My growing up years

I was born September 1930,so was just a few days short of my 9th birthday when war was declared.
Not that it meant anything to me, I had been vaguely conscious of a worried look on my Mother's face and noticed that she joined my Father to listen with great concentration to the wireless whenever there was a news item
My younger Brother and I were secure in the cosy world created by my Mum and Dad in the suburbs of Manchester.
Within hours of hearing the bad news they were hard at work fitting blackout curtains and making lists of things to buy-buckets-candles-drawing pins(I never did work out what they were for) though I was trusted to go to the shop on my own clutching a shilling to buy them. Looking back now I am surprised at the speed at which everything happened, it seemed no time at all before we had all been registered and given an identity card and number (I can still repeat mine) and a ration book each. Not only was food to be rationed there were also coupons for clothes and furnisings and coal. Then there were the gas masks complete with cardboard box and carrying cord,and coming in all shapes and sizes including a special one for babies with a pump to be worked by the Mother. What a sobering thought for the adults but what a source of merriment for the children grunting like pigs when we were supposed to be learning the fire drill.
Whilst all this was taking place at home the men had been to the Town Hall to enlist. My Dad came home very depressed, he had been turned down because he was blind in one eye. This was the first time it had been mentioned though he had been like that since he was 15 and as he pointed out to my Mum it hadnt made any difference up till then. Within days he was in the Local Defence Volunteers (LDV) which he swore meant Look, Duck and Vanish and work days fell into a pattern of shift work and fire watch etc. Later the name of the LDV was changed to Home Guard and Dad eventually got a chance to do some training with a rifle and it turned out that he was a crack shot, His comment was "Well thats because I dont have to close one eye*

To my intense relief my brother and I were not evacuated with the school. There had been a lot a discussion when were in bed and I held my breath until the decision was made. I asked my Mum about this many years afterwards and she told me my Dad decided we should all stay together come what may, but her decision had been based on a more down to earth reason, my Brother wet the bed from time to time and my Mother felt that no-one else could be expected to wash and dry bed sheets every day.

Our house was fortunate in the position it occupied, with a back yard containing a garden and backing on to a beautiful park, with playing fields to one side. Dad never took any exercise apart from working,but often strolled the park gardens inspecting the roses and was heard to declare from time to time that we had the best of both worlds,bowling greens,putting greens and tennis courts without having to do any work on them.
Within days of the outbreak we awoke one morning to the sound of workmen arriving and work started on taking down the ornamental railings around the park,nor did it stop there, our personal gates and railings were stripped out followed by the removal of the ones round the playing fields. More was to follow,teams of 'navvies'then set too to install an early warning depot complete with barrage balloons and we all gazed at these enourmous silver things as they tugged at the wires which held them. I dont think it is likely that anyone had seen a barrage balloon before but it was amazing how quickly all the neighbours were soon expert on them.

On the opposite side of the park to our house,over the road, was land known locally as the Reservoirs, they existed for the use of The Calico Printers Association and were fringed with yellow iris and bullrushes and supported many swans. The surrounding fields were grazed by the dairy herd of a local farmer. It was into this area that the Ministry of Defence placed an army camp together with hugh gun enplacements. The guns were called navel guns,why I dont know. but they gave good account of themselves when the German bombers came looking for the factories at Trafford Park and the Manchester Docks, and we children had a splendid time collecting the shratnell and swopping with friends.
The children had gradually been returning from their evacuation homes,some with wonderful stories of the kindness of the families who had housed them and some with tales which filled one with horror and made me very glad my Brother and I had been kept at home. As the evacuees returned home it became obvious that
they needed schooling and gradually the local schools opened to provide some lessons on a part time basis, finally settling on an alternating system of mornings or afternoons.

During 1940 we listened on a daily basis to the wireless,the calm measured tones of the news reader Alvar Liddel became part of our lives. There were reports of the Battle of Brittain,Dunkirk and the terrible bombing of Coventry,London,Birmingham and Liverpool and then it was our turn Christmas 1940.
our back garden had disappeared under the concrete and bricks of an air raid shelter and we children were soon trained to put on our siren suit,pick up our gas mask and go into the shelter at the first warning wail of the siren. Every effort had been made to make the shelter comfortable with bunk beds and Dad had wired up an electric light so my brother and I thought it a great adventure.We soon changed our minds when the bombing started and we watched from the nearby high ground as Manchester burned.
Just prior to Christmas Dad took me to visit my Grandma and Auntie living on the other side of the City. We were on the point of leaving when the sirens started to wail so it was decided that we would stay and share a neighbour's shelter,so we sat all night and listened to the drone of the heavy bombers overhead as they tried to find the Docks and Trafford Park (the major industrial estate) and as a consequence when they were not succcessful in this they off loaded their bombs over Manchester City. The following morning we set off to try and return home. There was no public transport but we were fortunate in getting lifts towards the city centre. We carefully picked our way through city streets where Firemen were still fighting
the blazes from hugh city warehouses and water ran along the gutters.
It was many hours before a very weary Dad and Daughter were back with the rest of the family who had spent the night not knowing where we were or if we were safe.
I will never forget my peep into Dantes Inferno that Christmas night.

My birthday present September 1941 was a school bag,leather, and incredibly heavy even when empty,but very neccessary for my daily journey by tram car to and from the High School.It was always crammed with books etc.,needed for home work. Ahead of me were four wonderfully happy years.
The school was very traditional, old established,co-educational and had a high ratio of male teaching staff. so had lost a number of them to enlistment and their places had been taken by mature staff brought out of retirement or in the case of French lessons by a refugee who had escaped from Europe.
Music was traditional and the corridors where lined with photographs of the school orchestra on their various pre 1939 trips to Germany. The music mistress was an elderly lady of uncertain years who could quell a class of rampant teenagers with one look so it came as a shock when one lunch time she appeared in the school gym and informed us we were going to learn to ballroom dance.She sat down at the piano and played all the latest dance music--Joe Loss--Geraldo--Harry James--Roy Fox----and before long we were mastering the quick step,foxtrot and waltz. It was bliss and some compensation for school dinners which seemed to always be served with prunes.

Time marched on and I lost count of the Forces gloves,socks and balaclavers I knitted along with my Mother who by this time had returned to work as part of the war effort
We listened and waited for any news items either on the radio or at the local cinemas, although we couldnt be sure if we were hearing the truth or propagander and wondered all the time about our own Family.
my Cousin was with the RAF.VR in the Middle East.an Uncle was a gunner in the Royal Marines somewhere at sea,another Uncle a pilot flyimg Wellington bombers and a Cousin only five years my senior newly enlisted to the Fleet Air Arm.

1944 and the tone of the news changed. There was a feeling of elation in the air and a movement of troops around the countyside. The 'Yanks' who had been regular visitors to our playing fields for their baseball games,dissappeared and German Prisoners of War were billetted at the Camp followed by the Italians and soon we were hearing about the North Africa Campaign, the fighting in Italy, and Europe as the the Allies pushed on toward Berlin. Everyone knew,and so it proved to be,that it wowuld not be an easy ride, and we watched and listened with great intensity to every piece of information.
available.
One of the best places for upto date news was the cinema.
The news was screened before the showing of the main picture so it was that when

THE MUSIC ROLLED

THE COCK CROWED THE ANNOUNCER SAID

THIS IS THE GAUMONT BRITISH NEWS

we sat there prepared to see pictures of British Troops in Germany.

No-one had prepared us for what came next

No-one had prepared us for the Hell that was BELSEN.

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