I had recently turned 5 years old when war broke out.
I was very fortunate as the war did not affect me as much as it did some others in that I was not evacuated from Marlow-on-Thames and nor was my father called up to go away and fight. He was a butcher helping to feed the nation and he was also nearly 39 years old – too old! He did, however, join the police force as a Special Constable and made new and lasting friendships when he was on duty.
I can well remember being given a gasmask and being shown how to put it on, and the funny noise it made when I breathed; and then having to take it with me to school in a brown cardboard box with strong string to hang over my shoulder. At school air-raid shelters were constructed in the playground and we had air-raid practices when we had to line up and troop out to get to safety.
Once, when I was in my bedroom, I looked out of the window and saw a crowd of children and adults all milling about and I stood for ages watching as they gradually dispersed with children going off with an adult and carrying a little case – they were, of course, evacuees and in time I got to know some of them at school. One of the games we played was imagining our neighbour was housing a spy and we would try to peep over a 6ft wall to look into her back yard.
Although as a family we were not allocated an evacuee, we did take in a family (Mr & Mrs Wakley and Kathleen their daughter who is six months older than me). We gave up our sitting room for them to use as their family bedroom and our mothers shared the cooking, etc. Our garden was transformed as my father took to having chickens and rabbits and we had rabbits’-fur mittens made by Mum, with skins cured by my father. Dad also dug a big hole and constructed an air-raid shelter (although we never used it as it was deemed safer for us to go down into our cellar than to troop up the garden). Our neighbours joined us when there was an air-raid and Mr ‘Okey doke’, as my father called him, would entertain us children by throwing shadows from the candlelight onto the wall, looking like animals made by the way he placed his hands.
Dad also took on an allotment as did most families. We never had any new toys as they were not being made so everything was second-hand, the paper in books was grey coloured as it was recycled. Many of my dresses had been passed on to me. A couple my parents knew were cook and chauffeur to a surgeon who had two daughters and I had their outgrown pretty dresses which I loved. My father got a shoe last and mended all our shoes; we cut the end of the top of our sandals off when our feet grew too long for the sandal so as to make them last longer; and my brother had studs in the soles of his boots which meant he could make sparks fly when he scraped them on the paving; collars were turned and old clothes remade into a new dress or coat. It was our mothers, of course, who had to deal with rationing – we had a lot of suet puddings to fill us up. Every little bit of meat was used and we had tripe and onion (the stomach of a cow in a white onion sauce, it was very chewy), the trotters and head of a pig boiled up and every scrap of meat taken off to make brawn. We also ate heart and brains and sweetbread.
I very rarely saw my grandparents as, of course, there was petrol rationing and they lived fifty or so miles away. In those days we were allowed to walk the streets alone and walked to school even when in the Infants. I recall one day walking to the recreation ground and found it had no gates or railings – all taken away to make munitions – and also no park keeper.
A lot of my school friends were being brought up just by their mother and I remember one day when two sisters told my mother that their father was missing – and my mother’s reaction. Every day we children had to be quiet when the news was broadcast on the wireless and every Saturday, as a family, we walked down to the cinema, not only to see a film but also so my parents could see the Pathé News showing the latest war action.
We got used to the siren going off and seeing the night sky lit up with beams looking for enemy aircraft. Only once was the town bombed when a Nazi plane was being chased and it dropped its bombs along the river to lighten its load – one man was killed when he stood outside his door to watch.
Besides coats and dresses being transformed into other garments, so were jumpers. They would be unravelled and the wool washed (all wool then, no synthetics) then dried and it would be all crinkly. It was then wound into balls and reknitted, with cardigans fastened using buttons cut off old garments.
One was not allowed to be a fussy eater – we either ate what was put before us or go hungry; my dad would always say ‘A child in Africa would be pleased to have that’. Reconstituted egg was used to make cakes. As children we were fortified with concentrated orange juice and cod liver oil (given on a spoon) and I also remember having radio malt, which is a bit like treacle. We had to be registered at a particular grocer’s shop, etc. so there was no going around seeing if another shop had anything different. I can well recall the rumour going around that Dorset’s (our grocer) had received a delivery of something exotic, like oranges or bananas (I can’t remember exactly what it was) and my mother telling me to quickly get my coat on and we rushed along to the shop and queued to buy some. My mother loved oranges but my father hated the smell, so we always had to go into another room to eat one.
Blackout was another feature of those days, of course, and no chink of light was allowed and many windows were strengthened against blast by tape being stuck across them, although we did not do that in our house. Much later I learned that one day when my mother was stretching to hang up the blackout curtains she felt something snap in her tummy and it triggered a miscarriage. I didn’t know why my mother was in bed and a nurse was in the house, but I do well remember the nurse coming downstairs with a bowl in her hands while I was trying to walk upstairs. She told me to stay still and I didn’t, so when I tried to get past her, she was very cross. My mother never did have another baby after my brother.
Shared by Sheila Davis
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