Collecting acorns in Ipswich and other childhood memories

I was born in 1937. I went to St John’s Church School, in Cauldwell Hall Road, Ipswich. I remember the collecting aspect, pupils were asked to collect various things for the work effort and bring them to school. We had to take in old saucepans, and my mother was in the mother’s union so she used to pull old jumpers to pieces and roll up the wool for re-use but if she had too many jumpers to do I’d take some of them in to school. We had to pick rosehips from the hedgerows which were made into rosehip syrup for babies, and acorns for pig feed. Ipswich wasn’t so build up in those days and I lived at the top of Brunswick Road and there were fields just across what we now call Colchester Road. There were fields right down to Northgate School. So we’d pick rosehips from the hedgerows, and we’d pick acorns from a big house called The Oaks in Spring Road. It was very competitive and father used to go out on the bike to help us collect things and he’d have to bring the sack on the bike to school. I remember we used to have a bottle of milk at school each day. It would arrive in the morning and as the school was an old Victorian building we had open fires with a fender round the hearth. I remember the teacher sitting on the fender keeping warm and the milk was placed near the fire to warm it up. So we always had warm milk during the winter sitting in the hall. We used to go home for lunch as we had 2 hours off from 12 to 2. But it was quite a long way for a five year old to walk 4 times a day!
My father worked for East Anglian Daily Times and was therefore in a reserved occupation. He was in the special constabulary and did fire duty too. When the siren went he used to put on his hat and head off on his bike on fire duty. The special constabulary was based in Spring Road. He wore a proper uniform like a policeman and he used to hang his truncheon in the hall. When there was a raid he’d put on his uniform and go off to where the bombs had dropped and help hold back the crowd. I also remember the aircraft at Martlesham Heath, it was like a little aerodrome there. We’d go out there and peer through the wire to see what was going on. Towards the end of the war we saw the barrage balloons and they always caused excitement. I was terrified when the first doodlebugs went over. It was dark and we could hear the whistle and whine of it and everyone was saying please let it keep going.

End of war.

I was only 7 or 8 and I was asleep that May morning and Mother came in and opened the curtains and she said “the war is ended” and I thought “what happens now?” I mean everyone was relieved the war was over but I didn’t realise what this meant. That evening there were jollifications down in Ipswich in the town centre. Mother got dressed up and took us and we were excited because we were staying up late. Where the Crown Street bus station is now was a big car park. The car park was emptied and there was a band and lots of dancing. We had a big street party too. In fact because ours was a long road there were 2 parties and we lived in middle so we went to both! The put the tables on the road and all the mums had to make something to put on the table. It wasn’t just for the children; I can remember the adults all in a long line doing the “conga”. I suppose we didn’t realise how deprived we were as children until after the war when things started to become available again. We always had a goose for Christmas because dad had a friend who had a farm, and we’d be taken during the year to see this goose growing up! My aunts, uncles and grandparents used to come for Christmas dinner. When the goose was cooked the fat was drained off and it was used oil hinges and on our hands if the skin had got chapped. We always had a Christmas pudding and a Christmas cake. The aunts used to give mother the ingredients, everyone putting in a little bit from their rations. We grew our own vegetables and more and more of our garden was dug up for planting veg. My father used to have 2 allotments strips at Sidegate Lane. A trip to the allotments was our main outing. We’d take our tea up there in some paper and our parents would be digging and watering the plants. We’d help with the weeding and picking the produce. We had all the vegetables in season, and one strip was just for fruit. There were black and redcurrants, strawberries, and raspberries. With everything being on ration we were never allowed to have sweets, and Mother used to have our sweet allowance as sugar. She made jam with all the fruit and it was kept in the cupboard under the stairs. It was jam packed full of every type of jam you can imagine. When we got the Kilner jars she used to bottle fruit and put that in the cupboard too. Dad kept the veg overwinter in a shed and he’d lay out trays of onions, carrots and potatoes and they’d keep for months. One of my aunts had chickens so we used to get eggs from her. Occasionally if the chicken was getting too old it would go in the boiler pot, they were too old to roast!
We all had our own ration books and identity cards. I can still remember mine it was TVNP203/3. If we needed a pair of shoes we’d have to have some about 2 sizes too big and we’d stuff the toes with newspaper. Every night there was the ritual cleaning and polishing of shoes. We’d have “blakeys” tapped in to the heels and toes of our shoes to stop them wearing out too fast. We used to run along the road and scrape our feet and there’d be sparks from the blakeys. When my mother had her third child and she was still in the nursing home my father took me to get some new shoes. I had to have black boys lace ups because there was nothing else and I didn’t like them.

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