only the left hand nave standing. The open wall left was replaced by wooden panelling and we carried on with our church services using the nave only. In 1943 I passed the entrance examination to Grammar school and found in September when I started there that one whole wing had been demolished in the blitz so classrooms were at a premium. Our first year classes (for some reason given the numbers 2a, 2b, 2c and 2d, I don鈥檛 know what happened to classes 1!) were held in a large Edwardian house near the school which involved crossing over the main school for several of our lessons.

The highlight of the war for me after my return from Wales was in 1944. We had only ever been to the seaside for a holiday in 1934 to Blackpool which I obviously couldn鈥檛 remember much about so it was a very happy surprise when Mom told us we would be going to Blackpool in August for a week鈥檚 holiday. At New Street station we waited eagerly on the platform for our train. There was already a train at the platform which wasn鈥檛 ours so eventually it pulled out and as it did so we could see a train on the far side of the tracks which was a troop train full of American soldiers. On seeing us (and lots more kids and families) waiting for our train, they started throwing sweets, chewing gum, fruit (oranges included which we hadn鈥檛 seen for a while) and cigarettes for the Dads. It was a marvellous start to the holiday. We had a lovely time in Blackpool although the weather wasn鈥檛 all that bright but we particularly enjoyed the Fun House at the pleasure beach where we could spend all day for one shilling.

May 8th 1945 finally arrived and we had a street party with what goodies our mothers managed to buy or make and we had a large bonfire at the end of the road. We only managed to get a few sparklers and Bengal matches for fireworks but it was a great time anyway and it meant we no longer had to carry gas masks about or check our blackout anymore. The street lights came on and life returned to something like normality. It never, of course, returned to anything like the quiet, peaceful days of the thirties and now it never will.

In December 1945, my mother had to go into hospital after suffering from stomach trouble for some two years and in January after an operation, she sadly died aged 42. It was a bitter blow for all of us after surviving the most difficult years of her life.

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