蜜芽传媒

These are wartime recollections taken from diaries written at that time
A great deal happened before September 3rd. 1939:
路 We were already attending ARP lectures and we had gas masks by 1938.
路 There was black-out material to be made up into curtains.
路 There were offices to be set up and manned for issuing Identity Cards and Ration Books; for everyone to register with specific shops, which meant that food could only be obtained from one shop, per family. If the shop keeper ran over his quota, then you were just unlucky until next week; hence the necessity to queue.
路 Material had to be manufactured for the sudden increase in numbers of people in uniform. This was not just the members of the Armed Forces. Many other services came into being; and needed either uniforms or some form of insignia. There was the LDV, later called the 蜜芽传媒 Guard, ARP wardens,street wardens, Civil Defence, Observer Corps, Fire Watchers, First Aid workers. These had to be equipped with tin hats, arm bands, whistles, stirrup pumps, torches etc.
路 Sand bags had to be filled for protection of municipal buildings.
路 Barbed wire was required for barricades against invasion.
路 Place names and street signs had to be removed. If you were lost in a strange town you dared not ask the way for fear of being suspected of being a foreigner!
路 Street lights were extinguished. Traffic lights were covered and only a cross of light could be seen. Buses and trains had their few light bulbs replaced by blue ones.
路 Windows were wholly or partially painted with black paint and crossed with sticky paper to lessen the possibility of shattering.
路 Headlights of vehicles were covered with just slits of light showing. Petrol was severely rationed so there were very few private cars on the roads, vans belonging to firms were requisitioned for use as emergency vehicles. Unused cars were put up on blocks in garages to take the pressure off the tyres.
路 The number of rooms in every house was recorded together with the number of occupants.
路 Static water tanks were place in strategic positions to deal with fires and incendiary bombs.
路 There was the evacuation of children to be organised. Tickets for travel all over the country and billets to be found for them all, not to mention schooling.
路 Women folk were expected to provide comforts for the Armed forces, such as knitting gloves, socks, scarves and balaclavas in navy blue, Air force blue and khaki. These were the only wools that were not on coupons. Oiled wool for sea boot stockings was particularly unpleasant to knit with!
路 Metal from railings, garden tools, pots and pans, silver ware and cutlery were collected for melting down for armaments etc.
路 We were encouraged to pick rose hips for making a source of vitamin C for babies and pregnant women. And, of course, in cooking, carrots helped supplement the sugar ration; potato peelings, chestnuts, nettles and other weeds were made into meals. Most people dug up their lawns and flower beds and grew vegetables and some kept chickens for eggs and Sunday lunch!

MEMORIES OF EARLY DAYS OF THE WAR.
These were mainly of the number of people that shared our house.
We never knew who would come next. Some were passing through others stayed. We had two evacuees, a boy of twelve and his sister who was four, from Fulham. They were nice children but had to learn the difference between town and country living. Some of the children came from dreadful homes. Many did not know what a bath was for. Others were used to sleeping under their parents' bed! There were many grim tales told on both sides. Eventually the mother of our children took accommodation in the district and we never saw them again.
As soon as they left we had two regular soldiers billeted with us, which meant problems when my brother came home on leave and had nowhere to sleep! One of the boys was moved and eventually went through Dunkirk. A TA soldier came in his place, he eventually went through the dreadful war in Burma. After they left we put up relatives of soldiers who were in our local hospital. Then wives of men who did war work had been transferred south from the north of England. Service men made our house a stopping off place, when they were returning to southern stations. We then had a neighbouring family. He was on shift work at Vickers, which left his wife with a ten month old baby, during frequent night raids. They left us after baby number two arrived! Then we had the son of another neighbour whose father died, leaving him without a home as his eight brothers and sisters were married and mostly in the Forces. He stayed with us until he was killed in the RAF in a Lancaster.
OUR WAR.
My only brother was called up five days after war broke out. It was a very sad parting and we were never free from fear for the next six years. I was still at school. We shared our school building with St. Olaves from London. We alternated, going to school in the morning one week and in the afternoon the next. The other part of the day was spent in the Masonic Hall at the other end of the town. St. Olaves did likewise. This was very disrupting, trying to remember to take the right books with you, both for homework and for a different venue next morning. When there was a raid while we were at school we had to collect our gas masks and file into the air raid shelter. Who ever finished up under the one hurricane lamp had to read Shakespeare to the rest of us. The shelter was built half underground and was very dark and damp. If the raid came whilst we were in the Masonic Hall we just sat under the tables - hardly a protection! We were offered sea-vacuation to either Canada or New Zealand. As I had relatives in New Zealand I chose that, but when it came to signing the papers I could not do it. Our area was a reception zone at the beginning, so evacuees started pouring in from London. During the school holidays, we upper girls met mothers and babies off the train, gave them drinks along the road and then took them to school where we made tea for the mothers and heated babies bottles. They stayed there until suitable billets had been found for them. As a school we were involved in many collections, newspapers, silver paper, empty bottles etc. We knitted for the Kings Own Rifles and put on a puppet show to aid Czechoslovakia. One day we were told to put on our gas masks and to go inside a gas chamber. It should have been a very
serious occasion, but to stand looking at one another in these rubber masks set someone off giggling and unfortunately, exhaling in gas mask produces a rather rude noise so that made matters ten times worse! It was not so funny in our next lesson which happened to be geometry. The gas exuded from our clothes and soon tears were streaming down our faces!
At home life was never to be the same. My father worked well into the night and sometimes all night in a tank factory. My mother went out to work for the first time since the 1914-18 war. My father made black out shutters from tarred paper, which were much more efficient than curtains, they had to be put up every evening. There were times when you could open the windows and sit in the dark, or fry with the windows shut but the lights on. You could not do both. In the early days, we moved away from the windows; some people even sat under the stairs. There were others who dug air raid shelters and had Andersen shelters at the bottom of their garden, but they were very uncomfortable places. As they were always damp it involved carrying out and bringing back bedding, food, water, hot water bottles, torches, lamps, reading matter etc. By the time all this was done the raid was either over or far worse. Eventually we just carried on with what we were doing and waited for the All-Clear. If it was not too noisy, we went to bed, hopefully to sleep through it. Latterly we had a Morrison shelter in our back room. My parents slept in it if it was very noisy. When I was at home I slept on top of it. I hated going inside. Generally speaking I preferred to drop through the floor on my bed than be downstairs and have the bed and wardrobe drop down on me! Our lives were regulated by the raids. They often started around 6pm. and went on through the night. If they were not too near they were just a nuisance, preventing us doing what we wanted. At night we folded our clothes in a certain order so that we could dress in a hurry in the dark, in event of a raid. On the top of the pile was our torch and tin hat. My father and I were street wardens. We walked the streets when the siren sounded, watching for fires. We were supposed to bang a dustbin lid to summon help if it was needed. Fortunately this was never required! Everyone worked a 48hr. day. They did their routine job then in the evening did fire watching or 蜜芽传媒 Guard duties, or attended lectures etc. Any spare moment was occupied with mending clothes or writing letters. Whenever you heard that someone had been called-up you wrote them a letter. The boys were desperate for their mail. We could not go out after dark without a torch. These had to be cupped in your hand so that very little light showed, but at least you were able to miss walking into a lamp-post or falling off the curb! We had a button covered with luminous paint. You left it in a bright spot all day and pinned it on your coat lapel when you went out.

Shortages became more and more noticeable. Things were rationed
overnight, usually at weekends to prevent any stockpiling. Shop shelves emptied and things disappeared under the counter. Food and clothes shortages were expected. It was the unexpected that caught us out. Hair combs (our Bakelite ones were always breaking) Soap, both toilet and washing- we had an allowance but could never find any in the shops. We often did our washing whilst having a bath in the 5ins. of water that we were allowed. No shampoos, of course. Paper, every paper bag was saved for shopping. Newspaper had to be taken to wrap up your bread and meat. Newspapers had fewer pages and were smaller in size. Even the size of toilet paper decreased! It was no longer easy to drop in on friends for a cup of tea, knowing that you were taking their precious rations.

Weekly rations.
4oz Bacon. 2oz Butter.
2oz Tea. 4oz Margarine.
8oz Sugar. 1 shell egg every 2nd week
8oz Meat. 1 pkt dried egg every 2nd week,
2oz Cheese 2陆 pints of milk.
12oz Sweets if you could find them.
By 1944 our clothes were getting well-worn, and stockings were well darned, but we still managed to look better dressed than they do today, we felt it was a matter of pride not to let the boys see us looking shabby.
SCHOOL DAYS OVER.
What with the worry of the boys being away, the disturbed nights,
the interrupted lessons, it was difficult to settle at school, so I left early and got a job with an oil firm that had had to leave France. Shortly after I left school one of my friends was killed by a direct hit on her air raid shelter, which was a great shock to us all. Unfortunately, by following the river or the railway lines we were an easy target for German planes. I was not long in my job when I knew that I was to be called-up. I had to leave my home and go to work in Reading. But now I had another thing to worry about, would my parents be safe. Life continued much the same. Warnings at intervals, rationing, mending to do and letters to write, but at least I was kept busy and felt that I was at least being useful. There were so many other people鈥檚 troubles to listen to you could not dwell too long on your own. We only had one load of bombs in Reading. A German plane unloaded his bombs to make a quick escape back to Germany. Many folk were killed and injured, but it could have been far worse. As Lord Haw-flaw said in his broadcast from Germany that night, "We'll make sure that it is not half closing day next time we visit Reading." Any other day the departmental store would have been packed with shoppers, and their tea room would have been full, particularly with children who were often taken by their mothers after school.

Although shortages were worse and food rationing continued until 1956, restrictions were being lifted by 1944. Blackout regulations ceased by that September and warnings were more spasmodic. But then the Doodle bugs started. They were really horrible. There was something uncanny about being attacked by something without a human controller. We were not yet into the age of robots and automation. When you heard one coming you waited for the engine to cut out, counted to four and then dived for cover. Wretched things!
I do not think that we could quite take it in when the news was broadcast that the war was over. It seemed too good to be true after such a long time. But we thankfully handed in our gas masks. We were glad to see the back of them. I was on leave at home when the news came and spent the morning decorating the house with flags as most others were doing. I then returned to work as I was on night work; so I missed all the dancing that took place in the Forum in Reading and all the other celebrations that day!
As my brother's ship was still in the Far East I hoped that our
celebration was yet to come. But two days before VJ Day my parents came
to tell me that he was lost at sea off Rangoon.

Grace Kay (nee Garnish. May 2005.

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