Living under occupation - entertainment

Variety, that was another thing that we enjoyed. We children, and my sister and I used to tap dance and sing on the stage. The Germans were present; there was Germans and locals. Well, the locals loved coming because there were some comedians that used to make us laugh, and that was a good tonic for everybody. But once, my sister and I were dressed in red, white and blue and the Germans made us get off the stage, and we had to get a black instead of a blue, because red, white and blue wasn’t the right thing to wear. But we enjoyed those days. Entertainment on the whole was very good, and a lot of the older people made their own entertainment. They got together in school rooms, and houses. We used to have a tune on the piano at home, and have a sing song, and get friends in to play cards: euchre and whist. I remember the neighbours used to be climbing over the walls, because it was after curfew, to get home, you know. But the curfews weren’t very good; I mean, people had to be in sometimes at nine o’ clock at night, ten o’ clock.

There was the cinema, and there was films there with either German subtitles or English subtitles, wherever, there wasn’t every week, but there were certain times. My father decided he was going to the cinema once, and he asked me to join him, so we went, and there was always Germans on each exit door; they just watched to see that you weren’t smoking. Then, there was a ration of cigarettes, of course, but they weren’t allowed to smoke, and you had to behave yourselves. Then my father, because of the newsreel — there was always a newsreel saying there had been German direct hits on our boats. Of course, my father burst out laughing when he heard that, and the Germans came from the exits, and they came to him. They said, “Right, fine — ten marks”, and he was fined a pound for laughing! So, my father said, “Right, that’s it, never again”, he said, “I’m not going to the Victor’s any more”. So we never went to the Victor’s, although it was just two minutes down the road, in St Julian’s Avenue. But, entertainment-wise, I don’t think we did too badly at all, and, as I say, there was a lot of laughs, and a lot of enjoyment.
MOLLY BIHET

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