The War Remembered

Wwii PEOPLES’ WAR

Story Title: The War Remembered
Name: John Warner
Other People in Story: John Henry Warner (Grandfather), my Mother (Ethel Warner), my father (Arthur Warner), my sister Bridgett, and my brother Laurence.
Location: Dracaena Avenue, Falmouth

“I was born in 1938 in Merton Park, Wimbledon. My mother took my sister and I out to the Sudan where my father was employed as a shipbroker.

At the outbreak of hostilities in 1939 my mother, my sister, who was two years older than me, and I were in Falmouth, as my mother found the heat and humidity in the Sudan too oppressive, and my Grandfather moved us to a house next to his in Dracaena Avenue, Falmouth, leaving my Father in Port Sudan, Sudan.

As my father was unable to return home during the war my grandfather became a ‘surrogate’ father, as he lived next door with my Aunt Marjorie and Uncle Tommy, who was a schoolmaster. My brother Laurence was born in December 1939.

Early memories of the war are understandably very hazy, being roused from sleep to go to the large air-raid shelter in the back garden, the chilling sound of the siren, which was only a quarter of a mile away in the Recreation Ground, and the relief of hearing the all-clear’. My grandfather had had the shelter built in our back garden for my Aunt and Uncle, himself, and our family.

Memories of 1943 and 1944 are much clearer. There was quite an influx of American troops in 1943, several houses were requisitioned in the Avenue for their accomodation, and we had two GI’s to Christmas Dinner in 1943, Fred and Red, who signed the seasonal crepe paper tablecloth, which bore the many signatures of Christmases past.

My sister and I were going to a private ‘dame’ school in Florence Terrace by then and I was often allowed to go alone. I’ve always been a collector and ‘scavenger’ and went with my nose proverbially in the gutter. Consequently I acquired quite a collection of shrapnel, bullet heads and cartridges of various calibres, along with brass services badges, and also other war memorabilia. My Uncle was in the Home Guard and allowed me to play sometimes with some of his equipment.

My Grandfather took us on many a long walk during the school holidays, partly for our benefit and partly to relieve my over worked Mother. We had evacuees from London, Mr and Mrs Cowie, and their daughters, Cynthia and Daphne, who occupied the attic and slept on mattresses on the floor. Mrs Cowie helped my mother around the house and also took me on walks. Her husband was in the army, a non-combatant, and the girls went to the local Girls High School. My mother also had a couple of ‘dailies’, Mrs Olive Lendrum and one called just Minnie.
We saw a lot of Falmouth on our walks, especially many war installations. The barrage balloon site at the bottom of Marlborough Avenue, just below the railway bridge, the large water tank in the grounds of Emmanuel Baptist Church in Western Terrace, the scaffolding and barbed wire that spanned Gyllyngvase Beach with the gap in the middle with a mesh track laid on the sand to embark vehicles into landing craft from pontoons.; the anti-aircraft gun on Wodehouse Terrace, the tank traps in Bickland Water Road, the pill boxes, and the mysterious tarpaulin covered equipment sited in various corners of walls with the WD markings painted on the wall behind.

Many war words survive in my memory; salvage, ‘squanderbugs’, the need not to waste anything, “Don’t forget there’s a war on”, and “It’s on ration”. The News Chronicle brought out their children’s’ Japhet and Happy Annuals at the time with parodies of familiar songs with alternative patriotic words; “What shall we do with the drunken sailor?” became “What shall we do with our bones and rubber, . . . . . rubber keeps the Spitfires going, bones will keep the crops agrowing, everything will keep us going, early in the morn!”

We three children had a Morrison Shelter in 1943 and it was installed in our utility room. We slept in it on some nights, and even used it during the day when the Germans mounted some of their more daring daylight raids. Dracaena Avenue escaped most of the bombing, though a stick of bombs landed in someone’s garden in Tregenver Road behind our house, but failed to explode. The oil wells in Swanvale were hit in 1944, lighting up the night sky to our south, a pall of black smoke hung around for many days, and of course the notorious raid also in 1944 when the hotels on the sea-front were hit. My Grandfather took us to see the aftermath, the Boscawen Hotel virtually demolished, and I well remember the side of another hotel, one side of which was completely sheered off exposing the rooms and their contents.

1944 was really exciting as the build up of American troops increased, prior to the D-Day landings, though we didn’t know the reason for so may soldiers coming into the town. All we knew was that they were a source of chewing gum, pennies, and oranges, with which we were showered as convoys of trucks came down our Avenue. We would often spend hours out in the Avenue watching and waiting until the cry of “Convoy!” went up on the approach of vehicles.

One of the most poignant and memorable memories for me was when my mother was purchasing a green tie for me in Bests the Outfitters in Church Street. I had the audacity to ask my mother the price, and the assistant immediately retorted, “If you ask the price of things in the time of war you need a smack son!” He delivered the admonishment so rapidly that both my mother and I were stunned to silence. The memories of the end of the war in 1945 were of VE-Day when all the church bells were rung, their was a cacophony of ships hooters from the Docks, and being put to bed and then woken up at about 11 p.m. and taken to the Recreation Ground to where a bonfire had been lit and they were singing “Roll Out the Barrel” amongst other songs.”

My father was able to get home by ship, via the Cape of Good Hope in 1944, though I remember waiting patiently on Penmere Halt platform in the gloom of a November misty morning as successive trains failed to deliver him. He eventually arrived later in the day, a stranger to us, the only stories I remember him telling us were about his being in the Sudan Auxiliary Force, the equivalent of the Home Guard out there, where he was a ‘bimbashi’, a captain. He told us that he had attempted to machine gun an Italian aeroplane from the roof of his office, and on his trip home by ship in the Atlantic the crew had depth-charged what they took to be an enemy U-Boat, only to find out it was a whale which was blown to bits!

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