World War 2 – Childhood Memories by David Walters
When war was declared in September 1939, I was four years old and living with my parents in Morden, a suburb of South London. We lived in a traditional inter-war semi-detached house and everyday my dad would travel into central London by bus and train to work in an office in Kensington. He was employed as a Chief Sanitary Inspector and was well paid for the time, earning, as I discovered much later, around £15 per week. My Mum stayed at home, looking after the house and raising me.
The outbreak of war brought mass evacuation and a general scramble to escape from the cities. Although Morden was not included in the official evacuation, my parents had already made plans to rent rooms for my nana, my aunt who had a baby, mum and me, in a farmhouse in Carew, South Wales. We had hoped to travel by train, but on the day, Dad heard reports of chaotic scenes at London stations and decided to make alternative arrangements. Luckily, we had a neighbour who owned a taxi and he agreed to take us and our luggage all the way to Wales for the princely sum of £10. My Dad and two other aunts who worked in London stayed behind.
Carew should have been safer than Morden but in the event it probably wasn’t. Whoever had planned the evacuation either overlooked or hadn’t realised that the farm was located close to an RAF airfield. Whilst we were staying there, two aircraft crashed near to the house and we were frequently disturbed by planes flying low overhead with their aircrews testing the guns. As a small boy I found this thrilling, however the grown-ups were less impressed.
I enjoyed being evacuated, the farmer and his wife were very welcoming and to me especially, the huge farmhouse was a magical place, but my family were homesick, particularly my Mum. As Christmas approached and with no enemy bombing in London, plans were made for us to return home. This time we did travel by steam train, which I found very exciting and so it came to be that I spent the rest of the war in suburban London.
Dad had been very busy whilst we were away, using the quiet months at the start of the war to install an Andersen air raid shelter in our back garden. This was a corrugated iron hut which was partially dug into the ground. The earth that had been dug out was then used to cover the exposed iron sheeting that formed the roof. It wasn’t very comfortable, but Dad had made a good job. It never flooded as many did and there was a small bunk across the back, where I could sleep and two old bench car seats along the sides for my Mum and Dad. A Valor oil stove provided some heat in the winter along with fumes which would no doubt be considered lethal today.
1940-41 The Battle of Britain and The Blitz
During the summer of 1940, the number of daylight raids increased and every time the sirens sounded, Mum and I had to go down into the shelter. If Dad was at home, he joined us. Sometimes, we heard the planes quite close by, but when the action was further away, Dad would let me look out at the patterns of vapour trails in the sky away to the south east. This was as near as I got to the Battle of Britain.
After the daylight raids, came the night blitz which was terrifying. Night after night, we heard the sirens and had to go into the shelter. In the beginning the sirens usually went off around eight or nine pm, after I had been put to bed in the house. I can remember either mum or dad, wrapping me up in a blanket and carrying me downstairs and out into the shelter when the raids began. Eventually as the bombing became more intense, I started going straight to bed in the shelter and unless there was an explosion nearby I often slept right through the raids. For my parents it was a different matter and they missed many hours of sleep.
Whilst the bombing was heaviest around the docks and industries of the East End, we were not immune. The house behind ours received a direct hit but fortunately the bomb did not explode. My parents must have been extremely worried, hearing a bomb falling so close by. I remember that we had to leave our house (much to my disappointment!) until the bomb was made safe. An unexploded landmine about a quarter of a mile away proved more of a problem but luckily we were just outside the evacuation zone.
Following a raid, I would join my friends trophy hunting. Small pieces of steel shrapnel were abundant and didn’t have much value, but larger pieces were worth two or three cigarette cards, the universal currency of the school playground. The real trophies we sought were pieces of lightweight aluminium particularly if they had traces of black or olive-green paint. These were accepted as parts from a German bomber and could command a price of ten cigarette cards or more!
The middle years 1942-3.
Although the German raids were decreasing, there was no sign of the war ending any time soon. After enduring months of sleepless nights, Dad decided we needed safer sleeping arrangements, preferably inside the house! It sounds strange, but we had a brick shelter with a reinforced concrete roof built inside our lounge. It had three bunks, an electric light and space for emergency rations. Dad said it would stand anything except for a direct hit from a large bomb; we believed him and started sleeping comfortably again.
Gradually the German raids became less frequent and life returned to a new sort of normal. This new normal included a desperate shortage of food. Most basic foods were rationed and although rations were very small, there was no problem getting them. However, any kind of fresh food was almost impossible to come by. Most vegetables, fish and some meat, usually offal and rabbit, were rationed by their lack of availability. Every morning there would be long queues outside the butchers, greengrocers and fishmongers in the hope that there would be a delivery. It was almost guaranteed that supplies would run out before the end of the queue and families started placing one member in each queue early in the morning to ensure they were near enough the front to hopefully get something.
Mum managed to do wonders with what little food we had and made sure that I always got (just) enough. However, looking back, I’m sure she went short herself sometimes – I can remember seeing very small helpings on her plate and hear her telling us that she wasn’t hungry. Trying to help, Dad followed the Government’s ‘Dig for Victory’ campaign and dug up half the lawn for a vegetable patch. He needn’t have bothered, the cabbages got club root, the potato yield was miniscule and the slugs made short work of anything else that appeared above the surface. In those days you couldn’t buy packets of slug bait!
As things seemed to have quietened down a bit, Dad and I started going out cycling together. After a bit of practice, Dad said I was perfectly alright to go on my own and I began an enthusiastic exploration of the area on my bike. This caused trouble on one occasion later in the war.
1944. D-Day and Doodlebugs.
Our school was on the A23, one of the main roads between London and the South Coast. In the early months of the year, military traffic started increasing, mainly long convoys of army vehicles heading south. Whenever one appeared, everyone, staff and pupils, dashed outside to cheer them on. Sometimes they were British, but many were American, which we preferred because they often threw out bars of chocolate as they passed. At first this caused a near riot as boys and girls fought for them, but the Headmaster soon stopped this, ruling that only teachers could collect the chocolate and warning that anyone else would be caned. The chocolate was then given out as a reward for good work and behaviour.
Seeing the convoys and military movement, everybody started talking about Invasion but we didn’t know when it would be or where. I remember listening to the news on the radio on D Day morning, June 6th and being absolutely thrilled. Mum cautioned me that it did not mean the war was over, but I was still very excited. At school assembly that day, we sang ‘Land of Hope and Glory’ instead of the usual hymn.
That was the good news, about a week later we received the bad. Early one evening, the air raid warning sounded – unusual at this stage of the war. Even more worrying, we didn’t hear the ‘All Clear’. There was no sign of enemy activity and nothing on the news either. The next morning, Mum talked to other mums along the road before deciding to send me to school as normal. When I arrived, instead of going to my class, there was a policeman on the gate who directed me to shelter number 3. This was an Andersen shelter similar to ours in the back garden but big enough to take 50 or 60 children on long seats down each side. There was only one chemical toilet at the end of the shelter and after we had been in there for several hours this had over-flowed and the smell was truly awful. Finally, we were allowed out and told not to come back unless the ‘all clear’ had sounded.
Eventually we discovered that Hitler’s new weapon was a flying bomb or ‘doodlebug’ as they became known. These were pilotless aircraft powered by a jet engine with a long trailing flame which nosedived to earth when the fuel ran out, exploding on impact. Unlike the bombs in the blitz, these were weapons of terror, designed to demoralise and frighten the public, many fell on residential areas like ours. Often there was little or no warning from the air raid sirens.
I had one close encounter with a doodlebug. One evening, a friend and I went on a bike ride. We had been told not to go too far but like most young boys, we didn’t listen. Suddenly the air raid warning sounded and we decided to go to an Aunt’s house nearby and use her shelter. Unfortunately, she was out, so we had no choice but to turn around and head for home. Approximately half-way back, we heard the characteristic sound of the doodlebug engine and since there was no shelter available, we just watched as it passed overhead. About a minute later, the engine cut out and a few seconds afterwards, there was a loud bang as it exploded. We could see the cloud of debris several miles away. When we got home our parents didn’t know whether to be angry or relieved – I do know I wasn’t allowed out on my bike for a week!
1945 Victory.
I clearly remember VE Day, May 8th. After breakfast, Dad and I went out to the shops to hear the local news. As a treat, Dad bought me a model aeroplane kit, then we stopped to chat with friends and neighbours. There was a sense of nervous tension, no-one was prepared to believe the war was actually over until they had heard Mr. Churchill’s broadcast.
Shortly before three pm everybody went indoors to listen to their radios, then as soon as the speech was over, the street erupted. People rushed outside, cheering and hugging each other and somebody brought out a wind-up gramophone and we all started to dance. Long hoarded supplies of alcohol were produced and soon everyone seemed to have a drink, although it was just lemonade for the children!
I was disappointed when Mum said it was time to go in and have tea, but then Dad told us that there was going to be a large bonfire on the recreation ground at about nine o’clock that evening to celebrate. This was well beyond my normal bed- time and I didn’t think I would be allowed to go, but Mum surprised me by saying I could stay up as long as I could keep awake!
There was great jubilation as the bonfire was lit underneath a huge scaffold from which hung effigies of Hitler, Goering, and other Nazi leaders. As each effigy was consumed by the flames, the celebrations grew louder and louder.
Next day, the first day of peace didn’t start well for me. I wanted to go out with my friends, but Dad spoiled things by insisting that I should write an essay about VE Day first! Later in the day, I can remember that there was another massive bonfire party, this time with flames higher than the surrounding houses. A few days later there was a street party for the children and for once food seemed to be in abundance.
After the excitement of the VE Day celebrations, little changed except that there was no longer the threat of bombing. Food remained scarce and queueing was normal for almost everything, but families did celebrate by decorating their houses with flags and bunting to welcome home demobbed servicemen. VJ Day in August meant little to me and my friends, although I do remember great interest (and much misconception) about the new atomic bomb. The war was finally over but it was a long time before we saw the benefits of peace.