蜜芽传媒

NO MEDALS FOR EVA.

A family story of World War two.

My dad, Jim Blakey, married Eva Simpson in 1930. There was record unemployment so Jim trained as a painter and decorator and set up on his own in Beeston, South Leeds. My parents both worked very hard through the 1930s as owners of small businesses always will. By the outbreak of war Dad was running the business from home, a small but neat semi-detached house whose front room had been converted into a showroom where prospective clients could choose wallpaper designs, colour schemes etc.. They had three sons by then, me, aged 8 and my two younger brothers, Alan and Lionel, 6 and 4 years old respectively.

My first recollections of war ranged from fright at the scary air-raid sirens which were simply being tested to great fun at helping to build an Anderson air-raid shelter in the back garden. I was very well aware of the mood of doom and gloom within the family, among friends and neighbours and at school. Although our parents shielded us from the worst of the rumours obviously we were fearful at times. Some changes were not so scary. My cigarette card collection suddenly lost pictures of sporting heroes like Len Hutton and changed to a series on air-raid precautions, one of which illustrated the correct use of a stirrup-pump for dealing with incendiary bombs 鈥� intriguing rather than frightening.

Then our world fell apart. Dad was called up into the army, the Royal Artillery in fact. In a great hurry he had to cancel his outstanding orders for work, sack his three workmen, sell his equipment and stock and, worse, put our house on the market for what he could get. He installed wife and kids in a rented draper`s shop with living accommodation at the opposite end of town at Oakwood so that Mother could provide for us without having to go out to work and leave us to our own devices 鈥� the lot of so many other children. There we were in a strange new land, a long way from our school, neighbours, friends and relatives as Dad marched off to war. I will never forget Mother`s words to him that morning. Speaking softly, her words suddenly brought the full meaning of the situation to my young mind; she simply said, 鈥淗owever long it is just come back safely.鈥�

Mother got stuck in. The shop was open six days a week with Wednesday afternoon half-day closing when she went by bus to the city-centre warehouses. She always tried to be back to meet us from school or arrange for an aunt to keep an eye on us. If she wasn`t on the usual bus we knew we had to wait twenty minutes for the next one. If she wasn`t on that we got worried. Every evening after our one cooked meal she would spend time doing the books, re-arranging the shelves and windows and keeping the shop clean and tidy. Somehow she fitted housework in; the cooking and washing 鈥攗p, washing and ironing our clothes and bedding, vacuuming, scrubbing and dusting. She even baked, made sweets, knitted and of course sewed and darned our clothes, these had to last 鈥� new ones were on ration. She rarely got to the shops, there was no Sunday opening. That job fell to us kids, fortunately there was a wide variety of local ones. We not only had to handle the money but the precious ration books full of coupons. Shopping included at least three trips a week for fish and chips, not on ration but not always available. This was my joband involved pedalling round the dark streets looking for the one shop that had supplies of fish and was therefore open. Mother did reserve the odd Wednesday for buying us clothes and shoes usually during the school holidays when we had to accompany her into Leeds city centre. We were all encouraged and inspired by her to gain scholarships to secondary school. This required school uniforms and a variety of sports gear.

Sunday was the one day she could rest a bit. Even then she saw to it that her three boys attended Sunday-school and other church services and saw them in turn eventually become choirboys and join the Youth Fellowship and the Scout Group. We made many friends, some lifelong. The little luxuries we enjoyed were a new bicycle each, Utility brand of course, when we were old enough, a trip to the pantomime at Leeds Theatre Royal every Christmas and Mother strove to take us on a week`s holiday every August. This had to be arranged around a stand-in to keep our shop going, our aunt again. We went by train to Blackpool or Scarborough. The landladies of the boarding houses offered rooms only due to the nigh impossible task of organising everybody`s ration books. Self-catering was unheard of until then. Perhaps this was the start of it? Each family would either eat out from very basic menus or go shopping and then share the kitchen with the other families under the watchful eye of the proprietress! As well as our luggage we each had our gas masks in the little boxes strung from our shoulders.

Fortunately the guns Dad fired in anger were in anti-aircraft batteries ringed around London so he did get occasional leave and even a few week-ends when he managed to obtain a 48 hour pass. The poor fellow had to attend to all the little jobs we had saved for him 鈥� mending and fixing everything which we couldn`t 鈥� before he could enjoy a bit of peaceful relaxation. But when he was home it was like heaven especially Sundays when we would enjoy a trip into the country or simply a walk in the park.

Mother held the family together through the shortages, the blackout, the constant worry for our absent father, our occasional misbehaving, (one such activity was heaving bricks into the static water tank erected nearby for the firefighters in case the water mains were bombed. By the end of the war the collective efforts of the local kids had reduced the useful volume of water in it to about a tenth!), the illnesses of childhood and the threat to our health and safety which war against civilians brings. Fortunately this was mainly being dragged out of a warm bed when the sirens sounded (it was always in the middle of the night) and taken shivering into the shelter, this time the reinforced cellar. She worked flat out to ensure that the drapery business provided us with a reasonable living. She was determined that 鈥淢r Hitler鈥� wasn`t going to entirely ruin the plans she and father had made for our upbringing. Some things she couldn`t control, extremely cold periods when the coal ration ran out for example. Then we huddled round the one bar electric fire and even that failed if there was a power-cut. A lot of little things taken for granted in normal times had to be dealt with. Once the tin-opener broke and we couldn`t get a replacement so we had to open the cans of condensed milk by punching two holes in the top with a hammer and nail 鈥� one to get the contents out, the other to let the air in. Other family members all had their own problems but everybody seemed to try and help everybody else. Sometimes they would shake their heads and say, 鈥淓va we don`t know how on earth you keep going.鈥�
To which she would reply, 鈥淥h there are thousands like me 鈥� all in the same boat. We just have to.鈥�

In fact there were millions like her. Not in the front line but without whose sacrifice and effort the war couldn`t have been won. Eva stood five feet four and weighed just eight stone but for six long years her indomitable spirit kept her going and shielded
her sons from the worst effects of war. Yet we were lucky. Some families were bombed out of their homes, many had family members killed or injured. With that fear always at the back of her mind, Mother must at times have felt very lonely, desperately tired physically and mentally but we never realised it at the time. It was only in later life when we had taken on our own responsibilities that we fully appreciated what she did for us.

When it was at last all over and Dad came home for good, wearing his demob suit and a broad smile, Mother wept tears of joy. We had seen her cry before and never knew what to do, this time it was as if the years of work, worry and responsibility all boiled over and we cried with her. Eva Blakey was simply another unsung heroine who had to shrug off the lost years and pick up the pieces. She did just that but they were years she`d never forget, her three boys neither.

Raymond Blakey. 60 years on from VE Day, May 7th 1945.

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