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A Sentimental Journey
Childhood Memories
Memories of the 1960s
Written by Eric Pugh from Hay-on-Wye:
"I was born in 1936 in Hay where my mother and father kept a tobacco and confectionery shop.
Some of my early memories at the shop are of the Second World War. In the early days of the war, the shop always seemed
to be filled with British soldiers as they were billeted, before going to their units at the closed Crown Hotel and in High
Town where the post office is now. Some of them became great friends of the family and we kept in touch with many of them
throughout the years.
One in particular stands out in my memory. His name was Percy Trembeth from somewhere in South Wales. He and Dad became
great friends until of course he received his posting overseas. I still have a children's book he gave me on my birthday in
1940. During the war Mum and Dad became concerned when his letters stopped and only having his service address, were unable
to find out anything about him.
Eventually, after the war, in about 1946, Percy appeared in the shop. Many tears and hugs ensued, especially from Mum.
Percy was hardly recognisable; the whole of the right hand side of his face had disappeared. He had been left for dead on
a battlefield in Italy when American medics were checking through the dead. One of them came across Percy lying face down,
turned him over and realised he was still alive.
He was rushed to an American first aid post and after many months in hospital was allowed home. He had lost all his left
cheek bones and his eye and ear from that side of his face which had received the force of the blast. He was still a sick
man. Mum and Dad kept in touch for a few years but of course the letters eventually stopped. I still wonder what happened
to Percy.
"Quickly quickly" shouts a man in an American uniform (how come he speaks German?) "The hall is needed for
wounded people! Pack your things and get going!" And so began the first morning of peacetime for us, for my mother, my
18 year old sister, and for me - an 8 year old schoolboy from Potsdam, near Berlin.
The ballroom floor of a small village guest-house near the river Elbe on the west side had been completely covered with
straw. On it people were laid out in tightly packed rows, old and young, many children. They were refugees from the eastern
part of Germany, some of whom had been on the move for the four months since January 1945. They were fleeing from the ever
approaching War Front - fleeing from the Russians, the Red Army. The fear that drove them on was written all over their faces
which bore the evidence of indescribable strains and stresses.
Their fear was a terrible mixture: from the horror stories of the nazis "now these sub-human creatures are coming
to take dreadful revenge!" Everyone knew those ugly bolshevik faces - they had been portrayed almost daily in the 'Volkische
Beobachter' and these were now buried deep in our souls, especially for us children. And there were the horrors of the nights
of perpetual bombing from which we had escaped. And worst, there were the reports from eye-witnesses among the refugees, some
of whom had escaped from the Russians several times and in the process had lost members of their families. There were those
who had had to watch as others, mostly women and children, paid with their lives for the horror that the nazis had started
among eastern Europe's peoples. And there were the German soldiers fleeing, often for good reasons, from imprisonment by the
Russians: whole SS Panzer Divisions were pushing towards the west in the hope that the Americans would unite with them to
drive the Russians out of Germany again.
And now today, no reason for fear any more. We had finally and happily arrived in the land of peace on the West side of
the Elbe with the Americans.
It was the 2nd or 3rd of May 1945 - still very early in the morning and still no end to the war, but we were, or so it
seemed to us after the peaceful night, safe.
When the people who had been lying on the floor realised that the man who spoke German - in spite of being an American
- had been serious with his order to empty the hall, they quickly piled together their remaining possessions, a woollen blanket
for sleeping on at night and some food, mostly from the German army's 'iron rations'; choca-cola (fliers chocolate), and the
fruit bars that the very young German soldiers had slipped to us the previous day, still on the Russian side of the river,
sitting in their trenches obviously waiting to go into action. And tins of preserved pork, daily rations of crisp-bread whose
cardboard packs the soldiers could use as postcards.
And even before the last refugees had left the room the medical orderlies pushed in carrying stretchers and tipped their
sad loads onto the straw, which was still spread out. And we knew at once that we had already seen these blood-stained groaning
bodies ... that had been the previous day - these were those same very young German soldiers from the trenches on the other
side of the river, no doubt members of the Hitler Youth, who had quickly been pushed into military uniforms and sent off to
fight the Russians, just to gain one or two days in which the fleeing German soldiers at the front might succeed in being
captured by the Americans. THAT'S why they risked their lives and now the 'leftovers' were being brought into our nightly
shelter.
Heinz Barthel
17th August, 1997
My name is Kathleen Brockington. I married my husband in June 1939 at the age of 23 and can remember clearly that day in September
hearing the Prime Minister tell us on the wireless that war had started.
For the first few days a lot of people were very frightened. I can remember my Mother-in-Law bursting into tears and putting
her gas mask on that first day; she wore it for about an hour but nothing happened and she took it off again when we gave
her a cup of tea and she realised she couldn't drink it with the gas mask on!
In 1940 the air raids started up proper. Like lots of others down our street we had an Anderson Shelter in our garden,
but it was dreadfully damp so in the end we used to sleep under our big oak table. If the air raid sirens went off in the
evening we would just ignore them and carry on eating our tea or playing cards until we heard bombs getting a bit close and
then we would dive under the table for cover. (Maybe I should explain that we lived in Acton near where the Rolls Royce factory
made the armoured cars and the bombers were always trying to get it).
Photograph of people sleeping in the tube The night I was bombed out my husband was away fire fighting around St Paul's
Cathedral and the East End of London which was getting a proper pasting. Lots of people were sleeping in the tube (London
Underground railway) after the last train had gone.
When the bomb dropped I wasn't even under the table! I heard the plane and recognised it was a Jerry (that's what we called
them) because I'd heard so many. There was a tremendous BANG! and I ducked. All the windows came in and the ceiling and a
couple of walls came in and there was incredible smoke everywhere. I was shaking like a leaf but I wasn't hurt.
I tried to get out but the door was stuck and I had to climb through where one of the windows had been. I could see there
were lots of houses affected, glass everywhere in the street so I knew it was a big'un.
I ran to the Air Raid Post but the Warden said "look missus, we're gonna be busy digging bodies out, if you've got
a roof you're better off where you are. There's lots worse off than you". Funnily enough he was wrong; about 50 houses
were badly damaged and a couple of them just turned into heaps of rubble, but nobody was actually killed.
I went home and climbed back through the window. There was dust and glass and bricks everywhere but I slept on my bed
in my clothes until 6am, then went to stay with my mother. I was very shocked of course, and worried that when my husband
got back from working day and night putting out fires he would go home and assume the worst. One of my mum's neighbours had
a telephone and I tried to find out where he was but around the East End of London it was a proper mess and nobody knew anything.
After a few months the house was patched up by a local firm (the government paid for that) so I could live in it. A right
shoddy job they made of it too. When they finished there were still big cracks in the walls, bare pipes, dust and dirt everywhere
for weeks on end; but like the wardens said, there were lots worse off and at least I was still alive.
Kath Brockington
August 1994
By Colin Edwards from Llandrindod Wells:
"R V Edwards, my father, became Captain to the Signals Corps of the Home Guard in Llandrindod Wells and district.
He used his loudspeaker van for public address work and took about 5 or 6 men in it on manoeuvres every Sunday. The registration
was FO 3344 and was still in existence in 1980.
The signals work and training involved running out telephone lines for telephones and later in the war testing and using
radio telephones (RT) which were notoriously unreliable.
The loudspeaker van was always prepared for Llandrindod Wells Home Guard pictured during the 1940sinstant use (announcements,
alarms etc) and larger batteries had to be always charged to be ready to power the value driven amplifiers and inverters.
Somehow he acquired large searchlight batteries which were fitted behind the seats of the van had to be charged while the
van was standing outside the shop. The batteries were extremely heavy and limited the speed of the van to about 10mph up hills!
A true tale which starts in 1912.
Told to me by my mother.
Many years ago I remember my mother telling me about her family.
I never knew any of them but according to what my mother told me she had an older sister who was married and had twin
daughters and a brother who was in the Army. Her sister's husband had gone out to America to make a new life for his family
and my mothers sister and twin girls were to join him as soon as he got settled.
From what she told me her mother, my grandmother, was a gypsy and the last of a Romany clan who had married my grandfather
an Irishman.
For those who have read my book this was the grandmother that I met when she was dead.
I was told that my grandmother could see things happen before they did and seemed to have an uncanny way of KNOWING what
was in store.
In other words she was seer------a person who could foretell the future.
When the time neared for her eldest daughter and granddaughters to set sail to join their husband/father
my grandmother had a vision of a large ship that was sinking and begged her daughter not to go but to wait and go on another
ship later on in the year.
My mother said her sister laughed at her mother and told her that she was seeing things again.
Unfortunately my mothers sister took no heed of her mothers warning and she with her twin girls set out to join the ship
that was to take them to America for a new life. They were sailing on the Titanic.
As the reader will be aware the Titanic sank on the 14th of April 1912 with the loss of 1500 lives on her maiden journey
and my mothers sister and twin girls were among those lost.
My mother was just 11 years old at that time and as my grandfather and grandmother were separated it made life rather
grim for my mother because she was trying to comfort her mother and grieve herself.
My mother idolised Tommy her only brother and he was her hero.
He had a concertina that he loved to play and his favourite tune was Danny Boy.
She used to sing to his playing and although Tommy was at least 14 years older than his sister he too loved her very much
and used to encourage her to sing.
When WW1 broke out Tommy had to go to the war front in France and he left his concertina at home in the cupboard in his
bedroom.
My mother was the only one left at home with her mother and to comfort each other they slept in the same bed.
WW1 had been raging since June 1914 and it was on the 26 of August 1914 while lying in bed with her mother they both heard
the concertina playing Danny Boy. They got up and went into Tommys bedroom and opened the cupboard door to find the concertina
out of its case and my grandmother just said My Tommy is dead.
My mother said she found out afterwards that my grandmother had written the date down previously to her son being killed
and put it in a musical box.
I can still see my mothers face as she related this story to me and the grief she was still feeling with losing her sister
and nieces now it was her brother.
Far fetched you may think but knowing my mother she was not the sort of person to make up stories.
Mother told me that she could remember the horseman dressed in red ( a guardsman ) coming to the house where they lived
in London with a scroll tied up with red ribbon to hand to my grandmother.
I too saw that scroll which was signed by the king to say that one of his men had been killed in action and how brave
he had been. That was the only time I saw it because when my parents moved to the town where I lived in later years it must
have got thrown away in the moving of their belongings.
My grandmother or my mother never did find out where Tommy was buried OR if he had a grave at all.
Many years later I got very curious about where my Uncle Tommy had died and I phoned the War Graves Commision.
I gave her a few details over the phone of what little I knew about him and where he lived when he was the Army not even
hoping that she could help me.
I was absolutely astounded when she came back to me and told me his Army number and although there was no known grave
his name was carved on sarcophagus in France. She also told me the exact place to go to.
I was SO impressed with the way the young person had passed over the information.
I said it was marvellous to think that after all these years we had at last found out and I thanked her for how efficient
she had been.
Her answer nearly floored me because she said Actually it was very simple to find him Mrs Walker because he was the ONLY
chap killed in WW1 with the name of THOMAS HUDDY.
I was amazed to hear this and she told me there were some more Huddys killed but only the one with the name of THOMAS.
Of all the millions killed in WW1 it seemed incredible but it was perfectly true.
My biggest regret was that if I had done this sooner when my mother was alive she would have been more at peace with herself.
Thanks to Maywalk
On Friday September first 1939, I and many hundreds of children were assembled at Napier Rd School in East Ham and marched
along the High Street which was lined with hundreds of sobbing and worried mothers. We were going to the station to be evacuated
to somewhere away from Londonbut no-one, not even the parents knew where ! I had my gas mask, a label pinned to my jacket
and a carrier bag (not a suitcase) holding my pyjamas a change of underclothes and some sandwiches. I was ten and a half years
old and without a brother or sister for comfort and support.... the eldest child was about 14 and the youngest only 5, some
were unaccompanied too ! Babies and pregnant mothers were mixed in with us and it was a non corridor train too!
Contributed by Ken Long
By Barbara Morgan from Aberystwyth:
"The first time we heard the air raid siren it was September the 3rd 1939. I was 9 years old and it really struck
fear into us three children.
Some time after we'd been put to bed the air raid sirens went. We were taken down and dressed by Mum and Dad. We were
three small children and we all paniced like a cold hand had been laid upon us. To us small children I think this feeling
had been transferred from the adults.
Mum took us next door to neighbours where we had cups of tea and listened in to the conversation, 'did you hear that plane?',
'is it one of ours?', 'Mrs so and so up the road was so frightened she only just made it to the toilet'.
I remember the faces of the neighbours as they spoke of war and they remembered the last war, queueing for food, ration
books, scarcity of food. To us food was always plain and scarce and it wasn't plentiful anyway.
Dad joined the army the RAMC because he said he didn't want to kill anybody so Mum was on her own with us and that memory
will always be with me.
We lived at Burton on Trent Staffs and sometimes at night you could see the red in the sky in Coventry and Lichfield and
all those places with the bombs."
Tramway Village Crich, Derbyshire - Easter 1940's Weekend
Adolph Hitler the "Devil Incarnate" affected millions of people's lives, sadly some in more horrific ways than others.
As a result of his megalomania and his efforts to destroy London and its people, a small boy eventually found a world full
of beauty and kindness.
She was not only my great Aunt, she was also my godmother: she never wearied of telling how she had carried me through the
snow one day in January 1936 to have me baptised. She also enjoyed recounting in detail how violently I had reacted to the
process and she seemed particularly pleased with the consternation of the priest who had to struggle with me.
A South East Londoner's Story - Chapter 1
The day the war broke out my family were sitting out in the garden sunshine awaiting Chamberlains broadcast. The actual declaration
was somewhat of an anticlimax and accepted as inevitable. Hardly had his closing words sunk in when the air raid warning sounded
all over London, which brought us all back to reality. We looked skywards in the expectation of seeing vast fleets of enemy
bombers but the sky was empty and an eerie silence pervaded because all the traffic had stopped and people had rushed to the
nearest air raid shelter.
Betteshanger Brass Band : Based in the South East of England near the coastal towns of Dover, Folkestone and the historic
city of Canterbury.
Deal based Betteshanger Brass Band formed in 1932 by miner George Gibb and his colleagues as a tool for relaxation after
their days toil underground. The Band can now be found at the 'Betteshanger Social Welfare Sports Club' situated at the Welfare
Sports Ground, Cavell Square, Mill Hill, Deal, Kent.
The Corner Shop
from a short story - read by the former Winn's Store, Queen Street
By Sue Mackrell, 2007
The threepenny bit was solid in her hand. She sniffed her palm. The damp, brassy smell meant Rainbow Drops and Flying
Saucers and Everlasting Toffee, her reward for fetching five Player's Weights for Aunty Gladys.
She looked in the window of the corner shop, draped with sheets of torn yellow cellophane to keep the sun off. "Invisible
Hairnets," packets of kirbigrips and "Rain Mate" hats were piled in one corner. In the other was a pyramid
of pretend packets of Brooke Bond Tea and boxes of Cherry Blossom Shoe Polish. Black Jacks and Fruit Salad in their display
cartons were piled up next to the bleached lemon cardboard tubes of the Sherbet Dips. Dead bluebottles lined the bottom of
the window. They'd been there a long time.
The shop bell rang as she opened the door and breathed in the smells of rough wooden floorboards, hessian sacks of potatoes,
cabbage, apples and tobacco mixed with Spanish liquorice and aniseed balls.
"Morning, Mrs Davies."
"Morning, love. How's your mam today?"
"She's a bit better, thank you."
Her nose was at counter level, where the glass jars were full of Rhubarb and Custard, Pear Drops and the Winter Mixture
the old ladies loved. The Rainbow Sherbet was next to a big glass jar of lollipops. You could have two ounces of yellow and
pink sherbet crystals, weighed out on the brass scales. Mrs Davies would put the smallest of the heavy round weights on one
side of the scales, and scoop sugary grains on to the big brass bowl. The scales would swing like a see-saw. Sometimes she
would add a bit with the scoop, and your heart would go up, and sometimes your insides went down with the scales when she
took a bit away. But then each side would balance perfectly in the air, and quickly she would tip the sherbet into a three
cornered bag torn from the nail, drop a red or yellow or green lollipop in it and twist the top of the bag shut. You dipped
your lolly into the sherbet and sucked, and your tongue would go yellow. She gazed at the layers of sherbet in the glass jar.
But today, she decided, she would have a Jamboree Bag, faded two shades of blue from the window, with a big boy scout on the
front in his ten gallon hat. She felt she would be lucky today. And she still had a ha'penny left. That would buy two blackjacks,
or a gobstopper, or a tiny cellophane packet of YZ chewing gum, strawberry and lemon and blackcurrant flavour, little rectangles
of colour like jewels. She knew that if you swallowed chewing gum you would die. Nasty, it was. Clogged up your insides.
She picked up a packet.
"Does your mammy know?"
She nodded.
But her fingers were crossed tightly behind her back.
Thanks to Skeggy
Written by Bede David
"We were living in South Harting near Petersfield, Sussex. We were a large family of seven children. Our father was
away at sea in the Royal Navy. My brother was the eldest at 13, then came my sister, aged 12 and I was 10. The others were
all too young to take part in this adventure, but they have vivid memories.
It was 1941 and the Battle of Britain was in full swing. The planes used to go right over us to London and every night
there was tremendous noise. And we used to say that we could tell whether they were German planes or English planes. We thought
the German planes made an intermittent noise with their engines and the English ones didn't.
One day a plane was shot down in a field nearby and we found out that it was an English plane that had been shot down
and we decided amongst ourselves that we would not go and look at it.
A few days later another plane was shot down and it was reported to be a Junkers 88 and we saw where the plane had come
down from a mile or two away. So the three of us, my eldest brother, 13, my sister, 12, and myself got on our bicycles and
we made for the place where we could see the smoke in the sky. It turned out to be in a wood.
We cycled up a track into the wood and soon we found the plane in a big crater in the ground and it was smoking and all
on fire. There were a few other people round it but no police. So we looked at it for a time and somebody said look there's
his foot. Then my brother saw a machine gun on the side of the crater buried in the ground.
So we dug up the machine gun which was about a metre long and put it on our bicycles and took it home. We moved to Wales
and took it with us. It remained in our garage until the end of the war and when my father came back from the war when he
threw it away."
The Morris Minor had superseded the Morris 8 which at one time had something like a three or four year waiting list. Ford's
produced the Popular, the Anglia and the Prefect and the hefty old V8 Pilot. Standards introduced the Standard 8 as a small
family car. So many manufacturers from that period have long since disappeared. Most working class folk couldn't afford cars
and instead used motor bikes and sidecars as family transport.
During the first years of the War I lived in Melton, near Woodbridge in Suffolk. I attended Melton School (known afterwards
as Melton Old School).
Initially it was considered that Kent, London, and surroundings, were most at risk from attack. Children from London were
evacuated to Suffolk, including our village (close to the Deben Estuary) which was regarded as a safe area.
We had rationing, and we could only get sweets in Woodbridge, where we bought the smallest because they went furthest.
They dug up half of the School's playing field to make allotments. We kept chickens and grew our own vegetables.
As the war progressed we were directly on the flightpath of raids and missiles from Holland. We had to take the little
ones to the shelter when the warning sirens went off. Once a child was still in the toilets when this happened, and we all
dived to the ground as we heard the doodlebug come over.
One day during the winter we were in our classroom. We didn't hear any siren go off but suddenly all the windows blew
in. We dived underneath the desks. Everyone had to get up carefully because of all the broken glass. We were sent home early.
On another occasion we were at home in Melton Terrace. We heard a doodlebug pass over and went behind the door. A milk
bottle broke.
My mother and father were both nurses at near-by St Audry's, a psychiatric hospital. The bomb hit the hospital, killing
patients and staff. Our parents didn't tell us about this at the time, and we only learnt about it from Mother after the war.
Father decided that two of us (the youngest stayed) should be sent to stay with Aunty Nenna in Aberdare, Wales. People
spoke Welsh there. It was quiet.
We came back just as the Japanese surrendered. I can still remember travelling across London in a bus, and seeing bits
of paper floating down.
These memories are recorded by Ipswich Museum and reproduced with Pat Fuller's permission.
"My name is Sarah. When I was young, about 5, the war started and this must have changed my childhood a lot though I
didn't realise it at the time.
My sister Anne was a year older than I and she and I one day were sitting on the fence of one of the fields in Button
Bridge which is where we were living, and one of these endless convoys was approaching up the road.
Now these convoys were a laughing stock really and a cause of great frustration because of course you could hardly drive
your car anywhere in the war. On the Bewdley Bridge, there was a policeman to stop you because you couldn't go anywhere but
to work in your car - it wasn't allowed and he'd stand there and stop every motorist.
Now the convoys had jeeps and armoured cars and everything and they were going where they liked and they used to fill
the road up and there used to be jokes in Punch about it - a cartoon of someone sitting at the wheel of their car with a cobweb
growing under their elbow because they'd sat there so long waiting for these convoys to go by.
And there was a convoy coming up the hill along the main road and Anne and I were approached by the senior man who was
a little bit muddled, looking round trying to find signposts you see. But once you were in the country you were lost because
there were no signposts, they'd taken them all down or they'd covered them up or defaced them.
They didn't actually see one big milestone sitting in front of our gate which was hidden in the hedge, a great big one,
really old one and that hadn't I don't think been defaced but it was covered with greenery.
Anyway he said, 'Are we on the right road for Highly?' Anne and I looked at each other and we didn't know where Highly
was really, anymore than anywhere else, so we pointed down the lane to the right past our bungalow and off went the whole
convoy just on our word down this lane.
It was great everything going by and we stood there and watched them going by and then we ran in the house and said,
"Oh Mother Look what's happened! We've been able to help these soldiers to try and find Highly."
"Oh" said Mother, "Where did they go?"
"Straight down the lane", we said "that's where we sent them".
"Oh dear" she said, "that's the wrong way they should have gone straight on for Highly".
I think it was probably quite a while before they got to the bottom of the dead end lane and found the River Severn barring
their way. They had to turn round and come all the way back up again and Anne and I didn't go out when they were coming back
up again. We kept very quiet in the house. But mother said it wasn't our fault and maybe if they were enemy soldiers it would
have been a very good thing. So that was our little brush with the soldiers!"
"My name is Joan, I was born near Poole, Dorset in 1926; I was the second child in a family of seven children. I had
a happy childhood as the family lived near the Chines Beaches and Parks. Before the Second World War my father was a Boatman
on the big lake, so we, the children had boat rides and even steamer rides to Swanage and Weymouth during the Summer Season.
Even though it was a one and half mile walk to church for Sunday school, I was a regular attendant, calling at my aunt's
house on the way home, it was here in September 1939 about 11am, that my sister and I heard the voice of Neville Chamberlain,
the Prime Minister announcing on the radio, that war had been declared on Germany. We were terrified and ran all the way home.
I left school in March 1940, just fourteen years old, and went into a dressmaking and alterations shop. Little did I know
that the excellent training would come in so useful during the long years of clothing coupons, when the ability to make something
from nothing would be such an asset.
When this job finished in 1941, I was aged fifteen years and worked for a Chemist's wife helping in the shop and doing
various chores. Unfortunately on my sixteenth birthday this job came to an end, as my wages should have been raised from ten
shillings to twelve shillings per week. The Chemist could not afford the extra pay. After that blow, my life changed drastically."
I was brought up in London in SE17. I went to the Surrey Square School. I started there aged four years. Life was perfectly
normal. We suffered from urban poverty but we were happy. It was a nice school.
On 1st September 1939 I was evacuated. We were transported by tram to Waterloo station. We said goodbye to everyone we
had ever known except the teachers. The head teacher was Miss Marie Fisher. She was a practices teacher. She was a professionally
trained classic singer.
Other teachers were Miss Beecham and Miss Whale. We ended up in Yeovil, Somerset and I have no idea why. We were taken
to the Liberal Hall and given supplies for 1 week. I have no idea how evacuees were allocated. Yeovil could not cope with
the number of refugees and I was taken to a village 3 miles away called Mudford.
I went from urban poverty to rural poverty. The people were very kind. Waiting to be chosen by hosts was like being in
cattle market. I was taken into the village and to the door of a house. The daughter of the house answered the door. We will
have him if his name is David she said. The house was owned by a lady widow. She had 3 sons, 1 daughter and a brother. I
am still in contact with that family.
There was no room at the village school so we used the village hut which was a wooden army hut. Miss Fisher came into
her own. There was no equipment. She told us stories about her singing tour in America under the trees in the orchard. She
took us out locally to see the Blacksmith, the cheese maker, the cider maker and the farm workers. Children gradually went
back. Mother visited. There were cheap trips. I wanted to go back but I knew I couldnt say anything.
The school was then moved to 2 rooms in the pub, the Half moon inn. We had no equipment or paper. Miss Fisher played the
piano and sang to us. Then Miss Fisher got married.
We had a sense of freedom and would rampage over the countryside. I dont know how the locals survived with the scruffy
little kids over running them.
I then went to the village school and had to learn to blend with the country kids. It was a matter of survival.
After 18 months I passed the 11 plus. I had an interview at the local secondary school. I went to it on my own. I recall
the headmaster interviewing me and a child crawling across the floor. I got in and started there in September 1944. The head
teacher was Mr Dennis Thompson. I was there for 2 terms and then I returned to London. Back in London I felt like a fish out
of water.
This is how I remember my evacuation to Canada during the Second World
War.
When war broke out I was living with my parents and sister in a north-west suburb of London, and my aunt, uncle,
and cousin lived not far away. My aunt was a Jew and my cousin looked very Jewish. So when things looked bad early in 1940
my aunt and uncle decided that cousin Sylvia should be sent abroad in case Hitler invaded. (My aunt chose to stay with my
uncle.) My grandfather worked for a shipping company and his opposite number in Montreal offered to give a home to two of
our family for the duration of the war. For various reasons it was decided that I should be the one to go with Sylvia. She
was then seven, I was four.
I look back now and think about the agonising our families must have gone through, and
I can understand why my father would never talk about those days years later. I imagine what it must have meant to send ones
child across the Atlantic (quite a journey, it took two weeks) to people even my grandfather had never met.
I also
wonder at the generosity of the couple who gave us a home. The Woods (as they were called; we called them Auntie and Unc)
were in their sixties. I guess they thought they were to foster two small homesick girls for a few months; it turned out to
be four years!
I was born in Warsaw in 1932 and was there when the Germans invaded Poland. I was in our flat in the middle of Warsaw with
my mother and grandmother, all the men were fighting at the front.
It was a beautiful, hot summer and there were German planes overhead and the men in the street had guns. I remember riding
my bicycle all day or standing on the balcony watching what was going on. Remembering the first World war, mother had stored
chocolate and sardines which was mainly what we had to eat.
I remember one incident very clearly and still dream about it to this day. A man was crossing one of the wide streets
in Warsaw when a German fighter plane came in low, just above roof level, machine guns firing at him, cutting off his head
completely and he continued running towards the chemist's shop and I wondered how a man could run without a head - I now know
the reason.
Another time my mother and I were walking towards the hospital, as I was going to stay there with her, and a German bomb
hit a glassworks - it was the most magnificent sight on earth - the multi-coloured flames were truly gorgeous.
Another time when I was lying in bed in the hospital, there was a man in the bed next to me and I was telling him how
much I hated the Germans and I was going to kill them all. When my mother appeared he asked her to tell me to be more careful
when his friends came, because he was an officer in the German army. In fact, he was Austrian and somewhat anti-German and
he allowed mother to use his car as an ambulance during the night for injured members of the Polish underground army as he
had all the passes. I wish I had known his name - all I do know is that he ended up on the Russian front and is probably not
alive today.
I was not terrified as a child because everyone expected Poland to win the war. My memory of the Germans is of jackboots
parading up and down and being very careful and having to step off the pavement for them.
My father and grandfather were in the underground army and I know we had a radio receiver hidden in the big stove and
we all listened avidly to the B.B.C
In 1941 my mother was arrested by the Gestapo for no apparent reason. The family clubbed together to raise a very large
amount of money to buy her out. The real blow came on the 22nd June 1942 when my mother, father, uncle and grandfather were
arrested by the Gestapo and interrogated in the infamous Gestapo Headquarters. I now know that the men were executed and mother
was sent to Auschwitz concentration camp, ending up at Ravensbruck from where she was liberated by the Americans.
I stayed on with my grandmother until Warsaw was liberated by the Russians. At that time I did not know that most of my
family had been killed and broadcast a plea on Warsaw Radio for news of their whereabouts. Luckily, my mother heard this and
came to Warsaw to collect me.
I came to England in 1946 and have lived here since then.
Dr Jan Mokrzycki
22nd November, 1996
'm Paola Cecchi, I'm Italian and I'm writing about my father's experience during the Second World War. My father was only
6 years old and he lived in a little town near Padua in an old house with some people who took care of him because his mother
had to go to work. My father told me in that period everyday he could hear the planes which were flying over their houses
and bombing them.
One day one of those bombs hit the house where my father was living and all the people who lived with him died. He save
himself, he was only a child sorrounded by a lot of corpses and he was hurt. So he got out to find someone who could help
him and so he reached his relatives' house who helped him but his mother was not there.
He lived there unhappy for some months then one day his mother found him: she was wounded and when her son was in her
arms some soldiers broke them up as well as all the other mothers to take the mothers away. My father told me that his mother
was breaking down because she had lost her son again. Only after a few days the soldiers allowed mothers and children to be
together and then my grandmother decided to leave Padua to go to Milan.
Paola Cecchi
It's the year 1942 and I'm 9 years old, walking the familiar half-mile from school to my home in South-west London. Today
was an ordinary day - I had my free bottle of milk at playtime and still had time to go out and play 'Spitfires and Messerschmidts'
with my mates afterwards. It wasn't a day when I had to line up for a spoonful of VIROL - a sticky extract of malt we have
to swallow once a week (which some of us like but which makes Billy Fletcher feel sick, but I think he's just a weedy type).
As I walk past the fruit and vegetable barrows in the High Street, I check to see if there are any orange boxes hidden
under the barrows. My Mum heard a rumour that a ship had arrived at Liverpool with a cargo of oranges, and because of my baby
sister we've got a Green Ration Book, which means we might get one or two if there are any -- but there aren't. Maybe the
ship that was bringing them got caught by U-boats in the Atlantic.
Once home I tuck into my usual tea of bread-and-marge. Not like the margerine we have in 1997 though - this stuff has
very little colour and tastes more like grease, and not at all like butter! I know there's some butter in the cupboard (ordinary
people don't have a refrigerator, only Americans and rich people have those) but that's special. I would really really like
some dripping on my bread (that's the fat that collects in the roasting pan when we have meat. It goes hard and you spread
it on your bread and it's absolutely wizard!) but my Mum's saving up the dripping.
The jam ration is nearly gone so I have to spread it on my bread-and-marge very thinly - just the merest smear. There's
a pot of Parsnip Jam we got 'off-ration' but it isn't very nice and I prefer to eat what I've got. Bread isn't rationed so
I eat about six slices. That will keep me going until 8, when I get a snack of cheese on toast with a cup of hot oxo.
Photograph of Tom drinking tea at the Pump Rooms Tomorrow we'll have one of our favourite meals... Roast potatoes (that's
why I'm not allowed the dripping) and boiled cabbage with a 'knuckle' of bacon boiled with the cabbage. I may even get a slice
of bacon too!
Yes, on the whole we're OK. We don't live like the King and Queen and Princess Elizabeth in the Palace, but we're healthy
and alive and maybe on Saturday I'll get an extra boiled egg! (one a week for grown-ups but two for a Green Ration Book).
Tom Holloway
31st March, 1997
I thought it might be an idea to record what I actually did as a Conscientious Objector (usually shortened to just 'conchie')
in the second of the series of wars to make the world safe for democracy.
I was born on 3rd October 1915 and up to the time I was about 14 years of age, I had very little idea of politics, nor
much idea of other nations of the world.
In 1931 at the age of 16 I read that famous book "The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists". It made a deep impression
on me and straightway I joined the Labour Party, and a few months after, the Labour Party League of Youth, and my course was
set.
In 1932 after getting my General Schools Certificate and Matriculation Exemption, I started work at Waterlow and Sons
as an estimating clerk. It was here that I first met Charlotte Burton, who sat opposite to me, on the other side of the desk,
and with whom I fell in love and eventually married. Fortunately she shared my views and Politics.
During this period I joined the Peace Pledge Union and various other anti-war movements, and I remember attending a meeting
at Kingsway Hall run by an organisation called the United Front which incorporated all the Left Wing groups opposed to War,
during which there was squabbling and fisticuffs on the platform and in the audience. This was only quelled by the Red Flag
being played on the organ, whereupon everybody stopped scrapping - but only until the end of the music, when they were at
it again immediately.
At the outbreak of war I registered as a conscientious objector. It was several months before I was summoned to appear
before a Tribunal at the Law Courts to give reasons for my objections, and by this time many of my age-group had entered one
of the three Services and been involved in the hostilities that occurred when the British Army was pushed out of Europe and
France capitulated.
I attended the Tribunal in August 1940. My position so far as the war was concerned is possibly best illustrated by my
submission on the form, as follows:-
"I refuse on moral and rational grounds to take part in any military activity or to assist the military machine in
any way. I believe that the method of War is wrong and futile. Might is not Right but it is illogical to attempt to prove
it by means of force. I cannot and will not kill, or help in the killing of human beings I do not know and with whom I have
no quarrel
Since I realise that the War is actually in progress and that people are likely to be killed and injured, I am prepared
to assist them to keep out of danger and help them if they are injured by serving in the ARP or the AFS as they are at present
constituted; but I will not in any circumstances resign my right to judge and act according to that which I know is right.
I believe my objection to be a conscientious one, since ostracism, imprisonment or any penalty will not alter my determination
to do that which is right. I have held and expressed these views for the past seven years."
The decision of the Tribunal was that I should remain in my occupation at Waterlows or take up work in connection with
the land. I was promptly sacked by Waterlows
Over the years I've Spent many a happy hour in The Tower Ballroom. Every time I enter it I'm left Breathless by the Splendor
of the place the ceiling and gallery's are just wonderful to look at , pride of place for me is the Mighty Wurlitzer Organ.
I first went has a child when Reginald Dixon performed each day and I've carried on visiting Blackpool ever since and
never miss spending time in the ballroom. We went to blackpool for our Honeymoon in 1978 and we hope to return next year for
our 30th wedding anniversary.
I hope you enjoy the video of the ballroom..looking back to it early years and near the end of the film you'll get a glance
of Reginald Dixon on the Organ: Thanks to Skeggy.
The Name Tom Smith won't mean much to most people but it was him who invented the Christmas Cracker.
I found this site with the full history of his invention, I think you will find it interesting, I did.
In world war 11 Tom was commissioned by the ministry of Defence to bind his cracker snaps into bundles attached to a piece
of string, when the string was pulled it made a similar sound to a machine gun and so tom Smiths cracker snaps were used for
training purposes..
Thanks to Skeggy
Toys received on Christmas day soon get discarded or broken, but a few are cherished and saved away. I bet you wish you had
a few of these toys preserved in the attic. I was amazed at the prices, a tiny tin model of the Walt Disney character Jiminy
Cricket for $440 and a 14" cast metal Lincoln Capri with trailor going for $1100.
Check them out at this site
1960s uk
A true tale......................The Legs.
I used to be in charge of the seconds department at the hosiery firm I worked for.
Then there was Horace a gentle giant of a man who used to suffer with his nerves a lot. Horace was in charge of the folding
room.
Last was Jack a small bloke who was foreman over Horace and had a terrible way of speaking to the women, plus bullying
Horace who was literally terrified of him.
Jack only tried his bullying tactics with me once and I turned on him like a hellcat and told him he was NOT my boss and
if he did not treat the women with courtesy I would complain to management.
WOW he certainly calmed down after that.
Anyway to get to the main story.
Where I worked there were massive sliding doors where the work after being finished was sent back in skips that looked
rather like the big basket trunks that actors use.
This particular morning Horace came through and put his hand up to me rather than say 'Good Morning'. I could see he was
trying to eat something so I just acknowledged him and glanced as he went towards the sliding door to check the goods that
had arrived. I looked back at what I was doing and as I heard the doors slide open I heard a terrible gurgle. I looked up
very startled as Horace tried to say something but his false teeth shot out of his mouth still wrapped round a toffee that
one of the girls had given him.
I ran to his aid and quickly picked up his teeth in my hanky and shoved them in my pocket because I thought he was going
to have a heart attack and I did not want anyone stepping on them.
As he slithered down the door frame with me holding on to him trying to stop him hitting the floor he pointed to one of
the skips and there were two legs sticking out with odd socks on and holey shoes.
It looked like a dead body but at the time I was trying to support Horace from fainting out and being a big bloke of 6ft
2ins tall against my 5ft nothing it was taking me all my time to hold him. Somebody else had heard the kerfuffle and came
running out.
Jack the foreman came along bellowing WHATS OOP? WHATS OOP?
I told him instead of shouting "WHATS OOP" to give me a bl**dy hand to get Horace on a chair and to get him
back into this world.
Meanwhile the other person who came out lifted the lid on the skip and it revealed two model legs with socks on that I
had to use in my job plus two old shoes on the end of them.
Some silly b****r was playing the fool and had undone the skip to place the legs as though someone was inside the skip.
It frightened poor Horace so much it nearly caused him to have a heart attack.
When things calmed down I took Horaces teeth to the toilet to try and prise the toffee out of them.
Gawd Almighty it was like wresting with a bl**dy alligator.
I stood for nearly half an hour trying to get the darn things free.
I managed it in the end but I think Horace learnt his lesson NEVER to try and eat toffees with false teeth.
Later on in the day the owner of the firm came round to see if all was well, which he did every day.
I had to follow him out of the door as he was doing his rounds and as we walked in the yard what should be sticking out
of the biggest heap of coal slack but two feet with holey shoes on.
It took a lot of talk and convincing of the boss to tell him that a prankster was running amok because he ordered two
men to start shoveling in case some one was underneath the slack.
The legs looked SO very real.
What a day that was. Thanks to Maywalk
The Marital Bed.
The Marital Bed
For Gawds sake move over and let me get in
Its not very warm and my nighties quite thin
Panting and pushing to get him over the line
I only want half the bed the part I call mine.
Im just dozing off to sleep when my calves go in a clamp
I jump out very quickly because I have the ruddy cramp
I can hear my other half snoring well in the land of nod
While Im limping up and down thinking ;you are a lucky sod.
The cramp is slowly subsiding so I try my luck once again
More pushing shoving and heaving he really is a pain.
I close my eyes and let my mind drift like a rowing boat
When suddenly Im choking with an elbow in my throat.
After being rudely awakened I settle down once more
Oh strewth! its started up again that never ending snore.
I bury my head in the pillow with the cover over my head
Ive had this nightly torture since the first day that we wed.
I give him a dig to make him stop and turn the other way
Oh blow me down! here we go! hes taken the whole duvet.
I pull it back with very much force, I have to be quite tough
So he turns over with it and puts his knees right up my duff.
I settle down once more to sleep the rest of the night through
When suddenly the bedclothes go back he has to visit the loo.
I turn to look at the clock, the hands say half past three
;Oh Lord! I pray let me get some rest, please be good to me.
My other half gets back into bed shaking me back to life
I think I deserve a medal for being an understanding wife.
I hear the clock chime four oclock I guess God never heard
I may as well get out of bed and do yesterdays crossword.
Maisie Walker 2001--- all copyrights reserved.
I found a couple of memories on the web that took me right back to my childhood, they reminded me of things that were long
forgotten. I'd forgotten all about magic painting books, do you remember them? you just used to did a paint brush in water
and then rub over the page and by magic a picture would appear. lol i had a lot of fun with them.
3.45 Monday to Friday when I was very young meant one thing to me
Watch With Mother
I liked them all but if I had to name one has my favourite then it would be ' The Woodentops and Spotty Dog
What were your Favourite?
Explore the site theres some good stuff on there
Long Before Computer Keyboards and an old Type writer, I was having hours of fun with my my
John Bull Printing Set.. trouble was I was always loosing Letters.
Do you remember ever having one of these...
Thanks to Skeggy
During the first years of the War I lived in Melton, near Woodbridge in Suffolk. I attended Melton School (known afterwards
as Melton Old School).
Initially it was considered that Kent, London, and surroundings, were most at risk from attack. Children from London were
evacuated to Suffolk, including our village (close to the Deben Estuary) which was regarded as a safe area.
We had rationing, and we could only get sweets in Woodbridge, where we bought the smallest because they went furthest.
They dug up half of the School's playing field to make allotments. We kept chickens and grew our own vegetables.
As the war progressed we were directly on the flightpath of raids and missiles from Holland. We had to take the little
ones to the shelter when the warning sirens went off. Once a child was still in the toilets when this happened, and we all
dived to the ground as we heard the doodlebug come over.
One day during the winter we were in our classroom. We didn't hear any siren go off but suddenly all the windows blew
in. We dived underneath the desks. Everyone had to get up carefully because of all the broken glass. We were sent home early.
On another occasion we were at home in Melton Terrace. We heard a doodlebug pass over and went behind the door. A milk
bottle broke.
My mother and father were both nurses at near-by St Audry's, a psychiatric hospital. The bomb hit the hospital, killing
patients and staff. Our parents didn't tell us about this at the time, and we only learnt about it from Mother after the war.
Father decided that two of us (the youngest stayed) should be sent to stay with Aunty Nenna in Aberdare, Wales. People
spoke Welsh there. It was quiet.
We came back just as the Japanese surrendered. I can still remember travelling across London in a bus, and seeing bits
of paper floating down.
These memories are recorded by Ipswich Museum and reproduced with Pat Fuller's permission.
"My name is Sarah. When I was young, about 5, the war started and this must have changed my childhood a lot though I
didn't realise it at the time.
My sister Anne was a year older than I and she and I one day were sitting on the fence of one of the fields in Button
Bridge which is where we were living, and one of these endless convoys was approaching up the road.
Now these convoys were a laughing stock really and a cause of great frustration because of course you could hardly drive
your car anywhere in the war. On the Bewdley Bridge, there was a policeman to stop you because you couldn't go anywhere but
to work in your car - it wasn't allowed and he'd stand there and stop every motorist.
Now the convoys had jeeps and armoured cars and everything and they were going where they liked and they used to fill
the road up and there used to be jokes in Punch about it - a cartoon of someone sitting at the wheel of their car with a cobweb
growing under their elbow because they'd sat there so long waiting for these convoys to go by.
And there was a convoy coming up the hill along the main road and Anne and I were approached by the senior man who was
a little bit muddled, looking round trying to find signposts you see. But once you were in the country you were lost because
there were no signposts, they'd taken them all down or they'd covered them up or defaced them.
They didn't actually see one big milestone sitting in front of our gate which was hidden in the hedge, a great big one,
really old one and that hadn't I don't think been defaced but it was covered with greenery.
Anyway he said, 'Are we on the right road for Highly?' Anne and I looked at each other and we didn't know where Highly
was really, anymore than anywhere else, so we pointed down the lane to the right past our bungalow and off went the whole
convoy just on our word down this lane.
It was great everything going by and we stood there and watched them going by and then we ran in the house and said,
"Oh Mother Look what's happened! We've been able to help these soldiers to try and find Highly."
"Oh" said Mother, "Where did they go?"
"Straight down the lane", we said "that's where we sent them".
"Oh dear" she said, "that's the wrong way they should have gone straight on for Highly".
I think it was probably quite a while before they got to the bottom of the dead end lane and found the River Severn barring
their way. They had to turn round and come all the way back up again and Anne and I didn't go out when they were coming back
up again. We kept very quiet in the house. But mother said it wasn't our fault and maybe if they were enemy soldiers it would
have been a very good thing. So that was our little brush with the soldiers!"
"My name is Joan, I was born near Poole, Dorset in 1926; I was the second child in a family of seven children. I had
a happy childhood as the family lived near the Chines Beaches and Parks. Before the Second World War my father was a Boatman
on the big lake, so we, the children had boat rides and even steamer rides to Swanage and Weymouth during the Summer Season.
Even though it was a one and half mile walk to church for Sunday school, I was a regular attendant, calling at my aunt's
house on the way home, it was here in September 1939 about 11am, that my sister and I heard the voice of Neville Chamberlain,
the Prime Minister announcing on the radio, that war had been declared on Germany. We were terrified and ran all the way home.
I left school in March 1940, just fourteen years old, and went into a dressmaking and alterations shop. Little did I know
that the excellent training would come in so useful during the long years of clothing coupons, when the ability to make something
from nothing would be such an asset.
When this job finished in 1941, I was aged fifteen years and worked for a Chemist's wife helping in the shop and doing
various chores. Unfortunately on my sixteenth birthday this job came to an end, as my wages should have been raised from ten
shillings to twelve shillings per week. The Chemist could not afford the extra pay. After that blow, my life changed drastically."
Do You Remember the Cold Winter of 1963
Luckily I was young at the time so to me it was a big adventure, but I hope we dont see the likes again.
At the time we lived very near to a Canal and I can remember being able to walk at least 3 miles on it ...It was frozen
solid for weeks.Skeggy
I was surfing the web for story's of Christmas past when I came upon this by chance
Its just a few clippings from local newspaper from a place in the Uk called Marple. All the clippings come from December
and I found them both interesting and in some cases very amusing: Skeggy
I found a couple of memories on the web that took me right back to my childhood, they reminded me of things that were long
forgotten. I'd forgotten all about magic painting books, do you remember them? you just used to did a paint brush in water
and then rub over the page and by magic a picture would appear. lol i had a lot of fun with them.
Hope you enjoy these memories too: Skeggy
I can recall when we had our first television, they were always showing a newsreel of a Suspension Bridge Collapsing. They
kept showing it over and over again. I think it was part of a test transmission being shown during the daytime. We heres the
story behind that newsreel..It looks frightening and watch out for the man who ventures onto the bridge to save his dog.
Gertie's failure led to the safer suspension spans we use today: Thanks to Skeggy
