a wartime childhood

Well my dad worked in the shipyard, it was classed as war service, he didn’t go in the army but it was classed as making ammunition, working in the shipyards, so he was excluded from going in the army. He wasn’t a conscientious objector, there were one or two who didn’t want to fight, but that was classed as cowardice really, it was frowned upon. On the Tees, Greg and Taylor’s, he used to do the rivets, he had a thing there where they had a sheet of plastic thing and they could tell if there were any flaws in the metal. He’d often bring pieces of bombs home and my mother was like “oh my god get it out!!” After the sirens had gone, he often had trouble with the wardens, put that light out, very much like Dad’s Army. He used to go around the streets, the RP warden. Dad was picking bits up. His wife would make them put them in a bucket of water. Then he went to the chemical industries, ICI (Imperial Chemical Industries), he was there, he had a heart attack 1971 and my mother soon went after him, I don’t think she got over it really. Me and my brothers at school we used to wander off to the brick yard. And when we got back, the old belt came out.
During the war I was about 8 or nine years old. They came in St Cuthberts school. Teacher had a cane, you made sure it just caught you, the girls as well. We had a concrete Anderson shelter, in the cold, frosty night you had to go down the yard into the toilet, it was always freezing up, we had a candle in it to try and stop it from freezing up! Everyone put the washing out in the back streets. We had a wringer, I always used to get my fingers stuck. I remember going into the air raid shelters.
My mother used to come in and make spotted dick in a little bag tied at the top. She made her own bread in the baking tins, I had a try once but I couldn’t manage it. She used to put them all infront of the coal fire. But we managed with the rations, we had good neighbours, they’d help us out. We’d help each other out, to see what each other needed, whether it was food, matches, that sort of thing. We all used to sit around the radio together – we had some good times together. But if you got in trouble, like if you swore, you got a good walloping from the policeman or you’d go to bed with no supper. There was none of this violence, break ins, burglary.
The woman across the road had a couple of kids staying with her who’d been evacuated from different parts of the country. We played with them, but they were a little wary of us at first because we had different accents and played different games. But we all used to look after each other.
We had a dog and a rabbit in the back yard which used to fight with each other! But we managed with the ration books, we only had so many sausages per week. We had a bloke similar to the one like on Dad’s army, saying “I’ll give you a little bit extra this week Mrs so-and-so”. The Home Guard only had 2 rifles between about 30 of them. They used to practice on the old moor, it’s a scrap yard now, but they used to practice there in the morning. I don’t think they gave them any ammunition either, they were frightened to! It was very similar to Dad’s Army! People fighting to be in charge, marching around. I remember when we were at Crossleas, a bloke took us and said that a German pilot had bailed out just across the fields. The farmer arrested him with his hay fork. They phoned the police and the pilot was so grateful to be bailed out in this country because he was so sick of the war, he said “I’m glad I’ve landed here,” because he was disillusioned with Hitler. He became a prisoner of war. They took him for a cup of tea and biscuits and said they’d look after him. I remember seeing the prisoners of war walking around Stockton in their caps, I think they had to be in by nine o’ clock. People looked at them curiously, but they were well fed and well looked after. They used to walk to the cinema. There were one or two American pilots in Thornaby, Clark Gable the film star was one of them, he was stationed for a little while in Thornaby. A lot of the German soldiers had no time for the SS or the Gestapo, they just saw them as thugs. They would say that Hitler stated with good intentions, and that the last thing they wanted to do was to invade England.

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