CCHS

One experience at school near the end of the war gave me some amusement, but my mother thought otherwise.  Some of the Preparatory classes were told they were going to be given an entertainment as a reward for their good behaviour.  It was to be shown from the back of a lorry in Castle Road (almost level with Foresters).  We filed out of the Pedestrian gate (in the wall of Grey Friars garden) in a very orderly fashion and were told to sit down in the road facing the ‘make-shift’ stage on the back of the lorry.  It was also emphasised that we were to sit still and not move, shuffle, whisper or talk.  We, of course, obeyed!  Life at School was very disciplined.  It was a very hot summer’s day – we were wearing our panama hats – but I was not aware of any part of the entertainment only of the fact that I was sticking to the road.  When it was time to go, I could not get up, the tar on the road had melted with the heat and my red, white and blue summer dress, together with the lower part of my legs were stuck to the road!  What happened next to me, my dress, my change of clothing and mother’s calm acceptance and the anger, I cannot recall!

 

My experiences of WW2 at home included a nightly cold walk to our own air raid shelter which my father had constructed in the farm gravel pit (which was smaller and cosier than the school version), watching ‘dog fights’ of enemy versus allied planes in the day time, and the excitement of having a pair of silk pyjamas made from a parachute abandoned by a pilot as he ejected from his damaged plane. 

 

Food rationing affected us very little on the farm because we had food sources from animals and vegetables all around us.  My mother, however, did cook stinging nettles as a green vegetable and also made that into soup.  I disliked the latter!  Rose hips were also gathered in autumn to make a conserve rich in Vitamin C.  I remember there was a competition at school over one autumn weekend to see who could gather the most rosehips which were going to be sent to a firm who made rosehip syrup.  I was a country girl and therefore had a considerable advantage.  I spent all weekend picking and won!

 

The stories of my father’s duties in the Home Guard will stay with me forever and account for my addiction to ‘Dad’s Army’ whenever it is shown on television.  All the characters are so well cast.  It is often thought that many of the incidents in this series were very ‘far-fetched’ and in the region of fantasy, but many of them were related to real life in the Home Guard.

 

Here is my father’s favourite story.  He was given the recipe for a Mototov Cocktail – a small hand thrown bomb in a bottle which could be deployed in close combat.  He was told by his Captain to take it to the local chemist and ask for it to be prepared, which he did.  As he gave the recipe to the pharmacist he warned him to be careful because the mixture could be very volatile.  The pharmacist, offended by this advice from a farmer, said that he knew what he was doing, he was a qualified chemist!  He then retired into a back room to prepare the mixture.  My father heard a bang and the chemist reappeared minus his eyebrows and forelock!  My father never told me the language that followed.

 

One group of friends who I met in the early years of the war came to live in the adjoining farm.  The five of us used to play all over the farmlands of our parents.  On one occasion, when we were digging and scraping in one of the gravel pits and watching the sand martins weave in and out of their burrows whilst we were searching for fossils, we came across a curious object which we could not identify.  It appeared to have ‘wings’, and we proceeded to pull it to pieces.  My father arrived unexpectedly to see what we were doing and immediately told us to put it down and move away.  It was an unexploded incendiary bomb!

 

News of the events of war were extremely limited at the time.  Secrecy was paramount.  “Careless talk costs lives” was the common slogan.  “Your country needs you” encouraged conscription and “Dig for Victory” helped to ease the shortage of food.  My father was exempt from conscription, as were all farmers, because of their importance in the provision of food for the nation.

 

Entertainment, particularly via the radio attempted to keep citizens in a positive mood.  Everybody remembers Gracie Fields with her optimistic “There’ll be Bluebirds Over the White Cliffs of Dover” and “We’ll Meet Again”.  There were also indications of hope and success in other wartime songs – “We’ll hang out the washing on the Siegfried Line. Have you any dirty washing, mother, dear?”

 

In the later part of the war a new more fearful sound made its appearance – that of the ‘doodle bug’.  I remember listening for its recognisable drone and then for its engine to ‘cut out’ whist covering my ears and waiting for the subsequent explosion as it hit the ground.  At least this delay gave a warning whereas the V2 guided rockets did not, and they were the most feared.

 

At last, peace arrived in 1945, and this brought me an experience which would keep coming back to me for years.  Secretly, and without my parents’ knowledge, I managed to listen to Richard Dimbleby’s iconic and harrowing radio broadcast when he was one of the first reporters to accompany Allied troops as they liberated the concentration camp of Belsen.  The images it conjured up for me, at 14 years old, I need not repeat.

 

I left CCHS in 1951 after 3 years in the sixth form to study biological sciences.  Partial food rationing was still in place, and journeys were difficult.  A school friend, Ann Gough, and I were very keen on cycling and youth hostelling holidays.  I was still limited in my mode of travel using only bicycle, horse, bus or train. 

We had several trips around Great Britain and in the long vacation decided to venture abroad with our bicycles.  We caught the ferry from Harwich to the Hook of Holland and set out to explore Belgium, Holland and Denmark.  This is where some of the events of the recent war were suddenly magnified.  We visited Anne Frank’s hideaway house in Amsterdam where her family was betrayed by those they had trusted and then her subsequent death in a concentration camp.

 

The enormity of the D-day landings and the colossal loss of life did not register in my thoughts until I visited Normandy at the end of the 1950s.  I had just met Gerald, and with two more friends we had a car and camping holiday (I could now drive) in Northern France.  After nearly 15 years since the end of the war miles of the Normandy beaches were still littered with wrecked and abandoned landing craft.  Beyond the beaches acres of crosses marked the numbers of the fallen.  There were other trips abroad with friends either camping or youth hostelling where I saw the devastation of the beautiful city of Dresden in retaliation for the destruction of Coventry, in a ferocious air attack.