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THE 1938 CRISIS

Extract from last chapter of
SNOWBALL, GO FIND YOURSELF A SCHOOL
By Len Langrick

One Saturday morning our family and the family of a friend went to Kingston Road school assembly Hall in Staines to queue up for gas masks. Neither Brian nor I understood the seriousness of the situation at the time. No explanation was given except that there was a "crisis " on. When it came to our turn we were each fitted with an evil smelling black rubber mask with a celluloid visor and heavy filtration can on the snout. Fingers tested the fit between the rubber and our cheeks and we sucked a piece of paper on to the end to check that the valve was working properly. We were given a standard issue cardboard box and taught how to string it properly to make a very economic but shoulder-cutting strap. My brother Paul as I remember was just old enough for the "Mickey-Mouse" version in red and black complete with the "ears" and round "eye-pieces", but little babies were pushed head-to-waist into a complete convoluted chamber with a hand-pump on the side which mum was expected to work constantly to keep up the flow of fresh air. It was many years before I really appreciated what a worry that must have been for young mothers.

At this time dad was looking for a new job knowing that work on the building site would soon be finished. He was seeking a change from building work which was very seasonal and often left men out of work in the winter. He found employment with the funeral director in London and once again we were on the move.

We moved into our new home in Willesden in the spring of 1939 and Joan and I, hand in hand, went once again in search of a school. We turned the wrong way and missed St Andrew's high-church junior school on our doorstep and found instead St Mary's down past the bus garage but that, if I remember rightly, was Infants Only and we were redirected back to where we belonged. It was dad's intention to leave building work for ever and for all of us to settle permanently in this, our new family home, but storm clouds were gathering over Europe and on September 1st Joan and I were on the move once again -- this time as evacuees with our new school. All that week the school was a hive of activity with oral explanations in the Assembly Hall followed by written instructions to be taken home. One in particular caused quite a discussion. It offered for sale at about two shillings each rough but capacious hessian rucksacks in which we children could pack our belongings. Dad thought he could make them. Mum thought he couldn't and in any case he hadn't time and shouldn't be so mean etc etc. On Friday 1st Sept Joan and I, duly labelled with our name and address, assembled with others at the school weighed down without tightly packed rucksacks and gas masks. Under strict instructions that I should stay with Joan at all costs I was shunted into the "girls" coach , much to my embarrassment, for the first leg of our journey -- to the railway station. There we boarded a train for a destination unknown us or our parents. It could have been anywhere, but in fact turned out to be not so far away. Northampton. We were shepherd in into a school hall and given a bag of goodies -- treats for us and a few provisions for our foster parents to-be to tide them over. Then began the door-to-door trek with the teacher around Kingthorpe in groups of a dozen or so which gradually diminished one by one or in pairs as children were assigned to their new homes. Joan and I, being brother and sister, were more of a problem to accommodate and it was quite dark before a place was found for us. On the Sunday morning we went across the fields to church. It was September 3rd and on our return to our new lodgings we learned that Britain was at war with Germany. It was the last time we would hear church bells until after the war. The Thirties were coming to a close. We were away from home. Young as we were, childhood was over. It was now time to grow up………….. END of Extract

MY EVACUATION

NORTHAMPTON: Our first billet was not a success. Soon after that first Christmas, through the efforts of dad, we were moved into the home of auntie Annie and uncle Bill survivors from the First World War who had a greater sympathy and understanding of the meaning of war than the hosts we had just left. He carried the scars of a WWI gas attack and they were expecting at any moment their own two boys Bert and Sid to receive their call-up papers. I had been in the parish church choir but when I learnt that Sid was a lay-preacher at the Baptist Church I became a regular attender and joined the Boys Brigade. After some months Bert and Sid were conscripted after which Annie and Bill opened their doors to two more evacuees June and John. We were all made very welcome. Bert was not A1 and was posted to a bomb disposal squad in London. One day he was instructed to fetch some tool or other and while he was away the bomb exploded and killed all his team. However they both returned safely after the war.

The influx of evacuees meant that school accommodation was at a premium and had to be shared between us and the locals each taking turn for half a day in the schoolroom and the other half either on nature walks or community sing-songs in the church hall when the weather was bad.

From time to time, more by way of a change I think, we practised our Air Raid Drill learning how to don our gas masks or dive under the school desk covering our ears with the palms of our hands and at the same time our necks with our fingers. It was difficult then and still is today.

Northampton was on the flight path to Coventry and although we only had one bomb drop in a field and Canadian aeroplane crash into the church in the centre of Northampton there was always the risk of air raids and we were advised to seek shelter in the nearest house should the warning sound. This is not the type of advice one would give children today.

I watched with awe as the three men of the house dug a deep hole in the back garden and erected and Anderson air raid shelter covered it with earth and made the inside as comfortable as possible.

For the first time in our lives we were sent pocket money from home, supplemented by little more from Bert, Sid and uncle Bill. Wealth indeed which was spent mainly on the cinema on Saturday afternoons and again midweek - another new experience. Until I was evacuated I had only been to the cinema twice. The other great activity took place on Sunday afternoons after church and dinner when seemingly half the families in Kingthorpe wended their way up the Harborough Road to the cemetery to attend to the graves of loved ones and replenish vases of flowers. The return trip was broken by a visit to the Five Bells where children would play in the gardens with a glass of lemonade and adults would disappear inside for beer and gin and tonic. Double summertime kept at the evenings light until almost midnight.

Dad managed to bring my bicycle to me which meant I could go cycling with friends of an evening. Quite often we went to nearby Sywell aerodrome where young men were learning to fly in, I think, Gloucester Gladiator biplanes. We know they were learning because although some of them landed smoothly others bounced quite high and had to rev up and make another circuit of the field to avoid crashing.

On one memorable occasion my friend and I were advised that a small sweetshop in the centre of Northampton had just had a delivery of beechnut chewing gum. We cycled down there as fast as we could, bought as much as we could afford (it was not on sweet ration) and cycled home our mouths crammed so full we could not speak and could hardly chew. Today this may sound excessively greedy but I think we needed the sugar.

WELLINGBOROUGH: Around my 13th birthday I was selected for a place at the Tottenham Technical College which had been evacuated to Wellingborough in Northants and I had to leave my sister and move on. She, in her turn, went to stay with a cousin in our home town of Mansfield. I did not see her again for another two years.

My new billet was with a couple with two toddlers of their own and another on the way. She was quite good to me and I could have been happy there but the new baby turned out to be twins and there was no room for me and I was obliged to move on to Mrs Eales, a motherly widow with a grown-up son and daughter still living at home. I missed having no young people in the house but I enjoyed my new school learning all about carpentry, plumbing, plastering, brickwork, painting and decorating.

Together with a new-found friend we earned a little extra cash with morning and evening paper rounds and a Saturday job helping Mr Mabbutt to deliver his home-made soft drinks by pony and cart. We went for frequent long bike rides on Sunday and one day discussed the possibility of cycling to London for a weekend to see our parents. Wisely we thought we ought to build up our cycling muscles with practise and then unwisely thought that hanging on the tailboard of lorries would save our legs and decided to practise that. We only did it once. Take took the side nearest to the grass verge, hit it, and came off. Fortunately he wasn't hurt but we saw the folly of our ways and the project was dropped. Some evenings we went into Wellingborough. There wasn't much to do and one evening we were tempted into an amusement arcade, with others, and learned how quickly one could lose a week's pocket money. I'm glad I had this lesson. It stood me in good stead for the rest of my life.

After about 18 months, when the worst of the Blitz was over, I returned home and transferred to my local, Willesden, technical College to finish my education. There were still air raids. When I went to the cinema with my friend Bill dad insisted we took our gas masks and fire watchers helmets much to my friend's embarrassment. If the siren sounded warnings were flashed on the main screen and members of the audience left or stayed according to their wishes. Most people took their chance and stayed.

I started work at 16 at Whiteley's estate office in Bayswater just in time to be confronted by doodle bugs (pilotless bombs) and V2's (the rocket bomb one never heard coming). Eventually, and unexpectedly as the war had just finished, I was called up to do three years in the Royal Marines. END

THE LOST YEARS.
by Joan Langrick
I did not know, why my mother cried
When I caught the train that day.
I did not know, on that fateful ride,
How long I’d be away.
While teachers and pupils thronged around
I sought my brother’s hand,
Too awed to speak, I made no sound
Yet I knew he’d understand.

He did not know, that boy of ten,
What we were doing there.
He tried so hard to be a man
To show he did not care.
And yet, a tear crept in his eye,
Which he quickly brushed away.
To see my elder brother cry
Fair broke my heart that day.

They did not know, my parents then
As bombers throbbed above.
If e’er they’d see us both again
But they knew the power of love.
For icy fingers gripped their hearts
As they touched each empty bed.
The war had torn their world apart
There were no more tears to shed.

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