ĂŰŃż´«Ă˝

AUDREY MOONEY’S STORY — MY CHILDHOOD IN THE WAR IN STOCKPORT

I was born 1939 and I know my Dad was already in the army training young men when the war broke out. I was nearly 7 years old before I saw him as he was with the Chindits fighting the Japanese so I didn’t know what he looked like or anything. I only knew I had a Dad. There were five of us living in Stockport with my Mother. We didn’t get many air-raids but we did have to go to the air-raid shelter down in the Tunnels. Stockport is very hilly and I was told that these Tunnels had been specially built a couple of years before the war broke out as it was known it was coming. They were at the bottom of a big hill, with toilets there. The Tunnels have been opened up as a Visitors’ Centre now. Those toilets flushed every hour on the hour and did so for years — no one knew how to turn the water off. The man that had set it up had gone.

I remember as a child my older sister was minding us. I was about 5. She put our balaclavas on and took us up a hill and we could see Manchester in blitz. She said “That’s what fire-works look like!” I’d never seen a fire-work and thought this was great fun. The Air-Raid Warden came and gave us a clout and told us to get back home or he’d tell our mother and she would give us another clout for going out. I never tasted a sweet until after the war. I never knew anything different as I had been born in 1939. The only treat I got from my mother was some raisins in a bag. That was our treat. It did us no harm — I’ve still got all my own teeth. In the cold weather when we came home from school at lunch-time we were given soup made from two OXO cubes in one bowl and some bread to be shared between two of us — so I had to be quick to get my share. I was the smallest so I got the least. I didn’t know what chocolate was. My mother took us to the shops and said “That’s chocolate” — and pointed to empty cardboard boxes. “When the war’s ended I’ll buy you some chocolate.” When the war ended and we had a street party I said “Right, where’s the chocolate?” “Oh the sugar’s still on ration” she answered — and I was13 years of age when I first had chocolate. It’s true that what you never had, you never miss. When I was given a banana, I eat mine with the skin on. I wondered what the fuss was about bananas — I didn’t want mine. When my mother saw me she said “Oh no, no — take the skin off.

People from Manchester, six miles away, had it as bad as London. Like Liverpool did. But it’s all London, London, London in the news. Many lost their homes. My mother used to take the five of us, one of us in turn one night a week to the pictures. She wasn’t short of money as she had my Dad’s army pay and was better off than some. When the siren went off when you were in the cinema you had to go out, run into the Tunnels, the Air-Raid shelters. You were given a ticket to go back to the cinema the next night to see the rest of the film. I loved going to the Air-Raid shelter. We used to have entertainment. A man used to come round with a piano-accordian and entertain all the children and we used to sing “Sons of the Sea, bobbing up and down like this …” We had some good times. One or two of my friends at school, their fathers never came home. My father started off fighting the Germans and then he was put with the Chindits to fight the Japanese. It was just coming up to the time of the year for me to start school when my mother got a telegram saying her husband was reported missing, believed dead. Us children were listening while she was telling one of the neighbours. We asked her where our Dad was. She said he was lost in the jungle. So I went to my friend’s showing off and said “My Dad’s in the jungle and he’s a Sergeant, yeh!” But he came home but he never spoke about what happened. The only time he said anything was much later when I grumbled at what I was given to eat. He said he would to take us to BelleView Zoo to catch a snake because that’s what they ate in the jungle.

I don’t know how my mother came through it with 5 children on her own. But children knew how to behave in those days. You had to make do and mend because of the shortages. My brother, he was about 12, had the morning off school as his shoes were in the cobblers and the man from the School Board came. There was a pair of my Mum’s shoes on the floor and he said for my brother to try them on. They fitted my brother and he was sent to school wearing Mum’s shoes! Even up to my mother dying he used to say to her “You made me go to school in high heels and all the lads laughed at me.” He never really forgave her.

You know when there were potatoes, I think we were allowed a pound and had to queue for them. Because I was small I was always pushed to the back of the queue and when it got to my turn after waiting for about 2 hours the shop-keeper said “Oh, no not you. You’re one of the (?name) family. And I got nothing. Another time my mother said “Quick, go off to the Co-op. They’re selling marmalade. Take the ration book. Hurry up. Me and my sister ran all the way. We didn’t know what marmalade was, but we got a jar and was carrying it home to mother — and dropped it on the pavement! We scraped it up on the ration book. You can imagine what the ration book looked like — and the broken glass. My mother just cried. She didn’t want it for herself but for us children. When speaking about it in later life, mother said that she cried and then she laughed because it was funny.

I don’t like this modern world where everything is so easy. Things are thrown away. We used to save the wrappers of margarine and lard to put in baking tins. We were the recycling nation — nothing new, this recycling. Nothing was wasted. No rubbish in the street. We used to pick up the gold paper from cigarette packets in the street and made Christmas decorations from it. It took us a long time to make them into balls and thread them up for Christmas. We also made paper chains at school.

When the war eventually ended we had a bonfire. My brother and his friends said “Come on, we’ll get some bonfire wood. I was only six so I was trailing behind. All the big lads were pulling out the forms we used to sit on in the Tunnels for the bonfire and to make go-carts. As we were going home a policeman came and chased us. We thought we had got away. When we got home my brother said not to tell Mum or we’d have it! Mum was sitting on the back doorstep waiting for us. She said “Right, inside.” “Where’ve you been?” We said “Nowhere.” She asked about the wood. We said “What wood?” “That’s enough”, my Mum said. The police have been here. I was scared to death. We had to stay in all that day, not allowed to play out. It was years and years later while talking to my mother I asked how the police had found out that it was us taking the wood. She said a red-haired boy had been seen and my brother was the only one in the district with red hair and the policeman only had to ask where the boy with red hair lived. A favourite saying of my Mum’s when she knew what we had been up to was “I’ve got a little eye at the back of my head!”

For parties my Mother made jellies with gellatine and raspberryade, cakes and paste sandwiches. We had hats made out of newspaper. But it was a party. For Christmas we had pillow-cases with stuff in — where my Mother got it from I don’t know. She was amazing. We had a new doll every year. I had a lovely black doll. The next Christmas I said that I didn’t want another new doll, I wanted clothes for the black one. One of my aunties made some clothes and I was so thrilled. I had a tin pram with my doll in it, but when I came home from school one day it had gone. The doll was there, but my treasure had been taken.

My father didn’t come home from the war until 1947. He stayed behind in Burma to rebuild the roads. I was about 7 years old and never really got to know him. Once home my father started drinking heavily. He wouldn’t talk about the war. Mother had had us children to herself for 7 years and Dad didn’t get much of a look in, so he took to drink. Dad got malaria a lot.

My mother was an amazing woman. She brought us up well; when we were cold, she cut down long-sleeved vests to make under-jerseys which we wore under our dresses. She taught us right from wrong. We all went to Sunday School. I had a good childhood. We took it all in our stride — we didn’t have social workers or counselling. We didn’t need them because we just got on with it, with Life. I don’t like modern life at all. Everywhere I go I see children stuffing their faces and I think “Poor little souls.” It’s so different now.

© Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.