Peggy’s War

Looking back on World War 2 A shortened version.

I shall start with as early a remembrance as possible, the first day, the 3^{rd of} September. The sun was shining and I was playing out in the garden with John, my brother,who was only six. My mother was sitting on the porch, which was entered from the combined sitting and dining room as that particular room was at the time. She was making blackout curtains that had to be put up at the windows to keep the light from shining out and making everything visible to the enemy. She and my dad were awaiting the announcement on the wireless of the outbreak of war. Eleven o'clock came and with it the expected announcement. I was not unduly worried but not happy. I went back into the garden and continued playing with Joood security.

The day went on. Mum must have finished the blackout curtains, as we were able to switch the lights on when it became necessary. Later in the afternoon our evacuee arrived. Her name was Joyce and she was fourteen years old. She seemed to me to be much older that I. I was twelve, nearly thirteen. We had said we would have an evacuee stay with us. She stayed for three months until it was decided that Hockley was an unsafe area and all the London children were taken away.

During the first evening of the war the air-raid alarm went off. We went into our long, windowless passage away from glass. This turned out to be a

false alarm, to everyone's relief, as you can imagine.

There were, of course, many more evacuees in the village. The local children and evacuees had to share the schools. That is, Hawkwell and Hockley council schools. They took turns with mornings and afternoons. This affected John but not me as I was going to school in Westcliff then. I had a few weeks extra holiday as St. Bernard’s had to build air raid shelters before we could go back. I was quite happy about that! I was always pleased to have extra holidays. What a thing to confess to in these serious days. (1999)

I remember going for an outing to Stambridge with the evacuees during that time. I don’t know how I came to go with them. Perhaps I went along with Joyce. Stambridge is on the river Roach, a tidal river that runs into the river Crouch which, in turn, runs into the North Sea. While there I managed to cut my foot in the mud. There must have been something very sharp deep in the mud, probably a seashell. The wound left quite a scar. Apart from that I enjoyed the outing. I always loved to go to those rivers and still do.

Things were very quiet for those first few months of the war. The air raid shelters were finished and I went back to school. Instead of having the cooked dinner, which I previously had, Mum gave me a lunch box with sandwiches for my dinner. I am not sure why this was.

On the first day of the war a large number of Scottish soldiers arrived in Hockley, maybe a battalion. I am afraid I am not at all well up on military things. They all wore kilts, and they set up machine guns all over the place. I was surprised to see that there was one on the little triangle of grass outside Mr. and Mrs. Hatfield's shop. This naturally seemed most strange to me; strange and not at all what I wanted. The Scottish soldiers were not long in Hockley, and as far as I can remember it was a while before any more soldiers came.

I do remember a feeling of melancholy during those early days of the war. I would sit in the living room, and everything felt dull and cold. I spent some time browsing through a big, old book of Essex and wishing that I could go to Layer Marney Towers, an engraving of which I had come across in this book. Many years later I actually went to the Towers. It was well worth the visit.

I can't remember who it was brought large quantities of khaki coloured wool to my mother (and to other women as well, of course,) with the request that she should knit some comforts for the troops. Mum gave me some which I knitted into an extremely long and wide scarf. I wonder who had that scarf. I hope someone was kept warm by it.

Uncle Dick and Auntie Muriel suggested that Mum and Dad should send John and me out to Canada to stay with them and our cousins, Sue, Trish and Anne, for the duration of the war. It was a kind thought of theirs but I was horrified at the very idea and refused point blank to be sent away. John was not happy at the idea either. Thankfully, Mum and Dad did not like the thought of the pair of us going away and nothing came of the suggestion. Numbers of children did go abroad to relatives. For some it was a successful evacuation, but for others I believe it was not so good. I don't think that I could have stood going away from my parents. Whatever might happen to us during the war going away was absolutely not a possible option to me. We should stand or fall together.

Mum and Dad must have had a great deal of thinking to do. One thing was school. My school, St Bernard's, was to be evacuated to Mansfield, I think it was. Again this was not an option to me, and neither to Mum and Dad, I think. Whatever was to be done, we were all to stay together. It was believed at the time that the areas near the coast were not safe, and many people moved away. Uncle Roland, a bachelor, who was an old family friend whose home was at Hendon in Middlesex, offered for us to come and stay with him for the time being. There was a school open to which both John and I could go, and it was convenient for Dad to go to the city to work, so off we all went, including the dog, Turk, and the cat, Tinker. What a commotion! Turk was sick in Uncle Roland's car, and Tinker objected to emigrating to Hendon, as is the way with cats who are animals attached to their own territory.

I said that it was convenient for Dad to get to his office. The main office had been evacuated to Reigate in Surrey, and Dad had been left to look after the London office with the assistance of one old man whose name I don't remember. What a crazy time it seems looking back.

John and I settled in quite happily although life in Hendon could not come up to Hockley life, especially when the Blitz started! I was thirteen and John was seven. The new school was pleasant enough. I was able to take John with me every morning as St. Joseph's took little boys at that time. The main school was evacuated to Cirencester, I think it was, so it had shrunk in size quite a bit. One of the main buildings was being used as the Food Office where the rationing was being sorted out, I suppose.

The nuns who were left at the school were all very kind and some of them jolly people. They made the best of things as they were, and did their best to make a happy environment for the pupils. I have no unpleasant memories of St. Joseph's.

The school library had quite a good selection of books that we could borrow. It was while I was there that I discovered Talbot Baines Read, a Victorian writer of school stories, and also adventure stories. They must have been extremely old-fashioned even in 1940, but I took to them and read all I could find. The only title I can remember is The Adventures of a Three Guinea Watch.

One day the air raid warning went before the end of afternoon school. None of us were allowed to go home until a parent had arrived to take us. We all had to go into the basement where the nun's beds were. One surprise was the bright red blankets on all the beds. We waited, and gradually parents started arriving. Our Dad eventually came, and off we went. This was the beginning of the 'blitz. And what a time it was! What surprises me, looking back, is the fact that I don't recall spending all the time being terrified. To lie in the improvised bed under the stairs listening for the German planes and for the whistle of falling bombs, wondering where they would land, was obviously frightening, but in between there were a lot of good times. There were the indoor fireworks we had for Guy Fawkes Night. Dad had come across them in a shop somewhere and bought them for us. John and I enjoyed them very much. The same evening there was a tremendous array of anti aircraft weapons going off. We watched them from the back door. It was like a malevolent November fifth spectacle. I can't remember the name of the particular shells flying across the sky. They may have been pom-poms.

Tinker, the cat, disappeared after a time and we thought he must have been trying to make his way home. This was sad, and when three weeks went by without his return we thought he had gone for good. Sadly we accepted his vanishing as permanent and mourned his going. Then, one evening, there was a faint miaow at the back door, and who do you think it was. Unbelievably, it was Tinker. He had been wounded, and had a really nasty gash in his tummy. He took himself under the sideboard in the dining room where Mum nursed him till he was recovered. We thought he had been hit by a piece of shrapnel, but, of course, we could never find out for sure. Mum was an expert at nursing animals back to health. So Tinker the Tabby, survived his horrid adventure, and lived to go back to Hockley with us a few months later.

Turk, the dog, got out one day soon after our arrival. We looked for him and eventually found him in a garden not far away. He was barking madly because he could not get out. I don't think he went out on his own again. Looking back, I think Uncle Roland was very patient to put up with such a change to his life style. As I mentioned before, he was a bachelor, who lived alone, had no animals, and certainly no children about the house. I think he quite enjoyed the change.

On one occasion the window in Uncle Roland's bedroom window was blown in by a bomb blast. Fortunately the window had tape stuck over it to prevent pieces of glass flying everywhere. Even more fortunately, it happened on a night when Uncle Roland was in the habit of going to Mr. and Mrs. Joyce for the evening. I don't know if he would have survived a large sash window crashing on to him during the night.

Another time there was a terrifyingly enormous bomb came down on a road a few minutes walk from Stuart House, as Uncle Roland's house was called. At the time Mum, Dad and Uncle Roland were having cups of tea, John was playing about, and I was in the process of doing my homework. All was quiet as the air raid warning had not gone. Then there came the sound of one solitary plane flying over. Then came the most frightening sound I have heard in my life. It certainly must have been the largest bomb we had ever heard, and also the largest explosion. It roared down with the sound of an express train. Mum leapt to her feet, still holding her cup of tea which went all over my homework. The blast bent the lock of the wooden shutters that covered the French doors, partially opening them, and the heavy velvet curtains billowed out into the room.

We all gradually recovered from the shock, and before long there was a knock on the front door. Mrs.Bignell, who helped with the housework, and her little boy, were on the doorstep. They came into the house and we saw that both their faces were completely black. They had been on their way home and had stopped to have a chat with a neighbour when the bomb dropped. It had fallen close to their house which was destroyed. The woman who shared the house was killed. Not knowing where to go they came to Uncle Roland on whom one could always rely for help.

Mum took the little boy upstairs for a bath. He must have taken a lot of washing to get clean. They both stayed until next morning. Mum must have given them some clothes as theirs were ruined. In the morning they went to the Ministry of what ever it was at the office at St. Joseph's, where they got some clothes to tide them over, and also railway tickets to West Hartlepool, I think it was, which was her husband's home town. He was in the army. If I remember rightly there were no more bombs that night, but the air raid siren went after everything was over.

Another calamity of this time was my Dad's office building having an incendiary bomb drop on it. The building was burnt down as far as the floor above Dad's office. Dad spent the day clearing out all the papers and suchlike, with the rooms smouldering round him. I remember him arriving home from work worn out and covered with soot. He had even managed to rent another office to put the rescued stuff in. There must have been so many people like Dad who ought to have had medals for keeping things going, but who never got anything. Having to retire early due to his sight failing, (quite possibly due to his already weak eyes getting scorched on that day) he did not even get a decent pension from his firm. Life can be very unfair.

Dad was a firewatcher while in Hendon. He went out in the evenings to watch out for falling incendiary bombs.

I used to take John to the pictures on a Saturday afternoon quite often. It seems strange looking back to think that we could enjoy going to the pictures on a Saturday afternoon without worrying about the coming night and its possible horrible happenings. One of the delights of childhood is that the pleasure of the present can be enjoyed without fearing the future.

On one occasion I went with Dad down to Hockley for the day. We gathered all the vegetables that had been looking after themselves while we were away, put them in a sack, and took them back to Hendon. Going through the underground stations we saw all the people sheltering from air raids. There were rough, wooden bunks put up on the platforms, and there were huge crowds of people. They had bedding and food and all they needed to get through the night. They must have carted it all down there with them every night.

When we came out of the tunnel between Hampstead and Golders Green there was an air raid going on. It was dark, and there were brilliant lights flashing from the electric train, all the way along it. This made me feel very insecure as I did when traveling by steam train after dark. Brilliant sparks were often to be scene flying out of the engine chimneys! We were much too visible in the blackout. However, on this particular occasion we got home safely with our big sack of carrots and potatoes and whatever else that was in there. These were a welcome addition to the store cupboard.

The time went on and at some point Mum and Dad found out that there was a school open in Westcliff, and they began to think about going back to Trevenna. This would have been in the Spring of 1941, probably sometime in May. The possibility of invasion had become less likely, and, not surprisingly, they were missing their home.

They decided that we should all go to Hockley and settle in to our life there again. A friend, Mrs Campbell, kindly offered to have John and me stay with her and her daughter, Jeanne, for three days, I think it was, while Mum and Dad went back to Hendon to see to things there. There must have been a lot of our belongings to bring back to Hockley, and, of course, Turk and Tinker.

I don't remember much of what we did during that three days. I do recall that three soldiers came to have baths at the house. There were soldiers billeted in various houses about the village again, and I presume that not all the places had bathrooms. One of them was called Hugh, and he came from March in Cambridgeshire. His friend was Douglas, and the name of the third one I I do not recall They were all sent out east later, where they were all taken prisoner by the Japanese during that terrible time out there. Douglas died from beri beri which is a dreadful disease of malnutrition. I heard years later that Hugh survived to come home. I hope he had a good life. The other one I knew nothing of.

I had some enjoyable cycling expeditions with my friend, Jean, around this time. We would set out with some sandwiches and something to drink, and take off into unknown Essex, doubly unknown because all the sign posts had been taken away by the authorities so that in the event of invasion the Germans would not be able to find their way about! I feel myself that they would not been too worried by this, but of course, I may be wrong!

I started work in 1943 learning dispensing in a pharmacy in Southend-on-sea. I became a working dispenser far sooner than anyone would nowadays, I think. I learnt ballroom dancing and went dancing regularly with Jean. At times we would walk through showers of shrapnel falling from the anti aircraft guns. Young people did not stay home because there was danger in going out. It was a strange time. I had a sweetheart named George for a few weeks, up until the time he went back to sea.

The flying bombs and the V2 rockets came along in 1944 I suppose it was. I did not like those. The flying bombs had an engine and could be heard coming. Then the engine would stop and the bomb would glide to the ground and you would hear the explosion. The V2s were worse because they flew faster than sound and the woosh of one coming would be heard after the explosion. I did not like the idea of being killed by something that I had not heard coming! They were both horrible things. There were German prisoners in a camp nearby. They worked in the fields. They were often sitting at the roadside waiting for the lorry to take them back to the camp when I cycled past on my way home from work. The first time I was ever wolf-whistled it was by a lorry load of German prisoners. It seemed very strange.

The last few months of the war soon passed. I hated to think or talk about it for years but as I get old I have changed in that respect. I still hate the music of that time, except for Lilli Marlene. I was shopping in Leeds recently and having a look round a Past Times shop. This was a happy family outing. The muzak started playing “We’ll Meet Again” and I nearly burst into tears and I had to leave the shop. You can see that, musically speaking, the wartime effect is very long lasting.

Lookingbackonworldwartwo

Everyone was handed a gas mask in the war scare of 1938. As I had already somehow got an intense fear of gas this really scared me for a time. I think I must have heard people talking of WW1 gas when I was very tiny. However, I got over it after a while. I was not afraid at the thought of gas during the war itself.

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