蜜芽传媒

My mother, Annie Grace Hulland Glass was a child of 11 when the war started. She wrote the following recollections of her childhood and the war prior to her death in 1998. She was in Chaddesden and Derby during the war.

1939
The summer seemed normal to me, I was not really aware of the tensions building between Britain and Germany, there wasn鈥檛 any TV, I didn鈥檛 read the papers and the radio was only turned on for specific programs 鈥� not as a background noise. On Sunday Sept 3rd my mother and I were walking home from church when we met the milkman who told us war had been declared. The next night my father had to be away from home all night because of his job and the situation so my mother and I were here alone. The Air Raid sirens started, signaling an air raid so we came downstairs, we had been told that if there was a gas attack rattles would be sounded, and although they were not sounded, my mother thought that the dog, who was coming downstairs very slowly, one step at a time, was being gassed. She made me put on my gas mask which was rubber and fit tightly around my face, it became clammy and rather claustrophobic and made it more difficult to breathe by the end of the night. Needless to say there was not a gas attack, or even an Air Raid that night, it was a false alarm but it certainly made us realize things were not going to be the same in the future. After this rather dramatic beginning things settled down into their regular routine.

In 1940 the war became real, I was 12 years old, old enough to know what was happening but not old enough to realize the danger the country faced. All of Europe was being over run by the Germans and in May they drove the British and French back to the sea at Dunkirk. This was on May 10th when the evacuation of the British Expeditionary Force rescued (over several days) 224,000 British and 95,000 French troops. This was done by means of a flotilla of any kind of seaworthy vessel ranging form navy ships to small pleasure boats, who sailed form the south coast of England to literally pull men from the water, all the time the Germans were bombing and shelling the area. The Army did not have sufficient bases to accommodate the soldiers at the time, and so they were billeted with families who volunteered to take them in, we had 2 of them, Jack and Len, and they stayed with us until barracks were available 鈥攚e were the only family in the street who took soldiers in. My mother who by this time had a part time job at Woolworths was constantly inviting service people she met at the store to our home for a meal, a bath, or just a place to relax and many friendships were formed. On June 14th Paris surrendered and a week later France fell; now Britain stood alone. By Sept the Battle of Britain was fought between the Royal Air Force and the German Luftwaffe with the RAF greatly outnumbered by the Germans, winning the battle. The Germans then began bombing the cities and towns and countryside. In Chaddesden there were no military or industrial targets but German Planes were in the area and the Air Raid Sirens would sound forcing us to get up out of bed and take shelter as best we could next to the stair sand behind heavy furniture. We sat there one night listening to bombs whistling down and sounding as if they might hit the house at any minute, but were lucky that they dropped in the park, the major damage was to St. Mary鈥檚 church where the beautiful old stained glass windows were destroyed. Derby about 3 miles away was bombed with the railway station and houses being hit. Later the Government issued us a Table Shelter, it had a rectangular steel frame and top and heavy wire (fence like) mesh sides, 3 of which stayed in place and the 4th was hooked into place after you got in. Supposedly it would support the weight of the house, if it was bombed and the debris fell on it, - it gave us the feeling of being like animals in a cage.

In 1941 I became 13, I was still going to Spondon House School, my best friend there was Olive Harrison and we got into a great deal of mischief together. Before the war the pupils were taken by bus from Spondon to Derby to the swimming baths to learn how to swim, but it became dangerous to take busloads of children to town and so it was discontinued and I never learned how to swim. Mr. Walton was the headmaster at Spondon House, and our first teacher was Mr. Flint, Miss Beniston took us for PT and our French teacher was Mrs. Watson, being succeeded later by Mr. Maurice White 鈥� who threw chalk at the pupils if we weren鈥檛 paying attention. We did not have a choice of subjects to take, but all followed the same curriculum. We played field hockey as part of PT and the girls were required to take sewing and domestic science (known here as home ec.). Our cooking efforts were somewhat limited since stringent rationing was in effect, and even 鈥渕istakes鈥� had to be eaten, I remember making stinging nettle soup, probably nourishing but not very appealing. Some of my classmates were June Spencer, June Ainsworth, Audrey Goodman, Pat Armstrong, Dorothy Tunstall, Yvonne Twine, Bernard Rainbow, Gordon Chambers (who always had his catapult in his pocket), Olive Harrison, Roy Bull and Frankie Glover 鈥� an evacuee from the London bombing.

1942 Wartime food rationing was in effect and in 1942 the weekly ration for an adult was 4oz bacon, 8oz sugar, 2 oz tea, 8oz fats (of which no more than 2oz was butter), 2 oz cheese and a shillings worth of meat (a shilling at that time was about 28 cents). These quantities were changed from time to time depending on the availability of commodities and there were additional allowances for food at Christmas (a small can of fruit was allowed for a small family, a large can for a larger family) also ongoing extra amounts for people such as pregnant women, and young children. Some foods such as vegetables were not rationed but supplies were sometimes short. Candy was rationed to 4oz per week, but you could buy the whole months ration at once if so desired, my favourite was Maltesers, and I did indeed buy it all the first week and had to go without for the next 3 weeks! Each person could have one egg per week, biscuits (cookies), were also rationed, 1 jar of jam per person per month was available and fruit, such as oranges, was impossible to get, bananas when available were for children under 5 and people over 65. Flour and bread were also rationed which among other things made home baking difficult and didn鈥檛 allow for young people to learn how to cook. Bakery bread was no longer white 鈥� nor was it wheat 鈥� but a mixture of the two; in actual fact we were probably healthier, we ate less fat and sugar and walked a great deal. Also this year the government banned embroidery on underwear and nightwear.

1943 Meantime the war was still going on, the RAF was dropping bouncing bombs on the dams in Germanys Ruhr. The Germans surrendered in Stalingrad and Churchill announced that as the threat of invasion is over, church bells could be rung again. They had been silent since the early days of the war since they were to be used as a way to notify people that the Germans had invaded England 鈥� they never did!

In 1944 my mother and I were still living in Exeter St, I was 16 and too young to be in the women鈥檚 services 鈥� although I longed to join. At this time I was working at he Nottingham Rd Chaddesden Day Nursery, a Government run facility where mothers doing war work could leave their children. I was called a probationer in training to be a nursery nurse. During our time in the nursery, the probationers polished the wood parquet floors 鈥� on hands and knees 鈥� in fact that is what I was doing on D-Day June 6th 1944, when someone came running in to tell me the invasion of Europe had started. Food rationing was still in force. National holidays still went on, Harvest Festival was in the early Fall, and was church related. People took their very best fruit, vegetables, preserves etc, and decorated the church with flowers, sheaves of corn and garlands, then a service of thanks was held, afterwards everything was donated to a local hospital. By this time England was being bombed in a different manner, by the V1 and V2 rockets, commonly called 鈥渂uzz bombs鈥�, they did not have pilots and although I鈥檓 sure were partly timed for specific targets, were also used to terrorize (as the Germans thought) the civilian population, because you did not know where they would fall. You could hear the engines as they came over but when the engine and the noise stopped the bomb fell to earth no matter where it was. We had to take the children from the nursery to an underground bomb shelter in the grounds whenever the Air Raid Siren sounded 鈥� a wailing up and down sound 鈥� and stay there until the All Clear sounded which was a high pitched steady note. Women and children were being evacuated from London and since Derby was considered to be less dangerous we had 2 women and 2 children with us (again a voluntary action taken by my mother), they had my mothers and my bedrooms and we slept on 2 cots in the attic.

In 1945 I was 17 and life was very much the same, food and clothes were still rationed. Going out to eat lent variety to the diet, there were the British Restaurants (a government operation) which served cheap, nourishing but dull meals, or there were cafes where uniformed waitresses complete with white caps served toasted teacakes, tea and an assortment of cakes for afternoon tea. There were larger and more expensive restaurants if you could afford them.
On May 8th the time we had waited for for 5 years and 8 months came true, the war was over, the Germans were beaten and all England rejoiced. Winston Churchill declared May 8th to be VE day (Victory in Europe) my mother and I went to Derby Market Place where speakers had been set up, to hear his speech, and then that night joined the happy crowds dancing in the streets celebrating the occasion.

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