On BBC 1 a few weeks ago, there was a programme about the BLITZ, if you don’t know that word, be ashamed and look it up on Google! I was fearful of watching it as I have hidden those memories, they are deeply buried in my childhood memories. Revisiting was scary.
The programme was about the BLITTZ that took place in 1940. I was only 2 , and I know that I couldn't have remembered those early years but strangely I really believe I do. I expect it's just my childhood memories playing games with my, so when I heard about the programme I was curious to find out how Lucy Worsley would report those early years. After all Lucy couldn't be more than 40 years old. So everything she was reporting was hearsay and rumours. Of course, everything has been well documented with hundreds of photographs and news clippings, all real enough. There were plenty of pictures of British woman with scarves on their heads giving thumbs up signs, there were specially designed posters like KEEP CALM AND CARRY ON and that sort of thing. The horror of hundreds of planes filled to the brim with bombs flying over us by the River Thames must have been so frightening. Most people wouldn't have really known what was happening. Remember we only had radio in those days, no TV or mobile phones and news was slow to be reported.
There were diaries from young people who had volunteered to keep a record throughout the war so people in future years would understand what war meant to the ordinary people. Ordinary people, as far as Lucy's report was concerned, were people from the East End. All well thought out, the producers had done their homework. The stories in those diaries were heart breaking. The reporting was, I felt, without feeling and in my opinion the reporter, Lucy Worsley, showed no emotions at all. How could she, after all, she wasn't there...I was!
Watching the programme, I did have big problem with the reporter who was presenting it, Lucy Worsley, and her ridiculous EYEBROWS, are they real? Really difficult to concentrate on such a serious programme with those little squiggly things moving up and down. Perhaps they could have used a little lighter eyebrow pencil? I have never watched Lucy before and so it is possible I have got her all wrong. I felt as if she was mocking the British public, as if she was reporting on the opening of some event, an event of no importance. It could have just been her coldness as she whisked through the various dreadful circumstances. I may have misunderstood the way she presented the programme, to be fair if you weren't there how could you understand the fear that was everywhere. You could see that fear in people's eyes, hear it in their voices. Chilling!
Try to understand that young people then knew nothing else. For me, the moment I started to understand what was happening, the crying, the screams of despair and blasts from bombs, it was to me quite normal. I think looking back now that was the foundation that my life was built on...no wonder my life was and is so wobbly!
I think if Lucy had just ended the programme with a packet of Persil in her hands I would have been more impressed! Sorry Lucy!
So, although then, at the beginning of the war, I was very young and have no memories of those first 2- 3 years of the war, strangely I feel somehow that I clearly remember everything, it was the only thing people talked about, so to me, as a little girl it was normal to hear talk about people dying. And hearing people crying and screaming, it was nothing out of the ordinary for me whether I was 2, 3 or 6! Death was all around us and it didn't seem special. My mother and I lived mainly under the stairs whilst we were in the house, it was deemed to be the safest place if you didn't have a basement or an Anderson Shelter.
So my own proper memories start when I was about 4 years old.
We lived in a tiny flat in Kew, Courtlands Avenue. Our life was very simple, for we had very little money and nobody to look after us. My father was a journalist in Fleet Street, but I was told that he was in the Navy which is why he was never at home...I loved my father like all little girls, but 70 years later I found out the truth and now I hate him!...another story!
I went to Kew College kindergarten and the school had a big air raid shelter. During the raids we would file down into the shelter where we would make saucepans and dolls out of the soft wax from the candles all around us. We sang 'Onward Christian Soldiers,' very loudly every morning, almost as if we were warding off the bombs!
It would be almost impossible to explain the terror I felt when the siren went off, which it did every night around my bedtime. It was a spooky, winding up noise I can't explain it. Today if I hear it I want to throw up, it was the start of terror, we were sitting ducks, the blackout screens worked well, and we sat in the dark just waiting, waiting for what, to die I suppose. If I was pay day my mother would have some pennies to put in the gas meter so that our one bar gas fire would work. Let me tell you about that...Fridays we lit the gas fire, we had a tin bath in front of it which my mother would fill with hot water and then she would put the wooden clothes horse around the tin bath with the weeks washing on it so with that 1 penny she managed to bath me, and to dry the weekly wash. For me it was totally wonderful, do you know even now I can smell the Lifebuoy soap and the steam coming from the drying clothes...it was the only comfort we had.
When I think about my circumstances now, I am filled with guilt. I have central heating, constant hot water, a bath filled with bubbles and yet I am complaining now, get real darling! There are still to this day people who don't even have a roof over their heads, let alone a bubble bath! Me I expect it all, why should I worry about other people...shame on you Wendy!
Each morning my mother would walk me to school and then catch her 27a bus to Knightsbridge where she worked in Harvey Nichols. She knew, and so did I, that we may not each other again, one of us, or both could be killed in an air raid, whilst we were apart. It was strange, a feeling of acceptance, it was war and we had to accept what war meant, but that look my mother gave me, over her shoulder, as she turned away, could break a million hearts!
Saturday was shopping day. We had our Ration books. When I think how much butter I put on a single piece of toast today I remember that we had 2 ozs of butter and 2 ozs of sugar to last us all week. We bought porridge , powdered eggs, a Hovis Loaf and a tin of Spam. I was never hungry, as you see then that is all I knew, it was the normal way to live, so we didn't feel starved or neglected. Nowadays our kids get everything they ask for, and more, they rarely go without, but it would be a good idea if we stopped the way we want, want and want everything. We won't die of starvation; we might even be healthier!
We need to toughen up!
During the war my father rarely came home but I was proud because he was fighting for his country and his family. When he did get any leave I was over the moon. I told all my friends that he was an Admiral in the Navy as I was so proud of him. My mother looked happy too. We were a little family at last. It did't stop the bombs falling but it helped us feel brave, if gave us the boost we needed. I worked in the garden with my father, and we planted lilies by the gate, but then he was gone, and we were alone again!
My mother and father had obviously discussed the situation in London and had decided we should move to the seaside. Good thinking! My mother, whom I believed must have had an agreement with Hitler for everywhere we went he bombed us but again we survived! So, a week later my mother and I went to live in Bournemouth. This was the start of the happiest days in my entire life.
We moved into a B&B in Boscombe, 762 Christchurch Road...the Tucker family became, not only our saviours but our best friends...Oh, and our family. You have to read by memoir to learn the whole story but I will just give you a brief outline to whet your appetite! The family consisted of Violet Tucker, a showgirl who played the Mandolin, and her 3 daughters Joan, Barbara and Bernice.
762 was and old beautiful house and was 'given' to Violet Tucker by one of her lovers. My mother and I rented a room in the house. It didn't take long before Violet took my mother under her wing and protected us. The family had no money, I mean NO MONEY. I was in charge of finding pennies under the 3 piece suite cushions or going to the Pawn shop to get a loan, the only things that were worth anything...a set of silver brushes...it's how I became at the age of 7...a 'wheeler dealer!'
When we arrived at the house the war was well and truly alive. There was a huge cellar which is where we spent most evenings. My mother and the Tucker girls made it like a nightclub, there were candles everywhere and posters of film stars on every wall so when we had a big air raid we seemed to be apart from it.
Now let me tell you that 762 Christchurch Road in Boscombe, was not just a house, it was home to all the pilots that flew out from Hurn Airport every morning during those dreadful days in the war. When Vi Tucker was asked to have the pilots billeted with her and she agreed, and the world opened up. The house was alight. There was always singing, always laughter. It was a happy house. The young airmen would come to stay, and we got to know them and then days later they flew off to Germany and they never came back. They became our whole life. They bought us food from the NAAFI and the Canadian pilots always bought us Maple flavoured Ham. Then the Americans arrived and bought GUM! So we never wanted for anything, food wise.
I remember asking my mother what the pilots were called, and she simply said 'call them all JOHNNY.'
Violet Tucker might not have had any money, but she had a house rule, 'stay warm' so however little we had, she always insisted that the little black log fire in the kitchen was on day and night. The kitchen was the hub of the house. It was where we all sat at the long table in the centre to discuss our problems. Problems shared are problems halved.
One dreadful night there was a huge air raid, so the skies went red again, but this time it was different. A German pilot had to get rid of some of his bombs, so he dropped them bang in the middle of Bournemouth. Unfortunately the bomb hit the army barracks where 200 men were having their supper. They all died. It was such a shock, so much so that nobody talked about it. It had happened and we were speechless.
Meanwhile the bombs kept falling, day after day, night after night. Life went on and we just got on with it.
The 3 girls all fell in love regularly with the pilots so there was always a lot of singing. The girls would stand with their backs to the gas fire in Grandmas bedroom, they would lift their skirts so the heat would warm their bottoms and then they would sing, 'Deep in the heart of Texas.' At the end of each chorus there would drop their skirts and clap...I always joined in it was so funny and so special.
One evening there was an air raid, as usual when the siren sounded, I collected my doll Lily and Teddy, my teddy. Barbara collected her books and my mother her knitting and headed for the cellar. Bernice was nowhere to be seen so the air raid warden went to find her. She was fussing over her hair, but the warden persuaded her to join everyone in the cellar. That evening I had my best friend staying with us and she was at the top of the stairs followed by Bernice and then the Warden when there was an enormous blast from a direct hit on part of the house. The Warden took a lot of the blast and fell on top of Bernice who then fell on to my girlfriend, Francis, I was at the bottom of the stairs on a mattress when they landed on me. The Warden and Bernice were stunned but in my arms was my best friend...she was dead.
I can of course, go on talking about 'the war.' There are so many happy and sad stories. Read more? Well splash out and buy my book...no darling it's called BAD ORGANISATION.
Maybe as dreadful as this Pandemic is, we can think again. Learn to look after each other. Stop wanting things, live within our means. Save the planet, save something, don't just go on wanting and taking...food for thought?
