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On Septemmber 3rd.1939 I was ten and a half years old.I was the eldest of three brothers and we lived on the L.C.C. Watling Council Estate bordering the Hendon aerodrome. In those days the estate was traffic free and a pleasant place for children to grow up in. My father was a newspaper print worker on Fleet St. and there were spells when he was unemployed. We were visited by inspectors of the National Assistance Board before they granted food vouchers to see us over lean times. However, I was doing well at nearby Woodcroft Junior School and was an avid reader of the Daily Mirror, Beano and Dandy comics, and books from Mill Hill Public Library. I must have been aware of trouble looming because we did listen to the B.B.C.radio news but my parents didn't discuss their thoughts with us. Dad was too absorbed in football pool results.
So, on that bright, sunny Sunday morning 3/9/39, when war was declared, Father pulled the living room curtains,fixed a scissor type garden fence trellis in the window space and ordered his three young scallywags to stay put inside. The air raid sirens had sounded and we sat in puzzled boredom for about 20 minutes before we tried to escape to try and see what was going on.
Father tried to keep us confined and was probably relieved when the 'All-Clear' siren came. I can't remember ever being kept in that room again.
After that start things became interesting. Gangs of men installed Anderson Shelters in all backgardens and we collected gasmasks from our school. My youngest brother received a 'Mickey Mouse' one and the rest of the family got black smelly ones. These masks became a burden as we had to carry them to school every day.
Things seemed quiet on the war front for a while.
Food and clothes rationing began and posters urged people to 'Dig for Victory'/ 'Be like Dad-Keep Mum' / 'Remember that Walls have Ears'.
Dad was allocated an allotment space in the local park where he attempted to grow potatoes, he also volunteered to be an Air Raid Warden. A black-out was imposed and soon we used to hear shouts of,' PUT THAT LIGHT OUT!' Dad was not a good DIY family man. He put up blackout curtains downstairs and just removed all lightbulbs upstairs. The Wardens' Post, situated in the local park, became a retreat for crafty husbands. Card schools, darts, booze and the air thick with cigarette smoke, it was a popular club. Mother soon sussed out what was going on and kicked up a fuss enough to cause Dad to give up the allotment and being a warden.
On our living-room wall a Daily Express war map was displayed showing the position of the front-lines until the 'Victory' of Dunkirk occurred and we began to feel depressed. The cinema newsreels tried to raise morale and I can remember the audience laughing hilariously at Hitler's troops goosestepping to the 'Lambeth Walk'.
For an eleven year old boy 1940 was an exciting time. Air battle con-trails could be seen high over London and the papers/radio told us that the R.A.F. was doing well. Films showed scared Luftwaffe aircrew shouting,'Achtung!Spitfire! and receiving their just desserts.
A sprinkling of bombs fell locally and unexploded ones were a real nuisance because detours had to be made on the way home. A real bonus for us kids was to collect ack-ack shrapnel on the way to school and find incendary bombs in the fields after school. My brothers and I were made to sleep in the Anderson shelter. I organised a sentry roster. Wearing a 6d Woolworth's tin-hat and carrying a wooden rifle the sentry stood 'on guard' at the entrance to the shelter watching the sky and listening to ack-ack shrapel falling on roof-tiles. Luckily, this caper didn't last very long due to sentries falling asleep. Other memories were of having to sleep in the shelter when my grandmother and her father were bombed out of the East-End and had our rooms for a while; lighting a coke fire in the shelter and becoming dozy breathing in the fumes, and at some time finding our cat curled up on a bunk quite dead. The shelter soon became unused. We prefered to met our fate in relative comfort.(The concrete base became a pond after the war.)
My brothers were evacuated for a time to Worksop. Somehow my mother found out that they were having a rough time and brought them back.
Hunger and cold became realities in our lives. We did have school dinners and although Mum did her best we always seemed hungry. Bread soaked in milk and brown sauce on bread and margarine were fillers. We never had been well clothed and shivering outside at play in the winter was normal. When coal was unobtainable Mother rolled up and folded newspapers to make 'crackers'. They produced some heat if you sat near enough. Bedrooms were icey.
Roundabout this time Mother got a job at a munitions factory at Edgeware. She liked being with other workers and was very happy to have her own money after being kept very short by my father. He didn't like her new independence.
My secondary schooling was a disaster. Many lessons were taken in school bomb shelters and teachers were called-up. At one time we met in private houses for a couple of hours a day. The school, Orange Hill Central School, was not a happy one. The cane was used freely (I was caned for not being able to understand my maths homework.) The Head was known to the boys as (and maybe the Staff) as 'Charlie Cheesecake Chief of the Gestapo'. Many boys, including me, left at 14 without qualifications.
My father was forty when he was called-up to the Royal Signals Corps and went to India.
My first job was as a messenger boy at the Daily Express. £1 per week. Five & half day week. One week's holiday a year! I did move on to the teleprinter room at 25/-. When asked to do nightwork I left.
During this time flying bombs became a fact of life and 2 fell quite close to home. We would sit on a hill at Mill Hill Park and watch them flying over Hendon. A 'Doodle-bug' would knock out one or two houses but Hitler's V2 rocket was a nasty one. No warning, no protection, and a whole street would be demolished. I can remember people getting down on the pavement near Russell Square on hearing an explosion. Useless, but a natural reaction. I found it too embarrassing to follow suit.
The R.A.F. bombing of Germany, as far as I was concerned, was giving them a taste of what they had happily handed out to others, but more so.
Losing many bombers was a reminder of the price the R.A.F. paid. News reporting Japanese atrocities against captured troops and countries
came to light. I could not understand why people bought Japanese goods after the war.
As a fifteen-year-old I listened to the radio on D-Day and crossed my fingers fervently.
I finished the war working on a farm in Dorset on a Y.M.C.A scheme, 'British Boys for British Farms'. I met Conscientious Objectors,Italian and German prisoners of war, and accepted them as fellow workers. The end of the war with Japan and the dropping of the atom bomb was a non-event in the village of Bourton in Dorset. I just looked forward to being called-up to the R.A.F.