For the Duration - Chapter One

Chapter One
A SLAP in the FACE

THERE MAY HAVE BEEN other parodies of Whistle While You Work, a popular song of the time from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, but this particular version was cheerfully taken up by children in our part of London, and chanted in the playgrounds and parks:
“Whistle while you work,
Mussolini is a twerp.
Hitler’s barmy — so’s his army,
Whistle while you work.”

It was a catchy tune, the words were simple, and the sentiments appealed. Only a year or so earlier, we had sung with gusto:
“Hark the Herald Angels sing:
Mrs. Simpson stole our king!”

We readily accepted these simplified ideas. Our teachers did not discuss the problems of troubled Europe with us in class, and neither did my parents at home. The only wireless programme that I recall is Children’s Hour. We would be sitting down to tea, listening to the antics and exploits of the denizens of Toy Town, and kindly Uncle Mac would bid us goodnight: “Goodnight, children; everywhere!” Harmless entertainment, but neither informative nor stimulating, to any worthwhile degree.

One dictator was a twerp, and the other was barmy: clearly, they were not to be taken too seriously. And so we carried on as normal with our friendships, games and intrigues, this simplistic little ditty having scornfully brushed aside any threat of danger.

If our way of life was as yet unaffected, this was not the case for two boys who, rather mysteriously, appeared in our school. The year would have been 1938, when I was eight years old. These boys were different. They were not brothers, although they were clearly linked. One was fair-haired and well built, with an air of not really believing what was happening, while the other was lean, dark-haired and olive-skinned — more resolved, albeit suspicious of his surroundings. They spoke no English, but it was their clothing that really set them apart. The boys were neatly dressed (in itself, noteworthy), and their short trousers and close-fitting jackets were decidedly foreign to us.

One lunchtime, a group of children had gathered outside the gate to the playground of our elementary school in Waller Road, at New Cross Gate. A few boys had been accompanying the newcomers across the playground, out of curiosity, trying to get them to talk about themselves. Frustration at the lack of communication soon led to more pressing questioning, then to taunts and jeers. The dark boy stood with his back to the brick wall, tears in his eyes, but determined to defend himself, if necessary.
“Wotcha doin’ ’ere?”
“Wotsa matter? Can’tcha talk?”
“Cry-baby, Cry-baby!”
Our boys had not intended to be aggressive, but they could not understand the reaction their questioning and jostling was producing.
“Garn! Forget ’em — let’s go ’ome!”
“Where d’ya come from?”
“Wotcha cryin’ for, anyway?”
The dark boy stood resolute, blinking back tears, his eyes darting from one to the next, as the others spoke. No one wanted to hurt him, or his friend. The strangers, however, outnumbered and vulnerable, saw only hostility.

I felt sorry for the dark boy. I was curious, too, but mostly I wanted to comfort him; to protect him, even. I was responding to his loneliness and bewilderment. I stepped forward tentatively and raised my hand to touch his arm, at the same time offering words meant to be friendly and reassuring: “It’s all right. It doesn’t matter, it...”

His reaction to my overtures of comfort and friendliness was abrupt and, for me, devastating. His hand shot out and gave a stinging slap to my face.

I remember nothing more of that episode. I do not remember what my sisters said about it when I told them; for I am sure that I would have done so. As to the two young refugees from Hitler’s Third Reich, I do not remember seeing them again.

*

As 1939 progressed, we began to realize that war might come to us, and that there could soon be changes in our life-style. One summer afternoon my father had some business to attend to in neighbouring suburbs, and he took me with him in his car, a neat little Austin, black and shiny. This was a rare occasion. Few homes in our district could boast a car, and ours was not used often for outings, so this particular time has stayed in my memory — an impromptu treat. My father had just called on someone near Peckham Rye, and we were driving home, when he commented on the activity over on the open parkland. We drove slowly for a while, and stopped several times so that he could explain what was happening.

“People won’t be able to go across that bit of the park any more, son. See how that fence runs right down to the corner? And look at all that barbed wire! Horrible stuff!”

Earth from trenches was being banked up, and some men were unloading a lorry-load of sandbags. I’d already seen sandbags stacked up around the doorway of a town-hall, earlier that afternoon, and my father had pointed out the criss-cross designs appearing on the windows of some public buildings: “It won’t shatter so badly if the blast from a bomb breaks it. People can get badly hurt by glass.”

On the way home, my father said that he had to hurry, because he did not want to miss the news-bulletin, on the wireless. It was the first time that I had heard that word, bulletin, and I was intrigued by it. It was obviously important, and it had a sinister sound to it, especially after all the talk about fragments of glass, ack-ack guns and barbed wire.

The most dramatic happening of all, for me, was when we were issued with gas masks. War was becoming a personal thing, now. We had been given talks at school on the possible need for gas masks, and men had demonstrated the correct way to wear them, but this had been quite impersonal. Now we actually had our own individual ones — to keep!

We had gas mask drills, when a class filled with excited children would be transformed into a group of clowning young porkers. The feel of that close-fitting rubber on my cheeks, and its smell, are with me still. We would suck in, and feel claustrophobic. We would thrust our faces forward at our neighbours, making muffled noises, and peering through misted windows, each trying to impress the other.

The masks came in cardboard boxes and, when the war started, we were supposed to carry them with us wherever we went. My father bought us what I thought were rather smart cloth containers — mine was pale-blue — which had shoulder straps. Very young children had colourful Mickey Mouse styled gas masks, to encourage them to wear them. My two-year-old sister, although perhaps attracted by the appearance, definitely did not appreciate her Mickey Mouse gas mask’s being clamped over her face!

*

While the armed services were busily preparing sites for searchlights, ack-ack guns and barrage balloons, the authorities were hurriedly trying to educate the civilian population as to how to act should war be declared. Our school was arranging for a mass evacuation: destination unknown, but “somewhere in the country”. My mother — like mothers all over the country — had to organize blackout curtains for the whole house. It would not do to have Jerry homing in on a chink of light from our house! My father became an air raid warden, and soon was familiar with such things as stirrup-pumps and gas-rattles. Our local A.R.P. post was just down the road, an out-building of a church hall.

The government issued Anderson air raid shelters to the public. My father, however, did not wish to ruin his garden by digging a large hole in it, and by having such an “eye-sore” as a feature for “Goodness knows how long”, so he decided to look after the safety of his family his own way — indoors. Our house consisted of a ground floor and two upper storeys. In the centre of the ground floor was our Breakfast Room. I am not sure that I ever ate breakfast there, but it was warm and comfortable, and we children had our toy-cupboard in it and spent most of our evenings there. My father, who always enjoyed working with wood, soon had a substantial framework of four-by-twos reinforcing this room. I liked the network of uprights that had to be negotiated, and I was sure we were now safe and secure.

Towards the end of that summer term, Waller Road Elementary School made its final arrangements for the evacuation. What to pack, how to label it, where to meet: the things most stressed seem to have been the importance of carrying one’s gas mask, and having each child clearly labelled by name. The destination turned out to be in Devon — “fresh woods, and pastures new”, indeed — but this term was to prove to be the last that I should spend with my old Waller Road friends.

I do not know what prompted my father to make the particular holiday arrangements that he did in the summer of 1939. At any rate, we spent a fortnight at the seaside, in a bungalow at Ferring, in Sussex, and then Rene, Lorna and I were to spend another fortnight in Bampton, an Oxfordshire village.

This latter place was paradise to us. This was where we had previously stayed with Cousin Mary and her husband, Bert. Mary was our father’s cousin, and we adored her. Back in London after these earlier holidays, we used to talk about our experiences at Mary and Bert’s until the next time came round!

*

We were in Bampton at the start of September, when Hitler’s troops invaded Poland, and Britain declared war on Germany. The grown-ups decided that we should stay where we were — for the time being, at least. My sisters would go to the Grammar School in nearby Witney, while I should attend the village primary school. Waller Road slid completely out of my thoughts: Bampton suited me fine!

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