Before then

Going back to my time before the war when I was just a small child, we lived in a two roomed downstairs flat with a gas light, I remember my mother sending me to buy a gas mantle from the corner shop across the road; the mantle was of a china clay like mesh cover, they used to burn out and disintegrate. These mantles were two or three pence, when they were new they burned with a clean light, but then got more yellowed as they aged, we also had a gas ring to boil the kettle on, this used to rest on the floor. However most of the cooking was done on the coal fire and oven as we couldn’t afford the penny for the meter most times. The home made bread my mother used to bake used to smell and taste really good, the most baked kind of bread was called stotty cake; this was pronounced stotty k-yeck a Geordie favourite. It seems to be dying out now as it doesn’t bake so well in modern ovens, the other name for it was oven bottoms.
On occasions when my mother could afford some meat we would have pie crust, this was made in a square roast tin with mostly black pudding stewing steak onions and gravy, with a cup in the middle to support the sheet of pastry laid on top. This was more of a rare occasion as I’ve said before we never had much in those days, I remember being covered in scabs as were other kids at that time; it was usually down to malnutrition a lack of vitamins; a lot of children suffered from it then.
At that time OXO’s used to come in a tiny individual box and cost one penny each, that mixed with hot water and a slice of bread was a meal for us hungry kids. Another thing was at times you could get a pile of broken kippers for coppers, really, it didn’t matter they tasted the same as whole ones.
When the war started and my father went off to his regiment, we some times used to go to the Cinema with my mother she was a bit better off financially with my father being in the army. Sometimes we would have to come out in the middle of the picture show because of an air raid, and then rush to an underground shelter staffed by air raid wardens. I remember being cradled in the arms of these two nurses who were taking turns nursing me; I was always a bit of a sleepy-head and could fall asleep on the cold lino floor.
One night we were called out of the cinema because this Barrage balloon had been hanging limp all day, I think it must have been holed in the air raid the night before; they couldn’t reel it in and was lying across the houses.
It eventually came down over the doorway of this pub and looked just like a big silver elephant, they always reminded me of elephants when they were moored around the town.

Recommence

I have decided to start up this blog again as at the time that I stopped I had an illness, it somehow stopped me in my tracks and it has taken me until now to make the effort to continue with it. So for anyone interested in these ramblings of an old man please carry on reading.
You may have noticed that one of my logos at the top left is occasionally out of action I don’t know why this is.

Do You Believe In Happy Endings?

Part 13

One summers day in 1944 while I was playing out with a friend and messing about in this hedge, suddenly there was this strange noise and a darkening of the sky; looking up my jaw dropped wide open in disbelief as to what I saw. The sky was absolutely carpeted with aircraft of every type, it was simply amazing, there were other formations and squadrons joining in from every direction this went on for some time; there were literally thousands of American and British planes droning their way overhead. We two kids where ecstatic we were jumping up and down like over animated jack-in-the boxes, as we ran into the village all the other kids and their parents were out and acting excitedly we knew that this was it. I had never seen anything like this before nor am I ever likely to see anything like it again, it was one of those rare but major things that happen in life and I was there to witness it.Of course everyone knows the outcome of this significant event, after the next couple of days we took it for granted that we were winning the war even though it was far from over, Visiting the cinema over the next year made us realise just what had been happening in Europe, when the death camps where librated we got the picture of what had really been happening; all those poor unfortunate people that had died and suffered there. How anyone could do that to another person is beyond belief, I myself was just a child and it was a shock to my system; even now when I see pictures of the atrocities that were committed it turns my stomach. Now in the meantime Britain was being bombarded with V 1’s and V 2’s this was in the south of the country, we would go to the cinema and see launchings of these jet and rocket propelled bombs. Of course we would be shown the rockets exploding on the launch site, which made everyone in the audience shout with glee. Things were starting to change and the feeling was that war was finally going to be over soon, The family was starting make trips back to our home town a lot now, it was just a matter of time before we finally did, my father had escaped from an Italian prisoner of war camp into Switzerland a year before the end of the war, and on the 27th of October 1944 my father came home to flags and decorations after being repatriated from Switzerland. For this time at least it seemed that life was going to have a happy ending, he was on leave until the New Year after which he had to rejoin his regiment. It was nine months later that he was demobbed from the army with many others.

Stretching Things a Bit

Part 12.

There were always shortages of something or other in the Second World War; people would queue for almost anything from saccharin’s to knickers elastic this being due to rubber being needed for tyres and war machines. Knicker elastic was a thing that was highly prized by our women folk in those war years, when stores would get it in it was rationed to two yards per person and was a vital part of the countries defences. I remember on a couple of occasions young women coming to grief because of this most vital commodity, usually a safety pin was all that kept disaster at bay. One time while we were sitting in a bus in Bishop Auckland’s market square, this young woman’s worst nightmare happened in front for all to see; as she ran for the bus something snapped. My aunt who was a pretty young woman herself ran off the bus to help, unfortunately this just made things worse and attracted more attention than necessary, in the end this young girl got on the bus in tears and much to the men’s amusement. There was another time when this other young woman did almost the same, except she was more agile by reaching down in mid stride and scooping them up into her hand bag without a bat of the eyelid. This sort of thing was going on all over the country by reports from other people; it just goes to show this countries defences were stretched to breaking point.In the shops and furniture stores things would have a utility sign on them this was like two pie charts with a number 4 in the middle, things were not to well made mainly due to shortages; what I mean is there were no frills or good design features. My mother was looking at some furniture in one shop when she opened a draw it was only cardboard in the bottom, which wouldn’t have been able to hold anything without it falling through.Cigarettes were always scarce especially the favourite brands like Woodbines , Capstan and Players, shops would keep them for their regular costumers. The Black-market was a thriving business during the war and everyone made use of it if they could, there were the typical Spivs just like Walker on Dad‘s Army who could seem to get anything within reason. That brings me to our local Dad’s Army often when out usually at weekends we would run into them doing their exercises, it wasn’t much different to the television series and you could almost see the same characters. We would be told to clear off by the local Captain Mainwaring and his bunch of desperados; these were also local shopkeepers of the village and others from the brickworks.Some times the local church hall would have a magic lantern show, something like Uncle Tom’s Cabin or some biblical theme all the kids would pile in just for somewhere to go. Other times they would put a pantomime like Aladdin or some such thing, at Christmas time there would be a nativity play.

Wartime Printed Material

A Boys World And Home Cooking

Part 11.

In this new home near Bishop Auckland where I lived during the war, this village carried on with the things it did pretty much the same as it did before hostilities; it was a sleepy little place where everyone new each other. The village in the past had been a place of drift mines and brick works, strange how this industry seemed almost swallowed up with all the greenery; it wasn’t neat and tidy but it was unobtrusive. The brick works were behind our cottages and just continued making bricks, even in wartime bricks are needed. The drift mines had been re-opened because they needed the coal for the war effort, the pit ponies were housed in this old building at the end of our little street of houses; we kids used to meet them on the way back from the mine and help bed them down.In the undergrowth almost hidden by greenery was the remains of an old charcoal burning industry, it looked like some lost civilisation that had been swallowed up by the jungle of grass and trees; these kilns were dome shaped like Eskimos igloos. We would excavate these and make them into dens where we would roast potatoes in a fire, melt led to make lead shapes in the sand moulds we would fashion. This together with the river nearby and all the woodlands would by the setting for a boys adventure playground, if we weren’t fishing in the river for minnows and sticklebacks; we would be building rafts from the pit props that were in piles near by.I would come home from school I think it would be Tuesday, and my Nana would be ironing on the living room table with the radio playing; Victor Sylvester would be playing his requests in the background. I rather liked this radio program together with the pleasant atmosphere of that warm dry ironing feeling, remember the irons were heated on the open fire there was a little stand for them to heat up; there was also a stand for the kettle but usually the kettle just rested on the coals. Nana always seemed happy while she was doing this and listening to the radio, other music on the radio would be typical things like you would hear now about the war; Vera Lynn and all those war time favourites also Glen Miller and other American bands. I have never gotten those wartime songs out of my system, that was my era and when I hear them now they bring back pleasant memories. Strange as it may sound the three years I spent in that village would turn out to be the happiest time that I can remember, after my earlier start in life being so miserable and poverty stricken. However it was not to last when the war finally came to an end and those equally as hard and austere times came back, but for the time being we could all at least find a little happiness.At weekends that is on a Sunday we would have our Sunday dinner but I am not quite sure now if it was every Sunday, we would fare a little better than some folks that had less ration books than we; I believe the meat ration could be saved up so you could have one good dinner every so often. However come Sunday there was always home cooking we’d have apple tarts, bilberry tarts, jam tarts, and ham and egg tart, there was only one egg and a few thin rashers of bacon in the tart though.

Little Things Mean a Lot

Part 10
Some of the things I remember about the Second World War are that you would make do with almost anything; the womenfolk would pass round recipes to make meals and tasty dishes from scraps that they had saved. In the summertime with us living in the country we would go picking blackberries to make blackberry pies, or any other berry that was in season; the only thing missing was sugar. My grandmother’s brother was an inspector of some sort on the river Tyne, and he used to get sugar from contacts on the ships which would help out, however she didn’t get to see him that often; but it was always helpful and went along way in those hard times. What I remember about going to the little co-op store in the village was that sugar was sold loose in dark blue thick paper bags, butter was from a wooden barrel that had to be broken open on the counter before being cut bit by bit onto a piece of grease proof paper. Sometimes Margarine was like this also, but it usually came in the usual rectangular paper block just like today’s margarine; except it was only two ounce. This had to be cut with a sharp knife and if it was not cut straight there would be trouble from the customer, this would be weighed and bits added until everything was to satisfaction. We seemed to do a lot of train journeys during the war either going back to see if grandmothers house was O K or to visit my two brothers, they lived on a farm near Aspatra past Carlisle. I liked all the little stations we passed through, they were always well kept with their little bits of garden and hanging baskets with their colourful flowers; they certainly took a pride in them. Most of the times the steam trains would be packed with soldiers either going on leave or coming back from leave, there was an army camp near to out village; the corridors of the train would be packed with kitbags rifles and haversacks. My young cousin and I used to hang out the windows with our mothers hanging onto our clothes, we would both get covered in soot and smoke and had to have a good wash or bath when we got home. My grandmother would usually bath us, sometimes she would just wash my hair in the tin bath and I would scream blue murder whilst she was half drowning me, I used to hate this treatment and it took awhile for me to calm down. After this inhuman treatment when we were all dried and sparkling we’d get a cuddle a slice of jam and bread and a glass of milk, we would be then be put to bed. I used to suffer from terrible nightmares as a child and I would be glad to wake up in the morning; however my favourite radio program was Valentine Dials Appointment with Fear; I didn’t have the sense to see that could be the cause.