The War Years

When war was declared in 1939 I was less then two years old, and my first memory of war was the building of the Air Raid Shelter and the start of the Blitz.  Early on everyone was issued with a gas mask, which was to be keep with us at all times for the duration and I still recall the rubbery smell and tightness of the bands round my head, holding it in place. It’s fortunate we were never called on to use them as I’m not sure how effective they would have been.
I do recall the confusion of being put to bed on the sofa downstairs instead of in my own bed, to be wrapped in blankets and carried into the shelter at the first eerie wail of the warning siren, a sound that never fails to send shivers up my spine.  I don’t know if I slept through the menacing drone of aircraft and muffled explosions of bomb blasts, and I have no idea how long we would have stayed each night in that dank hole, sharing its protection with our next-door neighbours. Both young couples at the beginning of married life and with a very young child, among so many other families; fearful and unsure at this unexpected turn in their ordinary lives.  My Dad and Mr Savage spent part of the night in some voluntary capacity as Air Raid wardens or Fire-watchers, no doubt shouting ‘Put that light out!’ whenever someone opened a back door or lit a cigarette.  All I know is that Dad wasn’t immediately pressed into combat, and I was three when, in anticipation of conscription, he volunteered for the RAF as the apparently less combative of the Armed Forces.
Dad’s RAF training entailed a perilous sea voyage to South Africa, with the ever-present danger from German U-boats, and Mum would frequently take me to the News Cinema in Manchester to watch the latest Pathe film account of the war.  On his return Dad was posted to an RAF Bomber Base.  With our house let to tenants, Mum took me to stay at her mother’s, which was our second home anyway, and very shortly found a way of being near her husband, wherever that might be.  Making the journey by train, bus and hitch-hiking to the nearest town or village to the Base where he was stationed, she would find respectable lodgings, commonly known as Digs, (or dig-ins, from trench warfare I believe) for us both, and return for me.  
This was high adventure for a three year old!  I imagine there must have been a taxi to the Station in Manchester.  What I do recall is the hustle and bustle of travellers hastening in all directions under the vast edifice of dusty old Victorian Railway Stations, waiting on the platform amid the smell of acrid smoke, noise of machinery and steam hissing in billows from huge black engines; rain glistening in the darkness on polished metal and stone flagged platforms, while every now and then an express train whistled past in a thunderous roar, while Mum held me away from imminent danger at the edge.  Then the excitement as our train arrived with the scramble for seats, stowing bags and coats on the overhead rack.  A corridor train would often be packed from end to end with servicemen and women in their various uniforms sitting on kit bags, but sometimes we  found ourselves in a train of separate carriages, usually on smaller branch lines.  
I’m sure I was never bored on those journeys and Mum would have supplied enough reading, writing and drawing materials to keep me busy. And there were wonderful illustrated posters of holiday destinations; golden sands inviting ‘Come to sunny Blackpool’, and more enticingly, lush green hills and blue waters of ‘Windermere, the heart of the Lake District’, the mountainous temptation to ‘Holiday in Snowdonia’ and so many more. Maybe it all stems from those days, but the truth is, I have a love of travelling… just watching the unfolding countryside, fields of growing crops or herds of cows or sheep, crossing above and below roads and canals, thundering over river bridges, large and small.  Fascinating glimpses of other people’s back gardens as we pass through towns and cities, shunting yards with engine turntables and other passing trains… come and gone in a flash… until we would reach our destination at a small rural station, stepping out into fresh country air.
The small villages we stayed in during those years seemed in some ways to be in a completely different world to the one we’d come from; rural in a very real sense. At four years old, my first experience of country life was in Morcott, a small village in Rutlandshire, to be near to Dad who was based at North Luffenham.  Our first ‘digs’ was with an old lady in her tiny ancient cottage with a rambling garden… more of a field… at the bottom of which lived hens and a large pig in a pen.
When I say that life was primitive, water was obtained from the village pump and there was a bus just once a week to the nearest town of Stamford, where we went to the Municipal Baths, not to swim, but for a proper bath!  Mum wrote a short essay about her experiences there when she joined a writing course some years later, which I’ll include in the next episode. 

Please feel free to leave a  comment if you find this of interest or your have any memories of your own. I'd love to hear from you!