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Lifestory Showcase - Chappell
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On Sunday 3rd September 1939 Mr Chamberlain the Prime Minister, came on the radio at 11.15 am to announce that we were now at War with Germany. Fifty years later on Sunday 3rd September 1989 it is being remembered all over this country on both radio and television, and at the various Church Services and as I write these sentences, my memories are of those dark days which were to come.
‘This morning the British Ambassador in Berlin handed the German Government a final note, stating that, unless we heard from them by eleven o'clock that they were prepared at once to withdraw their troops from Poland, a state of war would exist between us. I have to tell you now that no such undertaking has been received, and that consequently this country is now at war with Germany. You can imagine what a bitter blow it is to me that all my long struggle to win peace has failed.’
These were the words we heard on the radio on that September day, everyone stopped what they were doing for this was going to alter everyone's life, men, women and children alike. Only a year before he had returned from Munich with a piece of paper in his hand and he stepped from his plane saying. "It is PEACE IN OUR TIME"
He was soon to hand over to Mr Winston Churchill who somehow brought little Britain through those four years of terror for us all. So many lives were lost, not only those of men and women in the Army, Navy, Air force, the voluntary Home Guard and Air Raid Wardens who had little protection apart from a Tin Hat and a Gas Mask which they always carried like everyone else, but also those of men, women and children who were killed in their own homes, in the street, blown sky high at school, or in the factories where they were making ammunition to do exactly the same and worse to the Germans. Now in my sixties in the 1990's I am asking why? It was all so necessary but so sad.
We were at ‘war with Germany’. Hitler's army had already invaded Czechoslovakia and Poland and was threatening to over-run all the other little countries in Europe. He had to be stopped but unfortunately it was not before he rounded up millions of Jews, gassed them and then burnt them which was horrible. When we became involved, some of our boys and men had already been called up into the Army, Navy and Air Force.
Every fit man ‘had to go’ and women had to either join the forces, work on the land, in munitions factories, or become nurses. Everyone had to do something for the war effort. Those who did stay at home often through ill health or age, had to join the Home Guard (Dad’s Army) or become Air Raid Wardens, Fire Fighters, and yet still carry on their work as housewives, teachers, bakers, butchers, doctors etc. at the same time.
Everyone cared about everybody else around them, more than we do today. We shared our whole life more, especially when the telegrams began coming from the War Office to say someone's husband, father, brother or friend had been killed or was thought to be dead, (a few did come back after the five years of war when everyone thought they were dead).
More and more men were away, often abroad, so the women had to carry on with everything alone. They had the job of bringing up a family alone, not knowing if they would ever see their husbands or fathers again, or whether they would come back badly wounded both mentally and physically. War is so pointless.
The blitz started in 1940 and we never knew when the siren would go. We would hear our planes whizzing about above our heads trying to shoot down the German Planes. We could always hear them coming as they made a different droning noise to our planes. Our little ‘Spits’, as we called them, would try to stop these bombers before they reached London, Bristol, Birmingham , Coventry or one of our other large cities. The Germans knew our munitions factories were in these towns and they would also bomb all around our coast ready for the invasion which thankfully never came.
Most people had built Air Raid Shelters in their gardens and fields as far from the houses as possible but near enough to run to whenever the siren wailed day or night. Town folk would get under the stairs or shelter in a large steel box indoors known as a ‘Morrison Shelter’. Here they stayed , often for hours and hours, until the all-clear sounded.
Whole streets could be destroyed with one bomb and of course many people were killed. It was terrible to hear about this on the radio, and about a week later we would see it at the cinema. No TV. to see it, as happens like today. Our radios, wirelesses we called them were run on batteries and we would have to buy one for them. These were like big glass jars with lead plates and liquid acid in them and frequently we had to carefully carry them to a garage for a recharge where they would be exchanged for a recharged one at sixpence a time. Not everyone had a wireless but we had an old second-hand one as big as a television today.
Rationing, always made sure everyone had something to eat and we did get our rations every week no matter how many tonnes of food had been lost in the many huge ships that were sent to the bottom of the sea. We all had a Ration Book of Coupons, like little stamps of different colours all worth so much, like 2 oz cheese, 4 oz butter, 2 oz Margarine, 6 oz sugar, 8 oz meat, 4 oz sweets, also coupons for tea, lard, biscuits, flour, and so on. So much allowed for each person.
Fruit was a real luxury. If I heard on my way home from school that the greengrocer had some oranges, I would go home and get the money, about three shillings, hoping I could buy as many as six oranges for three of us. It was a treat. I cannot remember what we did for bananas. Another treat was eggs, a few people kept chickens on their scraps of food and if you had more than a dozen you had to be registered for chicken food then you could have so many coupons for corn and bran for them but you had to sell the eggs to the packing stations.
We could buy packets of Dried Powdered Egg from America, and I found this quite nice scrambled or used in cooking. So it was not so much a case now of having the money but having enough coupons to buy food. We only had so many per week or month.
We took our own newspaper to wrap meat and fish in, only fruit, and corned beef was bought in tins. There were coupons for clothes, we had so many coupons to spend, but if anyone could steal clothes or food, they would offer them at higher prices. This was known as the "black market". We did not have fashions or much clothing to choose from, nor could we afford much except from the Jumble Sales which are still as popular today.
My mother has always been an expert with needle and thread, a pair of scissors and a sewing machine, so we never went untidy but never had what is known as brand new clothes. They were made from good old Jumble Sales stuff, or sometimes from the left over material she had when she made clothes for other people.
There were skirts and dresses for me and trousers, coats and little jackets for my brother. How many mothers do this today in the nineties? Derek had his first bought jacket and trousers at the age of eleven after the war, when he had passed all his exams to go to Wimborne Grammar School. He had a little school cap which they all had to wear and which he often wore in bed1 still doing his homework, for he always said “I can think better with it on”.
He often dropped off to sleep still wearing his cap and there would be books and papers strewn across the bed and on the floor in the morning. After school, he would come home, grab his tea and get on his bike again, to ride to an Uncle's farm about twenty miles away. There he earned himself money in order to buy a motor bike as soon as he was sixteen. He had saved exactly enough to buy it by his sixteenth birthday, pass his driving test and drive himself to school, passing his Headmaster on his push bike on the way. This gave him quite a thrill.
The only entertainment in the country, where we lived in Dorset, was the ‘pictures’. The only Cinema was a half-hour bus journey away and we all went about once a week, to see a big film which was like all the old black and white films that are shown today on the TV and the ‘Pathe Gazette’ which had the news of the week from around the world. We would pay 4d each way on the bus, 3d to get into the Tivoli Cinema but we would see it all through twice for this, l penny for ice-cream or a drink and perhaps 6d for fish-and-chips. A grand total of about 7p in today's money.
This was a family evening out, and on a nice evening we would ride our bikes the four miles to save bus fares. Songs? Everyone sang and whistled, you would hear the milkman, butcher, and postman. paper-boy all whistling the latest tune that was on the wireless. Not many whistle at work today. There were also dances in the village hall on Saturday evenings.
Money? Until decirnalisation in 1971, we had Pounds (£) Shillings (s) and Pence (d), which still seems a lot easier to us older people and we cannot really compare it with prices today. There were 12 pence in a shilling and 20 shillings in £l, not the 100 pence per £1 we have today. A stamp for a letter was 1 penny, and it would be delivered the same day or next morning anywhere in the British Isles.
You could buy 4 bars of chocolate for 1 penny when war started. I was at the Council School of about 300 boys and girls from the age of 5 to 14. At 14 we all had to leave school and start work right away except those who went on to Grammar School and they usually left that at sixteen. One of the lads from my class who went on to Grammar School and who I used to think was so clever and would help me, was none other than Peter Aliss the golfer and now TV Commentator and Author on the game of Golf. His father Percy was then Caretaker and Professional at Ferndown Golf Course. I have read his book and would love to meet him again.
Every child who left school at fourteen had a local job and started the day after they left school. They had been already working there at weekends and in school holidays for sometime before and some would stay there for the rest of their working lives. They certainly knew by the age of ten what job they wanted to do and did it long before they left school.
Ferndown never had much local industry,, there was a brick-works just over the hill from where we lived and a few gravel pits. The owner lived near us and father worked a while for him but most of the work locally was on the land. Boys in those day would either work on farms or other rural jobs or they would want to be engine drivers on the railways. The nearest station was never very far away, hearing trains going by was an all day and night occurrence, everything and everybody travelled by train. Every train always arrived on time, and you could always check the right time of day or night by the trains until Dr. Beeching did his worst.
When the bad raids started we were often in school when old “Wailing Willy” (our name for the siren) would screech out. If I was not already lying down on the stretcher for the afternoon rest I was supposed to have when I was a growing girl, I would have to dive down onto it. The stretcher was always in front of my desk with my coat, gas-mask and a book ready on it, for we had to have our gas-masks with us everywhere we went day and night.
Four bigger boys would have to carry me out of school on my stretcher bed over to the trenches out on the common. There was one for every class, but I was put in the nearest one with the little five year olds and I would get my book and read to them until the raid was over. We often watched dog-fights overhead, planes shooting at each other and the bombs coming down.
On two occasions I came very near death, one very wet and windy night, there was a bomber above us on fire, the pilot dropped a landmine which was much bigger than a bomb. This was a 'present' from Italy, it fell on the common land just above our road and brought down the whole of the bedroom ceiling on my bed where my head should have been.
Luckily my brother and I were both sound asleep in a bed in the hall. There was glass from the front door on our blanket, the door had come off its hinges and was turned right round. The second near miss, was one Saturday afternoon when I was out on my tricycle shopping and I was in a garage having the tyres pumped up when another bomb dropped. Mother ran about a mile until she found me safe and sound.
During the war, we had to blackout all windows at dusk with thick heavy opaque material. and Wardens would patrol to see this was strictly obeyed with not the slightest chink of light showing. Cars had their lights masked with only the tiniest beam allowed. The blackout was to avoid helping the enemy planes use the lights to aid their navigation.
The blackout times would be given in the papers and on the wireless. I remember Grandma Chip, who not quite understanding about the blackout, would standby the window with her thick black curtain in her hand to be ready. They eventually had a wireless for her to listen to and make sure she put the blackout up at exactly the right time. The wireless was kept strictly covered up with a thick cloth, only the news was listened to and then it was quickly switched off and covered again. I think she thought it was some kind of secret weapon.
The hopes and fears of wartime, were many, with so much happening everywhere. I would always be found at break times at school, in the waste paper shed looking for books, and I confess they did not always get to the waste paper depots where they were supposed to go. If I found a book about birds, flowers or anything else of interest to me I took it. I started a stamp collection by stealing an album full of very interesting stamps and found out where each one came from, for I was always very keen on geography.
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