大象传媒

THE WARTIME GENERATION.
I was born at 9 Sunnydene Road, Purley, Surrey, in August 1941. Much has been written about the post war generation, so I am grateful to have the opportunity to redress the balance somewhat by writing about the wartime generation.
We grew up with planes and bombs and food rationing, and knew no different. Here is my personal account of being born into a war.

OUR HOUSE.
Our house was a typical three bedroom terraced house located just off the Godstone Road between RAF Kenley, and Croydon Airport, also within a few minutes flying time from RAF Biggin Hill. Not surprisingly, aircraft are among my earliest memories.

THE SCULLERY.
The house had a scullery with an old fashioned earthenware sink and a cold water tap. There was no hot water to speak of, except for that produced by a small gas fired water heater above the sink, which produced enough for the washing up, and for personal washing.

The scullery doubled as a wash room and laundry. We all washed and did our teeth at the same sink by using an enamelled bowl which was kept clean by my mother.
We had a gas fired 'copper' (actually a galvanised vat on four legs) with a wooden lid, and a drain tap at the bottom for filling buckets with hot water.
It also had a mangle, with spring loaded wooden rollers to squeeze the washing to get rid of the excess water. The rollers were cranked over by hand, and the pressure could be adjusted by turning a screw on the top. Good exercise on Mondays, which were usually wash day.

The copper was also used to heat the water for the weekly wash, and for our weekly bath. The bath was filled and emptied using a white enamelled bucket with a blue rim and a wire and wooden handle.
The 'tin' bath was used to wash large items like blankets. They were trodden in the same way that bare feet are used to tread grapes for wine making. Very effective and it cleaned the feet too!
There was no detergent, only bars of yellowish soap. They were as hard as concrete. To make them soft enough for use, the bars, which were quite large, had to be cut into smaller pieces before being soaked in hot water.

The weekly bath night meant that Mum had to bring in the galvanised iron 'tin' bath from where it was kept - hanging on the fence in the back yard (there wasn't room enough to store it inside the house). The bath was laboriously filled, bucketful by bucketful from the copper, which had previously been filled by the same method from the cold tap. The gas ring of the copper had to be lit an hour or so before the bath was required.
The water depth of a bath was regulated by the government at four inches (100mm). This was to save both gas and water.
The tin bath was placed before the coal range in the kitchen, which was very comfortable in winter as the kitchen was the only heated room in the house.
Lodgers and visitors were banished from the kitchen during family bath time.

THE KITCHEN.
The so-called kitchen, was actually the living room. It was tiny, with barely enough room for the dining table and a couple of easy chairs. The shaded single low wattage bulb hung from the centre of the ceiling. The coal fired range was the focal point of the room. This was used for some of the cooking, but its main use was as a back up for the more modern gas cooker in the scullery.

Mum regularly cleaned the range by applying 'blacking' with a shoe brush.
This maintained its deep black lustre, and prevented rusting of the iron when the spuds boiled over. The coal range was also the sole means of heating the kitchen. The other rooms each had an open coal fire place, but there was litle or no coal available, so they were never lit - except if someone was sick in bed.

Also in the kitchen was our radio. We were lucky because we had electricity.
Others less fortunate had only gas, and so, to power their radios, they had to use batteries in the form of glass sided, wire handled lead acid accumulators. These had to be charged on a regular basis. Very few people had access to battery chargers so, for a few pence, an electrician who lived a few doors up the road would charge peoples' accumulators.

The kitchen was also where Mum made rugs by 'progging'. This was the method used all over England by people who couldn't afford to buy carpets. The technique involved stretching hessian on a wooden frame. Old clothing was cut into half inch strips. These were then sorted for colour according to the pattern's requirements, before being woven through the hessian by using a hook, or 'progger'. Mum's hooks were home made and worked better than the ones you could buy in the shops. As the rug-making progressed, raw ends were trimmed off to give a smooth finish on the 'right side'. The rug was rolled around one of the beams of the frame, and got very big and heavy towards the end.
When finished, the rug was cut free from the frame beams before being edged ready for use. These rugs were both colourful and hard wearing.

I think this form of rug making might have been done after the war because during the war, old clothing wasn't thrown away. 'Make do and mend' was the attitude fostered by the government. For instance, Mum used to get hold of army uniform trousers and unpick the leg seams. This yielded enough material to sew a lady's skirt, which Mum did for pin money.

THE FRONT ROOM.
This was the most important room in the house. It was special. I never understood why this room was rarely used, and then only for special occasions- like Christmas, or for 'entertaining'. In those days, friends were invited once or twice a year to visit and have tea around the fire on wintery Sunday afternoons. Again this was more likely after the war, when coal was obtainable.

THE HALLWAY AND FRONT ENTRANCE.
The hallway led to the front door which had a polished red stone step, and a polished brass plate over the threshold. The front garden was about a yard from front to back, and as long as the front room was wide. The red tiled path leading to the front step was only long enough to let you open the front gate and take one pace so you could turn and close the gate behind you.
Mum was a country woman from the Cotswolds, and succeeded in growing Lily of the Valley and Gladioli in this tiny patch of town soil called our front garden.

At the other end of the hallway was the stairs, which were very important as they formed an alternative bomb shelter to the Anderson in the back garden.
Under the stairs was the broom cupboard. We slept in there when Mum wasn't confident enough to let us sleep in our beds for fear of air raids, but thought we would have enough time to reach the Anderson shelter if the siren did sound.

THE LAVATORY.
The lavatory (not toilet in those days) had outside access only, and was at the back of the house. To get to the 'lavie', we went out through the back door ("mind that light") and into the back yard. The lavatory had an old fashioned planked door painted green, and with a latch lifted by a thumb operated lever.
A sliding bolt on the inside of the door was provided for privacy.
I remember the door had a gap under it where the wind blew in.

The lavatory cistern was above head height and the toilet was flushed by pulling a chain which had a rubber handle on the end. It was a very powerful flush because the water dropped a considerable height, unlike today's loos.
The outside lavatory was very cold in winter, so for convenience, we used a china chamber pot at night. This was kept under the bed for easy access.

ELECTRICITY.
The electricity was used only for lighting. No power points were provided.
To iron our clothes, Mum would sometimes use flat irons, which were heated on the coal range, or she would plug the electric iron into the ceiling light socket. This was fitted with a 'Y' double socket, with the bulb in the second leg. The iron 'flex' would hang down from the ceiling fitting, which was dangerous as the hot iron could be pulled from the ironing board if the 'flex' got caught in something.

I do remember that we had one small electric heater, which could also be used for heating food. I ruined it by pulling out the element, which was as fascinating as pulling a loose thread in a knitted garment. The element was like a curtain wire set into a zigzag pattern formed in a ceramic panel. The wire glowed red hot when the heater was plugged in. Mum was very angry when she found out I had ruined her irreplaceable heater.

DAD GOES TO WAR.
It was from this typical Home Counties suburban house that my Dad went to war.
This is beginning to sound like a scene from the film 'Hope and Glory' which depicted this era so well.
Dad was an Army Reservist (REME Service Corps) before the war, so he was one of the first to be called up in 1939.
He went to France with the BEF, and was at Dunkirk. He was wounded while being evacuated aboard the Royal Navy destroyer HMS Greyhound.
"Gawd bless the bleedin' navy."

The Greyhound was strafed by a German plane when leaving Dunkirk. Dad told me he took cover behind a torpedo tube. He was lucky. The chap next to him was killed.
Later, Dad managed to send a post card to Mum by passing it out of the train window to a volunteer who was busy giving aid to the soldiers as they were transported away from the South Coast. This was the first news she had of him since long before the evacuation started.

After his convalescence,Dad was sent to Egypt. Mum and I didn't see him until he was demobbed. I was then 4 years old. When the great day of his home coming finally arrived, my mother and I went to Purley station, and we all came home by taxi, no less!

Dad was in army uniform. I was terrified. Who was this stranger? He appeared, to me, so big that he seemed to fill our tiny kitchen. He gave me a Fry's chocolate bar, which was a luxury I wasn't used to.
This story of how Mum and Dad were parted by the war is very common, and I wonder what effect it had on me in the long term.

THE ANDERSON SHELTER.
I remember eating cheries in our Anderson shelter. They were wet from being washed, and were still in the colander. I remember sitting on one of the bunks in the shelter, eating those cherries. I can still taste them. That must have been the summer of 1944.

Because there was no ventilation, the Anderson always smelled damp.
In winter, the corrugated steel ran with condensation from our breath.
We had a Valor heater, which burned paraffin by using a large circular wick.
On the front of the heater there was a red mica window so you could tell if the heater was lit. While it was good to have heat in the shelter, it caused even more condensation, and the burning paraffin was smelly.

WARTIME ACTION.
The only war action I remember was associated with the Anderson. I stood in the doorway watching a plane - they were all Spitfires to us kids - shoot down a doodlebug.

I do remember the result of a 'near miss' of a doodlebug. It landed on a private hotel in Dale Road, less than a hundred yards from our house. The windows of our front upstairs and downstairs rooms were blown in. Mum told me not to tread on the broken glass on the floor. I didn't need to be told twice.
After the war, I used to play on this bomb site. The cast iron oven was the only recognisable thing remaining.

We 'had the men in' to fix the bomb damage. This phrase was commonly used to indicate that workmen were sent by the council to repair bomb damage in order to make houses habitable. It was common to hear that Mrs So and So 'had the men in'. Sounds strange now, but it was taken for granted then.

There was one incident connected with wartime action which didn't mean anything until much later. When walking on Riddlesdown, between Purley and Sanderstead, Mum and I saw a lot of army vehicles parked in a long line under the trees.
They must have been preparing for D-Day because the date was early summer 1944.

THE SMELL OF RUBBER.
Recently, I used a dust filter mask while rubbing down paint, and its rubber smell evoked a long forgotten memory - that of my wartime gas mask.
Children's masks had a red Donald Duck beak below the eye glasses, and when you breathed out the beak made a noise like a fart. Very funny to us kids.

WARTIME FOOD.
During the war, our eggs came in powdered form out of a tin. The powder had to be re-hydrated, before being made into scrambled eggs, or used in cooking, when the butter ration allowed.

I remember my first hard boiled egg. I didn't know what to do with it. I had to be shown how to tap and peel away the shell, and plunge a teaspoon into the runny yoke.

Orange juice issued to us wartime kids came in concentrated form, and had to be diluted with water in the glass. I remember it was particularly delicious. Maybe that's because my taste buds were not attacked by other sugary foods.
I liked my juice strong, so the medicine bottle (200ml?) ration didn't last long.
Potatoes were reduced to dehydrated powder, which made reasonably good mashed potato if mixed with milk and water, with salt added for flavour.

That reminds me of the roast potato given to me by an army cook. Mum, with me in the the push chair, walked past the open window of the cook house on the Godstone Road near Kenley railway station. The aroma of roast beef and roast potatoes made us stop dead in our tracks. The cook saw us looking in. He took pity on me and offered me a roast potato. I couldn't have refused even if Mum had held a gun to my head.

I had a pet rabit called 'Monty'. We fed him on dock leaves and grass. I suspect his sudden disappearance meant he ended up on the menu, but I am relieved to say that memory fades at that point.

Scraps of food were placed in a communal bin at the end of the street. This was the 'pig bin'. The contents were regularly collected to be made into pig swill.

After the war we kept chickens. Their eggs were stored in waterglass in an earthenware crock in the broom cupboard under the stairs. Every so often, Mum or Dad would dig the chook run over to turn up the worms for the hens to gorge on. The smell was pretty bad.

Mrs Flowers was the old lady who kept the corner shop on the Godstone Road.
On Thursdays, she made her own ice cream with the meagre rations available.
I can still taste that ice cream!
Mrs Flowers used blue paper bags to weigh out dried fruit and sugar from her bulk store. To do this she used brass pan scales and cast iron weights marked in pounds and ounces.

Mrs Flowers kept a large cheese on the counter. She was skilled at accurately cutting off your piece according to your ration. She would then mark your ration book with a thick blue pencil.

Rationing continued for quite a while after the war. I have heard that our generation benefitted from the lack of fatty foods and sugar, and as a result, we are healthier and have less tooth decay than the current generation.

WAR WORK.
'Auntie' Kit was a friend of Mum's who lived with us. She was given the choice of either joining the Land Army or doing cleaning work at Cane Hill Mental Hospital in Coulsdon. She opted for the latter so she could stay with my mother. The work was hard and laborious and meant getting up at 5.00 am to catch two buses. Refusing to work was not an option.

Mum was a collection agent for The Prudential Insurance Company. She bused and walked miles to reach her customers, so she could collect their weekly premiums. She continued to do this job until a couple of weeks before I was born.

WARTIME TECHNOLOGY.
Petrol rationing did not affect the tradesmen who delivered milk, bread, fruit and vegetables, and coal to our door. The dairy across the road was run by the Jones famly. The milk was delivered from the farms in churns, and Jones' Dairy processed and bottled the milk. They had long used horses to pull the rubber tyred cream and green milk carts, so nothing was changed by the war.
In fact horses were efficient at delivering goods. They learned the round, and would walk on as the tradesman made his deliveries, stopping at the same places every day for him to catch up.

Everyone travelled by bus and train, as very few owned cars. People walked then, both out of necessity and for pleasure. Bicycles were common, particularly as transport for the police.

Dad had a BSA motorbike before the war. This was stored in the garden shed when he went away to war. Friends would kick it over occasionally to stir up the oil, and give the bike a warm-up run. I remember being frightened by the noise of the single cylinder engine. I wonder if it was because it sounded like a doodlebug.

VICTORY.
Our street was a cul de sac, with the Purley to Caterham line cutting across the end. Steam engines clanked their way up and down the line hauling freight, and delivering young men to Caterham army barracks.
To celebrate VE Day, we held a street party. The neighbours brought out their tables and chairs, and set them up in a long line down the middle of the street.
White tablecloths were spread, and plates of food appeared from every house.
Flags and bunting were hung from the houses. There was a festive atmosphere.

We all dressed in our Sunday best and had a feast. I suspect there wasn't much to eat as rationing was still in force. The Wilson girls from next door were there, also Kristen Pryke from up the street, and Mr and Mrs Bloxham with their son John from Number 3, and old Mr and Mrs Baldwin from number 5. We felt like rabbits coming out of their burrows.

Much later, Dad turned the Anderson into a garden shed, and peace time life began.

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