For some reason over the last few weeks I have found myself being drawn more and more to the 'Home Front' particulary the area where I grew up namely South East London, I assume this is in anticipation of the arrival of some more ATB books. Anyway I found a few old books at my parents about the Blitz and one called 'How We Went To War' written by a local man who was a child during WW2 has some fantastic recollections in it (Some I've posted already) from people who were there. Anyway I thought I type some of them up for you purusal. I for think they are worthy of sharing. Cheers Andy
A clash of cultures 1. A devon foster-mother was encouraging a London boy to show more appreciation for the kndness he received. He retorted, I'll tell you what it is lady. You've got all the manners, we've got all the brains'. 2. 'How do you spell Snarf?' an evacuee asked his foster-mother. She was at a complete loss. He wanted to write home to say, 'Snarf quiet round here'. 3. Returning home from evacuation, a London boy had clearly been subjected to middle class ideas of politeness. When his mother opened the door, he raised his cap and greeted her with the words 'Godd afternoon mother'. She replied, 'Don't you talk to me like that, else I'll give you a clip round the ear ole'. More memories to follow later..
Friendly in one place, unfriendly in another I have to go back to the middle of June 1944. That was when the Germans sent the flying bombs over London. I had a baby girl and a small boy and after about a week of trying to cope, I put my name down for evacuation. In a train full of evacuee’s we arrived at Halifax, Yorkshire. I was billeted with a friendly lady Grace, and her daughter Jenny. I was quite happy with them for about six months until Jenny was expecting a baby and my room was needed. I was then evacuated to a village in Derbyshire where the atmosphere was far from friendly. I seem to remember that when the weather was right I spent as much time as possible pushing my two children in the big pram away from the house. On one occasion the family dog ‘Chum’ followed me. In spite of shouting at him to go back home he still followed so I carried on pushing the pram down a country lane. I just passed the farm when Chum dashed up to me with a chicken in his jaws, followed by the farmer with a red rage. He raved at me about my so and so dog but when I burst into tears and explained, he was very understanding. Gladys Barratt
They hated us there We was evacuated. We was only down there a month but they treated us terrible. They didn’t like Londoners going there. My Father signed up. He didn’t have to go in but he signed up to go in. My mother wrote to him and said how bad it was so he went AWOL and come down and brought us back to London. Down at Tavistock. I was only four or five but I remember being down there. They hated us down there. Richard White
They made me a domestic slave My mother made me go away when my little girl was three months old because they had no-one looking after me and I wouldn’t go in the shelters and she was worried about me. I went away for three months but I had a terrible life there so I brought them home and thought, ‘That’s it, back to London’. I went to South Wales. She was a farmer, a little wizened old lady, with a hump on her back. I was a slave there. My boy was a year and nine months old and the girl was three months old. In the morning I got up, there was no curtains on the window. I used to have to crawl along the floor because it looked right over the yard where they were bringing the cows in for milking. I used to crawl along the floor, get in the corner and put my clothes on. Before I could have a cup of tea, I had to do all the house work, do the beds, clean the stairs down. Monday was her washday and that was a about three hours with a dolly tub and sheets and all that. They wouldn’t do anything to help me at all. Why I come home-my two babies were lousy. The lice were about a quarter of an inch big. Imagine me sitting there all day at my kids’ heads. My boy used to scream, ‘Mummy, please don’t do it anymore!’ She used to sit out with her fowls, plucking them, and you could see these damn things and it was making me ill worrying about me kids ‘cause I was washing their hair and cutting it. She said, ‘It’s only lice, it won’t hurt them, for goodness sake stop making a fuss’. I said, ‘Well I’m going home’. Flo Bately
They were lovely to us They came round prior to September, the authorities, and said to my father, ‘Do you think the children should go to safety?’ and he asked us and we went, ‘Yes we’d like to go’, thinking it would be fun. On 3rd September 1939 we were evacuated. We got on a train that took us to Caterham in Surrey and then we got on a coach and we were all directed to our different coaches. Some went to Oxted and Limpsfield. We went to Tatafield. We went from Brockley to Caterham, from Caterham to Tatsfield by coach. The first people they took us to were very poor. I think they were given 7/6d a week for our keep. There was Joan, Sheila and me, all sisters. When we got there it was such a poor house that the billeting officer said, ‘I can’t let them stay here. It is quite obvious to me you can’t have them.’ Well, the woman looked a bit ill herself, and her children looked a bit thin and pale. So the billeting lady took us to her house which was called Crayford Cottage. She had a maid called Dorothy. They were lovely to us. But she was obviously a Miss and she wasn’t really used to children. She didn’t have a lot of idea of motherhood, but she was very kind. My parents came and visited us and brought sacks of potatoes down to her. Like taking coals to Newscastle! They came to visit us to ask us how we were. We were saying, ‘It’s lovely.’ Pat McDonald
Foster Mother was a prostitute In the end four children went to Northampton. One of them, Grace, went to the village prostitute and she said she was the kindest person she’d ever met. She told me no-one would speak to this woman, and the lady Margaret was with wouldn’t allow Margaret to visit her there. Gracy could come to see them but Margaret mustn’t go to see Grace. Grace said to me, ‘What’s a prostitute mum? My foster mother is a prostitute and she is a very nice woman.’ She never interfered with the kids or me either, so that was it. George went to another place with a very odd couple. We still keep in touch with the children as they have grown up. Bessy went to Northampton Fire Station to the chief of the Fire Brigade. They were very nice people. Mrs Darling
I wouldn’t go away again I was evacuated to Exmouth in Devon when I was about nine or ten. I didn’t see my mother or father for a whole year because my father was in the Air Force, and my mother wouldn’t come down unless my father got leave, and anyway Devon was such a long way to come. I used to write of course, but all I ever said was, ‘Send money’ or ‘Send sweets’. I also kept asking to be allowed to come home. I’d wanted to go in the first place because it was an adventure, but then the gilt had worn off the gingerbread and I wanted to go back. My mother wouldn’t let me because the Blitz was at it’s height. At last my father came down to see me on his own. By this time I think they had bombed Exmouth itself and I said I didn’t want to stay. I think he must have given me some money because I can remember sending my mother a telegram saying, ‘Meet me at Waterloo.’ She was furious, but I came home and wouldn’t go away again. Jean Carter
Some news articles taken from the local papers: 1. A Catford man was finned £2 for showing a light, which he said was so dim that the Policeman bringing the prosecution had borrowed his torch so he could see to write down the particulars. 2. A Forest Hill man was fined £3 (Over a £100 in todays money) for 'willfully displaying a torchlight' and assualting the Police Officer who ordered him to put it out. 3. When the warden called about a light showing in the house, the man told him he was 'a sponger on the rates' and 'ought to be in the trenches', then knocked him to the ground. 4. In Lewisham the residents had gone out leaving a light showing in an upper window. A crowd of people gathered to watch and applaud when a Policeman, armed with a brush and pot of paint, climbed a ladder and painted out the window in black. 5. A local pensioner well-known to the Police for his partiality to the bottle appeared before Greenwich magistrates for the 230th time on a charge of being Drunk and Incapable. His excuse this time was that he could not see in the Black Out 'So layed down on the pavement to get out of the danger'.
Exempt from fighting I was exempt from the war as I was a agricultural worker. I had a different stamp card from the ordinary one. I had a brown one. I wish I hadn’t gone. I’m suffering for it, for my silly mistake. I went because my mates went. That’s all it was for everyone. Your mates went, you went. Immaterial if you were exempt or not. Anom.
Blown up on Crete I done quite a bit of fighting and I seen all the killing and murdering. Then I got blown up on a naval ship, coming away from Crete. On that boat, they took the ones that were alive to Alexandria and the rest they took down to South Africa to bury them down there. We got word two or three months after that there was just under 600 dead on that boat the cruiser Ryan. I got all my bones broken. I laid in that hospital in the marquee, in a case from my neck right the way down on the right hand. I laid there God knows how long-it must have been getting on for a year, I think. I was never any good after that. Anom.
Paralysed and reported dead. When I got blown up on the ship, it blew all my clothes off and I lost my tags. They didn’t know who I was because I couldn’t speak or move my hands or anything. I was paralysed. Couldn’t say anything. So the War Office were very kind – they sent my death certificate to her and said she would receive a pension. I wasn’t dead. My wife was on the trams in London during the war. Anyway, her driver on the tram, he was very upset. He went to the War Office and they couldn’t have cared less. Wasn’t interested. They tried to find out if I was alive or dead first. So he said, ‘Come on Edith, we’ll go to the Red Cross’. That was up at Hyde Park Corner. They said, ‘Come back in three days time and we’ll tell you.’ And they told her I was in Hospital, where I was and everything. And then she went to the War Office again. They said, ‘We don’t take notice of somebody else.’ That’s part of the government isn’t it? They are callous, for what you’ve done. I’m good for nothing, can hardly get about. I can’t go out unless I’m in a battery chair. After what I’ve seen. I’m very sorry I took that action because I lost a good job and good money fighting for this country. Mr Harper
One that nearly got away There’s a little story attached to my husband, bless him. We got married on Easter Saturday. But he had his calling up papers on the Wednesday and said, ‘No Chance.’ He didn’t go into the Army and he was on the run for two and half years. He had to live on his wits because he had no pass. He used to have to take any old job, for nothing, do up old vans, or he’d be done the fish market or somewhere like that. We always let ourselves go, did without, as long as the kids had biscuits or something. It was a struggle. It was more harder for him being out of the Army than not. He was on the run for two and a half years and got shopped at the end. Flo Bately
Two articles from the local press: January 1940 No shortages of food were in evidence over Christmas..... Plenty of good cheer everywhere...... There are no food queues locally, not like 1917...... The winter sales are in full swing, with many bargains. But shortages of clothes, shoes and fabrics are bound to appear...... Summer 1941 More commodities are becoming scarce, like cleaning, washing and toilet preparations...... Shops are closing through lack of supplies...... Tinned fruit has virtually disappeared...... Furniture and toy dealers are suffering from lack of goods...... Queuing is now noticed to be spreading as the established way of doing business. Some queues in Lewisham and Catford street markets are quite unnecessary.
Going Bananas at the Greengrocers There wasn’t any rationing of vegetables. Bananas were rationed for children. A child under five had a green ration book and that entitled them to have bananas when you had them. But you didn’t go to the market to buy them. You had a card sent from the Ministry of Food saying you was entitled to boxes of bananas. Then you’d go and take this card and get them. When you bought them all hell would break loose. People would hear, ‘They’ve got bananas’ and come – they would kill you for it. I used to think to myself, ‘If it was peace time they wouldn’t buy any bananas. You could have thousands of them and no one would buy them’. But because there was a shortage, everybody wanted them. I had experience from my father before the war when I used to go out. He used to say, ‘Say I’ve got bananas. I want to get rid of them. They’ll be going off by the weekend.’ I’d say, ‘Would you like four nice bananas?’ to them. I suppose they thought it was precocious. If I didn’t sell them my dad would say, ‘I don’t want to sell potatoes. They won’t go off. Make them have bananas.’ He used to sell them on the rounds up Catford and Brockley. He had regular rounds. When the war came, and directly they knew – Mrs Brown would go to Mrs Green and say, ‘Look I’ve got bananas.’ They’d come flying down, ‘Bananas!’ I’d say, ‘There will while you’re alive!’ Pat McDonald
The kids ate Beetroot sandwiches Rations was very painful. You got eight penny worth of meat, but our butcher used to make us stuff called sausage savoury. I think it was stuffing but you would buy it by the pound and you would put it between pieces of pastry and the kids ate it. It was called sausage savoury, I don’t think I ever saw a sausage, I am sure I didn’t. That was at Dewhurst, that was sixpence a pound, and you got a pound and a half of that, that made a good dinner. And the children, if they were home and you wanted to give them something for their tea, you would give them beetroot sandwiches. You would pay a shilling for a beetroot which was a lot of money. They had to have beetroot sandwiches as it was good for them. We bought them raw. You bought a big beetroot for a shilling and then you cooked it and that had to do with bread and marge or whatever was for their tea. But you couldn’t always get your rations, that was another thing. I used to walk miles and miles to get a pig’s trotter, things like that, I would walk to Deptford to get pig’s trotters. One day I had to do some work, had no money and I walked to Crofton Park in Brockley and I pushed three kids in a pram to do a morning’s work and back again. But you didn’t think we did things like that in those days. We were so poor that we didn’t have any money, but there was one thing that we did not do: we didn’t buy or sell a coupon. My husband and I felt very strongly about it: it was against our principles. Mrs Darling
Nobody went hungry Things as you know were rationed but in my opinion nobody ever went hungry or starving. The rations were small, but I believe they were quite adequate. The trouble as far as shopkeeping was concerned, was that when there was a bad period of the war, and we had a lot of raids, the people evacuated, but their provisions were still being delivered to the shop. So you had a lot more in the shop than you needed to have. There’d be another change in the war again, the raids would get bad and everybody would go away again, then the food office would cut your supplies down again. Then it would be quiet again and everybody would come back and you would be desperately short of food to make it all go round, because the farmers were running out of stuff and wouldn’t be able to supply them with their rations. You were either plenty or short. The boss never had enough sausages or liver to supply everybody. They was off rations you see, so you formed your own rationing system by putting a mark on their ration books and saying, ‘Bring your ration books with you,’ and saying, ‘You had sausages last week. You can’t have them this week.’ They settled down to it. The mornings when they knew we were going to have sausages in, they would queue outside the shop before we opened in the morning. They knew what days the deliveries were. They knew what merchant would call on that particular day so they were all they. Eggs were another thing that weren’t rationed really. You weren’t supplied so we had to mark the books with those. We weren’t short of eggs because my wife’s father kept chickens so we had extra from them all the time. I looked after myself, you wouldn’t believe me if I said I didn’t. I do know places that had branch managers who were very strict on their staff and wouldn’t allow them to have any extra at all. But we did have a little bit extra, those that worked in the shop did. Yes. Because there were times when you had so much stuff in the shop, so plentiful, as I told you. And then all of a sudden it would be completely the other way. Mr Jury Snr.
Queued for hours for Tomatoes It’s funny because as soon as we heard any of the shops had anything in, my mother would say, ‘Go on Daisy, you run up and get in the line.’ And all these children were trying to get in the line where they could. If anyone had any tomatoes going, ooh God my husband used to go everywhere to try and get tomatoes. When I was expecting Maggie we were kept in London, but some mothers were taken out of London, most of them were, and I had Maggie in the old Surrey Hall in Godalming, and it was strange ‘cause my husband was still in London after the war and every time he came down here, he tried to get hold of some tomatoes, and if he knew some were going he would queue hours to try and get them to bring down to us. Daisy Cook
