ĂŰŃż´«Ă˝

"This story was submitted to the People's War site by CSV/ĂŰŃż´«Ă˝ Radio Nottingham on behalf of Hilda G. Clarke with her permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions"

Having returned from an unsuccessful evacuation to Bedford from Woodford Green, Essex, I left schooling behind. I was 14 years old in December 1939 and there weren’t any schools open now in the London area where I lived.
So I started as an “apprentice” in a small local department store. Long shop hours for 2/6d per week. After the first year it was increased to 5/-per week. Mother took half towards my keep! My first experiences of spending long hours in an air raid shelter were when we had to offer the safety of the shelter to our customers first. No actual raids came and everyone became more blasé when the sirens sounded. The “phoney” was lasted some months.
I do recall treating myself to the adult “pleasure” of a Permanent Wave at the hairdresser. Of course, you had to take your own soap and towel, everything seemed to be in short supply very rapidly. Just as I’d been hooked up to the electrical rollers on the heavy hood overhead so did the air rapid warning siren sound. All the assistants dashed for shelter leaving me stranded and dreading that I would be crushed under the hood if any bombs fell! Great relief when the All Clear went and the staff returned to unhook me!
I well recall the night that London suffered what to us was the worst bombing raid of all. My father came home from “The Monkham’s Inn” and made us all get dressed in warm outdoor clothes. We then walked up the hill to the railway bridge leading to Roding Valley Halt. “Take a good look at the Second Great Fire of London” he told us, “It’ll be something to tell your grandchildren, - if we live that long” he added. When I ventured to suggest that we might be vulnerable, standing over a main line to London, he quite bitterly replied that Hitler was wanting to tear out the heart of London and wouldn’t be wasting his bombers on the outlying suburbs. “But he won’t win, you’ll see. He doesn’t know us.”
The silhouetted picture on our horizon was, in a “sick” way, quite magnificent and very awe-inspiring. If you forgot the pain, deaths, rescue workers, anti-aircraft forces involved, the raw beauty was so very unforgettable. The black outlines of buildings and church spires against the red of the flames and the flash-white of explosions was frightening, and horrific, and inspiring, and heroic, all at the same time. I wanted to paint or photograph it — somewhat like “The Fighting Temeraire, the famous old master.
At this time I was glad to belong to the Girl Guides. We made a contribution to the general war effort. As well as collecting coltsfoot leaves for dressings; rose hips for Vitamin C syrup; acorns and conkers which went for pig food (after Maclean’s had extracted the oil for their toothpaste we were told), we also did a “Saturday District Post”. This meant that all Guides and Scouts who had bicycles went to various Council Offices, the Fire Stations, Hospitals, etc., to take and deliver any post or messages around the area. It must have saved a bit of their resources as we were quite a well-used and appreciated group.
After my “apprenticeship” I went to work for some months in an aircraft factory. When one plane was completed — was it a Spitfire? — we were all given the chance to have a good look and then were rewarded with a lunch hour “Workers’ Playtime” live in the canteen. Greatly enjoyed by all.
Radio was our main amusement. Cinemas and Dance Halls were for girls older than me. Father was strict! He’d been exempt from WW1 (question over “flat feet”) and also retained his city job in WW2. My older brother was at London University researching Gas Warfare. Mother was a W.I. member contributing by preserving fruit and vegetables, and by knitting sea-boot stocking with oiled wool as well as baby clothes for S.S.A.F.A. We all joked about the numbers of babies they were coping with! Wool was in such short supply that even the 1” bits and pieces had all to be returned with the completed goods prove that the weight was the same as that issued!
My aunt had got a permit to keep and breed rabbits in her garage. The car had to be laid up for the duration as no petrol or repairs were available. With the rabbits we had an extra supply of food, also I learned to skin and cure their pelts. Next I made fur gloves which again saved clothing coupons. We never wasted anything. A habit about which I’m always being teased to this day!
When, aged 17 years, my peer group were joining up I started my nursing career as a children’s nurse in a Dr Barnardo’s Hospital at the Boys’ Garden City, Woodford Bridge, Essex. We only took Barnardo children but they received very specialist care as various skilled surgeons and medical men would give their services freely when on leave. I was very privileged to work with them.
In fact, when I succumbed to “Asian flu” during the Blitz it was the then Queen Elizabeth’s Medical Practitioner, Sir Horace Evans, who took me under his care and admitted me to the London Hospital in Whitechapel Road. I well remember the Doodle Bug that landed at 5am. The night-nurse had just switched on the ward lights — it was the time we were washed in those days! — when everything descended on us. Black-out shutters caved in and very frightened faces came from under the covers. Chaos could have ruled save for the humour of Nurse Pollock: “Thank God Hitler could wake you — I know I couldn’t!” She was my heroine that morning.
I was an in-patient for 10 weeks and thoroughly enjoyed my Christmas there in spite of everything.
Once in the shelter at my own hospital we realised that an unruly 8 yr old was missing. I was sent to find him. I found him in the sun-lounge on the first-floor ward. Looking across to the window I saw a German Bomber fly overhead. “We’ll just see this, Teddy, and then we can go down to tell Matron and all the others”, I coaxed him.
We watched as the bombs were dropped across the valley about 2-3 miles away. As we both turned to leave the room all the glass shattered around us. A “tsunami” effect air-wave had covered the distance from the actual bombs landing. A very subdued little boy held my hand and anxiously asked “You will tell Matron that I didn’t do it, won’t you?” he pleaded.
In the A.R.P. father told me that they found, when the incendiaries were being dropped, it was actually quicker to cover the bombs with their tin-hats rather than use the three-man team required for using a stirrup-pump! So many things one learned about the war on the ĂŰŃż´«Ă˝-Front.
Later I went on to do my S.R.N. training in Carshalton, Surrey and then in Edgware, Middlesex.
Peace in Europe was declared although many felt no celebrations could be truly enjoyed until the Japanese P.O.W.’s were returned safely. Belsen pictures haunted us all.
The peace was perhaps going to be harder than the war.
Winston Churchill was the MP for Wanstead and Woodford as well as being the Prime Minister, and I was able to meet and talk with him for a few minutes at a tea-party given on “The Green” for O.A.P.’s.
Collecting the tickets that had been issued previously, I was amused when one elderly lady, dressed as was the custom for her generation, all in long black clothes, proceeded to first lift up her dress, then her white petticoat, then her red flannel one, finally reaching her long black “drawers”. From the pocket she produced her treasured invitation. “Nobody would stop me coming to have tea with Mr Churchill!” she exclaimed. Looking up she realised that Mr Churchill and all his entourage had been watching her throughout. Winking at me, he patted her arm and said “You go on in and I’ll come and have a chat with you”. We all thought he was wonderful.
I went to join in the celebrations in “The Mall” and chanted “We want the King” with the thousands of others. An extra cheer went up for “Winnie” when he waved from the balcony, too.
Great memories. Sad, poignant, humorous and heart-warming. Such a mixture! Now we can only hope that our children, grand-children and their grand-children to come will remember — and think of us. We were so lucky to survive.

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