ĂŰŃż´ŤĂ˝

Dad was very keen to ‘do his bit’ for the war effort. Apart from digging up some of the lawn for vegetables he decided to keep chickens! These too were housed in the back garden, which by now resembled a First World War battleground, with hardly a stick of vegetation to be seen after the depradations made by the previous occupants ( rabbits and Guinea Pigs!). The fowls were housed in a DIY(by dad) —built ‘shed’. They flourished well enough and produced eggs; except that they (the hens), all seemed to exhibit bare red bottoms! The problem arose with what to do about their excrement! Neighbours began to complain about the smell, and we even had a visit from the sanitary inspector! Eventually, they became too much for Dad, whose health was gradually failing, and by the end of the war had either died of (un)natural causes or disappeared into the cooking pot! Incidentally, I do remember’ late in the war, ‘acquiring’ an Italian P.O.W. who, dressed in brown battle dress with a large blue patch sewn on the back of his tunic, used to cycle over from his camp about once a week to help us ‘dig for victory’!
The fate of our cat ‘Nick’, was never satisfactorily explained. After a number of years regularly producing litters of kittens (which Dad drowned), she failed to materialise one morning after her night of freedom. We put the cause down to her either being run over, or else somebody wasn’t happy with their meat ration! However, we managed to keep one of her kittens to take her place!
The Americans, of course, did not enter the war until after the disaster of Pearl Harbour in 1941 By that time, Britain was well and truly on her own against Germany; and apart from the ‘miracle’ of the Dunkirk evacuation of nearly a quarter of a million troops from the continent, was faring none too well, either on land (North Africa), at sea (Battle of the Atlantic at its most vicious), or in the air (constant bombing raids on our towns and cities). However, eventually “the Yanks arrived” on our shores . Good natured, generous and totally unaware of what we had to put up with, they set about making themselves loved by all! The girls swarmed round them like bees round a honey pot. Nylon stockings(unheard of in war torn Britain) was their passport. The children swarmed for ‘candy’, and “any gum, chum?” was their cry on catching sight of the ‘doughboys’! The catchword, “over paid, over sexed and over here” was soon resurrected from the days of the First World War; somewhat unfairly in retrospect! They even came to our parish!
The old Kindergarten school building nearby, had been abandoned after ‘the bomb’, and a contingent of U.S. soldiers took over. I think they were part of what we would call the RASC. They were the logistic support for the fighting men. I believe they operated a laundry there! Almost daily we would be entertained by squad training taking place in the roadway outside our house, when we first became acquainted with their strange methods of drill, both in the orders given and in the way these were carried out! To we children, it seemed very ‘sloppy’, after the traditional precision of our own soldiers! However, as we were to learn later, that didn’t stop their front line troops from being first class warriors.
As the populace were unable to take annual holidays away, the Government organised “Holidays at ĂŰŃż´ŤĂ˝â€, whereby local authorities would institute entertainments of all kinds, from fun fairs to bands playing in the parks. My sister and I however, during the long summer holidays would bicycle the fifteen miles or so out of town, up Birdlip hill onto the Cotswolds, and along the switchbacked Roman road of Ermine Street, to Cirencester, and beyond to the little village of Somerford Keynes, from where we removed to Gloucester in 1937.. We would be away all day, returning dusty, tired, yet happy, at eventide. There was no paranoia (as prevails today) that we would be molested, and traffic was minimal. There was very little private traffic on the roads, but we often met long lines of army convoys, British as well as American. Once we saw a steam driven lorry clanking is laborious way. Perhaps the owner was determined to carry on his trade despite rigorous petrol rationing.
During one of these excursions, as we sat, eating sandwiches, which had been carefully wrapped and labelled — “egg”; or “marmite”; or whatever happened to be on offer, an American soldier approached us and we got into conversation with him. At this distance in time I cannot remember what we talked about or what his name was, except that he was a patient at a wartime American hospital in nearby Leckhampton. He asked us to come up again , when he would bring some peanuts. Unheard of luxuries in those days! We readily agreed, and duly cycled all the way back the following day. We ate the peanuts, said ‘goodbye’, and never saw him again. I often wonder what his story might have been — a lonely married man with children left behind in The States? Who knows! But this I do know. Today we would have been strictly drilled into avoiding all strangers. How sad that would have been.
Teaching was not considered a “reserved occupation”, as for example, farming. Most of the staff at school were either over the age for enlistment (40), or had been called back from a well-deserved retirement! I have no complaints to make against any of them, except for Mr West, the history teacher who had a habit of clipping you at the back of the head for any misdemeanour! He taught history by dictating endless notes, which then had to be written up in ‘fair copy’. However one denigrates that method today, I learned a lot of history and did well in the exams. I still enjoy the subject ! Old fashioned methods still have their place. Sadly, we have tended to “throw out the baby with the bathwater”, as far as education is concerned. . Amongst my fellow pupils, one or two became either bosom or temporary pals. Amongst them were Keith Savery, Les Millington, Tony Probyn, Jackie Watkins who was at Kindergarten with me and who lived in our parish. His mother was a church cleaner. His elder brother Frank was to be killed in the Western Desert.
Sometime during the early years of the war; I can’t remember exactly when, or for how long, two Grammar Schools from Birmingham were evacuated to Gloucester, presumably on account of the blitzes on that city. They were the George Dixon and the Kings Norton Schools. Many of the children were billeted in our parish and would parade to church on Sunday morning — unheard of thing to do today!! My school accommodated the boys of George Dixons, and it was great! Even though it meant Saturday morning school, we would occupy the premises in the mornings, and they would take over for the afternoon. I suppose we were given loads of prep to make up for the lack of classroom teaching; but whether my schooling suffered as a result of these upheavals, one will never know. Looking back, I don’t think this state of affairs lasted more than a few months before the evacuees returned to their homes. Just another facet of wartime Britain!
Much of the school playgrounds had been excavated to provide air raid shelters. These were a common pattern to be found everywhere, and consisted of a trench some thirty yards long, by twelve feet wide and four feet deep. Curved corrugated iron sheets formed the roof, giving a headroom of about 6 feet in the centre. The whole was then covered with the excavated earth, creating a sort of neolithic looking burial mound! Entrance was made from either end, gained by a short flight of concrete steps protected by a concrete block ‘blast wall’. Inside, a row of slatted seats ranged down both sides. Air raid practices were common, and the school alarm (can’t remember what it was) could sound at any time. We would then file out of our classroom, and led by the teacher, make our way to our allotted shelter. It was all very orderly and, for a small boy, great fun, especially as we would be missing ‘lesson time’!
The school also ran a contingent of the A.T.C.(Air Training Corps). Many of the staff were officers, including the Headmaster. Very smart they looked too. I was too young to join; and in any case, by now my heart was set on a life at sea! In a corner of the playground stood an old aluminium aircraft, which had been given to the school for the benefit of the ATC. What it was I have no idea except that we would play on and around it. We were even allowed to go inside and play with the joystick, on occasions!
There is no doubt that, unbeknown to we children, the staff were under considerable strain. Not only were there those who thought their teaching days to be over, but most of them were also occupied out of school hours as A.R.P wardens or firewatchers. Some too, were involved with the A.T.C. All were ‘doing their bit’ for the war effort. I remember well a small incident illustrating this. It was one afternoon in the Art Room. For some reason Miss Thomson, the art teacher, wasn’t there and we had been left to carry on with some painting under the benevolent eye of Mr Hancox who no doubt had been suborned from his ‘free period’! it was a warm summer afternoon as I remember, and all was quiet. Slowly but surely, Mr Hancox began to nod off; and before long he was fast asleep, his head in his arms! To show what discipline was like in those days, we boys never took advantage of the situation, but carried on quietly with our work until the bell awoke our teacher at the end of the lesson! I daresay that today’s children, with little regard for anybody other than themselves, would have created mayhem and so denied the man a well-earned ‘kip’!!
It was about this time, aged 13, that I took the Entrance Examination for the Naval College at Dartmouth (in those days, boys joined the Navy at 13!) I cannot remember where or exactly when I took it, but I must have passed as I was invited for interview at Worcester College, Oxford some weeks later. Accompanied by dear old Mum, we took the train to the “City of Spires”. Sadly, the interview was not a success. I remember little of it save that I stood before a long table behind which sat a group of seemingly elderly and distinguished gentlemen! I cannot even remember if any of them wore uniform. The only question I seem to have answered about possible relatives in the Navy was that I thought I had a cousin who was an “admiral or something!” I also believe I was asked to march a row of chairs out of the window! I was not invited to join the ‘Naval Team’!!
However, besotted with things nautical, I was determined to ‘get there’ somehow! I then learnt (probably through the public library), about the Merchant Navy Cadet Training Ships, “Conway”(moored off Bangor in North Wales), “Worcester”(at that time moored off Greenhithe), and the Nautical College at Pangbourne. Set on the idea of training in a ‘proper ship’, and having avidly read John Masefield’s “Bird of Dawning” and “New Chum”, I decided that the “Conway” was the place for me; but as cadets were not recruited till the age of 14, I had twelve months to wait.
Apart from ‘The Bomb’, the blackout, the coming of ‘The Yanks’, and the fact that we had to carry our gasmasks wherever we went, the war had very little impact on my young life. Of course there was rationing, but even the shortage of sweets worried me little. After all, what you had never had, you never missed. That is not to say that I was underfed. Far from it! The staples of life seemed to be there. There WAS rather a lot of ‘dried egg’, ‘dried milk’, and ‘Spam’, but we kept poultry, the milkman still called! And, “Yes, there were no Bananas”!!
Talking about ‘food’ reminds me of the “Dig for Victory” slogans plastered on the city’s hoardings. I’ve already written how Dad wholeheartedly embraced the idea, and dug up half the lawn to increase our vegetable output. We schoolchildren also ‘did our bit’! I remember days taken off school when a whole class would be ‘bussed or ‘lorried’) to a farm or small holding near the city. Here we would spend a back breaking day ‘picking spuds’! Each of us armed with a bucket, we would wait in a long line for the tractor-pulled ‘spinner’ to pass down the row of buried potatoes and ‘dig’ them out of the ground. It was our job, as soon as it had passed, to gather up all the exposed vegetables, empty our buckets into waiting sacks, and be ready to meet the tractor returning from the other end, spinning out a fresh row! It was exhausting and non-stop. Were we glad when the farmer called a ‘break’! I don’t think we were paid, but ‘by golly’ we certainly helped to “dig for victory”!
We listened to the news every day, and Dad kept a ‘war map’ in the playroom with little paper flags of the German and British dispositions on the battlefield, carefully pinpointed . It all meant very little to me at the time — Dunkirk — ‘Standing Alone’ -El Alemein — Battle of the Atlantic — Fall of Singapore — The Turning of the Tide — Churchill’s broadcasts. All these events were a distant backdrop to the business of growing up. I would hear in school, and at church, the names of those ‘boys’ who were recently killed, missing or Prisoners of War — but Thank God for the resilience of youth, I did not brood on such matters. I do remember seeing aircraft after aircraft passing low overhead, static lines trailing, returning to base after the D-Day parachute drops. I even remember writing in my ‘Rough Notebook’ at school that day — “This day the 7th June, 1944, the Allies landed in Europe” (or words to that effect), and burying this missive in a sealed cocoa tin in our garden on my return home that evening! But I do not remember at all how and where the news of VE-Day was announced. Did we have a day off school? I’m sure we did. Did we celebrate? I’m sure we did. But the whole event to me was a ‘non-event’! What I DO remember vividly was the lifting of the strict blackout regulations sometime after D-Day. ‘Dim out’ it was called, when for the first time since 1939, a naked low-powered bulb was inserted into the street lights, and we could actually just about SEE where we were going on winter nights! This process of ‘selective memory’ came back to me many years later when I discovered that my own children remembered things I had forgotten, whilst I vividly recalled episodes in their young lives of which they were totally unaware!
Before closing this period of my life I must mention another wartime ‘phenomenon’ — the British Restaurant (BR). Run by the local Authorities, these were glorified canteens where a good, very simple square meal could be purchased at a modest price. There was no menu — it was ‘take it but don’t dare leave it!’ Usually housed in some unprepossessing building with no pretence at decoration or comfort, they were designed for the sole purpose of providing a hot meal especially for those unable to cope for themselves, through bombing or neglect. I would walk home each day from school for my midday meal. Those boys who stayed, were taken to such a nearby British Restaurant.
A strange phenomena existed the length of that sloping road from the top of the Cotswold scarp down to the Vale of the Severn. At frequent intervals one came across what looked like oversized garden incinerators. We later learned that these contraptions were placed at strategic points, burning heavy oil. When lit, dense black smoke would billow from the ‘chimney’, and if the wind was from the right direction, effectively form a smoke screen over a sensitive target to frustrate the Luftwaffe! In this case, I believe it was to protect the aircraft factory in the valley below. How effective this ‘secret weapon’ was, I have no idea!
Yes, the war was merely an interlude in the serious business of ‘growing up’. I suppose I was one of the many lucky ones unaffected by the cruelty of it all. A few years older and my story would have been a very different one indeed!
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