Childhood Memories pt.5

If a barrage ballon broke loose, then landed anywhere after losing it’s gas, so long as it was badly torn, it would quickly disappear and reappear as shopping bags etc. Those that were not badly damaged were sometimes repaired.

A large WW1 tank had been on display in Neath’s Victoria Gardens: it together with the ornamental iron railings around the park were taken for more metal to feed the war effort. The daily newspaper was sometimes only one large sheet folded in two because of the paper shortage. The refuse lorry carried 2 sacks on the back. One was for tin cans and the other was for waste paper for recycling. Toilet paper was scarce, so many households cut up say last weeks’s radio times into 4, then pierced a small hole in one corner, threaded a piece of string through it and hung it in the toilet room. To have a very rare orange paper amidst the toilet paper was heavenly!

On display for one week in a Lewellyn’s furniture shop in Neath’s Alfred Street; were 2 torpedoes, one was very long, probably about 12 feet and another just about 6 feet. The large sample had a Union Jack flag on it, whilst the short torpedo had a Swastika flag on it — just a mrale booster!

In Neath’s Victoria Gardens on another occasion, a spitfire aircraft appeared together with a one man dingy inflated to catch any money that the public cared to throw in to help pay for a spitfire.

A little later in the war, I visited Swansea. I travelled by bus and then I saw on the outskirts of Neath a house that had received a “direct hit”. The house was completely demolished. Some neighbouring houses had wooden boards over some unrepaired windows whilst others would already have been reglazed. Temporary commercial buildings in Swansea town had been built. The shops had tiny windows to help with blackout requirements and to mask the fact that there was little to sell. Commercial life was a continual round of queues. However, because of the petrol shortage, Swansea’s taxis were all equipped with a rectangular silver balloon on a frame on their roofs. The taxis ran on gas! Modern taxis sometimes run on Liquid Petroleum Gas — what’s new?

© Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.