大象传媒

This story has been entered on to this site by Andrew on behalf of Wilfred Craig with some input from his wife Margaret and they fully understand the conditions.

Can you please tell me some of your most vivid memories of world war two?

鈥樷�業 was born on the sixth of August 1923 which meant I was seven by the time the war started. I remember being frightened when the announcement came over the radio but the feeling soon wore off. We were kids and we did not really understand what was going on , sometimes being woke up at two o鈥� clock in the morning and dragged out of bed by your mother seemed exciting鈥欌��.

Margaret told me 鈥樷�� It was my brothers birthday party on the day the announcement came, we were all laughing and joking listening to the radio and playing party games. The announcement came over the radio that we had declared war on Germany. All of the mothers grabbed their children, nearly ripping their arms off and ran in to the house. We were all expecting the war to begin straight away and were all very scared of what could happen but of course the war did not start for a few more months鈥欌��.

What were the biggest changes to life during the war?

鈥樷�榃ell my dad took a job as an air raid warden and he had to wear a little uniform, he used to patrol the streets around where we lived. We also noticed changes in the appearance of the houses people used to black out their windows. This was so the Germans could not see the lights of the houses which meant they did not know where to bomb. The windows were also taped up so that if a bomb went off near us the windows would not shatter. If people owned cars which very little people did in those days, they had to put blinkers or shades on their car head lights to stop the Germans bombers so they could not see a target to bomb.

I would also see the rationing system as a big change to our normal lives, with the war going on it made it hard for our country to import food. This meant the food had to be rationed, people could not eat as often or as much as they wanted. They had to save their food for when they needed it. We were given little ration books which had coupons in them, the coupons allowed us so much of each type of food every so often. When we came to the till in the shop we had to hand over our coupon book to allow us to buy the food but although we were handing over the coupons we still had use money to pay for the food. Often when we were nearing the time to receive some new coupons we would be low on coupons, we would go to the till and realise that we did not have enough coupons and have to put stuff back. Another memory of the rationing system is that of sweets it was very rare to be able to buy sweets and if we wanted them we would have to save up our coupons. As I said there were very often no sweets in the shops so as soon as word got out there was some sweets in the shop every one used to run down and queue to see if they could buy some chocolate. The chocolate was called Blended chocolate and as chocolate was so scarce the bar was just all different kinds of chocolate mixed together. Other foods scarce in the rationing system were fruits and one fruit that was especially rare were bananas and it was true that a lot of children born in the war did not even know what a banana was. Sometimes at Christmas the shop might have been able to gain some bananas so we used to have bananas as pudding after our Christmas dinner.鈥欌��

Would you please be able to tell me what happened in an air raid?

鈥樷�榃ell where I lived we had big air raid shelters, the playing fields at the back of the house where we used to play every day had huge gaping deep holes dug in them this was where the air raid shelters were but we often did not go to the air raid shelters instead we used to sit on seats in the pantry under the stairs. My parents believed the structure of the stairs was strong and would protect us if a bomb was to drop on the house. In some air raids my parents used to take me down to the Travellers Rest, the local pub and the land lord used to let us in to the pub to sit in the big cellar down stairs. Whereas we did not have an air raid shelter to ourselves others had these little air raid shelters called Anderson shelters. The Anderson shelters were made of corrugated metal and once they were built earth and turf was placed on top so that the German bombers could not see the shelters. I remember that only two bombs were dropped where I lived this was because their was nothing important to hit I think the only reason the bombers would drop the bombs here was that the planes still had bombs on them after they had finished the battles so I think they used to just drop the bombs to lighten their load to make their way home. Their was only one bad memory I have of air raids and that is of one of the bombs, one of the two bombs that landed where I lived missed a home but the explosion still caused damage to the house and sadly one man was killed in the blast but that is the only fatality I heard of during the war. To alert us of an air raid the siren would go off the siren was up at the pit along the road.鈥欌��

What are your most unusual memories of war?

鈥樷�榃e used to carry little card board boxes around with us every day every where we went. These card board boxes had little sting straps and they contained our gas masks so whenever there was an air raid, there was a fear of gas so we used to wear our gas masks over our face so we could breathe in case of a gas attack. Our gas masks just covered our faces, but babies had to sit in little suites which covered them from head to toe and a handle was pumped so they could breathe. One other unusual thing that happened was that without asking the council used to come round and chop down people鈥檚 railings and gates. They even took the railings off the church wall I guess these were to be melted down to be used as weapons. Also sign posts were taken down so if you were new to a place you would easy get lost. With the war going on no one ever travelled abroad and people very rarely went on holiday at all. The furthest we ever went on a holiday during the war was to the Lake District for a little break.鈥欌��

Were you ever evacuated during the war?

鈥樷�楴o, I was never evacuated鈥欌��

Margaret told me 鈥樷�極ne lady came to stay with me and my family. She came from London to stop in our house with her son. The lady came to visit because her son was becoming ill, he was scared of the noise of the bombs in London and had to have a break from it. If you did not mind people coming to stay with you, you had to go to a special centre and register your home and the people at the centre would send visitors to stay with you鈥欌��.

Did you ever collect shrapnel after an air raid?

鈥樷�楴ot very often as there was rarely a bomb dropped on the area where I lived but my cousin lived next to the Tyne and there were air raids there nearly every night sometimes I used to go and visit her in the morning and we would go hunting for shrapnel. You could see where it was because their would be a little crack in the ground where it had landed. We then used to get a spoon and dig up the shrapnel and add it to the collection.鈥欌��

Can you tell me any more facts about the war?

鈥樷�楧uring the war all of the German people who had been living in Britain long before the war were locked up or sent to prisoner of war camps for the country鈥檚 safety: so the German people could not be used as spies. I lived next to a farm and on a morning we used to see the German prisoners of war going up to the farm. The army used to ask for people who would let the prisoners work for them. The farm next our home asked and had the German prisoners working on the farm morning till night, every morning we watched them arriving and every evening we seen them going back to the camp.鈥欌��

鈥樷�楢nother thing I can remember were the anti air craft guns and barrage balloons at the bottom of the bank where I lived. Also another fact is that in factories even when the factory was closed on a night time the workers used to take it in turns on fire duty so if a bomb was dropped on the factory the fire could be spotted and put out straight away. One fact that we weren鈥檛 to keen on was that if an air raid siren went off in the middle of the night really late we still had to go to school in the morning, we went to school no matter what. I went to a grammar school and it was normal for all of the boys to learn wood work but because of the war there was no wood in the school to work with so all of my way through the grammar school we had the woodwork room locked and I never had a wood work lesson in my time at this school- all we ever did was look at the tools!鈥欌��

What was the radio like during the war?

鈥樷�榃ell I remember a man called Lord Haw Haw who was a British but lived in Germany who was seen as a traitor. Very often as we were listening to the radio he would cut in to the broadcast and always say anti British things. Stuff like we were going to lose the war. No one believed him of course every one just laughed. Some of the most popular artists on the radio at this time were:

庐 Roll out the barrows
庐 The forces sweat heart who visited camps in many countries to keep the morale of British soldiers up
庐 One of the other songs we enjoyed was their will be blue birds over the white cliffs of Dover

Did you know any body that went to war?

鈥樷�業 had two brothers who went out to war but only one of them came back. Nobody ever knew what happened to the other brother. I also knew a man who was took prisoner at a Japanese prisoner of war camp. He was treated very badly. I remember him always being ill ever since he got back from the war. As a lot of men were at war the women used to take the jobs in the ship yards and on farms and factories. Some men though could not or would not go to war like the miners because the coal was needed or injured people. Also some people who did not go to war were the conscientious objectors who refused to go to war because they did not believe in solving problems with war. These people often got sent down the mines and worked as Bevin boys instead of going to war. 鈥欌��

What did you do for fun in the war?

鈥樷�榃e made up little rhymes and songs in the war for example:

庐 Dig for victory grow your best of us
庐 Careless talk loses lives
We did the best we could to forget about the awful things that were going on.

If you could would you go back and live your experiences of war?

鈥樷�業f I had the chance I would not re-live it because war is not nice at all. War is no good it just hurts people the rulers of countries should be able to sort out their differences without war. War does not solve anything.鈥�

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