蜜芽传媒

WARTIME CHILDHOOD
MEMORIES

My childhood memories go back as far as when I was three years old, it was during the war (although at that age I did not know what war was except there was an awful lot of noise.) We lived in a cul-de-sac, I remember riding my tricycle round and round the circle at the bottom, not daring to go any further. Even at that young age as soon as the siren sounded we would run indoors leaving our bikes, trikes or dolls and prams in the road.

My Dad was in the 蜜芽传媒 Guard and some times when he was at home in the evening we would watch the searchlights beaming on to the planes in the sky, it was quite spectacular to us kids to see, not knowing of the danger and devastation these planes and their bombs would bring. My Dad had a rifle hidden under his coat that hung in the hall, he also had a pistol and ammunition on the top shelf in the kitchen and none of this was ever mentioned indoors.

In the living room we had an indoor shelter, which sometimes the whole family slept in. I have been told that one night on a particularly bad raid my brothers and I were put into the cupboard under the stairs, believed to be the safest place in the house, but not for us and not because of the air raids but because of the candles that were left burning to give us light and comfort. Unfortunately one of the candles fell and caught the edge of a blanket. How long we were there unnoticed sends a chill up my spine but luckily we were lying on the floor and the smoke was seeping through the top of the door. Suddenly the door opened and the three of us were dragged to safety coughing and crying but not really yet fully awake. Needless to say we never slept under the stairs again.

We three children, like so many of others at the time, knew of no other life than this, even going to school the sandbags around the building were accepted as normal. We were given a small bottle of milk every day and most times in the winter the milk was frozen and had to be left to melt around the fire grate. We had school dinners that seemed to consist of mashed potato, loads of gravy and vegetables, meat did appear sometimes but I couldn鈥檛 say what it was! We also seemed to have had a lot of custard and high voltage puddings!

When ration books came into our lives all the nice things such as sweets went out of the window, new clothes was not then an option, being the only girl in the family you would have thought I was spoilt but no! 鈥榟and me downs鈥� was the order of the day for all of us. I particularly remember my Mum giving me a green velvet dress slightly too big 鈥測ou will grow into it鈥� she said, the dress came from someone called Doreen who was well down in the age line of her family. I hated that dress! Who would be the next victim to wear it? Jumble sales was a very popular way to clothe the family and you would see the same old clothes going round and round until even the darning was being darned!

One thing about the war, no one ever starved, we had steam puddings, bread puddings pies, home made cake etc鈥� most of it was stodgy but filled us up. Favourite of the day was bread and dripping! 鈥淲hy?鈥� you ask? 鈥淏ecause it was good for you! So eat it!鈥� We were told.

For a while our Aunt Mag and cousin Billy came to live with us, until my Uncle came back from the war. There were now 3 boys and one girl, me! The place livened up a bit, and I remember my Mother chasing my cousin with a broom, he cleared the old sofa that had been lying around in the yard and my mother waving the broom and yelling at him, I never did find out what he had done. There was always someone in trouble, a telling off or a smack or two put us on the right track and it was soon forgotten.

Christmas was always a happy time, our house seemed to expand, the double bed became part of the Victorian era overnight, it could actually sleep eight of us kids top and tailing. As you can gather our Mother had quite a few brothers and sisters most of whom visited us over the holiday period. Us kids were put to bed early on Christmas Eve and boy do we have a tale or two to tell! One year the grown ups went out as usual to the local pubs for a quiet drink! Did I say quiet drink? I don鈥檛 think so! Whatever happened on that particular night did not occur again. In the morning we were all up very very early rummaging in our Christmas stockings (actually they were pillow cases). The boys pulled out dolls and other girlie things and the girls pulled out toy soldiers and boy sort of things! We had tears, moans and laughter. Whatever happened the night before left the grown ups with more than headaches to justify their behaviour! Even so our Christmases continued to be fun.

We had trips to the Zoo and seaside and on one occasion the whole family including Aunts, Uncles and Grandparents went to the Isle of Wight, the grownups went shopping except for our Gran, who stayed to look after us on the beach, us kids all raced down to the sea to paddle. I was in charge of my two brothers and being the bossy one, told them to follow me along the breakwater, the tide was in and the water was up to our waist and I thought we would be O.K, until my Brother Brian stepped off the breakwater and disappeared, I reached out and grabbed his hair (luckily he has always had plenty) dragging him to the surface he started to scream and shout, coughing up half of the sea. Gran came running towards us, Brian was beside himself saying he had drowned! When she heard how I had pulled him from the sea, she told the rest of the family how I had saved Brian from drowning and I was the hero of the day! at nine years old.

There were many characters living in our road, I remember in particular one old lady we called Wattsy, she stood at her gate for hours at a time, She was very short and always dressed in black and wore gaited boots, these boots fascinated me, I think it was the start of my shoe fascination.
One really hot summer day Wattsy had a bonfire at the bottom of her garden, around the same time the reservoir bank caught fire. It was an amazing if not frightening sight. The fire engine came belting down the road and the firemen took the hose straight up the garden path spraying water everywhere and put out her bonfire and then as in disbelieve they caught site of the flames engulfing the reservoir banks. Mrs W was shouting and cursing the firemen saying, 鈥淲hy did you put my bonfire out? I haven鈥檛 finished with it yet!鈥� needless to say the firemen took off looking redder faced than the bonfire!

Further up the road was Mrs Q! She didn鈥檛 need a megaphone when calling her five grandsons to come home from the recreation ground, she had the loudest voice we had ever heard and the rest of us kids would cover our ears until she had shouted the last boys鈥� name. Opposite Mrs Q! was, Mrs O! her family was one of the travelling dynasties! And we could never understand her dialect. I remember she was always in competition with her neighbour Mrs P, over their gardens and the look of their homes! The curtains of both houses were always bright pink, and when they painted the front doors they always chose the same colour. They would talk across the fence for hours in matching aprons (the ones that wrapped around the middle and tied at the back).

Growing up during the war things like telephones and televisions even vacuum cleaners were not everyday essentials, I think the only person to have a phone in our road was the nurse, she was everybody鈥檚 friend and a had a high phone bill. The first person in our family to have a hoover was our Aunt Doll and on visiting her one-day she demonstrated it to us, sucking up the dust from the carpets and curtains and saying how it could suck up anything. My brother Brian went missing and all of us family looked everywhere for him. not having any phones we couldn鈥檛 ring home to my grandmother who had stayed at home, My Mum and Dad said we should go back to our own house and wait for some more help. When we arrived back home my Grandmother was very angry and told my parents off, apparently Brian had walked the six miles back to my Grandmother鈥檚 house. When asked why he had run away, he said he didn鈥檛 want to be sucked up into that machine.

As we grew up my Mother got a part time cleaning job in the village where we lived. If she was not there when we got in from school, I had to look after my brothers and do some housework until she came home. I was bossy Pat once again and took my position seriously. I used to give my brothers their orders. I gave them both dusters (or bits of rag in those days) We started off in the bedrooms sliding up and down under the beds with the rags tied to our feet until the lino shone (we had no carpets then) after a while Brian would skive off, moaning to himself and saying 鈥淚鈥檓 telling Mum about you!鈥� Ralph would always do as I told him; I suppose he either liked cleaning or thought it was a game, (50 years on he still likes sliding under the bed. (Only joking))

Strange things happen when your young and they are accepted as the norm. The local bus was often seen down our road parked outside the conductor鈥檚 house while they had a cup of tea, no one said anything and if you got on the bus there, when they came out it saved you walking to the top of the road. I expect that鈥檚 why it was called a door-to-door service!

I had a best friend also called Pat; she lived at the top of our road. We were proper Tom Boys and went everywhere together, apart from my cousins she was the only girl of my age I really new. We would hang around with the boys playing cricket, footie, Cowboys and Indians and sit in our secret hideout in the Rec! We would slide down the reservoir banks on bit of wood, no sign of fear until the day our mate Teddy
was gored through his stomach as he landed on the top of the railings. He spent a long time in hospital and we were banned from out favourite past time. Although this and other bad things did happen the severity of it didn鈥檛 seem to sink in, off we would go in our own little world knocking on doors and running away laughing. Sometimes we would tie two doorknobs together to see who would answer first and as we hid behind the hedge we could hear the neighbours shouting at each other.

After the war ended we went from childhood into our teens not really appreciating peacetime as we had not known any other kind of life and it took some getting used to, the fact that the sound of the siren would not be heard again to warn us of danger.

By Patricia Cook

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