My WWII MEMORIES

MY WWII EXPERIENCE FROM SEPTEMBER 1939

Joan O.F. Peterson (nee Delamare)
Authored: October 3, 2005
*****

Father took his annual vacation in late August and in 1939 we, as a family spent two weeks in St. Leonards, Sussex. Little did we know that this would be our last holiday together as a family - the 'winds of war' were of course very prevalent. And by the time we were about to leave and return home to London declaration of war was imminent.

My father had an uncle and aunt in Chichester, Sussex. And so my parents decided to break our journey and visit them. The Hickmores had a large house which took in bed and breakfast vacationers. As far as I can remember I had never met them - - my dad came from a large family. But they were not close-knit! In that my father was in the theatre business, he worked long late hours. And once Sunday opening was allowed we saw even less of him as he was dedicated to his work and his work always came first!

It was on Sunday 3rd september 1939 we all gathered close to the radio and listened to our Prime Minister (Neville Chamberlain) announce that a state of war now existed between Great Britain and Germany. It was agreed that I would remain with the Hickmores and my sister would travel back to London with our parents. My sister Pauline was 17 yrs old and had just completed a two-year apprenticeship in hairdressing and beauty culture and had taken a job fairly close to home.

And so I was left with these 'near strangers' - although I must admit they were kindly toward me. They had 3 sons and a daughter. And so here I was kicking my heels and trying to adjust to my new
surroundings with no one in my age group with whom to relate. Minnie Hickmore took me to the local school thinking I would be happier with children of my own age (13) However, the school would not accept me and said I should return to London and evacuate with my own school.Well it was already too late. The place was closed and all children were in the relative safety of the West Country!
And so I got pretty bored with no one to relate to. Nineteen year old Tom was friendly, but I was too young to be a close friend. Well soon I was to get quite busy! Some London schools evacuated to Sussex, and people who had spare rooms in their house had to take them in! Thus, we were given this 10 year old black boy (10 going on 20). He was what we would now refer to as "a street kid" - likeable, but obviously full of wiles! I had never had a brother but was put in charge of bathing him every night, which was very difficult. For one thing he was somewhat advanced sexually and tried to use his wiles on me - - also he stole money from my aunt and blamed me! They believed him - - but the missing money was found in his shoe. My was I unhappy - I wanted to go home in the worst way.

Well, it was expected that London would have air raids straight away but this did not happen and it became known as "the phony war"! So I wrote my parents and they brought me home. The schools were all closed down and the children gone.

As it had become apparent that I would most likely follow a secretarial career. Mother found a teacher who would come to the house and teach me shorthand. Mr.Beaumont must have been in his 80's. He took a bus from his home in the next town and trudged up our hill, puffing and panting!!!' Once a week he came and his fee was 2/6d - (half-a-dollar)! Mother always saw that he had a nice cup of tea upon arrival and let him rest a while before he spat out the Pitman Shorthand symbols. I took to learning shorthand like a duck to water. And within a couple of months became quite proficient in the theory, but to take dictation and reach high speed was quite another step up! He gave me a “Certificate of Proficiency" ... and so we parted company.

By this time. Still no air raids and so some children began filtering back home........ enough to open one school - or at least one school took children of all ages in one large room. We didn’t
exactly have lessons. In that the age span was quite wide, and so we played word games, and at least we could make friends again and feel comfortable. Once I had my 14th birthday. I knew I could get a job as this was the school leaving age. And so I entered the world of commerce. And it was a hard grind right from the start! My job was at Pride and Clark Ltd. in the next town. By tram it took me about an hour each way. It paid me five shillings/week for working 8am to 6pm - ½ day Wednesday!

I started in the mail room sorting mail in the mail order department and then I was required to deliver it to the many departments. My boss was Miss Ford. Who should have been working as a prison guard - she never ever had one kind word to say to me. I literally hated her - I cried myself to sleep many nights. There was one other woman in the department and she rarely spoke a word. Needless to say, she was a friend of Miss Ford.! One day, I don’t remember the cause, Miss Ford pushed me down a flight of stairs. My precious coupon-bought stockings were ruined and I had a bloody knee .. . .and that wasn’t all- I couldn’t hide it from my mother, who marched down to the office next day to speak with the staff manageress. Funnily enough, it turned out that her husband worked under my father........ and she was appalled at what happened and immediately transferred me to the legal department, where I worked for Miss Lewis who was just as nice as Miss Ford was nasty. And I got a chance to take some letters with my shorthand and transcribe them on the typewriter!!!! So once again life was pretty good.

While in that job I have a vivid memory of standing in the main street one lunch hour, looking up at the railway bridge where train after train went through slowly making their way into London with wounded soldiers from the Dunkirk disaster — they were all bandaged up and some had their bandaged legs propped up against the train windows. I knew I was watching history.

A couple of months went by and then the war really started - the London Blitz began.... Night after night they came and the thudding bombs were frightening. They also used whistling bombs at first which were designed to frighten the people. The raiders would arrive at dusk and the all clear would not sound until around 5 am. We lived on the outskirts of London Town, and at this time the attacks were on the city of London - about 7 miles away. The sky was crimson as the fires spread.

We lived about one-half mile from Streatham Common (commons originate from medieval times when farmers would bring their cattle and other animals to London and these commons were set aside as "resting places"! Anyway, there was an ack-ack emplacement on our common and the noise was deafening when they went into action. And you could hear the tinkling of metal on the rooftops - spent shell casings falling. Our neighbors Ernest and Lorna Allingham and two year old Wendy had a small area of their garage reinforced so that they could spend the nights in relative safety.

There was just enough room for four or five canvas garden chairs and little Wendy was placed in a home-made hammock attached to the ceiling! She would croon "go away hikwer" when the bombs started. They invited us to join them and we accepted gladly. Although one just dozed off now and again as we were sitting upright! This went on for weeks - - sometimes we just stayed in our own home and hoped to take longer naps!

Another memory - - - on a Sunday morning my friend Marie (who had also returned home) and I took our dogs for a walk along the main street, when we heard Rat-a-tat-tat - - machine gun fire obviously, so we literally dived into a shop doorway as this German plane straffed the street. We were just out of the barrage balloon area....and at this time we were also being raided in the daytime. From our kitchen window we could watch the air battles over Croydon and Kenley which were about four miles away. Every day when I came home from work I crossed my fingers before turning the corner wondering if my house was still there!

One evening there was a raid in progress as I alighted from the bus. Then, as I walked down our driveway a chunk of red hot metal fell at my feet - - one step further it would have surely gone through my head. Next morning I went out to pick it up and it was a piece of shell casing from the local guns. It had lots of numbers on it - - - I remember putting it on the mantelpiece but I don’t know what happened to it - probably got thrown out? Anyway - - - loss of sleep and strict rations were taking their toll - I know I lost weight and my mother was having a tough time with the menopause!

One day she told me she would pick me up at the office and take me down to her brother's home in Northamptonshire for the weekend to get some sound sleep. I agreed - - - she made a deal with a taxi cab and he took us all the way (65 miles) for four pounds! And of course he had to return! It was heaven to arrive in this small town - - - relatively untouched by war. Come Sunday night I was told that I would not be going back to London - - - and so this was my first hi-jacking!!!! Actually, mother stayed on for about three weeks, but one day she got up and said she was going home - nothing would dissuade her. Father was working still in London and often stayed overnight as everyone had to take a turn fire-watching on the rooftops. No, she was going and that was that .....

The next part needs a little believing but I swear its true...... There was a long distance bus to London - it took 4 hours. When she alighted at the bus station dad was there to meet her. Saying he had a feeling she would be there and need help getting across the city and another bus home.
Never mind that during the night he had been hit by an exploding incendiary bomb which showered his back and buttocks with bits of shrapnel. He had first just gone to a first aid station for preliminary treatment. But he ended up six weeks in a hospital laying on his tummy having bits and pieces removed, some of which were infected !!!!!

Mother didn’t like to be in the house alone, and a friend who worked at the BBC in Central London said she could probably get her a part time job, and this came to pass. She worked for a while in the accounts department, journeying back and forth by bus - - the buses and local trains kept running!!!! Near home one double decker bus did wind up toppling down a huge bomb crater.

So there I was in another home (I lived in a total of six homes by the time the war ended in 1945). ........ Aunt and uncle welcomed me - - aunt was not a well person and spent a lot of time in bed. I got a job with Stelos Knit, a small company which had evacuated from central London. There were about a dozen teenage girls, all trained in the fine art of invisible mending stockings and other clothing. As we were strictly rationed for clothes it was important to take care of every snag or tear. Many of the better stores in the area had collection centres where one could bring their precious stockings to be hand-mended with a tiny hook! This company had a small office in Central London and I was able to work there for a few months. But I eventually left as the journey was long and tedious and still the air-raids day or night.

My next job was a 50 min bicycle ride from home - - - across another common. I was a secretary to five men who were designing air raid shelters and strengthening of existing buildings. As I was the only girl in the office I was treated very well! They were nice guys and I often wonder what became of them. They were older so not called to serve. Riding across the commons there was an occasion air raid warning so one simply alighted and knocked on the nearest door for shelter?!!

Coming up now to the VI Buzz Bomb era!!!!! I was now working in Central London for an aristocrat, and husband of the famous Beryl Markham who was the first woman to fly the Atlantic east to west. Actually, I find she is barely known in the USA - - the book "West With The Night" tells the story. Anyway, Mansfield Markham (son of a baronet) owned a company which manufactured farm implements. (By the way, did I tell you that everybody over 16-1/2 had to do work of national importance?) This office was close to Grosvenor Square.....quite a small operation and he only came into the office once a week. Then one evening I was looking out of my parents bedroom window (we lived high on a hill) and saw several red flares in the sky traveling toward us - we counted 41 - we didn’t know what they were ......... Then an occasional "thud" would be heard - - the first of the VI’s to arrive in mid-June 1944. I was at the post office at 5 pm one evening, and minutes after I left, a VI destroyed the post office!

I worked there for a few months and then mother once again protecting her precious child - - hoisted me off to Northamptonshire again. This time to close relatives ....... Mansfield Markham was furious and said if I didn’t return on the Monday he would report me to the Ministry Of Labour. In order to stay away I needed a doctor’s certificate. So I was promptly taken to a doctor who said "you don’t want to go back there do you"? - - - So the certificate read "Nervous Debility" - he was probably right, I had lost a lot of weight.

Now onto these other relatives, Uncle George and Aunt Olive (the last thank god). However, they turned out to be pretty mean - they didn’t really want to be bothered with me. The Labour Exchange sent me off to a US Army base a few miles from town (this area was ringed with 8th Airforce bases) - - the CO of a unit needed another secretary. So a jeep picked me up and I was duly interviewed for the job. Everything checked out so I went to work for the Armament Unit, US Base 572, based in a beautiful 17th Century Mansion. It was my happiest year of the war! I worked with Madge Lane and we became firm friends. We were allowed to shop at the PX so that was fun! And I was taught to drive a jeep !

Meantime, I was keeping my uncle in cheap cigarettes from the PX! Another bombshell - they asked me to find somewhere else to live "as the neighbors were gossiping about the jeep which picked us up every day and brought us home!" So I gathered up my few belongings, tied with string my friend reminded me. And Madge’s parents, Amy and Chris Lane took me in and treated me like their own - - - they were wonderful people. Sometimes its better to sidestep the relatives eh!

I was there for one year - Glenn Miller gave his last concert at Melchbourne Park before he disappeared. I missed his concert by two weeks. I am still in touch with my ex-US Military boss Court Carrier who lives in Portland Oregon.

And so, in September 1945 I trundled back to London which was badly damaged but still carrying on in the true British tradition. My next job was secretary to Sir John Whitty with The Soldiers , Sailors and Airmen’s Help Society helping ex-servicemen’s families to financially get back on their feet. I quite enjoyed the work and we also employed ex-service women who were pregnant and needed a place to live and work until their babies were born and all placed for adoption. The fathers were mainly U.S. Servicemen. Little did I know that in the 1980's I would become a U.S. volunteer for a British volunteer group - TRACE - and playing a part to help reunite those “babies” with their American GI fathers!

My job lasted three years at which time I went to work for Vickers-Armstrong, a UK manufacturer of armaments during the war. In peace time they branched out into other heavy duty industries, e.g. shipbuilding, jet aircraft, newspaper machinery, etc. I became secretary to a Director, A.H. (Sandy) Hird and who was also a Chairman of several of their subsidiaries. This job lasted from 1947 to November 1959, when I left for America to marry and join my new husband Marshall!

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