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IRENE GRIFFITHS: WORLD WAR II EXPERIENCES

I was just 15 years old in September 1939 (you can guess my age now!). As a generation I’m sure that my age group were not nearly so experienced or mature as you all are today! At that stage of my life I and all my friends had never travelled further than Southend or Ramsgate on the South Coast of England! So when we heard that, if war was declared, school children and babies with mothers would be moved to safe areas away from the cities — it was quite an ordeal for us. Where would they take us and for how long? We would only be able to take one tiny suitcase with us together with the gas mask that we had been given — we had no big packing to do!

During 1938 we were being warned about the prospect of war and on September 1st 1939 we were told to report to our schools. We schoolchildren were told that we would not be going away with out parents but with our school teachers and school friends. The regulation was that the eldest schoolchild in a family was to take their younger brothers and sisters to their school. So with this ruling I had to take my 10 years old brother Leslie with me. We said goodbye to our family and my brother was very upset — he was so unhappy as besides leaving his family he was not going with his school friends but with me to a senior girls’ school. My parents must have been so distressed to say goodbye as my mother had to report to a different evacuation centre with my three years old brother. This left my Dad and 18 yrs old brother at home in London.

So off I went with my tearful brother — I felt like crying too! All the tales we were told of going away to the countryside with cows, sheep and fields didn’t console us!

Having reported to my school we were then taken to a railway station and ushered into carriages — the journey took several hours. We shunted in and out of sidings — there must have been much transport difficulties with thousands upon thousands of young people being moved from danger zones.

We eventually stopped to get out — you’ll never guess Brentwood Station! No sheep, cows or fields.

We all stood outside the station, me clutching my brother’s hand. Here we stood whilst people arrived, having been warned to come and choose a child to look after — evacuees we were called. It was here outside Brentwood Station that for the first time in my life I had the experience of feeling unwanted. Picture what it was like when all my friends were chosen and at dusk I was still standing holding my brother’s hand — I’d promised my parents to look after him and nobody wanted a boy and a girl as it would need them having two spare rooms — I felt terrible and so did my brother. Eventually I was told we would have to split up with my brother going to a house in the same road — that was in Myrtle Road right next to the station.

I wondered where my mother and baby brother 3 years old was and wondered what would happen to my father and 18 year old brother left in the danger zone!

My foster parents were quite kind and welcomed me — I think they were really happy to have a senior girl evacuee and I became a useful baby sitter for their only 3 year old son, spending countless hours reading fairy stories to him instead of doing my homework — we still did our exams in those days and I had to sit GSC tests in the summer of 1940.

In the meantime my brother remained very unhappy — it was so difficult for him — we had our lessons at the local girls’ convent school near Brentwood Cathedral and poor Leslie had to come and sit with me and get fidgety — he would - there was no separate arrangement for him.

We had the confirmation that we were at war whilst here at Brentwood because on the first Sunday — two days after arriving in Brentwood we had the shock of hearing the air raid sirens — for we knew this wasn’t a practice any more but real and it was war and we ran for all our might to the convent school where we were told to go to that morning. Here we were ushered by nuns into the school — we were quite worried.

So war had been announced that Sunday September 3rd — and I had to settle in Brentwood but my brother was so unhappy that my father came to collect him and took him to be with my mother and baby brother in Suffolk — there was no school arrangement for him there but at least he was in the country and saw the sheep, cows and fields. I could write a book about my mother’s experience in Suffolk — she was billeted on a certain Major Bousefield who had an enormous house but didn’t want to have evacuees and my mother was given accommodation in the attic of their home — just amongst all the rafters, with her 3 yrs old and now 10 yrs old boy.

For my part, I was happy that my brother was with his mother and I had the need to settle to study whenever my baby sitting duties allowed. My foster parents were friendly and I was never made to feel a nuisance in their home — in fact I realise I was an asset as able to help around the house.

Although we were at war we didn’t have any activity here in England at this time, but of course we were always mindful that we had relatives in the forces abroad.

It was for the Battle of Britain in 1940 that we had our first taste of war — for we watched ‘dog-fights’ in the sky with our Spitfires fighting the German Messerschmitt — it was here at Brentwood a German plane crashed and we ran to see it, collecting a piece of rubber as a souvenir — it had a ghastly smell but I kept it in my bedroom — I put up with the smell for a while because it was a sign of victory for me!

The area of Brentwood was no longer a safe place for evacuees so the school got transferred to Truro in Cornwall. As I had sat for the exams already I left school and Brentwood deciding to return to London and apply for work. I got home just in time for the Blitz of London in September 1940!!

How will Londoners ever forget those days and nights in September 1940? The whole city seemed to be ablaze with the sky bright red hot not with the sunset but from the result of bombs and incendiary bombs having fallen on our precious London — must have looked like it did in the Great Fire of London in our history books in 1666, but this was in September (2nd-6th).

Just every service was needed — the fire, nursing, ambulances, rescue workers, all voluntary people, women’s voluntary services — just every able person remembering our younger men were away in the armed forces.

My most vivid memory of the Blitz I suppose amongst the many I have was of the devastation at a large branch of Woolworths — which was opposite East Ham station. It was the first Saturday, September 7th and because the air raid sirens had been sounded many people rushed to take shelter in the basement under this big store. During the air battle that took place a German plane crashed on Woolworths and the store was set alight. The fire service did a magnificent job putting the flames out but with the vast amount of water used, the people in the basement were trapped and drowned. It was horrible!! On the same day my mother, who had returned with my two brothers from evacuation in Suffolk was thrown by bomb blast across the street nearby and lost the twins that she was expecting!

Many tales could be recalled with Blitz stories — the sky was always filled with searchlights at night, the sirens would screech with warnings of attacks and the guns in local parks would be thundering out! So now, although many evacuees had come back to their houses during the early months of 1940 there began another mass evacuation of children to safer areas — some were even sent abroad as far as America.

But it is perfectly true to say that in spite of these terrible times people still kept what became known as the ‘Blitz’ spirit. We spent many hours in the little Anderson shelter which we were given by the Government. We had to dig a big hole in our gardens to put our shelters in — it was safer in a raid to be in these shelters than buried under our house debris if we were bombed. We used to be crammed into these tiny underground homes 8ft x 6ft with six of us in the dark and damp. No luxury living! Most nights were spent in this way. It is difficult to explain to you what it was like all running down the garden path in the pitch dark when the sirens went (which was nearly every night). We couldn’t have lights because the enemy planes would be able to detect the cities and make it more dangerous for us!

I suppose I ought to tell you about our food rationing — all I can say is that we had sufficient for our needs and people were said to be very healthy during the war years. We had very small portions and in spite of that didn’t feel deprived. I suppose when I was in Brentwood at the beginning of the war I was living with a baker and his wife so we were able to have plenty of bread ourselves. The shop still remains in Brentwood high Street, and when I have visited the town I always want to tell the staff that I used to help make bread in the enormous open ovens — it was delicious! Although bread was never rationed ruing the war, the flour had to be left unmilled to save wasting all the fibre.

Our food supply from abroad such as fruit was limited, so to save space and refrigeration we were sent a lot of dried food. For the first time we had dried food — dried milk, dried eggs, dried fruit, pressed meat like corned beef and spam. Mothers used to queue patiently if they heard that the greengrocer had some bananas — they got one or two if they were very lucky — many children wouldn’t have known what a banana was like if their mother wasn’t fortunate enough to be in a queue and the greengrocer didn’t run out!

The mothers and other women took on very active roles during the war — before the war women concentrated solely on looking after their families, feeding and clothing them, but while husbands were away in the forces, women went to work and did all sorts of jobs — including making army, navy and air force equipment, working on the land, on the buses and many other paid jobs. This was to make a vast difference to women’s attitudes to working after the war — they had been happy to receive their own wage packet and became more independent and as a result this led to the women’s liberation groups in the post-war years.

The women also did much voluntary work on what we called the ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ Front — all the work needed to be done here in England to help the war effort. The women organised this voluntary service — there were first aid groups, fire watching groups — I have a book which my mother used as a record of the street collections to buy bandages and first aid kits. Everybody worked together — we called it Blitz spirit — everybody rushed to help each other whether it was to help clear up the debris, our broken glass windows after bombing which was a regular job in our area.

Everybody was very obedient during the war years — we kept our windows blackened so that no light shone through — we used to put black material over our windows — the women made these curtains and you could even buy black material without ‘coupons’. Everybody had an issue of coupons for our clothes so everybody had to wear their clothes until they were really worn out — and then they had to be patched and patched. I can remember my poor Dad hardly had any new socks — when his toes and heels poked through the sock material my mother used to cut the foot part off the sock and, using the top part of two other socks, she made what looked like a tube, joining them together and my poor Dad had what my mother described as ‘make your own heel socks’ — they must have been very uncomfortable but they saved coupons for other clothes!! It was called ‘make do and mend’.

For my part, as I was back home from evacuation I was now going to London by train every day working in a big office in Blackfriars area. After nightly visits to our air raid shelter we rarely got further on our train journey to work than Aldgate or Whitechapel. We made the rest of our journey by foot, often walking over the debris of bricks etc caused by the previous raids and climbed over the hosepipes being used to extinguish the still burning buildings. At work we used to take turns at standing on top of our Unilever building doing our share of fire watching duty.

After these ‘Blitz’ days there was a lull in raids, but in 1944 we had further terrors — DOODLE BUGS — FLYING BOMBS — pilotless planes visited us with terrible consequences — one could see them flying over, you knowing that if their engine cut off whilst overhead, they could drop and land on you.

Later another bombing horror came to land on our country —these were rockets — these bombs did vast amounts of damage destroying several houses at one time — friends and relatives suffered from this type of attack — we can never ever forget these days of destruction of people and property.

It is difficult again for you young people to visualise these disasters and the pain that was suffered, but people were so friendly, kind and helpful to each other. For my part, I joined the Women’s Royal Naval Service late in 1943 BUT THAT IS ANOTHER STORY!

We were all apart again! My eldest brother Jim went on Normandy landings at 19 years of age. He was injured and never worked again and my brother Leslie went on National Service to Egypt, so it wasn’t a happy ever after ending!

Suppose for all those who lived through these years and endured the partings from family, bomb attacks, limited food and Winston Churchill encouraging us to be strong, we defeated the enemy and became a generation of people whose aim was to never forget the terrible deeds of war and are resolved to plead with future generations to do all in their power to live at peace with all men — we want you to live in peace and have happy lives.

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