Helen's questions on Wartime for a Feltham lad.

WW2 Project Helen aged 13, grandaughter. 3rd June 01

Q1. Did you get evacuated as a child?

A. Children did from my area, Feltham in Middlesex, but I do not remember if we were asked. I think my dad would have said no so perhaps he was asked.

Q2. What did you do to contribute to the War, if any?

A. When the war started in November 1939 I had just started the second year at Ashford Grammar School. I worked at home most of the time at first because there were no air raid shelters and we only went to school half a day each fortnight, to collect more work.
Later I did my best with homework, staying in the house by myself when there were air raids and mother, sister Margaret and brother Fred were in the Anderson shelter in the garden. When dad was home, Wednesdays and a few Sundays, none of us went down the shelter. Dad found it peaceful after city air raids.

Q3. What was the rationing like? Was it hard because you had to share all your things?

A. We got used to it! Each person got an allowance including, 2 ounces (50 Grams) of butter a week, 2 ounces of tea, one egg (a fortnight-and smelly), 3 ounces of sweets, no bananas til the War ended. Meat was still rationed until June 1954, 9 years after the War ended.
We used to run out of tea and I hated coffee (no Instant then). It seemed unfair that those who could afford it could eat in cafes and restaurants without using food rations.
One day I was lucky, roast beef on a cafe menu; I realised afterwards that the redness suggested horse flesh.

Q4. What did your family do to celebrate VE Day.

A. There were street parties everywhere and decorated streets. The parents, thankful for peace, gave the children a good time, a celebration for all the neighbours who were never so close again. There was music and dancing in our street; it only happened once more, on VJ Day,later in the same year.
Previously King George V Siver Jubilee in 1935 was a great period, streets decorated, galas, coach trips to London; I still have my Jubilee Medal, given to all children.

Q5. Did you actually know that this war was going to happen?

A. I heard bits on the radio and people talking and I heard the radio on September 3rd and Neville Chamberlain telling us, "We are at war with Germany." Then I knew war was coming and I was glad that dad was home that day. Interested in radio and with our sensitive American Jackson Bell radio, I scanned Medium Wave and found the German channels. I heard some Hitler speeches, passionately delivered with Seig Heils to follow. Lord Haw Haw, of the sneering, goading, voice, was on regularly, an Englishman turned traitor; hung after the War. "Germany Calling, Germany Calling, this is ...... Then he told us how badly we were doing and that we would soon lose the War.

Q6. Did you ever have a bomb explode near your house?

A. Not very near and we had no damage but there were bombs dropped in Feltham including a land mine caught in a tree outside our school. Luckily it did not explode but we could not go to school til it was made safe. A bomb dropped near the ralway station while a signalman was looking out through a large window. All the glass was blown in , most of it landing behind him. He must have said his prayers for he was not scratched. At EMI a V2 rocket killed many people standing outside the shelter-during an air raid warning.

Q7. Did you know anyone who was killed during the War?

A. The first was early in 1940 when Campbell - I used to cycle home with him - was killed with his uncle as they crossed the road to buy fish and chips. There was no tree to catch the land mine this time. John Mead, over the road, a few years older than me, was "presumed killed" in Burma, fighting the Japanese. Before he joined up I used to go cycling with him. He was always singing, often his favourite, "South of the Border, Down Mexico Way." I searched the Commomwealth War Graves site and found him, buried in an Indian hospital cemetery.

Q8. Were you scared whenever there was a blackout.

A. No, I was not scared of that, I liked the darkness outside, able to see the stars. Air raids changed it for the guns made vivid flashes and searchlights swept across the sky; the noise made you wish for earplugs.
Some anti aircraft guns were mobile, made you jump. Later, in 1944, cycling home from Southall evening classes during air raids, I could hear shrapnel falling sometimes. No helmet in those days but I stopped to collect the sometimes still warm trophies.
Used to stay in the cinema when the warning
came on screen, "An air raid is in progress, patrons may leave if they wish to do so."
I do tot recall the option of a rebate

Q9. Did you know any conscientious objectors, and what did you think of them?

A. I was too young to know any but when I started work in 1943 I worked on secret electronic equipment at EMI Laboratories. Another young man joined but when he realised it was all War equipment, he left. I admired him for sticking to what he believed, I think his family were Quakers, not Church of England. An option was to become a miner and at times young men were coopted for the mines anyway, since fuel was short. A friend of mine, Irving Halle, stayed after the War and became a mining engineer.

Q10. Do you think that the country itself has changed a lot since the War, and do you think it has changed for the better?

A. It has changed a lot and in many ways for the better. The poor are not so poor. Yet children are less innocent, pressured to be adults. Nobody wants another war, but in
1939 most people did not want a war, ordinary folk want peace and safety for their children. Germans too.
A friend of mine was captured by the Germans in 1940 and thinks he was treated in his prison in a fair way. He was released in 1945 by the American army, who killed all the German guards. My friend intensely dislikes the Americans, it sticks in his memory.

Above all, the War brought out the best in people, united and helpng each other.
Nil Carborundum!

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