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My memories of life during the war
by Ada Morris nee’ Beackon

I was 19 when war was declared and lived in London. The night before September 3rd 1939, there was a terrific thunderstorm, and some of the streets in Hackney were flooded, I remembered this because my boyfriend and I had been to a wedding, and going home to Chingford where we lived at 2am we were stopped by an Air Raid warden who said we were showing too much light in the headlamps, but the blue paper which had been stuck on was washed off during the storm.

In 1941 I was by now married, I was directed into war work with several of my friends we went into a factory making the Albemarle bombers this was made mostly of wood the wings were covered with Madapalan and we girls about 10 on the leading edge side sowing the linen on the wing sections. This was done by a special knot.

The planes were not very successful with only two engines they were underpowered, the eventually finished as glider tugs, I believe they were used in the fiasco at Arnham.

The factory in Walthamstow was staffed by nearly all men[carpenters] one day the men decided to strike but none of the girls would join in as were all married to men in the forces, and we said that they couldn’t strike so why should they, the stike collapsed thanks to our stand.

Two of my friends at the factory were married to 2 Scots Guardsmen, one day the girls didn’t come to work, we heard later both the soldiers were killed at Alamein. One of the wives never really came to terms with his death and she eventually had to leave, we had been good friends until then, I wonder what happened to her?
Her initials were PM and AM our friends used to call us night and day!

One night in September 1940 I had been to the cinema with a friend when we came out about 10pm we could see a huge glow in the sky, what we didn’t know then it was the night the docks were bombed, the glow we could see was twelve miles away.

Sweet were rationed the only chocolate was blended not milk or plain somewhere in between, and plain boiled sweets, we were allowed about 2 ounces a week. We had a good canteen in the factory, we could get a hot dinner and sweet for about 1s 6d old money. There was also a British restaurant in a nearby school; we could get a good meal there for 1s. Old money, cigarettes were always in short supply, if you saw a queue outside a tobacconist you joined it, sometimes lucky to get 5 cigarettes.

I also had to join the A.R.P. and trained as an ambulance attendant I was on duty one night when a V2 fell in our district, it demolished a row of houses, and I had to help take the victims to hospital as they were dug out of the ruins, one poor woman was completely covered in plaster, we rushed her to hospital. I don’t think she survived.

Another night the ambulance would not start so the driver and I walked the streets with our first aid bags helping where we could.

I was on duty and the siren sounded, we were billeted in a school, we rushed into the playground, a low flying plane went over our heads with flames coming out the back, we all cheered thinking it was a German plane, we found out later it was one of the first doodlebugs V1.
Another night during the blitz a German bomber dropped a load of incendiary bombs, they fell all along the street where I lived with my father-in-law we managed to put out quite a few with sandbags.

One night in an air raid a land mine dropped in the next street, I was in the Anderson shelter. Next morning surveying the damage to the house we found that due to the blast, the back door was in the front garden and the front door was in the back garden, and lots of tiles off the roof.

With all the windows broken.

My husband was in the Air force abroad I didn’t see for 3 years, when he came home I went to meet him at Kings Cross station, when the train pulled in all the passengers were Royal Air Force men I was looking at all the faces wondering if I would recognise him after all those years. When I was suddenly lifted off my feet in a huge hug!

Apart from the day I was married that was the happiest day of my life.

Towards the end of the war I was transferred from making the Albemarle to a warehouse on the river Lea, packing fire fighting equipment for the Far East war, but as the war was over by then and I was pregnant so my war work was over.

I also love Glen Miller music, Moonlight Serenade still makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

Incidentally the night before May 8th V.E. day there was another terrific thunderstorm one to start the was and one to finish.

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