The church bells rang with joy that day
I was 4 years old when the Second World War started. I lived in Liverpool and the first thing I remember is being evacuated with my Mum to Alsager in Cheshire to a big house with a tennis court in the garden and a mere and boathouse at the bottom of the garden. The lady was very kind and there was an old grandmother living with her. The lady told Mum that when they had cooked the evening meal they put a few clean house bricks in the oven so that the left over heat would heat the bricks and then she put them in a clean pillow case and put them in the beds to warm them. The bedrooms were cold and there was no central heating. Some people had stone hot water bottles, but you couldn’t get rubber ones. Rubber was needed for gas masks.
After about 6 months we moved back to Liverpool to a house on a fire station on the edge of Speke Airport (now John Lennon.) My father was a fireman which was a reserved occupation so he was not called up for national service.
We had to take our gas masks with us every time we went out, also identity cards which my mother carried. We had to practice air raid drill at school and go down the shelters.
In our garden we had an Anderson Shelter, and Mum and I often slept down there. Sometimes I slept in the larder, a walk in cupboard under the stairs; it was quicker for Mum to get a sleepy child to the shelter that way. The sirens would go if there was going to be a raid so we would rush to the shelter. Even today, if I hear that sound, I get a funny feeling in my tummy. There was a different sounding siren when the raid was over that was called the ‘all clear.’ Mum always kept a tin of biscuits in the shelter and would put a flask of hot cocoa in every night just in case we needed it.
My grandparents came to live with us for about 9 months because there was a bomb in their street and their house was unsafe to live in. They lived nearer the docks so they were more vulnerable to the bombing. Eventually the council found them somewhere else to live.
I remember the ration books and queuing in the shops. My Dad had an allotment so that helped with fresh vegetables, but we had no bananas or oranges because they were grown overseas. I remember seeing posters saying “Dig for Victory.”
Mum had to put blackout curtains up at all the windows, so no light would show outside. Also people stuck strips of gummed paper on the inside of their windows to stop glass blowing in if there was a bomb blast.
We didn’t see much of my Dad because he was on duty a lot fighting fires in the docks and warehouses by the River Mersey. Once, when he came home before changing, he looked so black in the face and his clothes were so wet and smelling of fire; Mum hugged him but I screamed, “he’s not my Daddy!” -- he looked so frightening.
We had no street lights and no shop windows were lit. If you used a torch when you went out, you had to keep it pointed downwards and the top half taped over. Mum threw nothing out- envelopes were re-used or cut open to write shopping lists on. If we got a parcel brown paper and string were kept for future use.
As well as certain foods being rationed, we had clothing coupons which didn’t allow you to buy many new things, just basics. Clothes were patched, altered or made into something else and of course people bought second hand.
I was very lucky my granny had a sewing machine and she was very good at making and altering clothes. She was also very good at knitting. She would unpick old jumpers, make the wool into skeins and wash it to remove wrinkles, roll it up into balls and knit something new, often adding different colours if she didn’t have enough of one colour.
When I was about 8 and a half years old, I went to the paper shop at the end of our road. They had a small lending library and you could borrow a book for 1d for 2 weeks. Sometimes they had a few second hand books to sell. I bought second hand a copy of ‘Wind in the Willows’ by Kenneth Grahame. I was thrilled to buy it because not many books were published during the war. I still treasure it today.
I remember the street party on VE Day. People bought tables and chairs into the road and the children had sandwiches, little cakes and jelly. The mums didn’t have much food to make a party, but us children thought it was wonderful. Everyone was so happy and the church bells rang. They hadn’t been allowed to ring them during the war, only to tell of an invasion, but that day they rang with joy.
Shared by Jon Hall, Clare's son