WW2 Life

WW2 Interview

I was about 12 or 13 when the 2nd world war broke out.
I can remember it very well as I was at school during the war so hopefully my experience will be rather useful.
I think the war affected everything, even the country. I had an elder brother and he was just finishing off his training as a doctor, so of course he was whipped straight off into the army as he was a suitable age. And my father meanwhile was drafted into work of national importance. You weren’t allowed to do just what you wished to do and he was drafted into ministry of war supplies, dealing with iron and steel. Anyway he was evacuated, so off he went to Warwick castle, and he stayed there most of the war rather comfortably! There were peacocks and everything in the grounds. It was really nice! And while the rest of us sat in a bomb shelter! It was very peaceful there. I remember about our school a lot. Our school remained open during the war. But when we got to about 1943 and the V1’s and V2’s started falling, then everything closed and I was sent off to Monmouthshire. I stayed there quite a long time with some friends of friends, but people did look after each other then. Well more than they do now anyway! But in fact it’s interesting, because I can remember that when the world war first started, the children were sent to America and Canada and I believe to South Africa. But I didn’t know anyone who was sent to South Africa. But I was down to go to some friends of ours who live in Vancouver, Canada and I had a friend who was going to stay with relatives in Toronto so we were going to travel together by ship from Southampton to new York then they would take you and put you on the Canadian pacific railway, because there was no flying. And that was all arranged; that we were to go, that we would go together and be company for each other. But on the boat before we were due to go or the boat before that was a ship full of children that was torpedoed and all the children drowned. So after that they stopped sending children abroad deciding that it would be better for them to stay in England, and you know, take their chance! However, I had an absolutely super time in Monmouthshire though. Yes, because it was a long way from home and the war and everything seemed to be rather, well maybe not relaxed, but much more relaxed than at home. The food was much more plentiful. I lived in a large farm community and it was all great fun. So we all enjoyed it. There were girls there from some bigger cities. Manchester, Sheffield, Birmingham who were on the land as land girls. It was a great time. But talking about friends, I can clearly remember the friends I used to have back at home. I suppose you really kept the friends you already had, but it was a drifting sort of population. I mean there were children that came to our school as refugees. From Germany, they were largely Jewish but that didn’t really matter to us at all. I suppose they’d had the most awful time. And children like that came and went they were rather anxious not to get to familiar with people. I think they were a bit nervous about that. It was the sort of time when they had to move on and indeed after the war most of them went to America. While my father was away, my mother, of course was drafted into war work of some description. And she was allocated to go to what they called the first aid post, and these were set up all over the place and I think she actually ran it in the end. It was like a sort of first aid and if there was an air raid or anything like that, they would administer first aid. It was usually in a hall or a school, a school that of course had been completely evacuated. People were looked after until they could be moved to a proper hospital environment or at least assessed at one. She was there the whole of the war actually, on a shift basis, so she wasn’t around very much. I was more or less left on my own, but nobody seemed to worry about that too much in those days. Our family was pretty normal at the time, Yes, I had medical brother, but he went off into the war. He was rarely home. He did his bit, but it was a much more sort of close community, because a lot of young men and women had gone into the services. And people were always coming and going. And there used to be a sort of ‘furious race’ to meets the chaps that were coming home on leave. The first thing everybody said to them was- “When are you going back”?? And they said- “Well I haven’t even got my coat off yet”! People weren’t back for very long, but I had a very glamorous cousin. A male cousin who was in the parachutists, he was very good and when he came around, he arrived in a jeep! A petrol one!!!! We hadn’t seen petrol for ages I had never been in a jeep, and he said- “Come on, I’ll take you up to London and we’ll have a good time”. I put on what glad rags I had and off we went in this jeep and we went to a theatre called the lyceum, they had a variety show on, a comedian, singing and dancing. During the course of the performance the air raid alarm went and when that went and you were in the theatre or cinema it would go up on the screen- the alert had sounded- Please Stay Where You Are! It was safer and somebody would come on to the stage and say the warning had sounded but if anybody wishes to stay then that’s fine. We would stay in the theatre for the all clear. On this occasion, the producer came on stage and he said “Right the band will now play for dancing.” And all the audience could go up on to the platform and dance. So there we all were on the stage; so although it was a grim time and no doubt people died but with all the fun around you, you managed to have a good time. We were there for about 2 or 3 hours, we danced the Gay Gordon and people made the most of it. Terrible things happened but you got your pleasure where you could. We drove home quickly afterwards though, we didn’t want to hang around. Home at this point was North West London which did receive quite a lot of damage. Our home wasn’t bombed but it was blasted. All the windows came in, the plaster came down but it was still habitable. People were very good, the contractors that were employed did a good job of it; they came in the same day waterproof the roof so of course it meant that you weren’t on the streets. But it was pretty uncomfortable; still, you could live there. The area changed though. Our dentist’s were bombed, fortunately he wasn’t there. He had just been called off but his wife was there, she was hit but she wasn’t badly hurt. Very odd things happened. For instance, a bomb dropped on a suburban house close to our house, in our neighborhood. There was a woman I knew who went round to see if she could help. The house was demolished and a lot of people tried to help. There were a few people left in the house including the family GP and he suddenly came out from under the rubble carrying quite a small baby. The baby was probably about 6 weeks old and the GP looked round and he said to my friend “Here you are take the baby.” She then said “I can’t take the baby!” And so he said “you have a baby about 18 months old, I remember you. You will know how do deal with this. Take the baby, there is no one else to look after it — take the baby and take it home. The mother is in here somewhere. I don’t know what’s happened to her, but take the baby. So, she took the baby and of course she wanted to know how long she was going to have her. He said “come and see me in two weeks, I will tell you then what is going on. So she took the baby home and looked after it. Of course other people helped. A couple of days later they found out that the mum of the baby was alright. She was in hospital but she was going to be fine. Anyway my friend looked after the baby for a fortnight, then one night there was a knock on the door and it was the baby’s mother. In a way she was quite pleased to see the baby go because she was expecting her husband back from war any day soon, how could she explain two babies? Luckily our school was open until nearly the end of the war so I could carry on with my education. It closed about the same time I moved to Monmouthshire. I remember about an air raid warning, we all had to run to the gym for safety and nobody was allowed out. This was when I was in the 6th Form and I suddenly heard a V1 bomb, I could hear it throbbing. Then it stopped! Of course this meant that it was falling. A couple of friends and I were in a science storeroom at the time. We didn’t have time to get to the gym so we all huddled under this tiny table together. Luckily it didn’t hit that close to us but the windows still got blasted. After a while, a member of staff came in to see if any body was still in there and I remember him chortling at the sight of us three girls hiding under that tiny table for protection. Food in the war was difficult, with the rationing. A good way to sum it up would be — dull. People got by alright but there was barely any sugar, sweets and even some fresh fruits. I remember once a man from our road came back from war with — a LEMON!!!!!!! Of course we hadn’t seen a lemon for donkey’s years. We raffled the lemon off and it raised a lot of money, around £50, lots back then! We also had a national loaf which luckily was good for you but it tasted terrible and we also had Rosehip Syrup. We had to recycle things as well; my mother also made me a beautiful skirt from an old pair of curtains.
I had quite a good time of it though. We had to register at 16 and I was terrified because I didn’t really know what to join! So I went on up to the registration building and sat in the waiting room. Thankfully one of the girls coming out said to me to tell the officer that I wanted to join the 777 club. Anyway I took my chances and told him, and it was wonderful because I didn’t actually have to do anything, of course apart from school. I hope that this has been interesting and useful.

© Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.