Life and Holidays at No 9

Life and Holidays at No 9

One Saturday I had to dash in to go to the loo, I’d left it to the last minute as usual, so I had to wait to find out what was going on in Muriel’s room whilst I attended to natures needs. Blimey there certainly was great activity going on in her bedroom.
Before going out to re-join the gang my curiosity had to be satisfied, I opened the door and was met with Muriel’s, “What do you want, go and mind your own business?” “We’ll have less of that young lady, just because you’ve got to make a sacrifice, you’ll have to do more than this before you’re through and don’t you forget it.” “What’s going on Mum?” I ask. Mums reply stuns me, “Auntie Babs is coming to live with us until the wars over.”
If I’d understood what depression was, well I’d have been depressed as I lumbered down the stairs with my head resting on my shoes, I think I’ll have to find Harry and tell him my sad news. Then I thought, well its not all bad news as I realised what had made Muriel so bad tempered; she’s was going to have to share her bedroom. This cheered me up, just a tiny bit, but oh blimey - Auntie Babs. This was all because her house had been commandeered by the government.
When I first sneaked a peek into their room I couldn’t believe my eyes, the goods and chattels she’d brought with her were stacked high against the fireplace wall completely hiding it. The double bed had been turned with one side up against the opposite wall to make more space, and they needed it; it now left a thirty-inch, corridor from the door to the dressing table in the bay window.
In the spring of 1942 Mum got a part-time job as a Home Help; this could have been her war effort occupation couldn’t it. When I was older I often wondered why Mum went out to work with her bad health and Babs stayed at home looking after Muriel and me. She’d never done a days work in her life and it would have done her the world of good getting her hands dirty.
‘What’s good for the goose is good for the gander’ must have become Babs’s motto. Towards the end of 1944 she had somehow found out that Geoffrey was seeing another woman down in Hendon where he was stationed. This must have devastated her; Geoffrey was the love of her life
With the proverb in mind she started going to Warrington and Altrincham, these were the towns where the Yanks spent most of their free time when off duty from their nearby Air Base at Burtonwood.
She brought a few home to meet us all, they always gave me some chewing gum and chocolate, and Mum was given a couple of parcels of goodies from their PX store. These contained tea and coffee, tinned meats and fruit and an assortment of chocolates and sweets.
Children followed the American service men around saying, “Got any gum chum?” This usually resulted in a few sticks being given out. I have to say that the few that I met were always very polite, what you would call Gentlemen. What the neighbours thought I don’t know, at that age I don’t think I thought about it to be honest. The well-versed saying about the Yanks was “Over Sexed, Over Paid and Over Here”.
It was the Yanks that started the graffiti slogan ‘Kilroy Was Here’ and another wall and poster drawing was that of ‘Chad’ — “Wot, no Petrol” or what ever else was in short supply. I suppose you could put most things in this category as almost everything was in short supply. Chad was a drawing of a wall with a half round head with one hair stood on end in the middle of it. The face was just two dots for the eyes, and two little hands gripping the top of the wall, then the slogan was written underneath. Another poster showed ‘The Squanderbug’ portrayed as a sort of beetle that had swastikas all over it and Mr Hitler’s hair, he was a warning about wasting the nation’s resources and we were encouraged to kill him. We always referred to Hitler as ‘Mr Hitler’, I think in a sarcastic way.
A caller that made a lot of people’s hearts miss a beat during the war years was that of a young man in a navy blue uniform with their wide leather black belts that had a leather pouch fastened to the front, a little pillbox hat with a red stripe round it completed the picture along with their familiar red bikes. These were ‘The Telegraph Boy’s’ with their little 4x3 inch yellow envelopes. Every one who had a loved one serving their Country who was away from home ever wanted him knocking on his or her door because it could be bad news.
Mums heart missed a beat in the early part of May 1944. She had answered the door one evening to find a telegram boy stood on the step, the dreaded yellow envelope in his hand, yes it was for Mum, and I’m glad to say not bad news. It read something like this. “Have w/e pass can’t come home -stop- Come to W-S-M Fri-stop- will phone Tue night 10o/c-stop.” It turned out that he and his friend from Cheadle, Fred Townley, had a weekend’s leave and weren’t allowed home, it turned out that it would be the last leave they’d have for quite sometime.
So one day in May Mum took a trip to Western-Super-Mare; she met up with Fred’s wife at the railway station in Manchester and they travelled down together. When she got back she told us that Dad didn’t know why he wasn’t allowed home.
Towards the end of June Mum received a letter from Dad. It was post marked ‘FROM SOMEWHERE IN EUROPE’ Dad wrote that the mystery of the weekend pass had been revealed. A few days after Mum had left for home Dad’s lot were moved across country to Hunstanton. Dad had been on the second landing at Normandy. The retaliatory invasion of Europe had begun on the northern beaches of France, June 6th 1944.
In letters he wrote later he told us how he had to drive his truck onto a big net on the ships' deck and instructed to keep his engine running at all times. Then the ships crane picked it up, he and his truck were then swung out over the side into about three-foot of water and he then had to drive up onto the beach and get onto the road as quickly as possible.
My sister Carole Anne was born on11th January 1945, twelve years after me; this was the result of Mum’s trip to Weston Super Mare. Mum told us years later that they blamed the conception on a boiled egg; we never did find out why.
Our wireless came from Uncle George’s factory; today it would be called ‘A Freebie’. Muriel and I would listen to Children’s Hour, (but it only lasted half an hour) with Uncle Mac (Derek McCulloch). That was until Muriel thought it below her age group to listen in to it anymore. This was also the case with ‘The Ovaltinies’ that was broadcast about seven o’clock. She’d say to me “Still listening to that silly program then,” and try to turn it off; she enjoyed trying to put me down and caused no end of trouble. She didn’t fool Mum though.
When I was older I enjoyed ‘ITMA’ with Tommy Handley, not that I understood most of the innuendo. ITMA stood for “It’s That Man Again”. Coming in a close second was ‘In Town Tonight’; the presenter would shout, “STOP” during the signature tune. He would then say, “Once again we stop the roar of London’s traffic to bring you,” then he’d name the night’s guests. The other weekly show we enjoyed was Music Hall, half way through they had a quiz called ‘Penny on the Drum’, this started with the sound of a coin spinning and falling on the drum.
Mums favourite programme was ‘The Brains Trust’, with a panel of four prominent clever people to answer questions Mum said it gave her brain some exercise trying to get to the solution before the clever so and so’s. We had to keep quiet during this program or we got into trouble.
On Sunday, Jean Metcalfe presented a programme called ‘Two Way Family Favourites’. From a studio in London she played requests, sent in from loved ones for their men and women who were serving King and Country overseas.
Among the comedians who came on the wireless to try and cheer us all up were Arthur Askey, Max Wall, and Rob Wilton. Rob always started off with his now famous saying “The day war broke out, my misses said to me.” And how could anyone forget the toothless antics of Norman Evans. He performed his renowned ‘Over the Garden Wall’ sketches with wit and accuracy. He portrayed the rotund large busted busy body woman discussing the affairs of others with the imaginary woman next door.
Some of the other comic acts were Ted Ray, Jack Warner and Vic Oliver. Vic always had his violin with him, throughout his act he pretends not to be able to play it properly. Then at the end he would he would play something fantastic. ‘The Weston Brothers’, just the two of them, one played the piano whilst the other sang funny songs. There weren’t many lady comediennes, but one of the favourite acts was Gert and Daisy. Of course there were many, many more, artists, this has just been a few of them.

Holidays
It was the late summer of 1944 and Mum was taking me on holiday to Scarborough.
When we eventually arrived at the boarding house on Blands Cliff it was down a very steep narrow road leading down to the south promenade and the beach.
It had a reasonable view of the sea but a flat roofed building across the way was covered with coils of barbed wire, which partly obscured the view. The part of the beach nearest to the sea had large concrete blocks set in it and posts with barbed wire coils spread between them.
Even on holiday you couldn’t forget there was a war going on.
One of the highlights of the week was when three lorry loads of soldiers descended onto the Prom. The soldiers jumped out of the lorries, they were very quick because a sergeant was shouting at them. Forming ranks he ran them onto the beach where he ran them about 200 yards up and down a few times. Some minutes later I was thrilled to see the arrival of a tank sat upon a tank transporter, just like my Dad drew for me on a letter to Mum. The engine of the large tank was started up with a thunderous roar and a great belching cloud of black smoke erupted from the exhaust tubes. After the engine had warmed up it was driven off the trailer and onto the beach, where it went up and down a few times between two ranks of soldiers. Then it was driven back onto the transporter; the soldiers jumped back in the lorries and off they went. I heard a man say, “What the bloo**”, then he saw me, “ruddy hell was all that about then, a complete waste off time and money if ever I saw one.” He Tut-tut-ed and walked off in disgust.
I didn’t care, I quite enjoyed the exhibition. In some respects it was nearly as good as the Punch and Judy shows that took place on the beach, not forgetting the religious meetings that took place every Sunday during the holiday period. On these occasions I never got near to the front, I stood near the rear; you could walk away when you wanted without being Tut-tut-ed at.
Best of all I loved going to the underground amusement park called ‘Gala Land’. It first opened in 1877 as ‘The Peoples Palace’ and held one of the largest aquariums in the UK. This entertainment centre was purchased in 1928 by the Scarborough Council and after a few alterations and additions it was re-opened as ‘Gala Land’ some years later.
I had earned my spends by my own efforts; the neighbours soon cottoned on that something was in the wind, even if Mum hadn’t told them we were going away. I had been knocking on their doors or stopping them in the avenue to ask if they wanted anything doing in their garden, any errands running, or if they had any jars or pop bottles they didn’t want. Some would hand their stock over knowing I would take them to the shop and get the penny deposit back. This always brought the remark from some shopkeepers; “You didn’t get that one, from here, you’ll have to hunt around to get your penny on that one my lad”. I could not knock on the good person’s door and ask “Please, where did you get this from.” So being desperate I had to do what the shopkeeper said; hunt round till I was lucky.
In the summer of 1947 Dad hired a car to take us to Bridlington; Granddad Scott had died in the January so we took Grandma and Auntie Dorothy with us. On the way home we had a break down so Auntie Babs and Uncle Geoffrey came over to Leeds to take the ladies home. Dad and I had to stay in a B&B.
We travelled home the next day and on the journey Dad related some of his experiences whist in the RASC division of the army. The first was a bit of a moan, but now I’m older I can sympathise. It was that in 1941 when he was called up he was thirty-nine and one month, just months away from being exempt. He had done his entire square bashing and training alongside men of eighteen, mere lads he said; that alone nearly killed him, never mind a Jerry bullet.
He told me about the invasion, Dad had been on the second landing at Normandy. The retaliatory invasion of Europe had begun on the northern beaches of France, June 6th 1944.
In letters he wrote later he told us how he had to drive his truck onto a big net on the ships' deck and was instructed to keep his engine running at all times. Then the ships crane picked it up, he and his truck were then swung out over the side into about three-foot of water and he then had to drive up onto the beach and get onto the road as quickly as possible.
When he was driving in convoy through Belgium they pulled up on a wide road that had fruiting apple trees down each side, the soldiers were picking the apples but not many were eaten, apart from them not being ready for picking, they were cider type and very sour.
He said “Bye gum it was hot, and I mean very hot, we were nearly passing out with the heat. During one stop, they happened to be near a farm, Dad noticed a group of men all stood looking at a bonnet of one of the Lorries. Being curious, (had it been me it would be called being nosey), he walked up to look; they were trying to cook eggs on the hot bonnet.
Driving into Hamburg some weeks later it was a very different story; it was almost flat, Dad told me there was hardly one brick standing on another. He then recalled that when they were waiting to embark on the invasion, the sky went black with the amount of bombers going towards Germany. Wave after wave passed over, hundreds and hundreds of planes. They all said someone’s going to cop it, but he didn’t think they’d see the result of this massive bombing raid.
One of his pals had a near miss one night as he slept under his truck, he got up to spend a penny and when he got back he found a lump of shrapnel from a near by exploding shell had embedded in his make shift pillow, having come through his truck’s bonnet and deflected off the axle.
Well I’m glad to say we made it home without any further trouble, Dad said the car ran like a dream and that we should have broke down on our way to Brid. “Anyway Peter, it’s saved us having to call at Park Avenue,” he said with a chuckle.
Mum put the kettle on and we were soon tucking into bacon and eggs whilst she made a pot of tea. She told us that she didn’t think Babs was too pleased at being called out at that time of night.

From ‘TIMPERLEY BOY’ by Peter Scott - Published by Churnet Valley Books Leek Staffordshire

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