大象传媒

This is the last of a series of three chapters that summarise an interview with Gertrude Alice Bloore.

Gertrude was a housewife in Coventry throughout the war, looking after her husband, father, grandfather and child. A second child was born towards the end of the war.

Gertrude's war is memorable mainly for the way that people on the home front endured the privations, the hardships and the constant dangers. How people got on with life with no real feeling that things would ever get better. Gertrude had a bad war.

(Trudy) It were landmines did a lot of damage, they did. But time passes. You'd have to be my age, you'd have to ... youngest ... you've got to be a decent age to remember the finer details.
When somebody said ... we had a little conversation about it. The gentleman that comes with memorabilia. He said "Does anybody know what this is?" Most of us did, little bits of one thing or another, pre-war a lot of it, so you'd gotta be a good age to know what he was talking about.
I never wanted to make old bones. When my husband died, he died of cancer, well a massive heart attack. He went down one Saturday morning, had a shave, he popped his teeth in, brushed his hair, put a clean shirt on, come back up, got into bed, went off to have a cup of tea.
He just went "Ughhh" ... and that was him dead. So we ??? through one thing or another, 'cause you don't die that easy, if your heart's sound.
I think it put a lot of the ... mind you, I think we're still involved in one or two wars, aren't we? Little ones, here, there and everywhere?
But I can't see to read the papers, so I don't buy one. Still that's little to do with the times you're interested in. Still, you do sit and reminisce very often. Something will crop up to remind you of something. Because they were traumatic times. It was all so unnecessary ... it always is.
(Kay) War always is unnecessary, isn't it?
(Trudy) Yeh.
(Kay) Did you grow any vegetables yourself, or ...
(Trudy) Yeh. Oh yes. We'd got fruit trees. That was what kept my son going really, 'cause we'd got about twenty trees altogether. My father and grandfather, they bought an acre between them, and they had half each, and they'd both got bout ten ... of course, we'd got one or two of our own.
You had chickens, you see. We'd got half-a-dozen chickens, brown ones ... Rhode Island Reds. They lay those big brown eggs. Now the next problem was getting food for them. But anyway, you registered 'em, you went on a little ration for them.
I know when we left there, we couldn't take 'em. Couldn't take 'em with us when we moved, and Ron buried two of 'em that he got fond of. I used to ...
As soon as he'd see one of them, he'd bend down, spread the wings ... he used to have to tickle their backs. He's a soft-hearted idiot, no doubt bout it, he was. So he said "I'm not ... nobody's havin' this, so I'll bury them", and he did.
Everybody we knew had a chicken.
Surprising ... as I said I sometimes look back, 'cause I can't seem to read, and you get shut up in the room on your own, p'raps for a couple of hours at a time, at least once or twice a day, and your mind does go back to the past. You finish up feeling really morbid about it.
As I say, my family came through comfortably compared to some. We didn't lose anyone but one men ... popped off or anything. But how people went on in different parts, I don't know ... I'm sure I don't. There was always somebody walking about with eyes like poppies.
We used to hear some titbits in the queues, we did ... all of them thoroughly rude and nasty. Queue up for a fish, bananas and oranges were the main foods you queued up for.
(Kay) Could you go to any shops or could you go to one specific ...
(Trudy) ... one fruit shop. No, you got very few luxuries.
(Kay) Yeh
(Trudy) ... and you got debited for groceries, but if you wanted a little bit extra, you had to stand up and queue for it.
(Jim) Did you have any close friends?
(Trudy) Oh, we all did, love. Yeh. None of them got killed or anything. Course, there were some good shelters here. When the bombing started in real earnest ... No, but by the time you'd personally ... as a close friend, they all come through.
We'd all go down the club that Corner Croft done, and it were the same old faces, apart from one or two lads that had been called up, and they wanted to go, with all the further non-combatants.
But I didn't have a close friend damaged in any way. Course, Coventry was full of people, it could have been worse than what it was ... there were quite a few killed, anyway.
It was full of people, everywhere was absolutely crammed. As I say, there was so many factories ... Birmingham was the same, Wolverhampton, they got a lot of foundry work. And of course, a lot of chaps they used to go home just like niggers, there was so much soot from chimneys about.
We all was survivors ... always. If we wouldn't be, the human race would have popped off years ago ... all of 'em.
There was some pretty drastic expressions used in those days in the queues ... unrepeatable. 'Cause you'd start, you see ... the queues would start about half-past eight, 'cause there were jobs for women if they'd got a child, they took 'em to school and dropped, you know ... got 'em settled down in school, then you went straight back into a queue.
That was bananas, oranges and fish that was in short supply, then you'd perhaps go and queue up for a bit of cake. I think Buckingham's, that was a very good cake shop in Earlsdon Street, and there was another one at the bottom, I can't remember the name of it ... the Co-op on the corner.
It was amazing really, the quantity of stuff that came down, that there was anything left standing, but they sort of concentrated on one spot. I think they probably thought they were doing a factory in or something, but they got the cathedral. Holy Trinity was alright ... well, it was alright ... Council House ... I don't think the Council House had much trouble.
Course, you couldn't get into the city, because there wasn't much transport about. If you hadn't got a car, it was a pushbike or your feet, and then again, there was always a lot to do.
Still, I wouldn't like to see it happen again, I wouldn't like to see the young men about again ... permanently disabled in some way.
"Churchill is on the wireless tonight", we used to call it wireless in those days, "It's on the wireless tonight". Everybody'd cluster round the set ... but he was the man of the moment, no doubt about it, just the right man at the right time. Well, he wore himself out, d'you see ... got a little off-balance as he got older.
Then the Americans come. I was surprised the Americans really helped us that much, the blokes, 'cause I never saw one that could walk unaided, always got their arm around a little girl's neck ... but the funniest thing about it all was ... it caused quite a furore as well, with the club being next door to the Rising Sun ...
The Rising Sun was very popular, and there was quite a few of the men stationed there ... they moved about at the finish, there'd be a bit of an argey-bargey, the snowdrops (police) would come, pick 'em up, chucked 'em in a van ... they couldn't take our beer at all. Course, we used to listen, and some venturesome souls looked out.
There was rather some macabre jokes, really. It was only joking, but of course, half of them, nobody would understand that. It was nasty, thoroughly nasty.
It reminds me now, digging that shelter. It went quite deep, about half way.
(Kay) You had your own shelter in the back garden.
(Tracy) The house we moved to, Radford, they had built themselves a concrete one, and it was quite a mound, quite a big one too. It was very very damp, ... well they all were. Sitting there in a damp shelter with a bit of blanket round your knees.
Actually, there wasn't too much of it when you come to the point. My little area of, I suppose, what you would call Canley, was pretty fortunate, considering we'd got a car factory over the railway line.
That's it ... some live, some die, some get damaged for life. I think it left a tough streak in a good many of us, though, and My God, you'd got to be tough to stand it.
There were more aggravation than fear about, don't remember being afraid very much, they were too busy swearing ... too busy losing their temper with the so-and-so's.
Course, one of the big things was, if publicans would open a pub at night, ... when they could, ... they wouldn't open it during a bombing, they used to close at nine o'clock 'cause the beer'd run out. That was a tragedy, that was.
(Kay) What was, the beer running out?
(Tracy) Yeh, two half-pints each, they were allowed.
(Kay) Mind you, if they'd had too many half-pints, they might have gone the wrong way.
(Tracy) Yeh.
(Jim) With all those trees, I'm surprised you weren't making cider.
(Kay) Mm. The apple trees.
(Tracy) Still, time moves on.
(Kay) Maybe they did make cider.
(Tracy) Trying to think of the man's name who had the cellar filled.
Shop was by St. John's Church, George the Fourth was there as well. Course, one of the funniest bits really was when the man and lady, ... the couple that kept the George the Fourth, ... he worked at Corner Croft's and she ran the pub, and when the bombing was on, she ran back upstairs to put the kettle out.
So they go down the shelter, 'cause you do that sort of thing. With the candle left in the room, "Ooh, I left the candle in the plate", you think, "Oh, I better blow the candle out."
She went back upstairs instead of making a beeline for the shelter. She never lived it down ... but none of it was really funny. There wasn't much fun about.
As I say, my own personal nightmare was chilblains ... you had some nasty winters. Nasty winters, frosty all the time. Still, I'm sorry to have bored you stiff.
(Kay) Been very interesting. Very interesting.
(Tracy) But that was ???, opposite the Council House, where Queen Elizabeth (the Queen Mother) used to stay when she come to Kenilworth ... used to stop there, that disappeared completely.
Queue for hours ... stand there for two hours or more, then he'd come out and say "Oh, I haven't got too much."
I remember perfectly, one day, queuing for meat, when we all had one sausage, ... one.
'Cause they weren't on ration, you see, so he could make a few he could. He were a very nice butcher, corner of Moor Street, and if he'd got a bit of spare, he'd make a few sausage, and everybody shopped there that morning had one. That was lucky, that was. Took it home in triumph.
We had a bit of fun, what with the snowdrops (military police) and the Rising Sun. ???, I think he runs a big hotel now. I don't know what the name of it is, some fancy name they've dug out from somewhere, opposite the paper shop, just a bit inside there.
(Kay) That's the one they painted orange, isn't it? The Rising Sun.
(Tracy) Mm, and a jewellers I think, Edwards. Started out painted a bright pink and then they happened to attract ... it was a good advert, that was ... they toned it down a bit, last time I saw it. I haven't been that way now for five years. It was a big part of our lives.
Really decent of Johnny Corner that was, to get all that big shop and fit it out for the lads. Very happy place to work at. I think they'd all been there p'raps twenty-five years plus. I know one had been there 'bout thirty-six years when he died, well, he'd retired when he died, but he were there about thirty-five, thirty-six years.
Course it's very highly skilled work, int it?
(Kay) Oh, it is, yes. Very ...
(Tracy) Yes. You've got your thinker, you've got your designer, and then you've got the draughtspeople, and then you've got the toolmakers. Course, Herberts were a big machine ... they took a belting. They made the machines, machine tools they were. But Ron was on the bit that work, you know
(Kay) Mm.
(Tracy) I think Littlewoods has got all that now, all down the bottom corner.
Sorry to have rambled. You must have got thoroughly mixed up.
(Kay) Don't think so, because you don't ... when you've got your memories, they don't come out like a diary, do they, day by day. You remember as you go along.
(Tracy) Well, I wouldn't like to see another one.
They were so useless really. There was always a tremendous amount of people, whether they were the aggressors or the receivers of the trouble, they all made a very very comfortable ???, very nice little fortune for themselves, but that basically is what it's all about.
But if the so-and-sos had to fight it, they wouldn't start it. But that was accompanied by pretty lurid language ... it's about a lot of swearing, though ... you've got to let steam off somehow.
(Jim) Right, shall we finish there then?
(Tracy) Yeh, by all means.

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.