EARLY YEARS & LINEAGE

0017 - WAR END

Although the time represented a fundamental change in their lives for my parent’s generation, especially for those who had spent five years of their lives in uniform, my memories of the Second World War are somewhat limited. I don't, for example, remember any bombing; which, in any case, had stopped by the time I was two years old.

The only time I have ever heard fighting, even with small arms, was half a century later in Ethiopia. Even then, comfortably ensconced in my hotel bed, all I could hear - in the distance – was the battles ranging between the army and the gangsters who were still at large after the Civil War.  At one point, at later time, I had tracer pass within ten feet or so; but that was from an over-enthusiastic celebration! I never saw or heard anything like that in the second world war itself.

The nearest I got to it - then - was, I suppose, watching the army, or rather the home guard, practising at Colwyn Bay. They were on the beach, towing a target across the sands and firing on it with Bren guns. I suppose that must have been with live ammunition. But I reckon that it really was to be seen almost as entertainment for us holidaymakers rather than any threat to anyone.

In my small world the only time the war intruded was when, towards the end of the war, the Americans arrived in preparation for D-day. They transported vast quantities of stores across the Atlantic to Liverpool and then across to the Wirral; where it was unpacked for their soldiers camped there to use. They then deposited the empty packing cases in various locations throughout the Wirral, one of which was near my home. The local population used to get a warning that this was about to take place and, when this did happen, my parents used to rush out and get as much of the wood as was possible; to save on the scarce fuel ration. I suppose their absence at night must have been very scary for me. I hated being alone and used to stand at my bedroom window watching out for them. I hated sleeping in the dark, and used to wake up screaming, so my parents had rigged up a pulley system so that, from their bed, they could turn on the light switch in my bedroom without having to get up!

I can’t even remember very much about that about that house, which I left when I was five, though I can just about remember the layout. It was a three-bedroom house with a small box-room at the front, which was my nursery. The main bedroom, also on the front, was my parents' about which, though, I can't remember anything. The second bedroom, originally meant to be the guest bedroom, was – at least as I remember it - primarily used to store apples. I remember that, because we had apple trees in the garden and my father stored their fruit in this room over the winter.

Downstairs there was a front room which we never used, as was a fashion at that period. It was only to be used by extra special visitors, of which in wartime there were very few. At the back was the dining-room - which contained easy chairs as well as a dining room suite - in which we lived. It had a large French window to the garden. I especially well remember the awning, which rolled up, over the outside of it.  I remember summers there, lovely hot summers, sitting and drinking home-made lemonade served from a frosted green jug.

I can't remember too much of the kitchen which was next-door. It was an ordinary kitchen, lined with white tiles. But I remember sitting in there, almost mesmerised while my mother went on and on with her friends about scallops; which years later I realised was actually ‘scholarships’, the door to a prosperous future for their children! All in all, it was a typical middle-class semi of the period.

Apart from that I can remember very little. I can remember my father having a motorbike, which was all they could support on the meagre petrol ration. I was scared of the noise it made. All in all I must have been a timid child! I had frequent nightmares, with a giant threatening the valley I was travelling through. Freud would have had a field day with that! They also had a car, but it remained in the garage for the whole war, albeit lovingly tended to by my father, because there wasn't enough petrol for it to ever be used.

I can also remember some trips out. I can remember going along to play with children on the estate nearby. This was very upper-class estate, which was barred to us mere mortals in normal times. I remember the red tiles on the floor of one lovely cool house in the middle of summer.

I can't remember much about other friends. I remember John Gerard, next-door, who I was friendly with and who I had the usual childhood rows with. I remember throwing sand in his eyes one-time and getting into trouble for that. He was older than me and, though he too went to Birkenhead School, I never had any contact with him after we left Croft Avenue. I was told he ended up in the mental hospital at Chester; a scandal for his parents in those days, and a virtual custodial sentence for him!

The stories about what had happened to me at various times, which were told to me later, are a different matter. According to these, for example, when I was much younger I went out without parents knowing and came back dripping from head to foot and covered in water-weeds.  I had tried to walk on a pond nearby, which looked just like a lawn with the weeds floating on it. How I survived I don't know, but I had a lucky childhood.

Later, I was running across a pond in the freezing winter of 1947, when the ice was nearly a foot thick. Unfortunately, someone had chopped a hole in it and I went straight through, plunging deep down into the icy water. Fortunately I came straight up and my father, who was just behind me, pulled me straight out. We ran all the way home so I didn't have time to get really cold.  But it was a very, very close call. If I hadn't come straight up and been pulled out immediately out, I would have been drowned for sure. Even when indulging in the fun of tobogganing I managed to head off the gentle main slope onto a steep side slope which ended with a river. Again, the potentially disastrous slide ended a few feet from the water.

In terms of near death adventures, I suppose I have – like the proverbial cat – had at least nine lives. However, I have never thought of myself in any way as especially lucky.

Things improved as we got towards the end of the war. I suppose this, celebrated by VE day, was another milestone for my parent’s generation.  I can’t remember a thing about it. I can, though, remember them bringing in new buses; mainly because the comfortable leather seats were replaced by slatted wooden ones, so that was perhaps not too much of an improvement. I can also remember the smell of the new paint in them.

Some of my most evocative memories are stimulated by such smells. Newly cut grass always reminds me of the cricket field in front of the house at Bromborough Pool, where we used to play in the mounds of grass-cuttings after it was mown. Farmyard smells, which – apart from in Ethiopia – I am rarely exposed to these days, immediately takes me back to my time on holiday at the cottage. Candy-floss inevitably reminds me of fun at the fair.

I never went short of anything to eat, though I'm certain my parents did; in order that I could have enough. My mother was very conscious of the days of her childhood when -- because Uncle Sid was very ill  -- he got all the best food and as a result my mother developed rickets.

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