Open Writing

The summer of ’39 was tense, my parents listening carefully to every news bulletin, my brother and I thinking how exciting war, if it came, would be. At the same time we waited for the post to see if I had passed to attend grammar school. Both answers came in the affirmative. The war turned out for us children to be dull rather than dreadful, and the scholarship as it was then, opened the door of my life. My teens and the war began and ended together.

I was not aware of any particular discomfort, everybody was in the same boat and it was a great leveller. I can remember at the age of about seven a little girl of similar age had extravagant dolls, doll's pram and other toys, and we all envied her a great deal. After the war when demob began, clothing coupons could be bought, and then I felt the pinch. With only my father working and three children, the principle and the possible were as one.

Living 15 miles West of London, I had to travel over ten miles towards it to attend school, carrying my gas mask and identity card. When the sirens sounded all the passengers disembarked and filed down into the shelters. We children just found this a bore, but for my mother, who did not go to work, it must have been uniquely stressful. She could hear the bombs and see the fires from our back bedroom windows, but there was no way to know how we were till she actually saw us turn the street corner, coming home for tea. When I had children of my own, I understood a little of what my mother must have endured. She did not go out to work and must have felt very alone.

When air raids took place during school hours lessons were continued as far as possible in the shelters. In the break times, we would sing and play pencil and paper games. There was no possibility of moving around as the shelters comprised long narrow tunnels with a bench at each side. You sat next to the same person from start to finish.

On one occasion I stood entranced muttering "how beautiful" hypnotised by the sight of a doodlebug, with its burning tail cone heading in our direction, to be aroused by the screams of my mother calling me down as the sound suddenly cut out, the warning of its imminent descent. Mother was claustrophobic so we never possessed a shelter, but huddled together either under the dining room table, under the stairs or in extremis in the ditch at the end of the garden. I preferred it that way, sleep may have been disturbed but it was more interesting. I cannot remember being upset or teased, yet it must have happened.

Food was not a problem as we kept hens, and my father grew vegetables in the garden. I remember he treated me if I could get my shovel and bucket to the horse droppings before the other kids, all equally motivated. He worked in a munitions factory and told of shrapnel falling about him as he cycled to and fro. Two cockerels were always fattened up for Christmas. I can recall mother's struggles with jelly and custard made with gelatine and arrowroot, determined to provide party things for the children's parties. We were not to be deprived if it was at all possible.

Listening to the radio required concentration, and certain programmes were sacred, Lord Haw-Haw and the news for my parents. Advice on food, including not only recipes but how to get the greatest use and nourishment from the food available, and to make both well-flavoured and filling meals, in other words how to make a little go a long way, was of immense value to all our mothers. Luckily both my father and myself (in term time) had good meals without sacrificing our ration cards. The school could use the local municipal restaurant and Dad must have had the works canteen. I remember the meals as being very good, but then I was never a fussy eater.

Dick Barton Special Agent - the stirring sound of that signature tune cleared the streets at five minutes to six, much more quickly than any air raid siren. Sometimes we were already indoors listening to children's hour but we never missed an episode. I knew I had really grown up when I was allowed to stay up for Saturday night theatre, which followed the 9'clock news.

Soon after the end of the war, when the London theatres opened again, a play I shall never forget was broadcast, with the title "No Room at the Inn". It told the story of a vile woman, who had mistreated evacuees sent to the country to escape the London blitz. At the end of each performance the cast had been forced to demonstrate that they were really all good friends, to prevent lynch mobs coming to the stage door. My mother and I had been in floods of tears listening to it and the priest at mass the next morning, spoke of it with a great deal of emotion.

The whole country felt the trauma of those divided families, yet compared to other countries both then and now we suffered very little. One example: I remember one girl who came on the radio saying that the worst thing about the war was 'little butter week'. For some reason the butter ration alternated each week. Although it was all sold loose, it was too small to measure out economically every week. We never ate ours as butter but blended it with the margarine. Others kept the butter for treats.

Loyalty sometimes moved briskly from shop to shop as rumour ran of deliveries of scarce items like condensed milk. On one memorable occasion I was sent with a long shopping list, and told to ask for the condensed milk last. If it was not forthcoming I was to refuse the lot! This was more than I could manage, so I asked for it first and returned home when he said no. Mother went herself and returned triumphant! She must have been desperately weary to send me on such an errand and soon after she was in hospital with anaemia, It was near the end of the war and speaks eloquently of how she had put us first.