ĂŰŃż´ŤĂ˝

Our last annual visit to the seaside was in the summer of 1939. The holiday ran its usual course with the difference that we knew, though I certainly was not fully aware, war was looming and imminent. Like the rest of the country, Sunday, September 3rd was ‘Doomsday’, when the Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain would make his historic announcement at noon. We did not have a wireless in the bungalow where we were staying, so a kind neighbour living nearby made an arrangement whereby, when we returned home from church that Sunday morning, she would hang a white towel from a bedroom window if the news was as bad as was expected. I seem to remember seeing that white towel. World War 2 was upon us!
Naturally, our holiday was cut short. It was arranged that Dad, and my big brother Jim would drive home to Gloucester in the family car, with all our luggage; whilst Mum, my sister Rossie and I would follow by train. My elder sister Joy was away in hospital at that time. I remember little of those immediate events. We were driven to the tiny railway halt of Brent Knoll; and while waiting for the Gloucester train I do remember watching an express go thundering past in the opposite direction full of waving children. One of the first evacuation trains of the ‘phoney war’ from London? This sudden exodus from many of our big cities meant that for the first time town was meeting country with a vengeance, and class was meeting class. No one dreamt then, that life was never going to be the same again.
The “childrens’ playroom” in our vicarage also housed the one and only wireless set, round which we children gathered to listen avidly to ‘Uncle Mac’ and “Childrens’ Hour”. The whole family would listen to the wartime broadcasts from the front line, given by such well known voices as Frank Gillard and Godfrey Talbot. I remember the broad Yorkshire dialect of Wilfred Pickles, one of the newly recruited news readers!0
All householders were encouraged by poster and broadcast, to “Dig for Victory”. So Dad obligingly increased our vegetable output by digging up part of the lawn. There was still plenty left for us kids! A DIY asbestos garage was put up with the help of parishioners, to house the family car, a Wolsely Hornet saloon, number ADF 29; but soon after the outbreak of war when petrol became nigh impossible to obtain, the car was put in the garage and finally sold. I then used the space for my “chemical laboratory”, where I seem to remember my sister and I experimented in making ‘mustard gas’ from ‘Lysol’ Perhaps we thought we were helping the war effort !
It was in the garden too that we would perform ‘playlets’, produced and directed by Mum, in front of various parishioner groups, to raise contributions for the war effort (a cigarette fund was one such ‘good cause’ I seem to remember!). One of the two playlets was taken from “Hiawatha”, where I played the ‘Ancient Arrow Maker at the doorway of his wigwam’! The other great favourite with our ‘public’, was “The Madhatter’s Tea Party” , where, this time I took the part of the ‘Madhatter’! We even put on a performance in the Bon Marché department store in town for the ladies of the city!
. As I never kept a diary of those early days, events are either forgotten or get jumbled up out of chronological order. I am writing as I recall each incident which probably makes for ‘bitty’ reading. I make no apologies for that!
. What do I remember specifically about the effect the war had upon our family? To begin with I remember licking and sticking yards of brown paper tape in criss-cross fashion over all the window panes, ostensibly to prevent the glass shattering. Thankfully, this was never put to the test. I remember Dad making blackout shields from tarred paper and laths and Mum sewing yards of black material, to prevent the egress of any chinks of light which might guide in the enemy bombers! These were made at speed. There were lots of windows; and it speaks well of their workmanship that these shields and curtains lasted the war despite having to be put up and taken down every day. We didn’t dig a shelter in the garden but were presented at some stage with a ‘Morrison shelter’, named after the ĂŰŃż´ŤĂ˝ Secretary, Herbert Morrison who presumably thought of the idea. It looked to me like a vast steel table, which in fact became our dining room table for the ‘duration’. When sitting, you couldn’t put your feet under it because the base consisted of inter-woven strips of thin steel forming a sort of ‘mattress’ attached to the main frame by springs, rather like the springs on a bed. The idea was that in a raid you all lay on this mattress with the steel sheet of the table top to protect you from falling masonry should your house be unlucky enough to be hit. The only time I seem to remember when we ever resorted to this ‘funk hole’ was AFTER the one and only bomb which fell far too close for comfort!
It was a cold snowy January morning in 1941 or ’42, I cannot remember exactly which year. My brother Jim and I were sleeping in his room on the first floor, as we children had all been moved down from the top floor bedrooms some months ago. The time was about 7 a.m. when, without warning there came the most frightening ‘Bang’! I awoke with a start. “That was a bomb”, said big brother confidently. The next thing we heard was the pattering of things falling outside, then complete silence. I don’t think the air raid sirens had even sounded off. There was movement in the house; anxious parents gathering us all in and hurrying downstairs to the ‘Morrison’. Outside it was still dark with light snow falling.
I think Dad was already out and about in his parish to see what had happened and to help where he could. The horrific sight which met his eyes, not 300 yards from the house was, I think, to affect him for the rest of his life and may well have hastened his end. A whole row of houses bordering one side of a short street near the church had been completely demolished. The families inside, preparing for another days work, stood no chance. I don’t think there were any survivors. Fortunately there were no houses on the opposite side of the road as this was the high boundary wall of the local kindergarten school, empty at the time. As daylight began to illuminate the scene the aftermath of the explosion became apparent in the streets and gardens of the nearby houses. Debris of all sorts littered the ground — earth — stones — broken bricks and tiles — tattered remnants of clothing — and substances difficult to identify, and which were mercifully being covered over by the gently falling snow, until such times as the rescue services could begin the gruesome task of salvage. This was the scene that met our young eyes as my sister and I sallied forth later that morning. We were however prevented from entering the scene of the bomb, which apparently was an isolated drop of ‘tip and run’ by a German pilot intent on getting home. Perhaps he was trying to hit the railway line on the other side of the park. If so, he was a very poor ‘shot’! Later that week, a mass funeral was held in the church for the victims — a very poignant sight to see nine coffins lined up down the centre aisle and chancel. The church itself suffered little damage other than a few broken windows.
An amusing post script to that tragic morning came when our maid, Florence reported a sinister ‘bulge’ in our attic ceiling — an incendiary bomb? A time bomb? P.C. ‘Plod’ was duly called. Up he went to the attic to put his ear to the bulging lead poking down from the roof. No ‘ticking’, so it was decided that a piece of debris must have landed on the roof outside and punched the hole!
Another early ‘wartime’ incident about this time was when Rosamun’(that’s what I used to call my sister Rosamund) and I were selected as models by the fire brigade to demonstrate how people are rescued from upstairs windows. We two children waited in the top bedroom of a neighbour’s house in eager anticipation of a ladder to appear at the window. Rossie was rescued first and she tells me she was terribly embarrassed that her knickers might show as she was ‘fireman lifted’ to the road below where stood a circle of adults gazing upwards! My elder sister Joy, home again by now, had become a part time A.R.P messenger, and to prove her status wore a homemade red armband with the words, “ A.R.P. Messenger” embroidered in black. I often used to join her as we cycled about the city between A.R.P.posts delivering messages. We felt very important; but what these missives contained we never knew; probably friendly banter between the wardens, usually pensioners, who permanently manned them! I also remember helping to fill sandbags, for what purpose, I cannot now recall.
“Fire watching” for incendiary bombs was carried out by teams of local volunteers, who took turns throughout the night to keep an eye on their immediate neighbourhood. Dad being the local vicar, our house became the organising centre for this parish activity, and the ‘log book’ would be collected each evening by the ‘first on watch’, passed on to the next, and finally returned to the vicarage the next morning. Very often it was Rossie and I who would deliver and collect that important document! I often wonder what happened to that book. Some of the entries waxed lyrical, often accompanied by little sketches, as these stalwarts wiled away the waking hours of the night. Every household was issued with the regulation ‘stirrup pump’ and sand bucket. All I remember using our pump for was to water the garden! Of course we all had our gas masks which we carried about with us in a cardboard container slung from our shoulder, usually by a length of string! At some early stage in the war, we went to the local A.R.P headquarters (in our case, the spa pump rooms down the road), to have an extra filter taped on. What particular type of ‘dastardly German gas’ this was supposed to protect us from I never found out. All I remember is the colour of the filter — emerald green! We were told to use soap to keep the celluloid ‘window’ from misting up! One other wartime ‘imposition’ was the issue of identity cards to every man, woman and child. I think mine was numbered ‘OBAT 944’.
I mentioned earlier about the mass exodous of children from the cities to the countryside. At the same time there was a plan to send children abroad to North America and South Africa for “the duration”. Family friends, whose mother was American, had decided to send their two boys to relatives in The States, and asked if we would like to join them. After much soul searching (and what a weighty matter it was to consider), Dad and Mum decided that despite the real dangers, the unity of the family was paramount, and so declined the invitation. The whole project fell apart after one such shipload of children bound for Canada in the “City of Benares” was torpedoed and sunk with a dreadful loss of young lives.
Another consequence of war which we took for granted at the time, was the ‘blackout’. Not only were our homes in darkness from the outside, but the whole city was in total darkness. Not a street light was illuminated, and navigating at night could be both hazardous and dangerous. A shielded pocket torch was a ‘must’. Even the few motor vehicles on the streets were limited to one nearside headlight from which all but the narrowest of beam had been obliterated by a slatted metal mask attached to it. While on the subject of motors it might be of interest to know that with a shortage of petrol some vehicles had a rack fitted on their roofs on which sat a large inflated ‘bag’ filled with town gas, which fed the modified engine. This cannot have been too successful, for when finally petrol restrictions were lifted at the end of the war, I never saw anybody continuing with this type of fuel! Again, talking about gas filled bags, barrage balloons were employed at strategic places within and around the city to deter low level bombing. One such balloon site was on the old county cricket ground not far from our home. It was manned by RAF personnel, and many was the time we used to watch the team struggling to wind down their hydrogen filled ‘monster’ as it swayed to and fro in the rising wind, at the end of its wire tether.
Then, for some reason, at the age of nine, I was sent to a boarding Preparatory school near Chepstow on the banks of the river Wye. Maybe it was to protect me from the threatened bombing of Gloucester, forecast on the German radio by “Lord Haw-Haw”, the English Quisling. Maybe, Mum and Dad had visions of subsequently sending me to Christ’s Hospital, where my big brother Jim was languishing!. I never found out. If the former reason, they were sadly misled, as I spent more nights down in the shelter of the cellars of that school, while the German bombers roared overhead on their way to devastate Coventry, than I ever would have had to do at home! When the Luftwaffe had vented their spleen on that city, it was then the turn of Bristol which was not far away.
We had a Dutch boy at the school called Dick Taverne who I understood was a refugee from Holland. On Sunday evenings, either before or after the nine O’clock evening news on the wireless, the B.B.C. would play all the National Anthems of the Allies. We boys were in our dormitories by this time, but the strains of music would come floating up from the head’s living room below. On hearing the Dutch anthem, Dick would stand up stiffly to attention on his bed! Years after the war, there was a Labour M.P. of the same name. I have often wondered if he was ‘our Dick’! Anyway, after a year at the school, I was so homesick that my parents relented, and I came home for good. Maybe, they thought Gloucester was just as safe as anywhere else!
The Government suddenly had the idea of asking everybody to hand in old pots and pans to help build ‘Spitfires’ as there was a desperate shortage of metal on account of the U-Boat activity in the Atlantic. For some reason, cast iron railings were also included. Now, most of the houses in the neighbourhood were Edwardian villas with beautifully wrought cast iron railings and gates separating them from the road. Our house included. Then, almost overnight, the Council sent round workmen who ‘burnt off’ every piece of cast iron they could find for “the War Effort”. It later transpired, long after the war, that these railings were not used. Such a waste, as they were never replaced.
Throughout the war we were asked to contribute to war weapons of one sort or another. And in order to boost our patriotism, we had a ‘War Weapons Week’; a ‘Warship Week’; a ‘Wings for Victory Week’, and so on. There would be a suitable parade through the city to illustrate what was needed. The event I particularly remember was a “Warships Week”, where in the parade was the sole survivor of the Battle Cruiser “HOOD” which was sunk in 1940 in the N.W.Approaches, by the German pocket battleship “BISMARK”, A dark day in the Naval war. An even gloomier episode was to follow, when the Battle cruisers “REPULSE” and PRINCE OF WALES” were sunk by the Japanese off Singapore. Apart from the aircraft factory on the outskirts of the city, I remember watching ‘Waltzing Matilda’ tanks trundling down the road from the peacetime Wagon Works, where they were being built.
Rationing of course was stringent. I remember, we children each had two little earthenware containers with our names on. One held our ration of sugar for the week; and the other, our butter! The only reason I can think for this was to stop us squabbling over who had eaten more than the other! In fact, rationing was no hardship. I believe the health of the nation had never been better during those days of enforced dieting! Sweets too were rationed. But once again, we never seemed to go without something to suck or chew on! I remember Mum making a rather sickly concoction out of dried milk! I can distinctly remember the days before the war, when Rossie and I would go into the neighbouring sweet shop and buy ‘a farthing’s worth’ in little cone shaped paper bags! On the subject of milk. Harry was our milkman, who would visit daily and dispense his wares out of a large churn from the back of his van, into jugs brought out for the purpose. There was always a lovely thick layer of cream — unlike today’s homogenised stuff from the supermarket!
(Continued in Chapter 2)

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