大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People's War site by the 大象传媒 Learning Centre on behalf of David Mannock, from Gloucester, with his permission.

I was only four when the war finished but my parents told me afterwards about some of the things that happened.

A few years after the war my mother had told me she had been propositioned by a man who she believed to be a pillar of the community. 鈥淗ow about it鈥�, he said to her one afternoon whilst my father was on Home Guard duty. 鈥淓veryone鈥檚 doing it these days鈥�. 鈥淲ell I鈥檓 one that鈥檚 not鈥�, said mother very defiantly. She said she never spoke to him again after that.

My father used to be a regular at the Ballot Box pub at the foot of Horsenden Hill in Greenford, Middlesex. A round of drinks for himself and his mates would cost about three shillings, 15p in today鈥檚 money. He fell out with the barmaid there because she would automatically put any change in the Red Cross Box. He didn鈥檛 object to that as such, but he wanted to be asked first. It was also rumoured that he was having an affair with the said barmaid.

In this pub he was spending about 拢5 a week on drinks, that might not sound much now but then it was the equivalent of 拢50.00 or more today. When my mother found out how much, she blew a fuse as she was eking out our meagre food rations as best she could and going without herself to do it.

Pete, a friend of mine lived during the war in Bradfield, a village in Berkshire near Reading. His father was the local policeman there. One evening when the constable and his wife were getting ready to go to the police ball, a German plane was brought down near the village. The crew all managed to bale out and after landing were rounded up by local farmers and brought to the police house to await transport to a POW camp. They all sat around the kitchen table while Pete鈥檚 mother gave them cups of tea and home made cake. One of the airmen gave mum a tin of coffee by way of thanks. Pete said it was lovely coffee too.

Because rationing was strictly enforced, shop keepers, especially greengrocers and butchers would give the housewives little talks on how to manage the ration coupons. We all had ration books and they were very closely guarded, because without them you didn鈥檛 eat. We had still had ration books into the early Fifties. Sweets were the last things to come off rationing. I was told to have boiled sweets because they lasted longer. If you were really lucky, you got a toffee apple.

Petrol for private cars was in short supply as well. To help run their cars some people had big gas bags tied to the roof racks so that the cars would use gas instead of the precious fuel. My father had access to large amounts of white spirit and so he fitted an extra fuel tank to his car. He started the engine on petrol and when hot would turn a tap and switch over to the white spirit. The engine ran on the rough side, but at least the car went.

Driving a car at night was hazardous as there were no street lights on and cars had to have shields over the headlamps, so very little light was available to illuminate the road ahead. The danger was the concrete air raid shelters built in the roads. They were staggered so you had to drive a zig zag course to miss them. One winter鈥檚 night my dad ran into one with his car and my mother who was sitting in the front passenger seat was shot straight through the windscreen. No seat belts then. I think she was lucky and only had a few minor cuts and bruises.

During the winter of 1940, my parents went to see the newly released film 鈥淕one with the Wind鈥� in an underground cinema in central London. When the film finished and they came up and they were amazed to find an air raid was in full progress. Somehow they got home in one piece. They looked back towards London and could see a large red glow in the sky and all the different coloured tracer bullets and anti aircraft shells.

One of my uncles was a guard on the railways, goods trains in particular. One night he was the guard on the night goods to Coventry. During the journey up he went out on to the rear platform of the guards van at the rear of the train. After a few minutes he became aware of whooshing sounds from overhead and couldn鈥檛 figure out what the sounds were. He peered around the edge of the van and saw the whole of the sky in the direction of Coventry was bright red. He then realised that the strange noises he heard were bombs falling through the air after being released from the bombers. He said that he was glad his train terminated at Rugby that night.

To help eke out the rations everyone seemed to have an allotment or at least grow vegetables in their gardens or anywhere else they could. Even in the flower beds. Also where possible a small group of people would buy a piglet and keep it until fully grown and then send it for slaughter, then they would all have a share or the carcase and enjoyed a few good meals. Butchers were useful people to know then.

If you had relatives in the Empire and sent them the money first, they would send you food parcels back, tinned food stuff of course. We once had a tin of ham sent from Australia, only trouble was that it had got punctured on route and had gone off by the time it reached us. It stunk to high heaven and all my dad could do was to bury it in the garden.

We were constantly told not to waste food as it was so precious and constantly reminded of how many ships were being lost at sea in an effort to bring the vital supplies to us. Even today I can鈥檛 bear to see food wasted, it makes me think of all those merchant seamen who died in the attempt. I鈥檝e also seen nice English people fighting over food.

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