The War Years, 1939 - 1945: Childhood Memories in Waterloo

THE WAR YEARS 1939- 1945

I was 5½ when I started school, my parents saying it was not necessary for a girl to go to school and I was too young anyway, — until the “School Board” caught up with them. I felt happy after my first morning, as the teacher had told me I was “a clever little girl” being the only child in the reception class who could read and “do sums” . I had also seen some brightly coloured wooden building blocks on the top of a cupboard, which I was dying to play with. I looked forward to telling Daddy when he came home for lunch, as we sat round the dining- room table waiting for him.

We heard the rattle of the front gate, the side gate, then the side door. I felt excited until my father stood at the dining-room door, white as a sheet. Mother asked him what was the matter. “We’re at War!” he said.

I listened to a lot of grown-up talk which I didn’t understand, then asked, “What does it mean, Daddy?” In the end he said, “It won’t mean anything to you - except you won’t have any sweeties.” This was a very unfair and unsatisfactory answer to me - as we had never been allowed to have sweets anyway —and had never called them “sweeties”. Dad had been the one to forbid “baby-talk”.

We had not known that War had been declared the previous day, Sunday, 3’~’ September, as we had no radio or telephone and did not buy newspapers.

As an architect and surveyor, Dad was asked to examine buildings which had been bombed or damaged, to assess their structural stability and recommend whether they were worth saving. He also became a Chief Air-Raid Warden in the district. We were then living in Waterloo, a popular sea-side resort at that time, 8 miles north of Liverpool.

Dad would leave the house as soon as the siren whined, in order to be at the A.R.P., H.Q. before anyone else, usually leaving my mother to lift me over the fence and privet hedge to our next-door neighbour, an elderly bachelor who had built an Anderson shelter in his garden. I was wrapped in a fur coat as the air-raid warnings always came after I was in bed.

I hated the damp hessian and sand smell and the dark confinement of the shelter, so the door had to be left open for me. One night we saw something fall down outside the door. It was in the shape of a burning onion, but nothing was found which could have caused it.

One night, my father came back very excited. He wanted us all to go down to the beach at the end of our road, six houses away from where we lived, to see the Bryant & Mays Liverpool match-works on fire. He said it was the biggest” fire-work” display we would ever see. Mother would not let us go, as she was too frightened of a bomb dropping on us. I was not afraid of bombs, as I didn’t really understand the horrors they could bring and was intent on listening to the sound the aeroplanes were making, as Dad had explained that the German planes made a low intermittent, whirring sound whilst the British planes made a steady, higher pitched sound.

I remember arriving at school one day, to find some houses nearby had been bombed. We all went to look at the crater where a couple of families had lived. Some children said they wished it had fallen on the school instead, but I thought it would be awful to be without a school to go to.

My elder brother and I were not allowed to go on the shore, as sand in our shoes and clothes would bring a mess into the house. But, once or twice we went down — once when the beach and the sea were frozen (1940?) and to see the barbed wire and concrete pyramids which had been erected to keep the enemy from surging onto the land. We could also see the barrage balloons suspended like huge silver whales in the sky above Seaforth docks and along the coast to Liverpool. At night time we could see search lights combing the sky in all directions, looking for sightings of the enemy.

My brother prided himself on the number of burnt out incendiary bombs he had collected and kept hidden in a sack in our wash-house, whilst I helped him to find pieces of shrapnel.

Dad made blackout blinds from layers of thick, brown wrapping paper. He painted silhouettes of trees on them so that when the lights were allowed on, from outside it looked like a dim light in a wood.

In November 1940, when I was 6½ , we evacuated to Southport about 12 miles further up the coast. I was told later, that that was the night the one and only bomb fell on Southport. Our family of four walked for what seemed to me to be miles, looking for accommodation. It was bitterly cold and when it became dark, Dad decided to knock on a Doctor’ s door. I think his name was Dr. Hughes. I had not realised Mum was shortly to have a baby and was getting more than anxious. The doctor and his wife took us in temporarily. We then moved in with a Mrs. Linaker where six of my cousins and two of my aunts were staying. Mother had been found a Nursing Home and on Armistice Day, my baby sister was born. Mother stayed in the Nursing Home for two months or so afterwards.

I had already been moved up into the 3rd class at my school in Blundellsands, and my teacher had made my mother promise to send me to school. As soon as we were settled in Southport. We were sent to a school which I really loved, because we had easy sums on coloured cards with pictures on the top, and a “band” lesson where we could use real instruments (though I was disgruntled at not being allowed to use the drum - and was handed a triangle!) At playtime, we went into the big hall where we could buy a ld. bun or a biscuit from the Tuck Shop to have with our third pint of milk and above all there was a wonderful smell of baking bread from Coulton’ s bakery across the road.

Unfortunately, on our third day there, my brother had half a brick thrown at him which narrowly missed his eye. The school was full of evacuees from Liverpool and my mother considered them too rough for us to be with. She told her sister to take us away - we could wait until we went back home to Crosby. This actually meant that my brother missed taking the Scholarship Examinations, something which had repercussions for all of us, as, because he went to our local Grammar School (on an Entrance Exam, later on), neither my sister nor I were allowed to take up the Scholarships we passed to the local Public School. It would have been considered unfair, as we were only girls and didn’t “require the education” a boy needed! It was expected that the girls would stay at home to help Mother in the house when they left school, as her two elder sisters had done, although we had domestic help twice a week. Both parents thought careers for girls were completely unnecessary.

Mrs. Linaker, our landlady in Southport, sent us out into the streets to play — something we had never been allowed to do at home. We would walk through one of the parks and sometimes go down Lord Street, the main shopping street, or along the promenade and squeeze through railings into the closed-up Fairground. I remember going into a large shop with a lift. My brother pushed me out into a storage room on the top floor. It was pitch dark and I screamed as the lift gates clashed to and left me behind. The manager heard me and I had to walk down all the stairs to where my brother and cousins were being told to never go into the shop again.

One day we came across a crowd looking at a small German aeroplane which had landed. I think this was
on Lord Street, although it is more likely to have been on the Promenade. People were saying it was a
miracle it had not caused more damage or killed anyone. I heard a lady saying, “The pilot was only a
young boy, too!” I, of course, imagined a boy of my brother’ s age. James was then ten years old and I
knew that grown-ups considered him to be “a young boy”!

It was in Lord Street, where I picked up a bunch of papers advertising that Harry Lauder would be giving a concert in Southport. I used them to draw on and trace round the red and blue lettering. I wonder if this gave me my interest in calligraphy?

I remember my cousins pushing a pram through a park. My baby sister was in it. Suddenly, one of them exclaimed that I had lost my pixie-hood Mother had knitted in navy blue with a red border. It had obviously slipped off my head. I ran back as quickly as my legs could take me, and as far as I could remember the route, crying and crying. When I felt I was getting lost, I ran back again. They were holding out my pixie-hood which they had hidden under the pram covers.

Mrs. Linaker was cross with us only once. We had watched the coal-man emptying his sacks into the cellar through a trap door. When he had gone, we all slid down the mound of coal into the cellar. Unfortunately, we could not get out again, as the trap door was too high above the stack which had gradually diminished with our weight. The only way out was up the cellar steps. We came out into Mrs. Linaker’ s laundry room — amongst piles of dirty, smelly sheets she had thrown down there! She was not pleased to find grubby marks all over them, especially as washing had to be done in a large gas-heated wash boiler then mangled by hand and hung outside to dry on clothes lines. That was one winter when everything froze stffly on the line and had to be dried indoors until ready for ironing. This was not an enviable task, especially with over ten beds to change!

I remember her reading to us as we sat by the fire on a rag rug. My twin cousins were about a year
younger than I was She gave each of us a turn at sticking a blunt embroidery needle between the pages of
a thick book of stories — and that would be the story she would read.

Then Christmas came. Mother was still in the nursing home. I asked my brother if he thought Father Christmas would come to us. He was 10½ , and laughed at me. “You don’t believe in Father Christmas!” he said, “It’s Mum and Dad who buy everything.” I didn’t believe him, so he showed me a box of Christmas things hidden away in a wardrobe. “But they’ re not from Father Christmas,” I said, “look, this one says ‘With love to Rita from Dad.”’ It was a tall round carton of Tinkertoy, wooden rods and wheel-shapes with which you could build. We shut the wardrobe door and I went to bed with an uneasy feeling.

I was downhearted to find that Dad’ s present filled one of his two black socks (with a tissue paper covered tangerine in the toe.) I was very reproachfiul when Dad asked me if I liked the things in my stocking and still couldn’t understand why his present was in my sock. Dad told me the truth.

My two aunts prepared a wonderful Christmas tea on Christmas Day — but I couldn’t sit down! My cousin whispered to her mother that I had a boil on my bottom. Some days later I was taken by my unmarried aunt to the school clinic. I cried again, “Mummy won’ t let us go to the school clinic ... because you pick up diseases there.” “Well the doctors here are too busy,” she said. She dragged me into a large hall — probably a church hall fixed up as a temporary clinic. I was lifted onto a table and examined painfully. A doctor was sent to the house to lance it and put stitches in. I remember struggling for breath as someone pressed a vile smelling handkerchief over my face.

When I woke up in the dark, I cried Out in pain. I called out for my father. I knew he was in the house as I could hear him playing the violin. My cousin looked in the room and said she would ask Dad to come —but he wouldn’t be disturbed. Looking after a child was a woman’s business. My aunt came up. I told her I wanted a hanky. “It’s your own fault for crying,” she said, “you’re a big baby!” She came back with a cold, wet face-cloth which she threw into my face before she went away again, leaving me once more in the dark.

Thinking of the darkness, I remember we had brooches which shone green in the dark. They were painted with sulphur, I believe. I used to smell mine and lick it. They were later banned when it was found to be harmful — though I doubt they were as harmful as the coloured matches which we used to suck, pretending they were lollipops!

Soon after we returned home from Southport, Dad stood me on a chair in the dining-room and asked me, “What do you want to call your new baby sister?” “Priscilla,” I replied, having just read a story about a little girl of that name. He consulted Mum in the kitchen, then made the suggestion, “What about Sylvia?” he asked, “It’s a bit like Priscilla, but there’ s a Sylvia in a play by Shakespeare.” He explained that Shakespeare was a very famous writer. ..and I lost interest in the name...whatever.

About that time we were issued with gas-masks in cardboard boxes which we had to carry to school with a strap over our shoulders. We had constant air-raid practices, walking in twos, without talking, into the shelters across the road from the school, which seemed to stretch for miles underground. They smelled of the damp earth and the hessian sand-bags which covered the shelter. We walked on boards, and as there was only very dim lighting, we had to hold on to each other especially as we negotiated turning corners. We had long benches to sit on where we spent most of our time reciting times- tables, reciting poems and singing songs. Some of our favourite songs were “It’ s a long way to Tipperary”, “Pack up your troubles”, “Hang up your washing on the Siegfried Line”, “Roll out the Barrel”, “The Quartermaster’ s Store”
“There is a Tavern in the Town”, and “Ten green bottles”, as well as favourite hymns such as “Onward Christian Soldiers”, “Mine Eyes Have Seen the Gloty”, and “Eternal Father, Strong to Save” and songs we’ d been learning in school such as “Cherry Ripe”, “Golden Slumbers”, “Soldier, soldier, won’t you marry me?” “In Poland there’s a Polish Inn” and “All through the Night”. The nearest we had to a “pop” song was “We’ll meet again”. We also practised putting on our gas-masks and made funny noises when we blew out and the rubbery sides vibrated against our cheeks.

At home-time we sometimes climbed the wooden padlocked gates of the shelters and groped our way to the other end in the dark. I had great difficulty getting out! Sometimes we climbed on the sand-bags on top of the shelters, which ripped them open, so we slid down the sand as it poured out. Nearby there was a huge galvanised tank of water for emergency use, marked E.W. S. in large letters.

One night Dad brought home a large gas-mask into which the baby could be strapped. You could see her through a large perspex window. None of us liked the idea — but Dad said it would be used only in an emergency.

Being War Time, everything seemed to be scarce. Sylvia had to be put into a large drawer for a cot until one could be bought for her. When it came, it was made of thin curved ply-wood painted pale green with a rabbit motif on one end. Everything, including blankets had a “Utility” sign or tag on them. We had some grey blankets with WD painted on them in black — some pale grey ones which were very rough and darker grey ones which were softer — and after the War some of these were tailor-made into dressing gowns.

I was always cold. In that winter Mother dressed me in knee-high black, leather lace-up boots, (which none of the other children wore), an itchy woollen vest, (allergies weren’ t thought about in those days), long black itchy, woollen stockings with suspenders attached to my “Liberty Bodice” (a fleecy-lined, tight fitting bodice which I was made to wear up to the age of 16 — whilst the other girls all wore bras), a pair of my brother’ s “combs” which itched, two pairs of knickers — one fleecy-lined with a pocket in! a flannel underskirt, a hand- knitted woollen dress or navy gym-slip and a woolly hand-me-down jersey from my brother, an itchy woollen scarf; a navy gabardine and my pixie-hood with a khaki Balaclava helmet over — which I hated. I suppose she did her best to keep me warm — but one winter we had snow which was piled high above my head height as I walked to school — possibly the winter the sea froze.

At school there was only a coal fire to heat the class-room as the boiler had burst. Sometimes we would stand to do exercises to keep warm, then squeeze as near as possible to the fire to listen to a story, wearing our out-door clothes. We had no central-heating at home, either, and as draughts always blew under the doors, our legs and faces might burn with the fire, but our backs would be icy cold. Water was heated by a “back boiler” on our weekly bath nights. If the water wasn’t hot enough we had to carry kettles full of boiling water upstairs, but we were allowed to use only 4’ of water anyway. I was the first to have a bath, then my brother in the same water, then Mum, then Dad. Sylvia was washed in the sink or in a zinc bath by the fire. There was no heating in the bathroom except for some warmth from the airing cupboard.

Very few people had cars or even bicycles. We walked everywhere. The War had just finished when I started the Grammar school which was 1’~ miles away — over a railway-crossing or a railway bridge, through a park and across two busy main-roads — but we felt safe in those days. I usually caught a bus home at lunch time (then called dinner time) because of the time factor. That cut out a mile of walking. Children who lived more than a mile from school were allowed a book of green bus tickets each week, sufficient for one return journey each school day. Many children had started to stay at school for dinner.

As vegetarians our family were given an extra ration of cheese. We had more than we needed, so exchanged some with a neighbour who took sandwiches to work with him, for concentrated orange juice, (meant for babies,) which they did not like but we did!

NO food was wasted. (In spite of having no refrigerators — just a cold slab in a small larder in the wall of the kitchen.) Left over vegetables were mixed with mashed potatoes and nuts or cheese for rissoles the next day. Water the vegetables had been cooked in was made into gravy. Dried up bread was damped down and toasted — or dipped in reconstituted dried egg and fried. (Dried eggs tasted vile — rather like the sulphur!) Some was made into bread and butter pudding — or Summer pudding. We would be sent about two miles away to pick blackberries from near the woods.

Clothing was usually hand-made or bought a size or two large and turned up, to be let down as needed All socks and lisle stockings were darned and elbows of cardigans and pullovers. Some clothes were “turned” or even re-knitted and always passed on to a younger child. I had to wear my brother’ s Fair Isle patterned brown, cream and blue pullovers even at the Grammar School — and make my own blouses and summer dresses. Sheets were cut down the worn centre — and the edges joined together. “Make do and Mend” leaflets with good ideas were collected and instructions carefully followed. Everyone tried digging up at least part of their gardens to make an allotment in the “Dig for Victory” campaign.

At the shops there were always queues for food of any kind. You had to register at a local shop to be served with staple foods, in case people cheated.

I remember paper being salvaged and books collected. Some books were kept at school to share as library books — as books were hard to come by — (and none of the war-time books had pictures in them), others went to the “War Effort”. We were given little card discs at school, with Sergeant or Colonel or Corporal written on in red, with V shaped stripes when we had collected a certain amount, so we would go from door to door in the neighbourhood collecting for “Salvage”. All the iron railings seemed to disappear from houses and buildings such as libraries. This was also supposed to be for the “War Effort”.

At school, our feet were measured. Anyone who wore size one shoes or over were given extra coupons. We were all given “Namco” powder to take home. We were told it came from America and made a chocolate flavoured drink.

I remember seeing the Mauritania sailing into Liverpool, passing the end of our road. All the neighbours had gone to the sea-wall to watch her. She looked black against the sunset and her lights were still on. People stood silently ,as they knew she’d be filled with troops going off to war.

I suppose growing up with the War, everything seemed “normal” to us and our lives changed only gradually afterwards. My aunt bought my brother a wireless when I was 10 and he was 14. We squabbled over it, as I wanted to listen to “Toy Town” and “Out with Romany”, my brother wanted the “Forces programme” and “Dick Barton, Special Agent”. He always won because it was his radio.

Our family went on holiday to Carnforth, in the Lake District, in August 1945. We stayed in a lovely house called “Hall Garth”. An enormous bonfire was built on the Village Green to celebrate Victory in Japan (V.J.Day) and our parents let us go to stand by the fire with the village children. At home there were always large bonfires built at the end of each road on the shore for Guy Fawkes Night and there was a lot of rivalry as to which road built the largest bonfire. One year there was an outcry as the children from the next road were seen taking wood from our bonfire to put onto their fire! All this had to stop, of course during the War, which would make the V.J. bonfires all the more special.

I started College in 1952 (after a tussle with my parents and the backing of the headmistress). We all had to supply our own butter ration. Our own individual pots of butter were kept in a cupboard outside the Dining Hall. Mine didn’t go very far,as not having the gravy made from meat stock, I liked to have some butter on my potatoes. I also made myself toast when the others had Cornish pasties for tea-in-our-rooms at the week-end. I cycled home at holiday time (if my mother allowed me to) 20 miles away. It was mostly downhill. Going back was a lot harder.

So, we were “at peace” again. We still had to be thrifty in our ways, but we wanted not just wirelesses, but telephones and televisions. More people were using cars. Dad bought his first one, a second-hand Morris 8, in 1952 after my brother died, aged 22. James had spent two years of his life doing compulsory National Service in the RAE. and had come home with cancer in both lungs from mainly secondary smoking. It was a year or two later that we had a telephone — on a “shared line”. How my brother would have loved having a telephone and driving a car. I always think of him when I hear a bugle blown, as, when he was in the cadets at the Grammar School, he had brought a bugle home and we both learnt to play it.

Two things remain in my mind from early school days — Empire Day when every child took a Union Jack to school to wave and the headmaster talked about the British Empire, showing us all the countries which were coloured pink on the world map and telling us we should be proud of being British, and proud of things made in Britain, for they were always well made. Also, I remember Armistice Day when we stood silently at our desks for two minutes and thought not only of the service men who lost their lives or were still fighting for us — but of all the hospitals, the offices, factories and transport which would be at a standstill at 11 o’ctock honouring them.

I hope we learnt something from the War. Maybe that s just wishful thinking.

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