大象传媒

Chapter 1 Peace

On August 14th 1945 the Second World War ended.
Japan had surrendered after receiving two devastating blows. Atom bombs had been dropped
on Hiroshoma and Nagasaki.
I was thirteen years old, and had another few months of school to go before I left at fourteen. I went to Milverton School in Rugby Road, Leamington Spa, having failed my 11-plus by one mark.My parents were so upset at my failure that they went and had a chat with my headmistress, and she told them about about the one mark. Thinking back over the exam after the papers had been collected,I suddenly realised I had made a stupid mistake on one of the questions. So -I never got to go to the Leamington College for Girls with my friend Shirley Harper.
The day after the war ended, August 15th, was declared VJ day, Victory in Japan. Previously, when the Germans had surrended and the war in Europe had ended, May 8th 1948 had been declared
VE day.
I remembered I was up very early on the morning of VJ day and I slipped out of the house where I lived
in Woodbine Street.It was a beautiful day weatherwise, briliant sunshine and blue skies, and I walked along the street and stood at the top of Church Hill that adjoined it.Even now, some 50 years later,I have never forgotten how I felt that day as I stood there.
Everywhere wa so quiet. I looked down the hill and there was no-one about,no cars to be seen.Not many people had them in those days, and anyway there was no petrol to be had,unless you used a cehicle for war work.Everything seemd to be at peace."Yes",
I told myself,"we really are at peace".I kept repeating to myself,"Peace,Peace", and I couldn't take it in.The war had gone for six years minus two weeks, tearing my life and millions of other families apart.
On that sunny morning I likened the world to one of those glass paper weights that release a snowstorm when turned upside down.
For years the world had been turned upside down, and instead of snow there had been planes, bombs,bulletts and bodies in the air, but ti had been righted,and everything had settled and was calm again.At least that's how it seemed to me as I stood at the top of Church Hill that motning,and how apt that name was.Churchill was the name of the man who had been our Prime Minister during the war.He had given us in England and other people around the world,the fortitude and courage,when things looked really bad, to soldier on and give our all to help our country and win the war.
My family had certainly done their bit. My father worked in 'munitions and was a Special Constable.
My mother - well my mother worked so hard at keeping a large house spotless.A house that contained her family,soldiers billetted on us,and evacuees.She fed us well,I don't know how,on wartime rations. My elder brother Frank was in the army in The Royal Signals and spent a large amount of the war with the 1st Army in North Africa and then Italy.His fiance,Marjorie,worked in the food office before going into the ATS.My sister,Mollie,worked at the Lockheed Aircraft Factory,and so did her fiancee Idris before he was called up into the army.My brother Bob also worked at the Lockheed,in the Jig and Tool drawing office, and was also an ardent member of the Home Guard, - and I was in the Brownies.

Chapter II War Beginning

I was seven years old and on holiday in Weston - super Mare with my parents when war was declared on September 3rd 1939.I remeber looking out of the windows of the coach that took us home the next day.
It was a grey day,in keeping with everyone's mood and there were soldiers drilling on the beach. The tide was right up to the beach for thr first time since we had been there instead of stopping a mile or so out.
Back home I found to my delight, the schools had been closed but that didn't last long. No time at all in fact.
As I was only seven years old when the war started,all the apprehension and the fear of the grown-ups went unnoticed by me. Life changed so gradually that I didn't notice it at first.I was more interested in playing in the street with all the other kids,adn going over the Guys Cliffs fields,and making paper boats to sail in a pond we found over there.I founded the Black Hand Gang,with me as their leader.That didn't last long.The boys said I was too bossy!I was the only girlin the street by the way until another two,Valerie and Pam,arrived during the war.
Before I had Valerie and Pam to play with,my best friend in the street was Michael Cooke. He used to walk to school with me on Sundays when we went to Sunday School at St.Mark's. I also used to swap my Tiger Tim comic with Mickey as we called him,for one of his racier ones,such as Beano or Dandy.
Life got a bit cumbersome when we had to take oue gas masks everywhere we went.They were supplied in a cardboard box with a long loop of string to hang on your shoulder,but you can imagine how long that lasted,and most people ended up carrying them in a bag specially shaped to hold them,made up of what I seem to remember looked like imitation leather.
We had gas mask drill at school. We used to climb down into the school air raid shelter ,which was under allotments by the school grounds.The entrance
was a round manhole in the ground ,and we climbed backwards down a woodedladder into a long narrow shelter.By the time we were all down there,the noise was indescribable,The headmaster soon put a stop to that by telling us to put on our gas masks.We sat on wooden forms that lined the walls,
and I remember the smell of damp wood and concrete,
an an even more peculiar smell that came from the nozzle of my gas mask.

CHAPTER III OUR HOUSE

When you look back on your life you can remember the highs and lows ,but not the middle of the road days.Same with the weather.
I can remeber very hot summers and freezing cold winters.
Our hose didn't have central heating, not many did in those days.There were fireplaces in all our
bedrooms,but the only time my mother ever lit a fire in one was if you were ill in bed,and you had to be pretty poorly even then.
It was a tall narrow house.A front door led off the street, but we idn't use it much.We usually went down the steps off the pavement into the basement area,and in through the kitchen door.
When you looked up to the street from the kitchen window all you could see of people walking by was their bottom half.My family and I got quite good at recognising peoples'legs.
On that level off the kitchen was a larder with shelves,and that was as large as the kitchen.
The kitchen was also our bathroom,as it contained a bath with a hinged lid that my mother used as a long worktop to bake and do the ironing on.When the bath was in use ,the lid was held up against the wall by a wooden peg.It was filled with hot water,heated in a gas copper that stood in a corner of the kitchen.
This was all a great improvement on bath time previously .Then we used to bathe in front of the fire in our living room,in a tin bath that was kept hung on a hook in the larder,and to fill it my mother lit a fire under the stone copper that previously filled the corner where the gas copper now stood.
Five inches was the depth of water recommended for a bath during the war.I have read that King George VI had a black line painted at this height ,round the inside of the baths in Buckingham Place.I don't know how true that is.
To econmise, my mother used to bath me,and then get into the same water herself.I would have done it the other way around.She didn't have some of the Guy Cliffe fields attached to her person.
Going downa step from the kitchen towards the back of the house,you entered a room where we spent most of our lives.It was always referred to as 'the room'.Ask where someone or something was,and the answer was invariably@in the room'
There was always a lovely fire in winter. We ate round a scrubbed table that was usually covered by a fringed cloth, na da snowy white linen one for meal times.
My brother Bob did his homework from Techincal College on that table. We played board games on it, and weekend evenings, the whole family played cards round it. We would ususally play Rummy or Newmarket and have a little gamble. Only a penny a hand, but it made it more interesting.
The window in the room looked onto the back garde. My father grew flowers and vegetables. There was a very old cooking apple tree, and gooseberry bushes - without babies under them.
In the garden was a very tall pole, with a wireless aerial attached to it. I often had to take the wireless accumulators to a shop along Regent Street to have them recharged.
I hardly ever played in the garden. I was usually out in the street with the other kids. Michael Cooke, George Newey from next door adn others, including a boy callled John Rodenhurst. All the others called him Enoch. I've never worked out why.
My parents had the front bedroom on street level. The room at the back was my bedroom that I often shared with my grandmothers, when either of them came to stay.
There were three more bedrooms on the top floor and above them was one flight leading to a lavatory and another flight leading to an attic. My mother scrubbed this out and I had it as a playroom.
The cistern of the upstairs lavatory protruded in a box-like affair into this attic, and my friends and I thought it great frun to flush this lavatory while someone was actually sitting on it! You just had to lift the lid and push the ball-cock down, and wait for the investive to float up through the floor.

CHAPTER IV DAILY LIFE

I have mentioned the freezing winters and the scarcit of the cars during the war. These two facts meant that when it snowed, and we had a lot of snow in the winters during the war, people swept the snow from their fronts, and off the pavement, into the gutter. Consequently there were piles of snow at least three feet high in places, and sometimes the whole length of the street. WE used to try to walk to school on these piles of snow without touching the pavement. Most of the piles were quite firm and held, but occasionally your wellington clad leg would go through, and you ended up with a wellie full of snow, not to mention a soaking wet black woolie stocking, which was precariously fixed to your liberty bodice with a button pushed through a loop.
I never stayed for school diner. My mother cooked at dinner time. (It's called lunchtime nowadays). There would be me, brother Bob who cycled home for dinner from the Lockhead, my Dad before he went to 'munitions', Majorie when she worked at the food office, perhaps grandmother, a soldier who was billetted on us, or an evacuee. I'll tell you about the soldiers and evacuees later.
I used to walk home from school every dinner time, and my mother gave me three jobs to do each day. That's how I earned my pocket money.
First of all I had to got to Miss Stokes bread shop, which was just around the corner in Warwick Place. I always bought a large tin loaf price fourpencs halfpenny.
To a little girl Miss Stokes seemed very old. She was a spinster who wore old fashioned long dresses, and her hair was parted in the middle and plaited. The plaits were then wound round into "earphones" over each ear.
In retrspect she could have been no more than early thritiea. I suspect she was dominated by her mother who was never seen, but you knew she was keeping tabs on everything that wa going on,through the open door that led from the shop into their living room.
I used to gaze with fascination at Miss Stoles ,I wondered what her christian name was. She never actually looked anyone in the eye, and only spoke to say how much things were,and to sa 'thank you'when you paid her.
When her mother died the hair was cut,and her skirts went shorter .She also got married and had a baby rather quickly,and then her husband deserted her.Listening to the grown-ups talking,I gathered he had also ran off with her money.She had sold the shop after her mother died.I thought it all really sad!
When I came back from the bread shop,my mother gave me the household scraps to take to the pig bin as we called it.
Dotted around everywhere wa dustbins .Our nearest one was on Church Hill under a big tree.Everyone used to put their scraps,potato peelings and such in these bins,and they were used to feed livestock.
My other dinner time job was to dust 'the room'.My mother had done the fireplace,and run the carpet sweeper over the carpet,and then left me to dust round.By the time I had finished these jobs the others had all come home ,and we all sat down to eat.I hated the days when we had tapioca for pudding.It seemed to look like frog spawn Mickey and I brought back from Guys Cliffe fileds.
During one dnner time the air-raid siren sounded.Bob,my mum and me went up to one of the top bedrooms at the back of the house because we were sure we heard a bomb drop.We could see smoke rising form the direction of the Lockheed.Bob cycled off to work again,and when he came home that evening he said a bomb had fallen,no one had been hurt but there was quite a bit of damage.
Leamington Spa wasn't a prime target for the German
bombers,but when the raids on Coventry were at there height we had a stick of bombs across the bottom half of the town.A vegetable shop in Bath Street and a house in York Road were two of the buildings hit. One bomb fell not far from the Town Hall on the Parade.
There is a plaque on the statue of Queen Victoria that stands just by the Town Hall.It reads-'A GERMAN BOMB MOVED THIS STATUE ONE INCH ON IT'S PLINTH ON 14TH NOVEMBER 1940'.She was never put back in place,and if you cared to climb up and look,you can see the mark on the plinth.
One lone German plane actually machine-gunned the Parade one afternoon, and people dived into Woolworths and other shops to take cover.
Left on my own I would probably slept on after the siren sounded at night,but me parents would carry me down three flights of stairs,by the light of a torch held by mmmy mother.I wa sput to sleep as I could on the setee in 'the room'.I was more frightened of my father losing his footing in the dak,and dropping me,then of the air-raid.
After a while we got to know the sound of the German aeroplane engines.They had sort of throbbing sound,quite distinctive from ours.When he heard them,my father used say'Gerry'in awarning sort of voice.
Later in the war,the remains of the house in York Road was the scene of a Civil Defence competitionbetween two teams of firemen and ARP workers.ARP stands for Air Raid Precautions.
They had to rescue a little girl-me- trapped in an upstairs room whilke her distraught mother-a neighbous of ours by the name of Mrs Wright-pleaded with them to save her little girl.I had to lean out of the window and call for my'mother' and then wait to be rescued.
One team lowered me down on a sort of seat on a rope and the second team carried me down fireman's
lift on a man's back.
Miss Ellen Wilkinson,who was in the coalition goverment during the war,presented a prize to the winning team.She said that my make believe mother and I were as good at acting as film stars.

Chapter V THE FILMS AND RADIO

Frank and Marjorie used to give me presents of the Film review annuals at Christmas.I read them avidly,and there wasn't much I didn't know about the film stars of that time.
There were Shirley Temple,Sonja Henie,Tyrone Power,John Payne,Bing Crosby,Deanna Durbin as well as our British favourites such as Stewart Grainger,James Mason,Dennis Price,Margaret Lockwood,Ptricia Roc,Jean Kent and husband and wife team Michael Dennison and Dulcie Grey.I couild go on and on.
Before he went into'munitions',my father was manger of Freeman Hardy and Willis ,the shoe shop in Regent Street,Leamington Spa,and Thursday was early closing day.He always took my mum and me to the pictures first house every Thursday evening.
We usually went to the Regal.There was a Regent Cinema and a Scala Cinema in Leamington Spa,but I don't remember going to them much.In fact I don't think we went to the Scala at all.It was generally known as the 'Flea Pit'.
We always satin the1/9's and usually row F or one in front or back of it on the left hand side of the cinema as you faced the screen.I used to sit by the aisle,then my mum and then my dad.
I would sit lost in a dream world,soaking up the music and dancing of the Hollywood musicals ,and as young as I was I appreciated the superb acting of our British stars.
I wa quite good at imitating some of the people I saw on the screen,and my family would roll the carpet back at one end of'the room',and I would entertain them.I got applause too.I can still do a passable Carme Miranda to this day.
I have always loved dancing,and perhaps this stems from the fact that I used to go to the Linden School of Dancing every Saturday afternoon.I learnt tap and ballet and what was called Musical Comedy.I used to do the splits for that.
I used to like the start of the newsreel at the cinema.Loud stirring music wa followed by Geoffrey Summers stentrious voice announcing 'this is the Gaumont British News.bringing the truth to the free peoples of the world'.Whatever was shown about the war,it always included a clip of British tommies grinning at the camere and giving the thumbs up.Justto show us they weren't downhearted,I suppose.The war was on Pathe News as well,and that started with the words'Pathe News'over a large cockerel crowing,accompanied b more stirring music.
The radio was the main source of entertainment for people during the war.I especially remember Tommy Handley in ITMA-short for It's that man again-In town tonight.Paul Temple thrillers,Uncle Mac on Chidren'Hour with Toy Town and Larry the Lamb,and Monday Night at Eight.I ca still sing the signature tune to that one.I loved the beginning of In Town Tonight.It was a Friday night programme,and it would start with the sound of traffic, and then a man's voice would shout 'Stop'.and all would be quiet.Then the announcer would say'Once again we stop the roar of London's traffic to bring you' and he would go on to tell us the names of the stars on the programme that evening.
People working in factories had non stop music played to them to keep their spirits up, and to help the long day's toil along.Twice a day there was a programme called 'Music while you work',and popular songs were played so the workers could sing along.My friend and I made up a couple of lines to sing to the signature tune-it went:
'Music while you work for workers
Hurry up,you blinkin'shirkers',
and these are the words we made up to the song the seven dwarfs sang in Snow White:
#Whsitle while you work
Mussolini is a twerp
Hitler's barmy,so's his army
Whistle while you work'
People in fatcories were also entertained in their canteens during the dinner break.Entertainers toured the fatcories,and these half hour entertainments were broadcast by the 大象传媒, and were called Workers'Playtime.You didn't know which factory it was being broadcast from.We were only told it was coming froma factory in the North of England or whereever. Most of the performers belonged to ENSA-Entertainment National Services Association-they also went to the front line and entertained the troops.
A young girl by the name of Vera Lynn became everyone's favourite.She sang songs whose words conveyed all our feelings during those dark days. She also went abroad and sang to the troops,often coming under fire herself.She became known as 'The Forces Sweetheart',and also became aDame some years sfter.
The 大象传媒 also broadcast tips on how to keep healthy by the Radio Doctor by the name of Charles Hill.So called experts told us how to'Make Do and Mend'.Most of all I likes Mabel Constanduras who played two parts.An exasperated woman trying to explain to a very tetchy 'Grandma' the finer points of wartime recipes and handy hints.

CHAPTER VI HOLIDAYS AT HOME

People didn't go away for the summer holidays during the war. It wouldn't have been any use going to the seaside anyway. Most of the beahces around the coast had fortifications on them,and trippers were banned. In Leamington Spa we had what were called 'Holidays at Home'.
There were two or three marquees on the Pump Room gardens,and outside the biggest one was part fenced off with an open air stage,adnd seats for the audience.There you could sit and be entertained by such stars as Leslie Hutchinson,-better known as Hutch-Ivy Benson and her all girls band,and comics, one of whom was Rob Wilton,who took great delight in telling us what his missus said to him the fay war broke out.
The were talent contets ,children's shows.You name it,they had it.All to keep us entertained and at home during the summer.
My mum was so busy looking after us all at home .I used to drive her up the wall I know,from asking if I could go down to the Pump Room gardens to see what wa happening. To shut me up she would say
"Oh go on then, but don't be long". I would hang over the wooden fence watching the couples dancing on the grass to records and,sometimes a live band.
I studied their steps and then went home and practised them in 'the room', and that is how I learnt ballroom dancing.

CHAPTER VII MY TWO FRIENDS

I had to walk along Strathearn Road on my way to school, and my friend Christine lived at number 27. We were about the same age,give or take a month or two.Her mother and mine used to go and sit in the park of an afternoon when Christine and I were babies in our prams.
They sat on the same bench one afternoon and got talking, and a firm friendship developed between them. At that time Christine and I were too small to talk, but we made up for it though as we became friends too.We used to stay together and stayed at each others houses.
Mrs Gosling-Christines mum-had to go into hospital once ,and Christine stayed with us.On our way home from schooleach day ,we stopped off at her house and made Mr. Goslings bed, and did any washing up or tidying that needed doing, so things were would be nice when he came home from working on the tobacconists counter at Burgis and Colbournes.
We are still friends sixty years later. She lives in Kent now, and is a grandmother several times over.We meet only occasionally,but when we do carry on chatting as if we had never been apart.My other fiend,Shirley Harper-the one who passed her11plus and went to college -lived at the bottom of Church Hill with her parents John and Margaret Harper,her brother Tony and younger sister Jennifer.
Mr and Mrs Harper kept a grocers shop, and sold the creamiest ice-cream you have evr tasted,made on the premises.They also had a milk round and delivered to our house.
They were a close -knit and loving family.
John Harper was enlisted into the RAF.His wife kept the business going and he used to help with the milk round when he came home on leave.
On his last leave he said "Goodbye" to all his customers as he had the feeling he wouldn't come home again- and he didn't. He was a navigator on a bomber,and was shot down during a raid over Dusseldorf.
Margaret Harper only died two or three years ago, and like our Queen Mother was a widow for much longer than she was a wife.
That was the fate of thousands of other women too. Margaret Harper brought up her three children ,and ran the business,Tony grew up to be the spitting image of his father.It was as if John Harper was living through his son.

CHAPTER VIII MY DAD.

My dad was a special consatble,He used to get dressed up in his uniform in the evenings,and go out on the beat around Leamington Spa.Anothe special used to come and call for him.His name was Mr Fuller.He had lost his toes through frostbite during the first world war.
I used to gaze at his feet encased in shiny black boots,and wonder what happened in the spaces at the toes of his boots,or where there spaces?Did he buy boots three sizes smaller than he would had done had his toes been there?
I used to see my dad when he was on duty at the Holidays at Home.I thought that it was great to be seen on such friendly terms with the law.
I have his Civil Defence medal, and his medal for the Faithful Service in the Special Constabulary,awarded to him for long service by the
Secretary of Sate in 1949.I have a lovely photo of him and his colleagues on parade for the Mayor's Sunday in November 1947,and a letter from the then Mayor,Councillor Prucell,to the Police Superintendant,J.C. Gardner asking him to convey his keen appreciation of the 'specials'efficient services,when they escorted him on that Sunday.
Dad was very patriotic.Whenever the National Anthem was played on the radio at home he insisted we all stood to attention.
Even though he wasn't usually demonstartive,he got quite emotional one Christmas
when he was toasting 'Absent Friends', and his voice broke and he couldn't go on when he toasted my brother Frank,who was then in North Africa.
Dad was well into fifites during the war, and what with working in'munitions and being a special constable, he must have felt weary,but I never heard him complain. Come to think of it I never heard much complaining fron anyone during the war years.Everyone seemed to buckle down and get on with things.If anyone did moan about the lack of something,you would more than likely hear the person they were moaning to say
"Don't you know there's a war on?"
Another thing I noticed,when anyone met someone they knew on leave from the forces,they would most likely say 'Hello,when are you going back?'and the answer would most likely be'Blimey mate,I've only just got here!'

CHAPTER IX MY MUM

Now we come to my mum.What can I say? How ca I get across how hard she worked during the war?She and millions of housewives like her were the unsung heroes of the war. They didn't actually take up arms.They wrote lettere and sent parcels to the men and women away from home,and kept their families warm and fed as best they could.In the words of the old song they 'Kept The Home Fires Burning'.
My mum kept a large house with numerous rooms and staircase spotlessly clean,and without electricity and running hot water.We had gas light in all the rooms ,but no light at all on the stairs.
The gas copper in the kitchen did for the very large weekly was,as well as to fill the bath in the kitchen.We ironed witha gas iron that had a long metal flex that fitted onto a gas jet.
I used to turn the handle of the big mangle that stood in the larder,while my mother fed sheets and towels and other articles through it,after she had washed them by hand, or boiled them in the copper.
She used to llok after about eight of us at times .It would depend on how many soldiers we had billetted on us ,or if we had an evacuee.
Then there was the shopping. It all had to be carried home from town.No delivery boys or car boots to be filled in those days.
Looking back I suppose the more peopleeee you had in the house, the more food coupons you had. So you could do more with what each person was allowed.
Whenshe was older ,Mum's right shoulder was much lower than her left .She said she reckoned it was carrying a heavy shopping basket home for all those years that had done that.
Talking to my brother Bob abd sister Mollie about how hard Mum worked during those years,Bob said he knows he never went hungry and Mollie said she just doesn't know how Mum did it all.
Life was so upside down in those days. Mealtimes were disorganised with the family and soldiers all working different times. Then when the raids on Covenrtry were at their height there were nights when the sirens went and Mum didn't get a lot of sleep.
I am ashamed to say now I took her for granted. She was my Mum and that's what mums did.

CHAPTER X FRANK

Frank was the eldest of us four children.He was born in 1915, so he was 24 when the war declared.
He worked at Courts the builders in Leamington Spa, and was a quantity surveyor.
He joined the Royal Signals in 1940, and was in North Africa with the 1st Army,
and later went to Italy,where he was posted in Milan.He actually saw some opera ,at the Opera House.
Frank was very good looking. He looked very much like Tyrone Power or John Payne,
the film stars.
He had lots of girlfriends and used to claim a hanky off each one or perhaps pinched one,I don't know, but when he and Marjorie were married she had along length of hankies tied corner to corner.
When I was nineteen,I went to work at Leamington Spa telephone exchange.That was
in the days when it was manual working.In fact it was so manual ,you actually had to pull a key back on your switchboard to ring the bell in the subscribers'house.They are called customers nowadays.One of the telephonists said to me,'ooh, are you Frank Atkins sister?'and when I said I was she told me she used to work at a salon where Frank had his hair cut.She and the other girls used to go weak at the knees when he walked in.That was a ladies'hairdressers as well.Perhaps it was one of the first unisex salons?
Mum used to write to Frank every Monday afternoon
after she had finished her mammoth wash day, and cooked dinner.It was,I should think, a chance to rest her legs before the influx of people for the next meal.We always had cold meat,mashed spuds and picklea nd rice pudding on washdays.Nice and easy.
She also used to write to him occasionally, and Mum enclosed my letter with hers.
I even thought of a ruse to get me out of going to Sunday School on Sunday afternoons.Well I had already been to the Children's Service in the morning, and I thought religion in the afternoon as well a bit much. Mind You-afternoon Sunday School was one way pf getting rid of the offspring,while parents had their afternoon ''nap''.
I decided I was going to write to Frank every Sunday afternoon, adn I went to my attic playroom, sat at my desk , and wrote a long letter to Frank.
I told him what us kids would like to do to Hitler if we ever got our hands on him.Thins like tying him up and sticking pins in him all over, and covering him with honey and letting bees sting him.
W ell that idea lasteted just one Sunday.I gave the l;etter to my mum and she wanted to know when I had written it.It turned out I had been so quiet she thought I was at Sunday School.So that was it.A good telling off, and packed off to St. Mark's the next Sunday,under th gueardianship of Mickey Cooke.
Frank wrote home reguarly, and he used to pop the occasional note in for me.He would write a few words of Italian and tell me what they meant, and I used to brag to the kids in the street that I could speak Italian.
Frank was a sergeant by the time the war ended , and he came home on a month's leave, and was married to Marjorie in October 1945. I was their bridesmaid.They had a short honeymoon in Mlavern , and the Frank went back to Italy until he was demobbed in June 1946.
He went back to Courts until he retired, after working there for 50 years. He died of cancer the day after his 73rd birthday.
As you know the family name is Atkins. I thought that very apt for Frank,him being in the Army,as the first British soldier has been calles Tommy Atkins ever since the first world war, adn Frank's second name is Thomas after Uncle Tommy, who was a Tommie in the first world war.
When I was at school, Mr Parker, our history teaher,looked up the origin of our surnames.An Atkins apparently, was a serf on the baron's land, and we were in bondage.

CAHPTER XI MARJORIE

Marjorie was living in Kenilworth when she met Frank in 1937.She was introduced to him on a train ,by a mutual friend , and she said" That was that".
They got engaged before Frank went into the Army, and Marjorie went to work at the food office, issuing ration books and clothing coupons.She said it was areal eye opener on how devious peoiple can be.People who came in for ration books had all of a sudden acquired lots of relatives
Despite the world situation she says she quite enjoyed it and was even seen fleetingly in a film called 'The Gentle Sex' in which Rex Harrison and his then wife,Lili Palmer, starred. She was in a crowd scene with other ATS. The whole family trooped to the pictures to see that.
During May 1944 the Ministry od Defence had a Salute-The Soldier week, and also weeks to salute the sailors and airmen. Marjorie and other ATS helped at exhibitions showing aspects of army life and weapons used,including tanks.
Marjorie had her picture in the paper, sitting on a mini motorbike that could be dropped by a parachute.
The exhibition was in Bobbys store in Eastbourne.
It was a very warn May that year, and when the girls were off duty they went up on to the roof of Bobbys to sunbathe. They took off their uniforms and lounged around in their underwear. Marjorie said no one wore the standard issue of army knickers. They were so frightful they bought their own.
While they were sunning themselves they heard laughter.They walked round the balustrade that encircled the roof to see where the laughter was coming from.They couldn't see anything until one girl noticed a window in a building opposite, and they realised,to their horror,they were just across theroad from the NAAFI,and there were quite a few servicemen at the window having a good eyeful.Needless to say Marjorie and the other girls blushingly retired off the roof to more private quarters downstairs.
Marjorie went back to the ATS after she and Frank were married,and he went back to Italy,but being a married woman she was automatically released after six months.She went home to Kenilworth to live with her parents, and Frank joined her when he was demobbed.
In January 1947 they moved into their first home, a flat opposite Courts where Frank worjked,and raised a family.A daughter Susan and a son David.

CHAPTER XII MOLLIE AND IDRIS

Mollie was the eldest born in 1918.
During the war she worked in the copper hose and tube shop at Lockheed.
She was engaged to Idris Sparrow from Tonypandy in Glamorgan.He also worked at the Lockheed, and had come to LeamingtonSpa to find work as a potential tool maker as there was no work in the Rhonda except mining.
Mollie worked with a lot of Welsh girls who had come to the Lockheed for the same reason.She said they kept her laughing all day long.They were having the time of their lives in England.Women weren't allowed in pubs in Wales ,and so they were
never out of the pubs in Leamington Spa.
People in'munitions worked a twelve hour day,seven days a week, but whenever Mollie and Idiris talk about those days,it is all about the laughs they had.
In March 1939 a governement minister by the name of Hore Belisha conscripted men into his militia.Anyone over 21 years of age had to sign on for six months service.They were called Hore Belisha's boys.
There were rumblings of war and in June of that year Idris was called up into the militia, and was sent to a new camp at Hereford,It is now the headquarters of the SAS.
He had just passed his apprenticeship exams at the Lockheed,snd hsd to take more exams st Hereford.He passed then and was called an Articifer in the Royal Artillery.
War wa declared in September , and instead of being released after six months,Idris stayed on umtil 1941 when he was released to go back to the Lockheed for production work on aircraft.
Mollie and Idris were married at Warwick Registry Office on March 1st 1941.If you marry a Wekshman you simply have to do it on St David's Day.
It was a quiet wedding. That evening they celebrated with friends at the local Palais de Dance, and Mollie moved in with Idris at his digs.
In 1943 preparations were being made for D-Day, and Idris was called back into the army.He was a Craftsman 1st Class in the Royal Mechanical Engineers (REME)
Mollie moved back home to Woodbine Street and shared a bedroom with me.
I can remember her getting up early to start her long day at the factory,and putting her turban on.She had dark hair,like Frank , and wore it in a pageboy.
Long hair was the vogue during the war, especially the Veronica Lake hairdo.Veronica Lake wa an American film star.She was ahat was reckoned to be the ultimate in glamour.She had long blond hair that she wore combed over one side of her face,from benind whcih she smouldered provocatively.
Unfortunately some women who copied her style and who worked in 'munitions had terrible accidents in which they had their hair torn off by getting it caught in the machinery.Thereafter all hair had to be covered.
Most people turned their headsquares into turbans - a-la Hilda Ogden of Coronation Street, but another item of fashion for the hair came into being.It was called The Snood.
It was just a large crocheted hair net really. You rolled your front hair, as was the fashion in those days, and tucked your long flowing lockes into this Snood that hung down the back. it sounds a peculiar fashion I know ,but it did look slightly better than the turban.
Snoods were all colours.You could match them to your outfit:there were even twinkly ones for evening wear.
Towards the end of the war,a new hair fashion came out.Hair was cut short to about two inches all over and worn curly.Because it did not require kirby grips or combs to hold it in place,it was called the Liberty Cut.I went for it straight away.It was just the style for my naturally curly hair.

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