World War II - Memories of a Coventry Child

World War II - Memories of a Coventry Child

I was five when war was declared. Because we lived in an industrial city, Coventry, it was decided that my mother and I should move north to stay on a farm near Penrith in Cumberland, whilst my father remained in Coventry where his work was. I had a great time on the farm especially as horses were used for all jobs such as ploughing and going to collect supplies from the agricultural merchants in Penrith.

In April 1940 my mother and I returned to Coventry, partly because it had not come under attack and partly because it was time for me to start my schooling. My main wartime memories from that time up to the Blitz (14th November) are of increasingly having to go down the air raid shelter in the grounds of Bablake School: eventually it became a nightly ritual. Also, during the day we often could see the German reconnaissance plane coming over when we were in the school playground.

The night of the Blitz (14th November 1940) we were in the air raid shelter when we were told that we would have to move as an unexploded bomb had landed nearby. My mother took me to a vicarage about a quarter of a mile away, and there we were offered the use of a proper bed rather than the benches we had become used to. No sooner had we got comfortable than the ARP wardens came and told us to move on again because of incendiaries/land mines. So once more my mother had to pick me up in her arms and trudge the streets of Coventry in the dark seeking refuge at another shelter about a mile away. Eventually we ended up with an acquaintance of my parents at Allesley on the outskirts of the city, but how we got there I cannot remember. Whilst all this had been going on my father had been doing his regular fire watching at his place of employment and was unaware of the perambulations of his family.

The next day we learnt that for a second time our home had been totally destroyed, it having only just having been repaired from an earlier attack the previous month. This time the German bombers had done a proper job and the only item that was salvaged was a scorched dining room chair (which I still have). Like many others we lost everything and became reliant on the generosity of others for obtaining even simple, everyday items such as towels, cutlery and crockery. Today, my wife still has in her kitchen drawer knives and tablespoons which my mother collected from the aid station set up in the Coventry Technical College immediately after the Blitz.

I still have a vivid recollection of the expression on the faces of some of the city’s firemen the next morning. Never have I seen men looking so tired, exhausted and frustrated. They had had a ghastly night, as early in the raid the Germans had bombed the waterworks.

We were fortunate in that next door to my parents’ acquaintances lived the local MP, a Capt Strickland. He had a large dwelling, Allesley House, and took in three families: ourselves, the Rev. Clitheroe and his family (he was vicar of the Holy Trinity Church next to the Cathedral and also severely damaged), and a third family, Mr and Mrs Bill I think was their name. There was a large garden where my father was able to have an allotment, and a marvellous daily, Mrs Wilson. She was most definitely queen of the ‘downstairs’, and needed to be with four families all trying to cook in the one kitchen at the same time, and she saying it was time to black the grate!

Amongst the properties destroyed, of which the Cathedral is the best known, was my school. Thus I lost both home and school simultaneously. However, the two sisters who ran the Holyhead Road Preparatory School, the Misses Hooper, quickly re-established it in two rooms of their small semi-detached house, and there it remained until I left in 1944.

One incident worth recalling is that shortly after the Blitz there was a special service in the ruins of the Cathedral at which the Bishop preached. There might in fact have not been a sermon if a small six-year had not noticed the bishop’s sermon notes blow out of his pocket and scampered to rescue them. I got my first episcopal blessing for that!

Another incident I remember with amusement is the day that I picked up a cylindrical metal object in the garden of Allesley House. With schoolboy glee I went running into the house shouting “Look, Daddy, what I have found!” Consternation all round: father grabbed the object and stuffed it hard into the nearest sand filled fire bucket. Apparently, I had picked up an unexploded landmine! Ah well, I am still here to tell the tale.

After we had been at Allesley House for about two years Capt Strickland decided to cease being an MP and to move. This meant that the three families living there also had to move. Of course, accommodation was scare and you had to take what was available. During the remainder of the war we had at least three homes, all rented and with no protection from eviction. On one occasion I returned home from school to find our few belongings on the front lawn. Apparently, the main tenant from whom we rented a couple of rooms had defaulted on their rent. Therefore through no fault of ours we were left homeless. Our last accommodation provided by the local council took the form of my parents living in a hostel whilst I had to live in a nearby children’s home. It was that or nothing, and we were not the only ones.

What do I remember of VE Day. Not a lot. I would have been at school (Coventry Preparatory School) and we probably would have received a piece of the special broken chocolate which the headmaster’s Canadian cousin used to send over, and which normally was given out as a reward for very good work. It was not unknown for one to receive a caning one day and chocolate the next!.

I think my response was a feeling of thank goodness that is over.. Maybe, because of our accommodation difficulties there was not as much rejoicing as there might otherwise have been. The war may have finished in May and August 1945, but our day to day lives did not suddenly change. No one said on VE or VJ Day “the war is over, here’s a house”.

Also, perhaps because my parents had lived for two years in the 1920s in Sarawak and Singapore their joy at the ending of the war in Europe was tempered by the fact that hostilities were still continuing in the Far East.

What was the effect of the war? First of all, the deprivation of at least six years of my childhood during which I lost my home twice and my school. Also, because of our frequent enforced change of home it was difficult for either my parents or myself to form lasting friendships.

Secondly, it taught one to be self-reliant more quickly than might otherwise have been the case For example, because of the various homes I had, I sometimes had to cycle up to five miles each way to and from school in all weathers — no school transport or cars to school in those days. Nevertheless despite the ensuing home and school insecurity we lived as normal a life as possible. My parents often took me to the cinema to see the Walt Disney and other hits of the day. My mother was an accomplished pianist/organist and I accompanied her to rehearsals of the choirs she accompanied or conducted — names which have since long gone, such as the Standard Motors,

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