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A child’s experience of the Blitz

During the 1930s we lived in a council house in the ‘Garden City’ of
Wythenshawe. My father worked as a building labourer, usually unemployed. When the war started he joined the army almost immediately. I think it was with some relief from poverty and responsibility that he did so. This together with the fact that he was part-time soldier in the territorial army and loved the military life. He was able to mask these facts with the undeniable patriotic excuse. No doubt he was patriotic. He almost stood to attention during Churchill’s “fighting on the beaches” speech and “never surrendering”. But he was leaving to fend for themselves a family of two boys: myself,my two year old brother, John, and also my mother, pregnant with our sister. He was proudly going to “Serve King and Country” in the King’s Own Regiment.

At the age of seven my father told me “You’re the man of the house now son.” And with the optimism of a Swartznegger told me: “ Look after your mother and your brother. I’ll be back !”. Of course I felt proud and very grown-up after being told this. I loved my father and I really did do my very best to take on his abandoned responsibilities. I was always attentive to my mother: Was she feeling well? “Could I get her an aspirin for her headache? Were there any errands that I could do? I was always ready to tidy up the house or look after my young brother.

Not so long after my father left my mother successfully applied for a council flat in Collyhurst. This was so that she could be near her mother, who lived on the very edge of Manchester city centre in a large Victorian building which housed about four hundred small flats. ‘Victoria Buildings’ — know as “The Dwellings” — was built in a rectangle with a large communal square in the centre. Very much like a barracks or a hospital. Which during the blitz drew the German bombers like a magnet.

The reason my mother had wanted the move was as I said, to be near her elderly mother Louisa. However, another factor must have been fear generated by gossip and radio warnings of the coming bombing raids on Manchester. This reason was quite illogical, because Wythenshawe, apart from being several miles from the urban landscape and the city was not signposted for bombing raids by high buildings. It was a residential estate with small houses which would make it difficult to see from the air. And if seen would not be worth wasting bombs on. My mother’s decision meant she was taking us into the the very heart of the coming air raids that destroyed the city centre and much of the surrounding districts.

That was the second mistake our parents made.

Collyhurst Flats were newly built. There was five blocks of them, each built in a ‘U’ design but attached to each other block, like a continuous ‘W’. Despite being modern in themselves the flats housed families from slum areas many of whom were kind hearted but rough and ready types. Each block of flats had a ‘gang’ of kids run by a toughie who seemed to model himself on Hitler! The surrounding streets also had gangs and periodically there would be “war” between them mimicking the larger war of the Allies. The weapons were sticks bows and arrows and a variety of projectiles, such as small rocks, bottles and bits of metal collected from the scrap of the engineering factories in the area.

These wars could be quite violent and bloody with many kids retiring from the fray with bloody heads. During the battles the air would be clouded with flying objects, as indeed the early medieval battles must have been. We weren’t quite the ‘ Yeomen of England’ but we did our best to keep up the waves of stick-arrows.

The real war, however, dominated the minds of the adults. Each of the blocks of flats had four underground air-raid shelters. When the warning wail of the air raid sirens went off most of the flat dwellers migrated to the shelters wearing ‘Churchill suits to keep warm or wrapped in blankets.

In 1940 the newly created ministry of ��ѿ��ý Security issued a small pamphlet, Air Raids , what you must know. What you must do. The pamphlet described the organisation of the Civil Defence Services. This consisted mainly of Air Raid Wardens, the Warning siren systems, an auxiliary Fire Service, First Aid groups, Fire Aid Posts and hospitals. Rescue Parties, Demolition and Repair parties, Gas identification Service, Decontamination Squads, how to deal with Unexploded bombs and wrecked aircraft. Enough to terrify a nation less stoic than the British!

The use of gas was banned by the international conventions of war. But Britain didn’t trust Hitler and we prepared for gas attacks, regardless! We were all issued with gas masks. Children’s masks were rendered less frightening by their Mickey Mouse face. In the eventuality of a gas raid babies were to be placed in large, rubber box-like respirators with transparent plastic windows in them. The gas masks came in cardboard boxes with canvass carriers that strapped over the shoulder so that they could be carried everywhere with you. We shopped in them, went to church in them and even carried them with us to school. Nevertheless, the Germans never did use gas as a weapon of war and after the was the rubber gas mask became an ugly, smelly (rubber smelt as bad as gas!) reminder of war time fears. And eventually the gas mask became museum piece. Nevertheless, we all kept those gas masks for years after the was. Whether this was nostalgia or a sneaking fear the Germans might yet gas us all, I don’t know.

We also kept our ration books. Well actually, rationing of food and clothing actually carried on for some time after the war so they were necessities. We were all allowed two ounces of butter, a pound of sugar and small amounts of bacon and meats. Sweets also were rationed and many substitutes, such as cough drops, were sold to the sugar hungry children. The amounts of fat were calculated by the Minstry of Food to satisfy nutritional needs rather than the taste buds or the love of a high fat diet. Since the war it has been shown that the war generation were healthier than at any time before or since. Proving the case for the health dangers of saturated fat and other high cholesterol foods. Fruit was not rationed but was very difficult to buy in the shops. This gave rise to the song ‘Yes we have no bananas’ !

There was, of course, a ‘black market’ in these scarce foods. But most people were too poor to pay the inflated prices for these goods. So they went to the priviledged wealthy classes. We learned many ‘tricks’ to eke out our rationed food. For example, butter was mixed with margarine. Stale bread was soaked in water and heated in an oven which gave it an amazing similarity to fresh bread. We imported ‘corned beef’ from Argentinia which became a favourite substitute for real meat. Baking of course was our mother’s way of providing us with cheap but delicious confection. Her mince pies, scones and currant cakes were always on our table. Also the butcher would sell or give away bones with quite a lot of meat on them. These were not for the dogs! They provided the base for stews and soups. Bone marrow was a favourite delicacy with us kids and we’d pick it out with knitting needles. Lentil and meat bone stews, barley and meat bone stews, carrot ,onion potatoe, turnip, leek meat bone stews, All delicious and all due to the mother of invention, “necessity”.

The air raids began in

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