蜜芽传媒

Living in the 1940鈥檚

I am prompted to write this piece after reading my fathers essay on鈥� living in the 1920鈥檚鈥�. In that respect I am indebted to my fathers diaries where the continuity of events and details have been verified, without this reference it would be nowhere as detailed. My fathers piece restricted his view to exclude any 鈥渙utside鈥� influences saying that was history that could be researched elsewhere. I would find this impossible as this decade was the Seminole one of the twentieth century.
In that regard I was born at the hospital at 102 City Road Finsbury London in January 1938 my parents lived elsewhere but shortly (1939) moved into a house in Elms Farm Rd Elm Park Hornchurch. My parents had been encouraged to move from East London by sister & brother in law Min and George Sandgrove. I did not know it at the time but this was a new overspill estate for Londoners. The house itself had three bedrooms the smaller had the hot cylinder airing cupboard heated by the coal/coke fire boiler downstairs in the kitchen diner. I always remember that my sister (Margaret b Nov 1940) had this room. The boys (next brother Howard b Feb1944) had the second bedroom. There was a small bathroom up stairs front. All the windows were Crittall type metal and in the cold winters the icicles hung from them. Downstairs there was a nice sized living room with another open fire, the house was generally cold so we used to spend a lot of time in the kitchen with the stove and cast iron boiler as well as the gas cooker. The kitchen is where the radio was and the under stairs cupboard. This cupboard was used as an alternative air raid shelter in time. My Batt Grandparents lived across the Hornchurch aerodrome in Rainham, they lived in a rented bungalow in Briscoe Road until their 鈥渨eekend鈥� bungalow was made fit this part of the road is now called Abbey Wood Lane. Both were wooden structures on Briscoe Road which was a wide quagmire of a road when it was wet. My poor Grandmother who had the most terrible feet had to walk all the way down from the shops at Chandlers Corner. Granddad had been 鈥渁llocated鈥� the land after his service in WW1 like many others, this backed onto a marsh and a wood. I remember visiting both these two dwellings, the first I recall they had a large radiogram which worked from an accumulator, at this time they had a dog called spot, I remember eating its biscuits and getting told off for fiddling with the turntable. I used to like going over to my granddads and watch him working in his shed / workshop which was very large, he had no trade but was a good workman, I recall him mending boots and shoes sewing the sole onto the uppers like a professional, he had built the house and dug a brick lined well when the outside toilet block was built. He told me that he had been in the first world war and was in a (provost) section with a machine gun crew. One of the jobs he was made to do was to be behind the British lines and fire on anyone who retreated! He did not actually have to fire on anyone but this is probably why his only son Len was a conscientious objector in WW2. Alfred had lost a brother Wallace Leonard aged 19 in WW1. My grandfather Batt had been a Baker and was famous in the family for making all the Christmas and special occasion decorated cakes. In the 1940s he worked in the West Ham Library where he took a fall and 鈥渂roke his back鈥�, he recovered.
We lived alongside Hornchurch Aerodrome when the war started, I do not remember this first period but do remember subsequent returns, perhaps the incidents recalled above happened when I was three or four when we returned. The Blitz started in Hornchurch at the end of August 1940 when they bombed the airfield (and surrounding Area). Sister Margaret was born in the November then dad was called up in December 1940. (Mums address at this time was Elm Park) I remember my Dad taking me to see my new sister but do not recall him leaving for the forces. We then moved to Patrick Road Plaistow, near to the Moss family children (Bill, Dolly & George), all lived in the road. Grandmother Moss had died in 1935 and Granddad in March 1939 this road is near to the Boleyn, Barking Road and Prince Regent Lane (fairly close to the dock areas and West Ham football ground, grandfather and his father had worked in the docks and Lyles Sugar Wks). This seems to be my first memories of the noise in the night and the 鈥淩ed Skies鈥� smoke and the stories of what had happened the night before, as I recall Aunt Eva鈥檚 family鈥檚 shop got blown up. As the docks and East End were getting bombed more heavily, we evacuated to Royston (Coronation drive) in Hertfordshire about 30/40 miles from town and in the country. We stayed with a Mrs Bicker this is my first recollection of going to 鈥渟chool鈥� I remember that my father had sent me a model of a 鈥淟ancaster鈥� (It was probably a Manchester or Whitley) and a Spitfire made from a penny, my mother had one also, made into a broach. I was not allowed to take the model to 鈥渟chool鈥� (maybe a playschool) although I do recall running along the road with the bomber, falling over and grazing my knees (still have the scars) and being treated with iodine. My mother鈥檚 family had come from near this area about 25 years previously (Kelshall). Amongst other places my father had been stationed was RAF Duxford. Nearby at about this time I recall that we went to meet him and he pointed out where he worked it looked to me like a light house on a hill. (His job was radio direction finding, talking in allied pilots I believe). We walked on the heath, I guess this is when I had my photo taken on the war memorial. I also recall walking on the heath and seeing the prisoner of war compound, they had kicked a football over the wire fence and called to us to kick it back, my mother said I should not go near it, someone then came from the camp to retrieve it. I do not recall my father being with us on this particular occasion. Likewise we went to Cambridge city on route to meeting dad and some American servicemen offered me some chewing gum after first saying no, I was allowed my first taste of American sweets. Shortly after our time in Royston we moved back to Elm Park and in 1943 I started my first proper school Ayloff. The headmaster was Mr Adams an elderly gentleman. After the first couple of occasions I had to walk too and from school every day by myself (about a quarter of a mile) I have no recollection of having meals at school so this may have been twice a day. A good number of times we had air raid warnings for real, and recall running for the shelter with the guns firing and bombs dropping. Once I stopped to do up my shoes and the teacher went mad telling me to keep running. When we got to the shelter we were organized into singing groups, to drown out the noise. The sound of the sirens even now send a shiver down my back, although at the time I did not think I was in too much danger. These were brick surface shelters with concrete roofs. On the way to school I had to pass a gunsite set up in the front garden of the first corner house on Southend Road and Farm Way. Just across the road to the school entrance. There was another set up on the Southend Rd just south of the Maylands Ave junction but we did not go that way very often. One of the below ground school shelters it was said to have been hit by an 鈥漚erial torpedo 鈥� earlier in the war. This shelter was near to the rail bridge and we were not allowed near to its remains. I was quite happy at this school but I do not think we learned too much. We did play a lot of games, and one time I was hit by a cricket ball on the forehead which knocked me out and I had the seam imprint on my forehead for some time. We boys used to collect shrapnel and swap pieces after a 鈥済ood鈥� raid some of it was still warm and was kept in a tin. I made a friend in John Potts who I am still in touch with to this day, he used to live in St Andrews Ave someway from me, a road that got hit by a 鈥渄oodlebug鈥� (near to the rail footbridge) later in the war. We used to read comics together, and go to the cinema and concerts in later times. When we came back from Royston there had been several houses in our road that had been bombed (Numbers 50 & 52 levelled) and the rear of No 31 and about half a dozen in Maybank (around No鈥檚. 50-56) that had had damaged fronts. The children of the street used to play in the rubble of 50/52 as it was in the centre of the road. Mostly we would get night time raids, and at first we used to go down into the Anderson Shelter at the bottom of the garden but as the war progressed and the winters came on we hid in the under stair cupboard. We were in later days amazed how we all got in there, because Aunt Joyce her boyfriend Eric and Mum and we children used to get in there singing most of the time. Sometimes when visiting my Grandparents we would get under their Morrison shelter, sleeping there was very uncomfortable and cold. This place had an incendiary bomb go under it but luckily it failed to ignite properly so saving the wooden structure which was raised on concrete blocks. Granddad Batt had a photo taken of it which I have in my possession. In the summer my sister Margaret and I used to sit on the air raid shelter sandbag wall and watch the aeroplanes and 鈥渄oolebugs鈥� fly over, several dropped in the area. We saw quite a few doodlebugs but later only heard one or two V2s. When the former cut out we knew it was time to dive into the shelter. Then we evacuated again this time to Sheffield this was not a happy time for my sister or mother. I remember a long train journey and waiting in a hall for the people to chose a 鈥渞efugee鈥� family. I think the main attraction to 鈥渙ur鈥� Ramsden family was the extra rations we/they would get. I was shocked at the state of their home, I thought we were poor but the Ramsden鈥檚 and their neighbours were in a very different league. Their daughter was always having a go at Margaret my sister and pulling her hair, and the family used to go up the pub most nights, they invited my mother but she was horrified, she would never have taken us up there or left us unattended, we have never been a drinking family. The address was 65 Ravencarr Road, in later times I worked for a Sheffield company and found they had pulled down this section of houses. Whilst we were there it was winter and we had a lot of snow, it was my first experience of going on a makeshift toboggan, the hills on this estate were something else which I had no experience of previously. When the doodlebugs came to Sheffield, mum decided that we would be just as well off in Hornchurch we were in Sheffield about 3-6 months. Going back to Elm Park the weather cleared up and we cheered up, one day mother said we should go out we went up the road and turned left in Maybank Ave unusually, and stopped by the barbed wire and bank across the road. All of a sudden my father was talking to me, mum and my sister, he was on the other side. He was with someone else and we were warned not to ask any questions, I learned very much later that he had come there on a training course, several days later Elms Farm Rd and I believe Rosebank Ave were full of American army vehicles, these vehicles were jeeps and light lorry鈥檚 which the personnel used to fire up every morning early, then shut them down after about a quarter of an hour or so. This was the American or Canadian Army prior to D Day although we did not know this at the time. The children of the street got on well with these young men and we played cricket using their fuel cans as the wicket, they thought the 鈥渞ules鈥� strange because I think they thought they were playing base ball. This is the time when the cans were 鈥渟quare鈥� with press top caps. Jerry cans came later for obvious reasons. They were there for two or three weeks. Then the great day came, one night there was a seemingly unending roar of aircraft going over eastwards, D Day had started. I went into my mother room and I believe Margaret was in there too, looking out the window I could see the aircraft with their invasion stripes flying low, many with gliders attached going over. I had never seen aircraft painted that way, but of course for the rest of the war they all were. The next morning all the vehicles were gone, and I have often wondered how those lads got on in France.
In the latter part of the war my uncle George Moss who was in the Navy sometimes came over when on leave and I remember he took me up the road to the field in Rosebank Ave at the top of the airfield runway to watch the aeroplanes (I was not allowed by myself). On one occasion I saw a couple of Mosquitoes come in with extensive damage to them, holes in the tail and wings as big as dinner plates. I expect they came in to drop off their cameras or for repairs. They were flying fine, and I have always admired these wooden performance aircraft. Aircraft spotting was the normal and essential activity for all, especially for young boys. Recognising the unusual drone of the Heinkels111 & Me 410 was essential we did not get many ME109鈥檚. Most of the planes based at Hornchurch were Spitfires and we liked the reassuring sound of the Merlin鈥檚. Like other boys I and others had squeezed under the barbed wire and up the bank at the end of Maybank to look at the aircraft in the pens (Beaufighters + Spitfires).
Like most families at that time (throughout the war) we were always glued to the radio it played most of the day we were home, following the events of the day and discussing their implications. Throughout this decade I was impressed and pleased that I have heard most of the great public speakers of the age. A skill that I think is being lost. Churchill鈥榮 speeches were always inspirational, but did not of course always bring good news. It was a very anxious time for my mother although she had her sisters, brother and parents living not too far away. We also looked forward to letters from my father although he never said anything about what was going on. A curious feature of his diaries and subsequent writings don鈥檛 say very much about his experiences during this time,(he landed in France on D day plus 2) one would think he spent most of his time going to the cinema and swimming in French rivers.

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