Dear Reader
It's been a while since I blogged any of my mum's war memories. I mentioned them yesterday when I was at my brother's partner, Jo's, for her birthday party and it got me round to thinking that I should do some more. I am getting fairly near the end of them and have enjoyed them all. It helps obviously to know the people - or at least to have heard family stories of them over the years - but nevertheless from people's comments I think others have found them entertaining. So if you read this mum how about some more memories?!
1943
In 1943 I was eleven years old and one day in Spring we were all given a 'test' to do on a printed paper. We were told it was a Preliminary Exam for a scholarship to go to Wintringham Grammar School, the only grammar school in the town. Most children there were paid for and had been at the school since they were seven years old.
A few months later about a third of us were taken to Wintringham School in Eleanor Street to take the Scholarship exam. I did this and it was forgotten about until the beginning of July when Miss Ely, our form teacher, said "The following girls stand up and my name was called out, there were 5 or 6 of us. She said "You girls have passed the scholarship and you can go to Wintringham in September.
I ran home and told my mother, I thought she would be pleased but she looked sad and said "I can't possibly afford the Wintringham School uniform. Those gold embossed badges cost a fortune." I don't think this worried me, I thought 'well I can go to Welholme Road Secondary School with my friends'. Anyway later that day my mother told my grandfather and he said "Of course she must go, don't worry I will help with the uniform." My mother was still not convinced. She said, "You don't realise Dad it's a different way of life, she will need a tennis racket and goodness knows what else, they go on trips from Wintringham, the children are mostly from wealthy families, we'll never manage it!" Things like tennis rackets were much more expensived then in real terms, roughly half a weekly wage. My grandfather was adamant that I should go so I started Wintringham in the September. My grandfather bought me a bicycle that had to last me until I was 16, it was far too big for me so he put wooden blocks on the pedals so I could reach them. I was bought a satchel to put on my back for homework books and off I went. I had to cycle to HIghfield House (near Barretts).
What a shock the first day was. I remember the first lesson was French. French - I had never heard of it but most of the class had been learning it for a few years. In fact most of the subjects - Algebra, Geometry for two - were totally foreign to me. I felt like a fish out of water and miserable. I didn't like to say so at home because of all the expense to get me there. I was even more miserable because when I got home from school that first week, I would quickly get changed and hurry out to meet my friends but now they didn't want to know me so at last I gave up playing on the street. I belonged nowhere and was really miserablke and wished I had never gone to Wint.
A few weeks later I noticed a girl who was in my class cycling past my house in a morning. Her name was Jean Haigh, she lived in Wellington Street (I don't know which school she had been to before Wint). We started to cycle to school together and quickly became friends. We were the best of friends all through school. Her father was a Captain of a minesweeper in the North Sea. His boat was sunk and he lost three fingers and had other injuries. Whilst he was recuperating he took his wife, Jean and myself to the Yorkshire Moors for a week and we went to Blackpool for a day. I remember we spent a lot of time pushing the car! Jean Haigh became Jean Potterton when she married and had a nursery selling Alpine plants at Nettleton, she won a Gold at Chelsea Flower Show. It now seems strange she finished up selling plants at Garden Shows and I finished up selling antiques at Antique Fairs.
Well back to the 40's. Her and I propped each other up and soon we were doing well with our studies and we were both chosen for the hockey, rounders and tennis teams so we both began to enjoy school life. One year in the summer holidays we got a job at Bradley Village bottling plums for Ticklers Jam Factory. It was piece work and we earned good money. We were 12 or 13. I remember I bought my own hockey stick which I was very proud of. After the war when I was 15 I went on a school trip to Switzerland to a place called Engelberg and this opened my eyes to foreign travel. I remember us both crying on the last day at school; we were so sad to be leaving.
Showing posts with label Mum's War Memories. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mum's War Memories. Show all posts
Sunday, 13 June 2010
Tuesday, 20 April 2010
MUM'S WAR MEMORIES 9
Picture: My Mum (or as my girls call her "Grandma Jean") in her Sunday best and looking "smashing" as mum would say, "great" as I would say or "cool" as my girls would say..... How language changes!
ANTI PERSONNEL BOMB
I was ten years old and I was playing with my friends as usual. I sat on a house wall opposite our house - the wall was quite low because at the beginning of the war the iron railing which had been above the bricks and the decorative iron gates had been cut off to help make ammunitions. There I sat trailing my hand in the damp grass behind me when I felt something and picked it up. It looked like a fountain pen made of glass. Fortunately for me a neighbour was nearby and saw me with 'the pen'. She said "Stay quite still, don't drop it and I will fetch an ARP Warden".
Two wardens came and they stood me in the middle of the road (still holding the pen) and proceeded to put sandbags all around me. Then another man came, I think he must have been a domb disposal man. He took "the pen" from me and put it in something and went off at great speed.
The ARP warden went to see my mother and told her I had found an anti-personnel bomb and that I was lucky not to have been blown up. They said they were going to search to see if there were any more. Well they found hundreds in close proximity to our house. They were on the roofs and in the gardens.
On the next Saturday afternoon quite a lot of people were killed on Freeman Street Market with these bombs. They were small and came in many guises. I'm told it was decided that nothing should be said and it was one of the best kept secrets of the war. The Germans had chosen Grimsby to be a guinea pig but they thought that the anti-personnel bombs had been a failure. This wasn't the case, they had been very successful but the secret worked and they didn't drop any more.
The sad thing as far as I was concerned was that the next morning I was called out in Assembly, and the Head Teacher (Miss Beeson) said, "This silly girl picked up an anti-personnel bomb yesterday and could have been blown up, I hope none of you will do anything so dangerous". Turning to me she said, "Go and wait outside my door". Later when Assembly was over she came and said "Come in and hold out your hand". I got three sharp strokes across my hand with the cane. I can remember I didn't cry - I just hated her for the injustice of it!!
Another of my nine lives gone!
Monday, 5 April 2010
MUM'S WAR MEMORIES 9
OUR ALLOTMENT
My grandfather kept his allotment all throughthe war. He had been brought up in the country at Stainton-le-Vale. He provided us with a valuable amount of vegetables and fruit when they were in season. Freezers were not known about then so we looked forward to strawberries and gooseberries coming into season. He kept his pots. for sprouting from one year to the next, he also took cuttings and kept seeds because everythng was in short supply. He was a very good gardener and I can remember other allotment holders coming to him for advice.
He found it difficult to do everything, especially when my father went into the Forces as he used to help quite a lot. He was often very tired because he had to fire watch at night so I was told to go with him and help. He taught me many things - simple things like digging a trench and sprinkling lime in the bottom of it before setting carrot seeds as this apparently stopped the wire worms from eating the carrots.
During the last 2 or 3 years of the War I used to cycle down there, the allotment was at the back of Carr Lane. I would go there as soon as I had eaten my tea and do some weeding, water the toms in the greenhouse with the sheep manure water out of the barrel and then I would pull a few carrots or pick a few peas if they were ready and sit in the shed and eat them.
One day I was going to the allotment to pick some logenberries but discovered that I could not cycle down Carr Lane because there was a large bomb crater in the middle of the road with an unexploded bomb inside it. I had to go back along Cooper Road and back up again along a road nearer to the allotment.
We all loved going there, especially in the summer. Everyone was very old except for women who were trying to keep things going themselves. There were always lots of children and everyone was very friendly. They also did a lot of bartering of their produce.
I have since thought how lucky I was to have relatives living in the country and a grandfather with an allotment. With hardly any sugar ration and very little fat I must have eaten a very healthy diet although at the time I could always have eaten more!
When I was ten or eleven a school welfare officer came to see my mother and said they were concerned about me as I was so thin and hadn't 'developed' at all. She suggested that perhaps I should get more fresh air. "Fresh air!" my mother said, "how can she have more fresh air - she is never in the house." She needn't have worried because I did develop and once I started I thought I was never going to stop.
My grandfather kept his allotment all throughthe war. He had been brought up in the country at Stainton-le-Vale. He provided us with a valuable amount of vegetables and fruit when they were in season. Freezers were not known about then so we looked forward to strawberries and gooseberries coming into season. He kept his pots. for sprouting from one year to the next, he also took cuttings and kept seeds because everythng was in short supply. He was a very good gardener and I can remember other allotment holders coming to him for advice.
He found it difficult to do everything, especially when my father went into the Forces as he used to help quite a lot. He was often very tired because he had to fire watch at night so I was told to go with him and help. He taught me many things - simple things like digging a trench and sprinkling lime in the bottom of it before setting carrot seeds as this apparently stopped the wire worms from eating the carrots.
During the last 2 or 3 years of the War I used to cycle down there, the allotment was at the back of Carr Lane. I would go there as soon as I had eaten my tea and do some weeding, water the toms in the greenhouse with the sheep manure water out of the barrel and then I would pull a few carrots or pick a few peas if they were ready and sit in the shed and eat them.
One day I was going to the allotment to pick some logenberries but discovered that I could not cycle down Carr Lane because there was a large bomb crater in the middle of the road with an unexploded bomb inside it. I had to go back along Cooper Road and back up again along a road nearer to the allotment.
We all loved going there, especially in the summer. Everyone was very old except for women who were trying to keep things going themselves. There were always lots of children and everyone was very friendly. They also did a lot of bartering of their produce.
I have since thought how lucky I was to have relatives living in the country and a grandfather with an allotment. With hardly any sugar ration and very little fat I must have eaten a very healthy diet although at the time I could always have eaten more!
When I was ten or eleven a school welfare officer came to see my mother and said they were concerned about me as I was so thin and hadn't 'developed' at all. She suggested that perhaps I should get more fresh air. "Fresh air!" my mother said, "how can she have more fresh air - she is never in the house." She needn't have worried because I did develop and once I started I thought I was never going to stop.
Monday, 29 March 2010
MUM'S WAR MEMORIES 8
GRANDMA CHASE
My father's mother was a widow as I have said. After bringing up her own family on her own (my father was the eldest of six), her daughter who was a widow died in the early forties so my grandmother brought her grandchildren up as well. The youngest one was called Edith after my mother.
At the beginning of the war my grandmother was living in a little terrace house in Bath Street. My father thought the world of her and helped her financially whenever he could. Before the war he took me every Sunday morning to see her and she would sometimes say, "Would you like a new silk suit?" What colour would you like?" She made me feel important asking me that and I would give it deep consideration. Then she would say "Lift your arms up" and she would measure me. She never needed a pattern, she would ask me if I would like a collar or not and if I would like long or short sleeves.
In two weeks the skirt and top would be finished and it would fit perfectly. She crocheted beautifully too and I can remember the fineness of her work. My mother always said she was really clever with her hands. She also made wonderful jams and pickles. In stature she was small, rounded and always laughing.
I think she must have been one of the first people in Grimsby to be bombed. She lost everything and had no money. My ghrandfather who I lived with bought her some second hand furniture and found her another house to rent. I think, being the only man in the family left at home, he felt responsible for us all. Unbelievable, within months she had been bombed again, her house (in Bath Street) devastated but she herself was safe because she had been in the street air raid shelter. The houses did not have much garden so were unable to have Anderson Shelters.
Again my grandfather bought her furniture and found her another house to rent which she lived in until the end of 1943.
It was a Saturday morning, all through Friday night the bombing had been relentless and my mother heard that my grandmother's street had been badly hit. Her and I went quickly to see if she had been hurt, I can't remember the name of the street but I remember it was somewhere off Victor Street. When we got there the street was cordoned off with ropes and the ARP men said "You can't go past here - there might be unexploded bombs. We are trying to clear the debris to see if anyone is alive". I could see my granmother's house was bombed to the ground along with many others but we thought she would have been in the communal air raid shelter. Mum asked an ARP warden if she had been in the shelter, she said it was her mother-in-law and she needed to know. He said he would try and find out and in a little while he came back and said he was sorry but she hadn't been in the shelter.
My mother started to sob, tears running down her face. "How on earth can I write to your father and tell him his mother has been killed" she said. I just stood there - it seemed ages when I noticed the men digging away at my grandmother's house. They had unearthed a big leather settee and were turning it right way up and unbelievably up stood my grandma. I broke through the cordon and ran to her. I said, "Are you hurt Grandma?" She answered me "No I'm not hurt but I'm hungry - I thought we got food when we were bombed". She was unbelievable!"
She came home with us, the three of us walked all the way to our house, her filthy dirty in an old nightie and dressing gown. I don't think she cared a jot. I remember she enjoyed her dinner that Rene had cooked and my poor Grandfather had to start all over again with trying to get her fixed up in a house.
She didn't want my mother to write and tell my father anything about the raid - she said it was her own fault if she had been killed. She had heard the siren but couldn't be bothered to go to the air raid shelter so she had gone downstairs, tipped the settee over and crawled underneath it and gone back to sleep! She said I'm sure he's enough things to worry about. I said Grandma you're always getting bombed and she said "Well he's had three goes at me now and not managed to finish me off, so I reckon he will give up! And he did!
My father's mother was a widow as I have said. After bringing up her own family on her own (my father was the eldest of six), her daughter who was a widow died in the early forties so my grandmother brought her grandchildren up as well. The youngest one was called Edith after my mother.
At the beginning of the war my grandmother was living in a little terrace house in Bath Street. My father thought the world of her and helped her financially whenever he could. Before the war he took me every Sunday morning to see her and she would sometimes say, "Would you like a new silk suit?" What colour would you like?" She made me feel important asking me that and I would give it deep consideration. Then she would say "Lift your arms up" and she would measure me. She never needed a pattern, she would ask me if I would like a collar or not and if I would like long or short sleeves.
In two weeks the skirt and top would be finished and it would fit perfectly. She crocheted beautifully too and I can remember the fineness of her work. My mother always said she was really clever with her hands. She also made wonderful jams and pickles. In stature she was small, rounded and always laughing.
I think she must have been one of the first people in Grimsby to be bombed. She lost everything and had no money. My ghrandfather who I lived with bought her some second hand furniture and found her another house to rent. I think, being the only man in the family left at home, he felt responsible for us all. Unbelievable, within months she had been bombed again, her house (in Bath Street) devastated but she herself was safe because she had been in the street air raid shelter. The houses did not have much garden so were unable to have Anderson Shelters.
Again my grandfather bought her furniture and found her another house to rent which she lived in until the end of 1943.
It was a Saturday morning, all through Friday night the bombing had been relentless and my mother heard that my grandmother's street had been badly hit. Her and I went quickly to see if she had been hurt, I can't remember the name of the street but I remember it was somewhere off Victor Street. When we got there the street was cordoned off with ropes and the ARP men said "You can't go past here - there might be unexploded bombs. We are trying to clear the debris to see if anyone is alive". I could see my granmother's house was bombed to the ground along with many others but we thought she would have been in the communal air raid shelter. Mum asked an ARP warden if she had been in the shelter, she said it was her mother-in-law and she needed to know. He said he would try and find out and in a little while he came back and said he was sorry but she hadn't been in the shelter.
My mother started to sob, tears running down her face. "How on earth can I write to your father and tell him his mother has been killed" she said. I just stood there - it seemed ages when I noticed the men digging away at my grandmother's house. They had unearthed a big leather settee and were turning it right way up and unbelievably up stood my grandma. I broke through the cordon and ran to her. I said, "Are you hurt Grandma?" She answered me "No I'm not hurt but I'm hungry - I thought we got food when we were bombed". She was unbelievable!"
She came home with us, the three of us walked all the way to our house, her filthy dirty in an old nightie and dressing gown. I don't think she cared a jot. I remember she enjoyed her dinner that Rene had cooked and my poor Grandfather had to start all over again with trying to get her fixed up in a house.
She didn't want my mother to write and tell my father anything about the raid - she said it was her own fault if she had been killed. She had heard the siren but couldn't be bothered to go to the air raid shelter so she had gone downstairs, tipped the settee over and crawled underneath it and gone back to sleep! She said I'm sure he's enough things to worry about. I said Grandma you're always getting bombed and she said "Well he's had three goes at me now and not managed to finish me off, so I reckon he will give up! And he did!
Monday, 22 March 2010
MUM'S WAR MEMORIES 7
WALLASEY
My best friend before the war was a girl called Rita Page who lived about six houses down the street from us. Our parents were friends so in a way friendship was forced upon us.
When war broke out Rita's father said to my father 'You know we might get called up and I have heard that if we apply for a job in Wallasey making Barage Balloons we would be exempt from call up. We have decided to go - why don't you and Edie come with us? My father discussed this idea with my mother but she didn't want to leave her father I think Dad thought he was too old for call-up papers anyway so they said 'no' - they wouldn't go'.
The Pages left and promised to keep in touch, which they did. Rita and I were encouraged to write to one another - we were eight years old. About a year later they came to Grimsby to visit some relatives who lived in the school house at Cleethorpes Grammar School. Whilst they were visiting we had a heavy bombing raid.
They came round to visit my mother, my father was in Egypt by now and they suggested to my mother that I should go back with them to Wallasey as the German planes were never going to reach the West Coast and I would be safe. They said that if anything happened to my mother they would bring me up until the war finished and my father returned home. Lots of children were being evacuated at that time so my mother thought she would let me go with the Pages and see how I settled.
Rita and I were very excited. Mother packed up my things and we caught a train to Wallasey near Liverpool. Welholme Road School was closed so my mother thought I would receive some education. They had a nice new semi-detached house - I had my own bedroom and although I was a little homesick I settled down well. Rita and I were good friends and every night and morning she would come into my bed and we would read, play games and gigle continuously.
I was there about two months and had just got admitted into a school when Liverpool started to get bombed. Rita became ill and was not allowed to see me so I began to feel miserable. I didn't know what illness Rita had but Mrs Page suddenly told me that she was sending me home because my mother had written and said that if Liverpool was being bombed I might as well take my chance with her in Grimsby.
I was put on a train (full of Forces personnel) and they asked the guard to take care of me. I had a card around my neck with my name and address on. I think it was Manchester when the guard told me I had to get off and catch another train (I was 9 years old). He asked two airmen to put me onto the next train to Newark (I think) which they did. This continued until I got home. Everyone seemed very kind and helpful during the war and I remember everyone on that journey was concerned and helped me.
My mother was waiting at Town Station to meet me and her first words were 'Hello Love - what on earth is wrong with your face?' Apparently I was covered in red spots - the next morning my head was covered in spots, so she took me to see Dr Riggalkl who said I had Impetigo. My hair was cut off and the doctor daubed my face and head with a horrid blue lotion that I think was called Gentian of Violets. I looked ridiculous. My mother was furious and said, "the Page's house must have been dirty". This wasn't true at all and I protested.
Well that was the end of my short evacuation and also the friendship with the Page family. I have often wondered what became of Rita.
My best friend before the war was a girl called Rita Page who lived about six houses down the street from us. Our parents were friends so in a way friendship was forced upon us.
When war broke out Rita's father said to my father 'You know we might get called up and I have heard that if we apply for a job in Wallasey making Barage Balloons we would be exempt from call up. We have decided to go - why don't you and Edie come with us? My father discussed this idea with my mother but she didn't want to leave her father I think Dad thought he was too old for call-up papers anyway so they said 'no' - they wouldn't go'.
The Pages left and promised to keep in touch, which they did. Rita and I were encouraged to write to one another - we were eight years old. About a year later they came to Grimsby to visit some relatives who lived in the school house at Cleethorpes Grammar School. Whilst they were visiting we had a heavy bombing raid.
They came round to visit my mother, my father was in Egypt by now and they suggested to my mother that I should go back with them to Wallasey as the German planes were never going to reach the West Coast and I would be safe. They said that if anything happened to my mother they would bring me up until the war finished and my father returned home. Lots of children were being evacuated at that time so my mother thought she would let me go with the Pages and see how I settled.
Rita and I were very excited. Mother packed up my things and we caught a train to Wallasey near Liverpool. Welholme Road School was closed so my mother thought I would receive some education. They had a nice new semi-detached house - I had my own bedroom and although I was a little homesick I settled down well. Rita and I were good friends and every night and morning she would come into my bed and we would read, play games and gigle continuously.
I was there about two months and had just got admitted into a school when Liverpool started to get bombed. Rita became ill and was not allowed to see me so I began to feel miserable. I didn't know what illness Rita had but Mrs Page suddenly told me that she was sending me home because my mother had written and said that if Liverpool was being bombed I might as well take my chance with her in Grimsby.
I was put on a train (full of Forces personnel) and they asked the guard to take care of me. I had a card around my neck with my name and address on. I think it was Manchester when the guard told me I had to get off and catch another train (I was 9 years old). He asked two airmen to put me onto the next train to Newark (I think) which they did. This continued until I got home. Everyone seemed very kind and helpful during the war and I remember everyone on that journey was concerned and helped me.
My mother was waiting at Town Station to meet me and her first words were 'Hello Love - what on earth is wrong with your face?' Apparently I was covered in red spots - the next morning my head was covered in spots, so she took me to see Dr Riggalkl who said I had Impetigo. My hair was cut off and the doctor daubed my face and head with a horrid blue lotion that I think was called Gentian of Violets. I looked ridiculous. My mother was furious and said, "the Page's house must have been dirty". This wasn't true at all and I protested.
Well that was the end of my short evacuation and also the friendship with the Page family. I have often wondered what became of Rita.
Friday, 19 March 2010
MUM'S WAR MEMORIES 6
PRIVATE SCHOOL
I think it was 1940 when Welholme Road school was closed. I had just gone into the Junior School. We thought it was great we didn't have to go to school, we could play in the streets and fields all day. Old Clee fields started at the end of Convamore Road in those days so we spent hours jumping ditches and generally tearing about and when we were tired we just sat down and chatted or in the summer made daisy chains.
I think looking back my mother had so much to do and worry about she just let me be and I lived on the street, only going in when I was hungry. There was no traffic of course, hardly anyone had a car and if they did have a car there was no petrol. The odd horse and cart came by and if the horse 'obliged' near our house I had to run out with a pan and brush to sweep it up for my grandfather's alllotment. He thought that horses and sheep provided the best manure you could get and he certainly grew good vegetables.
One of my favourite pastimes was to get up early and look for shrapnel (broken pieces of bombs and aeroplanes) that had dropped from the night's air raid. A piece with German writing on was worth a lot - I could swop it for two 'Film Fun' comics (popular comics of the time featuring film stars such as Laurel & Hardy and Old Mother Riley). Perhaps this was the start of my trading skills!
There were 8-10 children playing out every night until dark so sometimes we would go to Grant Thorald Park and play rounders, using our coats as 'stops'. We played 'Oyster Blob' a game that needed two teams. A boy or girl from one team would draw a map on the alley wall with chalk and put an X where his team would hide. His team would run off to the X spot and the other team had to count to 100 then look at the map and decide where the spot was. There was a labyrinth of passages in Convamore & Welholme Roads, so the task was not always easy.
We were as free as birds. We had a den in the Cordage Yard and a poor man who we called 'Peg Leg', he must have been a watchman, he only had one leg and rode a bicycle with his one foot fastened into a pedal. If he saw us he would chase us out but we were young and fast and he never caught us. He was doing this for our own safety as there was a brickpit full of water in the Cordage and it was said to be so deep that a horse and cart fell in one day and disappeared.
I spent many hours up against the cordage wall throwing a ball and singing songs to the rhythm of the ball. We threw the ball under our spread-eagled legs, behind our backs singing
Old Ma Brown
Went to Town
Riding on a Pony
When she got back
Toook off her hat
And gave it Ma Rooney
Where have you been
All day long
Courting Sally
In the Alley
Picking up cinders
Breaking windows
All day long
We had to keep the ball going without dropping it until the song was finished. There were many 'ditties' but I have forgotten a lot of them.
We also played hopscotch, drawing the lines out on the pavement with a piece of chalk and kicking an old tile, shiny side down. There were always plenty of tiles about with the bombing. We also played lots of skipping games, but I think my favourite game of all was playing marbles in the gutter. We each had a bag of marbles and a bag of glass alleys. An alley was twice as big as a marble and worth six marbles. Marbles were always glass but glass alleys were sometimes made of china. We threw the marbles in the gutter trying to hit our opponent's marble, if we did then we had won his marble. Perhaps this was the start of my love of bowling in later life! I now shudder to think we spent days and days playying in the gutters but it didn't seem to kill us off. In fact in spite of the war we were happy, hungry perhaps, thin, very fit, in fact regular street urchins.
This was to come to an end sadly as one day my mother said, 'I am tired of you looking dirty and wild and your Grandad is going to send you to a little private school in Bourne Lane (now Ladysmith Road). Apparently a young woman who was a teacher and whose husband was a pilot flying from Binbrook Aerodrome had decided to come to Grimsby to be near him and opened this little school.
Well I was cleaned up and off I went. There was only one clasroom and the ages ranged from 7-11 years. I think I was eight. Every day when I came home my grandfather would ask me what I had learned that day and I would say that I had to walk round the classroom with a cardboard clock and teach the other children the time. I had had a 'Snow White' watch since my fifth birthday.
After a few weeks he said I am not happy paying money when you don't seem to be learning anything. I think I will come and see your teacher, but before he got round to doing so the poor woman's husband was shot down and killed so she closed her little school and went back home somewhere in the south of England.
So 'smashing' (a word used then, it would be 'cool' now) I was back on the streets again!
A few months laster one Monday tea time there was a knock on the front door and the next thing I knew my Headteacher (Miss Beeson) was standing there. I was sat having my tea - I don't think I have ever been so amazed or embarrassed since. She said that although they couldn't open the school yet, they had reinforced one of the cloakrooms and she wanted some pupils to return, me being one of them. My mother and grandfather were delighted but my heart sank. It would have sank even deeper if I had know how boring it was going to be sitting on a hard bench all morning under the pegs reciting tables and doing spelling tests every day. I can still remember all the tables and my spelling was good for years but now at 77 years old I can't always remember if there are one or two 'r's or 'l's in words!
I think it was 1940 when Welholme Road school was closed. I had just gone into the Junior School. We thought it was great we didn't have to go to school, we could play in the streets and fields all day. Old Clee fields started at the end of Convamore Road in those days so we spent hours jumping ditches and generally tearing about and when we were tired we just sat down and chatted or in the summer made daisy chains.
I think looking back my mother had so much to do and worry about she just let me be and I lived on the street, only going in when I was hungry. There was no traffic of course, hardly anyone had a car and if they did have a car there was no petrol. The odd horse and cart came by and if the horse 'obliged' near our house I had to run out with a pan and brush to sweep it up for my grandfather's alllotment. He thought that horses and sheep provided the best manure you could get and he certainly grew good vegetables.
One of my favourite pastimes was to get up early and look for shrapnel (broken pieces of bombs and aeroplanes) that had dropped from the night's air raid. A piece with German writing on was worth a lot - I could swop it for two 'Film Fun' comics (popular comics of the time featuring film stars such as Laurel & Hardy and Old Mother Riley). Perhaps this was the start of my trading skills!
There were 8-10 children playing out every night until dark so sometimes we would go to Grant Thorald Park and play rounders, using our coats as 'stops'. We played 'Oyster Blob' a game that needed two teams. A boy or girl from one team would draw a map on the alley wall with chalk and put an X where his team would hide. His team would run off to the X spot and the other team had to count to 100 then look at the map and decide where the spot was. There was a labyrinth of passages in Convamore & Welholme Roads, so the task was not always easy.
We were as free as birds. We had a den in the Cordage Yard and a poor man who we called 'Peg Leg', he must have been a watchman, he only had one leg and rode a bicycle with his one foot fastened into a pedal. If he saw us he would chase us out but we were young and fast and he never caught us. He was doing this for our own safety as there was a brickpit full of water in the Cordage and it was said to be so deep that a horse and cart fell in one day and disappeared.
I spent many hours up against the cordage wall throwing a ball and singing songs to the rhythm of the ball. We threw the ball under our spread-eagled legs, behind our backs singing
Old Ma Brown
Went to Town
Riding on a Pony
When she got back
Toook off her hat
And gave it Ma Rooney
Where have you been
All day long
Courting Sally
In the Alley
Picking up cinders
Breaking windows
All day long
We had to keep the ball going without dropping it until the song was finished. There were many 'ditties' but I have forgotten a lot of them.
We also played hopscotch, drawing the lines out on the pavement with a piece of chalk and kicking an old tile, shiny side down. There were always plenty of tiles about with the bombing. We also played lots of skipping games, but I think my favourite game of all was playing marbles in the gutter. We each had a bag of marbles and a bag of glass alleys. An alley was twice as big as a marble and worth six marbles. Marbles were always glass but glass alleys were sometimes made of china. We threw the marbles in the gutter trying to hit our opponent's marble, if we did then we had won his marble. Perhaps this was the start of my love of bowling in later life! I now shudder to think we spent days and days playying in the gutters but it didn't seem to kill us off. In fact in spite of the war we were happy, hungry perhaps, thin, very fit, in fact regular street urchins.
This was to come to an end sadly as one day my mother said, 'I am tired of you looking dirty and wild and your Grandad is going to send you to a little private school in Bourne Lane (now Ladysmith Road). Apparently a young woman who was a teacher and whose husband was a pilot flying from Binbrook Aerodrome had decided to come to Grimsby to be near him and opened this little school.
Well I was cleaned up and off I went. There was only one clasroom and the ages ranged from 7-11 years. I think I was eight. Every day when I came home my grandfather would ask me what I had learned that day and I would say that I had to walk round the classroom with a cardboard clock and teach the other children the time. I had had a 'Snow White' watch since my fifth birthday.
After a few weeks he said I am not happy paying money when you don't seem to be learning anything. I think I will come and see your teacher, but before he got round to doing so the poor woman's husband was shot down and killed so she closed her little school and went back home somewhere in the south of England.
So 'smashing' (a word used then, it would be 'cool' now) I was back on the streets again!
A few months laster one Monday tea time there was a knock on the front door and the next thing I knew my Headteacher (Miss Beeson) was standing there. I was sat having my tea - I don't think I have ever been so amazed or embarrassed since. She said that although they couldn't open the school yet, they had reinforced one of the cloakrooms and she wanted some pupils to return, me being one of them. My mother and grandfather were delighted but my heart sank. It would have sank even deeper if I had know how boring it was going to be sitting on a hard bench all morning under the pegs reciting tables and doing spelling tests every day. I can still remember all the tables and my spelling was good for years but now at 77 years old I can't always remember if there are one or two 'r's or 'l's in words!
Thursday, 18 March 2010
MUM'S WAR MEMORIES 5
THE RAID 1940
One night the siren went, my mother put Rodney, a few months old by now, in an old tin bath, Rene carried Bryan out (still asleep) wrapped ina blanket and we settled down in the shelter when my mother suddenly remembered she had forgotten the 'black bag'. This was a bag she kept her bank book, insurance papers etc in so she said she would run back for it. Jast as she was coming out of the house a landmine dropped on All Saints Church in Heneage Road. It was just at the back of us because the Cordage Factory at the back of Convamore Road had mostly spare ground so there was nothing to stop the blast.
The bomb blast knocked my mother onto the outside tap, blew our windows in and knocked the tiles off the roof at the back of the house over my bedroom.
When the 'all clear' was sounded Mum said, "Run and see if old Mr & Mrs Horton (who lived next door but one) are alright. I knew she was badly shaken but I now marvel that a child of eight should be sent at 4 am in the dark to see if two very old people were still alive after the raid. I can't remember feeling afriad, so I ran up their back garden, the door was open so I went in. They were sitting there, one either side of the fireplace (with no fire) surrounded by debris. I asked if they were OK and I shall always remember Mr Horton saying "Now some people are walkers and some people are talkers". I didn't know what he was talking about so I ran back home and related what he had said to my mother and Rene who burst out laughing. I have since realised he must have been senile or perhaps he was just badly shocked.
Rene put my mother to bed and when I went down the passag to my bedroom (over the washhouse) I saw that my window was out and the bed was covered in soot and broken tiles but I shook off as much as I could and got into bed, then I realised I could see the stars! Mum was ill in bed for a week or two. Dr Riggall kept coming so I imagine his bill would have been a worry. She shook periodically after this for years.
My grandfather had to be a 'fire watcher'. He had to go and sit in a paint factory all night in case an incendiary bomb fell on it and it went up in flames. Well not long after our house was bombed the factory burned down. Mum said, "I imagine he went to sleep". He was 63 years old after all.
One night the siren went, my mother put Rodney, a few months old by now, in an old tin bath, Rene carried Bryan out (still asleep) wrapped ina blanket and we settled down in the shelter when my mother suddenly remembered she had forgotten the 'black bag'. This was a bag she kept her bank book, insurance papers etc in so she said she would run back for it. Jast as she was coming out of the house a landmine dropped on All Saints Church in Heneage Road. It was just at the back of us because the Cordage Factory at the back of Convamore Road had mostly spare ground so there was nothing to stop the blast.
The bomb blast knocked my mother onto the outside tap, blew our windows in and knocked the tiles off the roof at the back of the house over my bedroom.
When the 'all clear' was sounded Mum said, "Run and see if old Mr & Mrs Horton (who lived next door but one) are alright. I knew she was badly shaken but I now marvel that a child of eight should be sent at 4 am in the dark to see if two very old people were still alive after the raid. I can't remember feeling afriad, so I ran up their back garden, the door was open so I went in. They were sitting there, one either side of the fireplace (with no fire) surrounded by debris. I asked if they were OK and I shall always remember Mr Horton saying "Now some people are walkers and some people are talkers". I didn't know what he was talking about so I ran back home and related what he had said to my mother and Rene who burst out laughing. I have since realised he must have been senile or perhaps he was just badly shocked.
Rene put my mother to bed and when I went down the passag to my bedroom (over the washhouse) I saw that my window was out and the bed was covered in soot and broken tiles but I shook off as much as I could and got into bed, then I realised I could see the stars! Mum was ill in bed for a week or two. Dr Riggall kept coming so I imagine his bill would have been a worry. She shook periodically after this for years.
My grandfather had to be a 'fire watcher'. He had to go and sit in a paint factory all night in case an incendiary bomb fell on it and it went up in flames. Well not long after our house was bombed the factory burned down. Mum said, "I imagine he went to sleep". He was 63 years old after all.
Wednesday, 17 March 2010
MUM 'S WAR MEMORIES 4
MY FATHER
My father was born in August 1904 so he was 35 years old when the war started and it was generally assumed he wouldn't be called up, but in 1940 I ran home for my dinner one day from Welholme School and my father came home. My mother said "There is a letter for you". I could see she looked very worried so I sat very still and quiet whilst he opened the envelope. My mother said 'What does it say?" I can still see my father's face. He said "His bloody Majesty welcomes you into his Armed Forces". This was the only time I ever heard my father swear, he was such a quiet, gentle man. My mother burst out crying and although only eight years old, I realised this was serious. My father had told me that his father had been killed in the First World War. He was gassed and had been sent home to die. I have since found out he died on the 10.07.1917 aged 39 years. My grandmother had six children I believe, my father being the eldest so he had lied about his age, said he was 14 when he was 12 and went deep sea fishing to provide for the rest of the family. (He later told me he was sick the whole trip). It must have been on his mind if he would come home!
Just two weeks after he went into the Forces he came home again on embarkation leave. We didn't know where he was going but he ended up in Egypt in Cairo as a cook. Because he had been to sea and had worked in a fish canning house they sent him in a lorry to Alexandra Dock to buy fish for the British troops, but he told me after the War he didn't recognise one fish and had no idea how to cook any of them!
He also told me that an officer who had studied Theology at Oxford Uni before the war asked him to accompany him on a camel trip across the desert to St Catherine's Monastery where he said he had seen a room full of skulls and showed me some photos; they travelled for three weeks having saved their leave up.
So my father went to Egypt and we were one less in the household, the bombs kept falling, food became scarcer and life generally bercame very hard.
My father was born in August 1904 so he was 35 years old when the war started and it was generally assumed he wouldn't be called up, but in 1940 I ran home for my dinner one day from Welholme School and my father came home. My mother said "There is a letter for you". I could see she looked very worried so I sat very still and quiet whilst he opened the envelope. My mother said 'What does it say?" I can still see my father's face. He said "His bloody Majesty welcomes you into his Armed Forces". This was the only time I ever heard my father swear, he was such a quiet, gentle man. My mother burst out crying and although only eight years old, I realised this was serious. My father had told me that his father had been killed in the First World War. He was gassed and had been sent home to die. I have since found out he died on the 10.07.1917 aged 39 years. My grandmother had six children I believe, my father being the eldest so he had lied about his age, said he was 14 when he was 12 and went deep sea fishing to provide for the rest of the family. (He later told me he was sick the whole trip). It must have been on his mind if he would come home!
Just two weeks after he went into the Forces he came home again on embarkation leave. We didn't know where he was going but he ended up in Egypt in Cairo as a cook. Because he had been to sea and had worked in a fish canning house they sent him in a lorry to Alexandra Dock to buy fish for the British troops, but he told me after the War he didn't recognise one fish and had no idea how to cook any of them!
He also told me that an officer who had studied Theology at Oxford Uni before the war asked him to accompany him on a camel trip across the desert to St Catherine's Monastery where he said he had seen a room full of skulls and showed me some photos; they travelled for three weeks having saved their leave up.
So my father went to Egypt and we were one less in the household, the bombs kept falling, food became scarcer and life generally bercame very hard.
Tuesday, 16 March 2010
MUM'S WAR MEMORIES 3
My Grandparents House
The house in Convamore Road was dark and drab. Nothing new was bought during the war so if things were damaged they couldn't be replaced. The windows were stuck all over with brown sticky paper in a criss-cross pattern and at night shutters had to be put up at every window when it got dark because there was a 'blackout rule'. There were no street lights and no light from the houses as it was thought that it would be a good guide to enemy bombers.
The doors were all painted brown, in fact brown was the predominant colour. The hall was half-papered with brown lincrusta (sp). The living room, the largest room in the house had a coal fire (when we had coal) and there was no other heating anywhere. The boiler in the washhouse was lit and heated with coke if we needed a bath as there was no bathroom until after the war. The insides of my bedroom window would be frozen in the winters. The living room had a three-piece suite with velvet cushions (also brown). There was a dining table that extended to seat 10 people (and often did) when fully opened, dining chairs, a large wireless on a small table near my Grandfather's chair (he was always tinkering with the knobs) and another small table in a corner which usually held a plant but at Xmas held a little artificial Xmas tree. The floor was covered in lino and there was a snip rug in front of the fire. There was a single light hanging from the ceiling with a glass shade and from this would be hung a sticky fly catcher. When it was full of dead flies it would be taken down and a new one hung up. Every household had these horrible fly catchers - I remember the horrible buzzing noise the flies made when they became stuck!
The 'front' room was carpeted and had a moquette three piece suite, a plant stand in the window with a large aspidestra stood on it. There were two large oval photographs of my mother and father, one either side of the fireplace, taken just before their wedding. Last but not least was a rosewood piano with brass candlesticks on the front. I had music lessons for years so every night I had to go into this cold room to practice. It was so cold and damp it was a wonder it played at all. The fireplace was marble and a fire was lit in there at Christmas and sometimes on a Sunday night if we had visitors.
On winter evenings all through the war the fire was 'banked up' in the living room and a library book, embroidery and knitting were brought out. My mother, Rene and Betty when she was there and myself sat in a semi-circle around the fire. Our fronts were hot and our backs were cold. We each had some knitting or embroidery on the go and the library book was passed along so we each read a chapter, putting our work down while we did so.
They were cosy evenings, Mum and Rene got on so well together I never heard a cross word between them. They were in their 20's/early 30's so I think they thought they would make the most of what they could. Every Saturday night they went to the Tivoli Theatre, until it was bombed to the ground. It was just off Freeman Street before you reached the market. It was a Variety Theatre and many famous names of the day performed there. We always went to the Pantomime at Christmas.
On these nights around the fire they would describe some of the acts to me. They also scandalised of course because American soldiers were billeted further down the street! I sat there, a little pig with big ears as the saying goes.
One night the hearth rug caught fire and as there was nothing in the shops to buy it was decided we should make another one. My mother bought a canvas and two hooks, we cut old wool coats and skirts up into strips then folded a strip of material, put the hook into a hole in the canvas and drew the strip through making a knot. We tried to make patterns out of the different colours but it wasn't easy as sometimes we ran out of a particular colour. It seemed to take ages, at last it was finished and we proudly put it in front of the fire. We didn't have any TV of course - I was seventeen when we bought our first TV but I feel that although I love to watch TV, I think it has destroyed a lot of family life.
Although the house was shabby my mother was very proud and it was spotlessly clean. Everywhere had to be cleaned every week including windows, paths and front paints. She always insisted we all sat down to have meals together and a tablecloth was alway put on the table and it had to be 'set' properly. We had a gramophone (belonging to my grandparents). It was a 'HMV' (His Majesty's Voice). It needed to be wound up with every record that was put on as the turntable was operated on a spring. I loved playing this old gramophone with a horn out of the side and regularly played 'The Laughing Policeman' to entertain Bryan and Rodney.
Rene loved buying sheets of music that were popular during the war. We both played them over and over again. We always played the piano and sang the songs on a Sunday night, favourites such as White Cliffs of Dover, We'll Meet Again and Sing As We Go. Mum had a decent voice, she had sung in a choir before the war, but Rene and I would sing them at the top of our voices!
The house in Convamore Road was dark and drab. Nothing new was bought during the war so if things were damaged they couldn't be replaced. The windows were stuck all over with brown sticky paper in a criss-cross pattern and at night shutters had to be put up at every window when it got dark because there was a 'blackout rule'. There were no street lights and no light from the houses as it was thought that it would be a good guide to enemy bombers.
The doors were all painted brown, in fact brown was the predominant colour. The hall was half-papered with brown lincrusta (sp). The living room, the largest room in the house had a coal fire (when we had coal) and there was no other heating anywhere. The boiler in the washhouse was lit and heated with coke if we needed a bath as there was no bathroom until after the war. The insides of my bedroom window would be frozen in the winters. The living room had a three-piece suite with velvet cushions (also brown). There was a dining table that extended to seat 10 people (and often did) when fully opened, dining chairs, a large wireless on a small table near my Grandfather's chair (he was always tinkering with the knobs) and another small table in a corner which usually held a plant but at Xmas held a little artificial Xmas tree. The floor was covered in lino and there was a snip rug in front of the fire. There was a single light hanging from the ceiling with a glass shade and from this would be hung a sticky fly catcher. When it was full of dead flies it would be taken down and a new one hung up. Every household had these horrible fly catchers - I remember the horrible buzzing noise the flies made when they became stuck!
The 'front' room was carpeted and had a moquette three piece suite, a plant stand in the window with a large aspidestra stood on it. There were two large oval photographs of my mother and father, one either side of the fireplace, taken just before their wedding. Last but not least was a rosewood piano with brass candlesticks on the front. I had music lessons for years so every night I had to go into this cold room to practice. It was so cold and damp it was a wonder it played at all. The fireplace was marble and a fire was lit in there at Christmas and sometimes on a Sunday night if we had visitors.
On winter evenings all through the war the fire was 'banked up' in the living room and a library book, embroidery and knitting were brought out. My mother, Rene and Betty when she was there and myself sat in a semi-circle around the fire. Our fronts were hot and our backs were cold. We each had some knitting or embroidery on the go and the library book was passed along so we each read a chapter, putting our work down while we did so.
They were cosy evenings, Mum and Rene got on so well together I never heard a cross word between them. They were in their 20's/early 30's so I think they thought they would make the most of what they could. Every Saturday night they went to the Tivoli Theatre, until it was bombed to the ground. It was just off Freeman Street before you reached the market. It was a Variety Theatre and many famous names of the day performed there. We always went to the Pantomime at Christmas.
On these nights around the fire they would describe some of the acts to me. They also scandalised of course because American soldiers were billeted further down the street! I sat there, a little pig with big ears as the saying goes.
One night the hearth rug caught fire and as there was nothing in the shops to buy it was decided we should make another one. My mother bought a canvas and two hooks, we cut old wool coats and skirts up into strips then folded a strip of material, put the hook into a hole in the canvas and drew the strip through making a knot. We tried to make patterns out of the different colours but it wasn't easy as sometimes we ran out of a particular colour. It seemed to take ages, at last it was finished and we proudly put it in front of the fire. We didn't have any TV of course - I was seventeen when we bought our first TV but I feel that although I love to watch TV, I think it has destroyed a lot of family life.
Although the house was shabby my mother was very proud and it was spotlessly clean. Everywhere had to be cleaned every week including windows, paths and front paints. She always insisted we all sat down to have meals together and a tablecloth was alway put on the table and it had to be 'set' properly. We had a gramophone (belonging to my grandparents). It was a 'HMV' (His Majesty's Voice). It needed to be wound up with every record that was put on as the turntable was operated on a spring. I loved playing this old gramophone with a horn out of the side and regularly played 'The Laughing Policeman' to entertain Bryan and Rodney.
Rene loved buying sheets of music that were popular during the war. We both played them over and over again. We always played the piano and sang the songs on a Sunday night, favourites such as White Cliffs of Dover, We'll Meet Again and Sing As We Go. Mum had a decent voice, she had sung in a choir before the war, but Rene and I would sing them at the top of our voices!
Monday, 15 March 2010
MUM'S WAR MEMORIES 2
SCARY
There were two unpleasant things that happened during the war that I remember well. The first was during an air raid. An ARP warden came round to the back of the house and came to the shelter. He said that an incendiary bomb had dropped in our front barden and that an airman who was home on compassionate leave had tried to deal with it and had been killed. My mother and Rene were really upset because they knew his wife who lived behind the shop three doors away. She was expecting their first baby and was very ill so he had been given leave. I remember my mother saying she would rather the house had been burned down and him being still alive.
The second episode was one day I was running along the passage at the back of the houses. I think I was going back to school when suddenlyI was aware that a plane was flying very low and suddenly started to machine gun me - of course it wouldn't just be me he was machine gunning but I was on my own so I thought he was. I threw myself against someone's gate - I was really frightened. My grandfather heard later that he had machine gunned down Welcholme Road and in People's Park and that some people had been injured. That was certainly one of my nine lives!
There were two unpleasant things that happened during the war that I remember well. The first was during an air raid. An ARP warden came round to the back of the house and came to the shelter. He said that an incendiary bomb had dropped in our front barden and that an airman who was home on compassionate leave had tried to deal with it and had been killed. My mother and Rene were really upset because they knew his wife who lived behind the shop three doors away. She was expecting their first baby and was very ill so he had been given leave. I remember my mother saying she would rather the house had been burned down and him being still alive.
The second episode was one day I was running along the passage at the back of the houses. I think I was going back to school when suddenlyI was aware that a plane was flying very low and suddenly started to machine gun me - of course it wouldn't just be me he was machine gunning but I was on my own so I thought he was. I threw myself against someone's gate - I was really frightened. My grandfather heard later that he had machine gunned down Welcholme Road and in People's Park and that some people had been injured. That was certainly one of my nine lives!
Sunday, 14 March 2010
MUM'S WAR MEMORIES 1939-1945
Dear Reader
It's Mother's Day and therefore a very fitting day to start this new 'series' of blogs. I'm going to post my mum's war memories. I want them to be recorded as a lasting record for her and secondly my girls and other family can read them as I type them up. They're very short chapters - episodes really - but I think very entertaining and thought-provoking and I thought others might enjoy them too, especially people from the Grimsby area who will recognises places and have a feel for events. This first chapter is an introductory, quite long with lots of people mentioned - but it does introduce you to the people mum subsequently mentions in her memories.
And Happy Mother's Day to all mothers out there. Thanks to Alice and Chloe for my lovely cards and presents and thanks to my mum for sharing today with me and for always being there for me, for my girls and really for everyone! You're a very special person. xxx
Chapter 1
I was born in 1932 so I was seven when war broke out. I lived at 268 Convamore Road, Grimsby, an Edwardian terrace house which had been rented by my mother's parents. My grandmother had died when I was five years old. My father had been made redundant in the 30's depression and my mum and dad had had to go to live with my grandparents, so at the beginning of the war living in the house were my grandfather, my mother, father and myself.
My friend, a girl called Margaret Graves, a shin sharp nosed girl, (the whole family were very thin - children in the street said their mother only fed them on jellies!), anyway she came running up the passage at the back of the houses and shouted that we were at war. She asked me what did it mean and I confidently told her that the English men would stand in a long line facing the German men and that they would shoot each other!
My mother was one of four girls born between 1910-1914. My mother Edith was the eldest, then Edna, Betty and 'Rene' (Florence Irene). The youngest Rene was not married when her mother died. Before her death aged 29 years, she asked my mother to look after Rene until she had a home of her own. Rene was married on 1st January 1939. The strong bond between them never wavered.
A short while later I went to school and was issued with a gas mask. It was black, in a black case and I was supposed to carry it around with me. All the time. We had gas mask drills at school. I can still remember the rubbery smell. Younger children were issued with 'Micky Mouse' gas masks that were coloured. We were issued with ration books. I can remember we were only allowed 2 oz of sweets per week, this was increased to 4 oz a week in 1948.
Very quickly my Uncle Fred (Rene's husband) who had been a soldier before the war was called up. My Aunt Rene was pregnant when the war started and didn't want to continue living on her own in Combe Street, so she also came to my grandfather's to live and I shared my four poster feather bed with her.
Her baby named Brian was born on May 16th 1940. Whilst she was pregnant a letter arrived to say Fred was missing at Dunkirk in France. My mother withheld this news from her (she had recognised the telegram envelope) until after Brian was born, which must have been a terrible burden. After a week or two Rene heard news that Fred had been injured but he was safe in a hospital in the south of England. He had in fact been brought home by a Cornish man who had taken his fishing boat over to France to try and get some of the wounded home. He had a back operation and was flat on his back for months. Later he returned to the Army and served on three fronts. He received a special medal from his regiment and had a letter from General Montgomery. He was a Regimental Sergeant Major.
After the birth Rene got a thrombosis in her leg so I spent a few weeks running up and down stairs with trays - the only care in those days was to lay flat in bed with your leg held up.
When my Aunt Rene was better she said she would buy me a new dress for looking after her so well whilst she was ill so she took me to Freeman Street to a shop called Gee's. I loved going there because when we paid the money it was put into a little box by the sales assistant, she would then hang it somehow on a wire, then pulled a chain and the little box would whizz along the top of the shop to the cashier's little office in the middle.
Well, Rene said, 'you can choose any dress you like', so I chose a bright yellow silk one with frills all the way down from the waist and each frill was edged with bright purple silk. It had a big sash that tied in a large bow at the back. I thought it was lovely but when I got home my mother's face fell a mile, 'I was hoping you would choose one that you could wear for best', she said. I don't ever remember wearing the dress but I thought it was beautiful.
I got up one morning to find my father and grandfather digging a big hole in the garden. They were erecting an Anderson air raid shelter. It was made out of corrugated sheet iron. They covered it with soil and sandbags and in the front of the doorway they built a small 'wall' out of concrete blocks. There was no door as such. If a candle was lit a blanket was placed over the doorway. Little did I know that within a short space of time I would be awoken every night with the air raid siren and would have to sleep in this dark, cold damp shelter for the next 3/4 years.
My father had put in two benches, one either side of the shelter and hung two hammocks which Rene had braided (she was a braider before the war making fishing nets for trawlers). Grimsby was the largest fishing port in the world before the war and the majority of Grimbarians worked in fishing or its subsidary industries. I was supposed to go to sleep in one of the hammocks but I loved to look out of the doorway to see the searchlights, find the German planes overhead and the guns would try to shoot them down. We had a very big gun in Weelsby Woods called 'Big Bertha'. There was also a very big searchlight which took a long time to warm up but once it had it really lit the sky up and I used to feel very excited when I saw a plane dropping down out of the sky with smoke trailing from its engines. I didn't, as a child, ever think of the men in the planes, they were German planes, they were bombing us, so I would shout 'Mum, we've got one!' and she would invariably shout 'Come away from that door'. Sometimes bright parachute flares were dropped to light up the town before the German planes released their bombs.
About half past 3 to 4 o'clock in the morning the 'all clear' would go and we would crawl back to bed feeling very cold in the winters.
My Aunt Betty, my mother's sister, was a nurse in Hampstead Hospital London when war broke out. She was a sister of a ward and was also a qualified midwife. When the war started she was called up and became a QAN (Queen Alexander Nurse). She was courting a man, we were told he was a doctor and lived in Grantham. She said they were going to be married and I had a bridesmaid dress made which I was very excited about. However, I was going to school one morning (in 1940) and I noticed a suitcase in front of the air raid shelter so I looked inside and saw my Aunt Betty lying inside looking very white so I ran back indoors to tell my mother. They called Dr Riggall our family doctor who sent her into hospital. He said she had tried to commit suicide and that she was pregnant. There was to be no wedding. I heard later that her fiance had been killed, but since I have wondered if he was married or the relationship had gone sour.
She said she had fallen pregnant on purpose to avoid being drafted abroad. This was what they had planned hence the hurried wedding. Well, her stomach was pumped out and now she also lived at home until her baby was born. The house was bulging at the seams and there was little food, although my mother was a good housekeeper and did her best with the meagre rations. We were lucky, as Fred Clark's mother and father (Rene's husband) lived at Ravendale and came into Grimsby every week and brought us two wild rabbits that George (her husband) had caught with his ferrets. Those rabbits kept us alive, one was made into a rabbit pie (to feed five) and one into a stew. As I said we were lucky to have those rabbits but I have never eaten one since.
After the baby was born Betty received her embarkation papers and said she would have to have the baby adopted. My grandfather however said 'No child born into this family is going to be adopted - I will bring him up myself'. This meant that in reality my poor mother would bring him up (which she did) and I found myself with an adopted brother! The baby was only about 4 lb in weight when he was born - he was a month premature and not expected to live. My mother and Rene laid him in a top drawer in my mother's chest of drawers. They lined the drawer with cotton wool and at first they fed him with a pipette until he got strong enough to take a bottle. Betty was made an officer and wrote to say she was on her way to Sicily to be in charge of a hospital for British wounded. She said she had sailed on the HMS Rodney, so my mother not knowing what to call the baby who was obviously going to live now, called him Rodney. I now found myself with two babies to look after when jobs needed to be done.
It's Mother's Day and therefore a very fitting day to start this new 'series' of blogs. I'm going to post my mum's war memories. I want them to be recorded as a lasting record for her and secondly my girls and other family can read them as I type them up. They're very short chapters - episodes really - but I think very entertaining and thought-provoking and I thought others might enjoy them too, especially people from the Grimsby area who will recognises places and have a feel for events. This first chapter is an introductory, quite long with lots of people mentioned - but it does introduce you to the people mum subsequently mentions in her memories.
And Happy Mother's Day to all mothers out there. Thanks to Alice and Chloe for my lovely cards and presents and thanks to my mum for sharing today with me and for always being there for me, for my girls and really for everyone! You're a very special person. xxx
Chapter 1
I was born in 1932 so I was seven when war broke out. I lived at 268 Convamore Road, Grimsby, an Edwardian terrace house which had been rented by my mother's parents. My grandmother had died when I was five years old. My father had been made redundant in the 30's depression and my mum and dad had had to go to live with my grandparents, so at the beginning of the war living in the house were my grandfather, my mother, father and myself.
My friend, a girl called Margaret Graves, a shin sharp nosed girl, (the whole family were very thin - children in the street said their mother only fed them on jellies!), anyway she came running up the passage at the back of the houses and shouted that we were at war. She asked me what did it mean and I confidently told her that the English men would stand in a long line facing the German men and that they would shoot each other!
My mother was one of four girls born between 1910-1914. My mother Edith was the eldest, then Edna, Betty and 'Rene' (Florence Irene). The youngest Rene was not married when her mother died. Before her death aged 29 years, she asked my mother to look after Rene until she had a home of her own. Rene was married on 1st January 1939. The strong bond between them never wavered.
A short while later I went to school and was issued with a gas mask. It was black, in a black case and I was supposed to carry it around with me. All the time. We had gas mask drills at school. I can still remember the rubbery smell. Younger children were issued with 'Micky Mouse' gas masks that were coloured. We were issued with ration books. I can remember we were only allowed 2 oz of sweets per week, this was increased to 4 oz a week in 1948.
Very quickly my Uncle Fred (Rene's husband) who had been a soldier before the war was called up. My Aunt Rene was pregnant when the war started and didn't want to continue living on her own in Combe Street, so she also came to my grandfather's to live and I shared my four poster feather bed with her.
Her baby named Brian was born on May 16th 1940. Whilst she was pregnant a letter arrived to say Fred was missing at Dunkirk in France. My mother withheld this news from her (she had recognised the telegram envelope) until after Brian was born, which must have been a terrible burden. After a week or two Rene heard news that Fred had been injured but he was safe in a hospital in the south of England. He had in fact been brought home by a Cornish man who had taken his fishing boat over to France to try and get some of the wounded home. He had a back operation and was flat on his back for months. Later he returned to the Army and served on three fronts. He received a special medal from his regiment and had a letter from General Montgomery. He was a Regimental Sergeant Major.
After the birth Rene got a thrombosis in her leg so I spent a few weeks running up and down stairs with trays - the only care in those days was to lay flat in bed with your leg held up.
When my Aunt Rene was better she said she would buy me a new dress for looking after her so well whilst she was ill so she took me to Freeman Street to a shop called Gee's. I loved going there because when we paid the money it was put into a little box by the sales assistant, she would then hang it somehow on a wire, then pulled a chain and the little box would whizz along the top of the shop to the cashier's little office in the middle.
Well, Rene said, 'you can choose any dress you like', so I chose a bright yellow silk one with frills all the way down from the waist and each frill was edged with bright purple silk. It had a big sash that tied in a large bow at the back. I thought it was lovely but when I got home my mother's face fell a mile, 'I was hoping you would choose one that you could wear for best', she said. I don't ever remember wearing the dress but I thought it was beautiful.
I got up one morning to find my father and grandfather digging a big hole in the garden. They were erecting an Anderson air raid shelter. It was made out of corrugated sheet iron. They covered it with soil and sandbags and in the front of the doorway they built a small 'wall' out of concrete blocks. There was no door as such. If a candle was lit a blanket was placed over the doorway. Little did I know that within a short space of time I would be awoken every night with the air raid siren and would have to sleep in this dark, cold damp shelter for the next 3/4 years.
My father had put in two benches, one either side of the shelter and hung two hammocks which Rene had braided (she was a braider before the war making fishing nets for trawlers). Grimsby was the largest fishing port in the world before the war and the majority of Grimbarians worked in fishing or its subsidary industries. I was supposed to go to sleep in one of the hammocks but I loved to look out of the doorway to see the searchlights, find the German planes overhead and the guns would try to shoot them down. We had a very big gun in Weelsby Woods called 'Big Bertha'. There was also a very big searchlight which took a long time to warm up but once it had it really lit the sky up and I used to feel very excited when I saw a plane dropping down out of the sky with smoke trailing from its engines. I didn't, as a child, ever think of the men in the planes, they were German planes, they were bombing us, so I would shout 'Mum, we've got one!' and she would invariably shout 'Come away from that door'. Sometimes bright parachute flares were dropped to light up the town before the German planes released their bombs.
About half past 3 to 4 o'clock in the morning the 'all clear' would go and we would crawl back to bed feeling very cold in the winters.
My Aunt Betty, my mother's sister, was a nurse in Hampstead Hospital London when war broke out. She was a sister of a ward and was also a qualified midwife. When the war started she was called up and became a QAN (Queen Alexander Nurse). She was courting a man, we were told he was a doctor and lived in Grantham. She said they were going to be married and I had a bridesmaid dress made which I was very excited about. However, I was going to school one morning (in 1940) and I noticed a suitcase in front of the air raid shelter so I looked inside and saw my Aunt Betty lying inside looking very white so I ran back indoors to tell my mother. They called Dr Riggall our family doctor who sent her into hospital. He said she had tried to commit suicide and that she was pregnant. There was to be no wedding. I heard later that her fiance had been killed, but since I have wondered if he was married or the relationship had gone sour.
She said she had fallen pregnant on purpose to avoid being drafted abroad. This was what they had planned hence the hurried wedding. Well, her stomach was pumped out and now she also lived at home until her baby was born. The house was bulging at the seams and there was little food, although my mother was a good housekeeper and did her best with the meagre rations. We were lucky, as Fred Clark's mother and father (Rene's husband) lived at Ravendale and came into Grimsby every week and brought us two wild rabbits that George (her husband) had caught with his ferrets. Those rabbits kept us alive, one was made into a rabbit pie (to feed five) and one into a stew. As I said we were lucky to have those rabbits but I have never eaten one since.
After the baby was born Betty received her embarkation papers and said she would have to have the baby adopted. My grandfather however said 'No child born into this family is going to be adopted - I will bring him up myself'. This meant that in reality my poor mother would bring him up (which she did) and I found myself with an adopted brother! The baby was only about 4 lb in weight when he was born - he was a month premature and not expected to live. My mother and Rene laid him in a top drawer in my mother's chest of drawers. They lined the drawer with cotton wool and at first they fed him with a pipette until he got strong enough to take a bottle. Betty was made an officer and wrote to say she was on her way to Sicily to be in charge of a hospital for British wounded. She said she had sailed on the HMS Rodney, so my mother not knowing what to call the baby who was obviously going to live now, called him Rodney. I now found myself with two babies to look after when jobs needed to be done.
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