Cockeyed Optimist

The post I did a few days ago about my Dad’s Old-Fashioned Remedies started me thinking about my childhood, and particularly about my wartime experiences.

I had just turned six in 1939, when WWII broke out in Europe, and I was twelve when it finished in 1945, so that period was an interesting time of my life. As I have already explained in passing, in my life story, active warfare passed us by for the most part, except for minor things like seeing bombed houses on the way to school, and being attacked by “buzz-bombs” and V2 rockets, as I explained in that story. But there were plenty of less direct effects that did impinge on us.

Gas Masks

Quite early on in the war, the British authorities were convinced that the civilian population would be the target of poison gas attacks, so a program of distributing gas masks was undertaken. There were several different models, all depending on a filter containing activated charcoal that you breathed in through. There was, as I recall, a rubber flap which sealed this off, so your exhaled breath didn’t pass through the filter (otherwise it would have become damp in no time); instead the outflow passed under the edges of the mask, on your cheeks (making satisfying farting noises if you tried hard). We had to carry them with us at all times, in their cardboard boxes, and practice regularly with them, so we could put them on quickly in the event of a gas attack. Needless to say, this never happened!

Look at this article.

Air-Raid Shelters

I have already said something about these, in the same part of my story referenced above, but here is another article.

Rationing

Food rationing started in January 1940, and persisted until 1954 — 9 years after the end of the war! When I first went to University in 1953, I had to hand in my ration-book to the College kitchen — but during that term they were largely discarded, except for one or two items.

The range of rationed foods varied; the list below (from Wikipedia) is typical.

Later clothes were rationed, too, but since I was largely dressed in family hand-me-downs (we were not particularly rich), this didn’t make much of an impression on me.

Food rations
    * 1s 2d (approximately 1 lb 3 oz or 540 g) of meat (offal or sausages weren't rationed[1])
    * 4 oz (113 g) bacon or ham
    * 3 pints (1.7 l) of milk per week or 1 packet of milk powder per month
    * 2 oz (57 g) butter
    * 2 oz (57 g) margarine
    * 2 oz (57 g) fat or lard
    * 2 oz (57 g) loose tea (teabags were not used widely in the UK)
    * 1 egg per week or 1 packet (makes 12 “eggs”) of egg powder per month
    * 2 oz (57 g) jam
    * 3 oz (85 g) sugar
    * 1 oz (28 g) cheese (vegetarians were allowed a bigger cheese ration, as they gave up their meat ration)
    * 3 oz (85 g) sweets
    * 2 lb (907g) onions (onions were only rationed between 1942-1944)
    * plus, 16 "points" per month for tinned and dried food.

As a parallel to rationing, the government introduced a scheme intended to reduce extravagance in a range of goods, including clothing and furniture. This was the Utility scheme. Goods were supposed to be serviceable and durable, but with no frills. As with rationing, this persisted past the end of the war. When I needed to acquire a suit when I was in the RAF, in about 1952, I went to a quite up-market (for those days) gentleman’s outfitters — Simpson’s of Picadilly — and bought a double-breasted three-piece blue suit with a white stripe — and that was a Utility suit. (It was very boring, even for me, so I regretted the purchase afterwards.)

Here is a fascinating page about clothing rationing and the Utility scheme.

Glimpses of the Real War

As I have hinted, for children my age, if you were not actually bombed, or had family or friends killed or injured, you could live in blithe ignorance for the most part. However, there were some incidents or experiences that could have brought it home to us a little.

• Barrage Balloons



Looking south and East from where we lived, there were times when you could see rows of balloons lined up across the sky. These were intended to be an obstacle to enemy planes, of course; they were tethered by steel cables to mobile winches, and indeed, if a plane caught a cable it could be brought down. Or, the balloon could be cut free — I can remember seeing stray balloons drifting higher and higher and being blown down-wind.

• No Trips to the Seaside

The beaches along the South and East coasts were all closed to the public, and barricaded with steel stanchions and barbed wire to deter would-be invading forces (who never arrived).

• Few Swimming Pools

The open-air pools in our area had all been taken over as reservoirs for fire fighting. There were also steel ’static water tanks’ built around the place for the same purpose. I believe that a few children drowned in these while trying to sail their little boats.

• Air Raid Sirens

These were mounted on the tops of high poles and could be heard for miles. The warning of an air raid was a wavering tone, like
this (with a touch of anti-aircraft gunfire — it still gives me the willies, after more than 60 years),
while the “All clear” was a
a steady note.

• Butterfly Bombs



These were anti-personnel bombs that we were warned about at school (they got us to make crude models of them out of dried-milk cans), they had an extending pair of rotors, which allowed them to drop fairly gently; then if anyone moved them they would go off. None of us ever actually saw one.

• Land-mines

The Germans would drop land-mines by parachute, so they would not go off as they hit; after a delay set by some timing mechanism they would become “live”. I actually saw one of these that had come down in a local park. Of course, you would have had to be stupid to go anywhere near them, but they were certainly a danger, especially to the bomb disposal squads.

• Downed Enemy Planes

This was another experience I actually had. A German bomber had been damaged and it was brought down more or less in one piece in a local woodland. We kids went to look at it, of course. It was guarded by a couple of soldiers and a policeman, but they let us go up and peer through the cockpit window. The aircrew, who were injured but still alive, had been taken away by then, and the plane had been checked for unexploded bombs.

Apart from these fairly isolated incidents (air raids were common enough!), life went on for us fairly normally — but we were the lucky ones.

Let’s hear from others of you who might have your own memories!

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