ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½

This story was submitted to the People’s War site by Roger Marsh of the ‘Action Desk — Sheffield’ Team on behalf of David Rees, and has been added to the site with the author’s permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions

A WARTIME CHILDHOOD — Part 1
By
David Rees

Background:
As a small child at the outbreak of WW2 my memories are rather disjointed, being a mixture of isolated events that are clear memories and things I was told later by my parents. However you may consider these to be a relevant example of how the war affected a small child and his family.

I was my parents’ first child, born on 10th September 1936, thus being a week short of 3 years old when war was declared. At that time, my parents lived at Osborne Road, Leyton. Leyton Orient football club was at the end of the road.

On 3rd of September my parents had taken me to Southend and we had a lovely family day out at the seaside. On the return journey - train & bus - my mother remembered wondering why the streets were deserted. Although she was generally not superstitious she refused to ever visit Southend again.

London Bombing:
My own earliest memories are of the bombing of London. I'm not sure of the sequence of these incidences but they include the following.

I don't know when our Anderson shelter was built, but I do recall sleeping in it every night. I am not sure if we only went there when there was an air raid or whether this was routine. However I can't remember sleeping in the house or being transferred during the night. As the war went on and more people left London, the number sleeping in our shelter increased. My father built a small bed across the end of the shelter for me and although occupancy varied according to the number on night duty, our peak rate was 6 adults and 1 child - my parents, Aunt Winnie, Bill Dunn (a neighbour whose family had left London) had the 4 bunks, whilst a young couple slept together on the floor in between the bunks. I assume I had a 'potty' but with 7 people in such a small space, I often wonder what it smelt like in the mornings.

We must have also gone down the shelter during daylight raids as I can recall sitting on top of the Anderson shelter at the bottom of the garden and being very excited by the perfect formations of large planes flying overhead. Buzzing about them like gnats were smaller planes. I think I was cheering for the bombers before being told very firmly that they were the German planes, the little ones were ours - I was a bit disappointed.

I do remember coming out of the shelter one morning to see that a huge lump of clay had been thrown up by the bomb which had destroyed the houses at the end of Osborne Road. The clay had bounced off the top of our shelter and landed on the concrete garden path, breaking it up and leaving a fair sized crater. I believe it also badly damaged the roof of our home, with pieces of this, breaking the cot in which I would have been sleeping if in the house. This resulted in our moving to the next door house.

On another occasion, incendiary bombs were dropped. I think they burnt down one of the stands at Leyton Orient football club and several also landed in our garden (not sure about the roof of the house). I do remember having to stay in the shelter whilst the adults `put out' the incendiaries and the next morning my father showed me where his 'prize' dahlias had been destroyed. The method of putting out these fires was to cover them with sand, which, I think we had in small bags. We also had a stirrup pump to use with a bucket of water. I remember, towards the end of the war wondering how this worked as it pumped on both the up and down strokes.

On another occasion I was taken out of the shelter during the night to see the whole sky was red caused by the fire in the City of London. My father was on APR duty in the fire area as was one of my uncles who were in the Fire Service (see section on my father).

As the intensity of the bombing increased, my father arranged for my mother and me to go into a part of the Underground system. We used to go there at night, but for a time we lived there for quite a long period. I really enjoyed this, as there were lots of other children to play with. When there was a lull in the bombing we played outside but at other times we had to stay underground. I'm not sure which part of the Underground this was, but I remember my father saying that it was one of the deepest sections, too deep for bombs to affect it. The tunnel must have had a floor fitted as I do not remember any rails, and there were rows of bunk beds down the sides, two high I think. I recall sleeping in a small hammock hung between the bunks, which was rather uncomfortable. At the end of this 'dormitory' area the tunnel was sealed off. There was a door in the wall and we children would peer through the keyhole. In this 'forbidden' area, there were men working on large machines.

KEY POINT Since the war I have never seen or heard anything about this use of the Underground system, either as a dormitory or as a (munitions?) factory.

Toys Games and Entertainment:
As a small boy life stilt involved games and toys. I think one of the main hobbies for small boys was getting a really good collection of shrapnel. Like most other lads of my age, in the morning after a local raid, I couldn't get out quickly enough to search for shrapnel in the garden and street. It had fascinating shapes and colours - to me silver and gold. My other main hobby was collecting the front of cigarette packets. These were mostly found in street gutters. Being in London, there was a wide variety to be found, including the occasional foreign one. I remember being very disappointed when the American ones started to arrive because instead of a cardboard outer sleeve with an inner container, they were just a simple paper packet, far less impressive and more easily damaged.

New toys and books were not available, so I was given one or two toys that neighbours' children had outgrown. The toys that I didn't really appreciate at the time were two wooden scale model ships, an aircraft carrier and battleship that my father made `between shifts' at the ARP. These were quite beautiful models, painted Battleship Grey, but for me at that time, not much use in the naval battles I had with Mason Dunn next door. For these, the piece of 2"x 2" into which I had hammered every nail I could find - each representing a gun - was far more effective. Towards the end of the war Mason's father Bill made two wooden Tommy-guns for us. These had a ratchet on the side and a plywood striker that made a (too realist for our mothers) machine gun sound. We were kings of the street with these.

The game that we mainly played as children was "war". This was a constant factor. I can remember one day (it must have been towards the end of the war - no bombing) when a group of us had gone to watch Leyton Orient play football. We became bored with watching and went behind the stand to play wars. After a while, we were all worn out and stopped. We then realised that it was very quiet, much too quiet! We crept out and found we were alone. The match had ended, everyone had gone home and the gates were locked. Luckily for us a member of the ground staff was still there and after a good ticking off, we were let out. I think we also played football in the street and I remember right at the end of the war (I would have been 8), Mason came back from a visit to friends/family in the country with a strange implement that he called a cricket bat. He insisted we played using a lamppost as the wicket, however this was very boring compared to playing war games and we soon dropped it.

As far as entertainment went, I recall going to concerts and shows where `ordinary' people performed. In fact my own father with 4 others from the ARP won a singing 'talent' contest as the "Happy Harmonisers". What I do remember is another of the ARP man coming to our house and tearing newspaper. He would fold a sheet many times, make a few tears and then reveal to my utter amazement, a string of figures or animals. People seemed to do a great deal to keep the spirits up, perhaps particularly for the children. I think we had 'shows' and singsongs when we were `living' in the Underground. The APR also had concerts with members of the teams performing `turns’; the paper tearer was one of these acts.

Rocket Attacks:
Some years ago I saw an actual V1 rocket in a museum. I was amazed that this terrifying monster was so small. I say terrifying, as, in my opinion, these were far worse than bombs. Every child who lived through the war in any major European city can recall the sound of falling bombs, very frightening for a brief moment. The "doodlebug" was something else. You could hear it droning on from miles away. That wasn't too bad as you knew it would not come down whilst the rocket was firing. However when the rocket engine spluttered and stopped you lay waiting to hear the sound of it gliding down. Heart stopping moments that seemed to last for ever, finally the relief of the explosion told you that it had fallen on somebody else. There was then a guilty feeling because you were pleased that someone else had `copped it'.

There are two very clear memories of doodlebugs that I will never forget. The first is walking home with my parents on a lovely sunny Sunday morning. Suddenly my father threw my mother and me to the ground and covered me with his body. We were on the right hand side of the road and my father had me `pinned' against the tow garden wall. The next moment a V1 rocket glided over the houses on our right. I could not see anything but heard the rush of air; it clipped the roof of a house on the left hand side of the road and crashed into the next street. Death was that close.

On the other occasion, I think I was alone in the Anderson shelter with my mother. We heard a V1 rocket approaching; it passed close by and then faded away. Relief, safe again, only it then started to come back. It passed close and again it faded away only to come back again. I think it repeated this 5 or 6 times, each time getting lower and louder before the engine cut out and it finally crashed close to where we lived. I was told later that the wind had affected its rudder and that it was going round in circles. I just remember being absolutely terrified, and I'm sure my mother was in the same state.

(Possible KEY POINT?) After the war I was told that the next morning my mother took me to see the doctor. I was in such a state that the doctor said, "Get him out of London within 24 hours." This led to my second evacuation and having 3 months off school.

My mother and I returned to London after the V-1’s had been stopped. There were still V-2 attacks but these did not hold the same fear. I remember being told at the time that if you heard a V-2, you were safe.

Pr-BR

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