��ѿ��ý

MEMORIES OF A WARTIME SCHOOLBOY

The Phoney War
During the War I was a schoolboy in West Hartlepool, County Durham on the north-east coast of England — 9 years old when it broke out and 15 when it ended. When Neville Chamberlain made the declaration of war on the radio I remember being in the garden in the sunshine of a Sunday morning in September and being called in by my father to hear it. Nothing much happened during the first six months of the War, certainly until about May 1940 .This was ‘The Phoney War’. Everybody was issued with gas masks and my 3 month-old brother John had an enormous contraption that tied round his waist like a space suit and had to be pumped from the side. It took ages to fit and I don’t know what would have happened if we had ever had a gas attack. Everybody else was given the familiar gas masks to be carried around in little cardboard boxes with string attached. My father, who had a leg shot off in France in 1915, joined the Air Raid Precautions organization as a Warden and attended many lectures on poison gas and so on. Otherwise things continued as normal.

We continued going to the nearby beach at Seaton Carew at weekends, making our base at the hut belonging to my Aunt and Uncle. I can still remember the smell of white paint and the sand getting into everything. The little area where the huts were sited was sandwiched between a new Art Deco bus station and the sand hills and there was a fun fair to one side which operated throughout that summer. The tunes they were playing in those days were ‘Little Sir Echo’, ‘Roll Out The Barrel’, ‘Lambeth Walk’, ‘Run Rabbit, Run Rabbit, Run, Run, Run’ Also ‘Under the Spreading Chestnut Tree’ with scurrilous schoolboy words. .

First Air Raids
The first air raids started in about June 1940. On the night of my brother’s first birthday, June 19th 1940, my mother, father, myself and baby were all confined the cupboard underneath the stairs - very cramped and very frightening with all the noise of bombs and anti-aircraft guns. Not long after that, we were given Anderson shelters to put in the back gardens. These were arched sheets of corrugated iron and partly covered over with soil. You went down some steps to them and inside there were very rudimentary bunks with metal strips to lie on. At the beginning they were flooded out and cold and so they all had to be concreted in. Men then came around and put concrete floors inside them and partly up the wall with a sort of a hole as a sump to collect the water that drained in. They were cold, damp, and horrible and of course the only light was candles.

Whenever the air raid siren went we retreated into the air raid shelter in the garden in the middle of winter with a small baby. Later on in the war we became rather blasé and didn’t carry on doing this. The first person to give up the idea of going to the shelter was my father. Since he only had one leg, if the air raid siren went in the middle of the night he had to get up and strap on his artificial leg . By the time he got himself sorted out and mobile sometimes the ‘all clear’ would go and he went back to bed. Eventually he just stayed in bed. He gave up being an Air Raid Warden: maybe he was too old or maybe it was thought that since he only had one leg he shouldn’t be walking up and down the streets during the air raids.

In 1941, we were only going to the junior school part- time for half a day and there was very much a ‘war on’ so there was no proper 11 plus exam. I sat a one hour intelligence test which I passed and went on to the Secondary School (later renamed the Grammar School) in September 1941. I had only been thre a few weeks when the nearest bomb to our house fell on Bede Grove, a little street leading up to the gates of the Secondary School. We were in the Anderson shelter when that bomb fell and I remember the sound of falling bricks and tiles. It was probably somewhere between a quarter and a half a mile away from where we lived, but that near enough. I passed the site on the way into school the next morning - four houses were demolished and six people killed..

I still have two leaflets issued in those days, one by the Ministry of Information on behalf of The War Office and the other by the Ministry of ��ѿ��ý Security. The first gives advice to the population on what to do if this Island is invaded by either sea or air. It is headed in large type “Stay where you are”. It states, “If this Island is invaded by sea or air everyone who is not under orders must stay where he or she is. This is not simple advice, it is an order from the Government and you must obey it just as soldiers obey their orders. Your order is to stay put, but remember that this does not apply until invasion comes.” An invasion was certainly expected in late 1940. What they were worried about was that when this happened in France, Holland and Belgium all the civilians took to the road and the Germans used the refugees as human shields. It was a very scary notice. The headings are: “Why must I stay put?” “What will happen to me if I don’t stay put?” “How shall I prepare to stay put?” and “How can I help?” and finally “What shall I do if the invader comes my way?” Under this last it says, “Do not attempt to join in the fight. Behave as if an air raid was going on.” The second is about air raids and i is headed, “After the raid.” It tells you what to do if you have been bombed and begins by saying, “When you have been in the front line and taken it extra hard the country wants to look after you for you have suffered in the National interest as well as in your own in the fight against Hitler. If your home is damaged there is a great deal of help ready for you”. It tells you what to do about it and what you can claim. It was a hard time.

Boredom and Austerity
Little thought was given to anything but the war and the war effort but I quietly progressed through West Hartlepool Secondary School. Most of the younger masters had gone off to the war and we were left with much older men most of whom had either served in the First World War or were physically unfit to serve in this one and some young women teachers who were brought in as war time replacements. Some of them were good and some weren’t. In the normal course of events it would have been a completely male only school with no women teachers there at all.

In 1942 I brought out a hand written Form Magazine called ‘The Outlook’. The contents had something to do with the war- items like ‘Regimental Nicknames’ and ‘Silhouettes of Aeroplanes’ which was all the rage in those days.. Most schoolboys were able to recognise both British and German aircraft by their silhouette and there were competitions in aircraft recognition. In this particular magazine the Messerschmitt M.E. 108 is figured, together with the Junkers 88 and the Consolidated Liberator, an American plane. There is a war story in it - ‘Biggles and the Purple Plague’.

Away from school we had very little social life and there was hardly any organised entertainment. So we cycled around surrounding villages and wandered over the fields at will. We set up camp fires, digging out potatoes and turnips from the fields, covering them in clay, and cooking them. At school there wasn’t much organised sport apart from some cross-country running. We played cricket once or twice a week in the summer, after school hours. Rugby was played on Saturday mornings in the school field but, if you were otherwise engaged you missed out . I had a job, delivering for a local baker so I never took part

Travelling around was discouraged and difficult. ‘Holidays at ��ѿ��ý’ was the Government’s slogan at the time.. During the summer the whole of the Ward Jackson Park in West Hartlepool was turned into a fun fair and, during those wartime years there was nowhere else to go. You couldn’t go to the beach at Seaton Carew because there was barbed wire all the way along the front . The swimming baths and the fun fair had been closed down, and all the wooden chalets where we used to have such enjoyable times had been cleared away. An enormous field gun had been installed on the floor of the swimming baths with its barrel pointing out to sea and the building was camouflaged- painted all over outside as a fun fair. So really the only place to go was’ the Park’. I knew nobody with a car but, even if I had done, no petrol was available

Radio programmes and the cinema were very important to children at the time. We all listened avidly to the radio, both serious stuff and the ‘Children’s Hour’ which was very popular and provided programmes like the dramatisation of Conan Doyle’s ‘The Lost World’ The other escape remained the cinema. At that time there were still seven or eight cinemas in West Hartlepool and we went at least once a week, sometimes twice

Food was short during those days and on Good Friday 1944 I noted in my diary that, ‘I looked for bread and couldn’t find any anywhere’, and later ‘Went to fish shop, but no fish.’.

When the rest of the family were away I had my midday meal, called dinner, at what was known as a British Restaurant. These were common all over England at the time and there was one at the Market in West Hartlepool where you could get a basic meal for something like 2s.6d (about 12p).. It was rather horrible, but filling. They managed to make custard without sugar for example.

Boy Soldier
When I was fourteen, at the beginning of 1944, I joined the School Battalion of the Army Cadet Force. We were effectively boy soldiers affiliated to the Durham Light Infantry and wore DLI gear and cap badges. We met one afternoon a week at school where we were taught how to use a rifle and various other arms; we had to take them to bits and reassemble them. There was a small rifle range at school underneath the gym. where we shot .22 calibre rifles at targets .Later we used the ��ѿ��ý Guard rifle range Every Sunday morning we went out on exercises to the surrounding countryside or on parade. I was issued with the usual soldier’s khaki uniform and forage cap, boots, gaiters. I still remember the feel of the thick serge uniform; it was buttoned up to the neck, very itchy and uncomfortable. The trousers were particularly scratchy; it was like wearing an itchy blanket round your legs. The school took this activity very seriously and I became very enthusiastic about the ACF.

Wednesday afternoons at school were given over to the Army Cadet Force where we did rifle drill and things like field craft. We went away to inspect anti-aircraft guns and were shown demonstrations of machine guns. On Sundays there might be a training film at the Headquarters of the ��ѿ��ý Guard in West Hartlepool or parades, ammo. inspections, battle drill and various field exercises out in the countryside. In May 1944 I was allowed to bring my .303 rifle back to the house from the Army Cadet Force for cleaning and parade duties. A few ‘blanks’ shot off in the back garden surprised the neighbours Eventually my shooting improved “five bulls, ninety-five out of a hundred.

The invasion of Europe was on 6th June 1944 and I just wrote “Invasion started” in my diary, that’s all, but two or three days later I started to make a map of Normandy and another map of the Italian Front on cardboard and also pins with little flags on them to stick in and show how far we had got. Not long afterwards we had a recruiting talk at school by a Colonel of the Indian Army, with lantern slides - trying to get boys to join up as officers in the Indian Army.

In summer 1944 I went on my first Army Cadet Force camp to Stainton near Barnard Castle. Seven United buses (United is the local bus firm) went off to the camp at 9.30 and It was attached to the 61st Royal Armoured Corps Training Regiment. We could use the Y.M.C.A. and N.A.A.F.I. canteen, but I noted that the soldiers were served first. A typical day would be: Reveille at six o’clock, breakfast at seven o’clock, then bed made, hut swept up and inspection, then taken out by Instructors for field work etc., a short twenty minute break from 10.40 a.m. to 11.00 a.m. at the Y.M.C.A., and then training again. Dinner at one o’clock and physical training in the afternoon. Supper was at 7.30 p.m. and we were allowed out until about ten o’clock. ‘Lights Out’ was at 10.00 p.m. There was a rather basic sort of cinema called the Aliwal (I’ve no idea why) at the camp. A cutting from the local newspaper described that camp. It is headed, “Army Cadets in Wonder Camp, Tommy Atkins Junior” and starts “Cheery cadets, a big convoy of buses, parents and friends saying ‘good-bye’, Officers making the last check-up. This was the busy scene last Sunday morning in Victory Square, West Hartlepool. The Army Cadet Force was off to camp. Since then much has happened, but neither parents nor cadets could have had much idea of the modern Military Wonderland to which the boys were going somewhere in the north-east. One thing was certain, when they meet again the least observant of the parents will see many changes for the better.” And later “Mothers, some of your worries are over. Yes, it was really your son who took such a pride in making his bed at night or setting out his belongings in the approved Regimental style, which will make the proudest housewife amongst you look to her laurels as he shows you how he did it. Fathers, again, yes, it was your young hopeful who started smartening himself up and now promises to walk smartly through the town as well as any member of the Guard. No longer is he one of the hobbledehoys, neither men nor boys, and he emulates the ultra smart soldiers of the Regiment once famous for its Cavalry now even more famous for its huge mechanical monsters.” Although each platoon was in a separate Nissen Hut and it was the middle of summer, it was quite cold and miserable and I could never get used to the horrible scratchy serge uniform that we had to wear. However I was quite keen on the Army and everybody thought of course that it wouldn’t be long before we were all ‘called up’.

Later in 1944 I took part in a farewell parade for the ��ѿ��ý Guard. The ��ѿ��ý Guard must have been disbanded at that time because all likelihood of invasion had gone This is born out by a diary note for the 17th September, “Partial relaxation of blackout.”

In August 1945 I went to my second Army Cadet Force camp, again attached to the Royal Armoured Corps near Barnard Castle. This time I was a Lance Corporal in charge of a small group of boy soldiers. While I was there the two atom bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and effectively that was the end of the war. I remember how amazed we all were by the news. When I got back from that camp “V.J. Day” soon followed and everybody went crackers with street parties and festivities. It was lovely to think that it was all over. The war seemed to last a very long time especially when you are that age and you seem to have known nothing else. I was nine when it started and fifteen when it ended. I just escaped: two more years and I would have been called up and off to war.

Not long after the war was over the school Army Cadet Force was disbanded. The Headmaster thought there was no more reason for it.. Looking back on it, it was just a junior ‘Dad’s Army’, but as a boy, I enjoyed it.

As a postscript, one thing we got up to after the war was over was removing the Anderson shelters from private gardens. With a friend, I used to go around offering to take people’s shelters out for them, armed with sledge hammers and spades. It was quite a job because you had to break the concrete at first and we charged half a crown (2s.6d.) a time for this service

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