What's Up?

We all know someone who always knows what’s going on: what’s available, what’s for free and where to get it.  

In this day and age of course it’s not that difficult; if you keep abreast of the nightly news on T.V., perhaps have a twitter feed, and have a few notification apps on your phone, you’re good.

But what if there was no television; no internet; no phone?  Of course, I’m referring to my childhood in general and my mother in particular.  

We had a radio (providing the batteries were charged!) to hear the latest news.  Mainly though, we had “word of mouth” (that’s where one person speaks to another person).  This might be a bit of a foreign concept in today’s world of “word of text”, however it worked rather well at the time. It was the reason that as soon as the butcher had a supply of liver in his shop window, within five minutes there would be a line-up around the block.

When Mum was younger, she was gregarious, outgoing and friendly which probably meant she must have been an expert W.O.M. person.  That’s how come she knew when to send me to collect the supply of concentrated orange juice from the local government offices.

As I’ve mentioned before, we didn’t stay full time in London during the war. Courtesy of our government we took trips to various locations throughout Britain as evacuees.  One of these trips was to Birmingham.  Please don’t ask me why we were evacuated to Birmingham which is about a two-hour drive from London and is a major industrial area, it’s very close to Coventry, which had the hell bombed out of it during WWII, just take my word for it – that's where they sent us.  My memories of this place are very sparse and are mainly centred around my youthful fashion sense and the group of women known as the Women’s Voluntary Service or WVS. for short.

These ladies, aside from making jams and doing all kinds of good deeds, also distributed clothing to needy evacuees, as it says on their site: “Children bombed out of homes – needed clothing!”

I know for sure we were never bombed out of our home, but that wouldn’t have stopped Mum from applying for free clothing once she knew about it.  Hence my memories of Birmingham.  A place very similar to the official picture where we were all fitted with suitable attire including a pair of black lace up shoes for me that I considered to be extremely ugly.

Don't remember ever looking this smart!

No doubt you’re thinking that free clothing was a real bonus, and it was in more ways than you can imagine.  At the time, clothing, like almost everything else, was rationed.  That meant that the coupons that might (with a heavy emphasis on the might) have been used to buy us clothing, could now be sold for hard cash; a much more desirable commodity.

Mum’s creed was: “If you can’t be rich and you can’t be lucky then you’d better be wise.  It more or less meant: Keep your wits about you, be street smart, don’t be taken in by false promises and stories, look out for number one, and try to finagle your way to the front of the line if possible.

This last piece of advice was a very tricky maneuver but fortunately Mum was very good at it.

Eventually. Wartime came to an end, rationing was being phased out, slowly, slowly, life was returning.  However, we were still a family of six living in a bottom floor one bedroom flat.  

Not that we were alone in this condition; Hitler’s bombs had flattened vast areas of London and many more families were in similar predicaments. Mr. Google tells me that at the close of WWII Britain faced its worst housing shortage of the 20th century. An estimated 3/4 of a million new houses were needed in the United Kingdom. But materials and labour were in short supply. 

Most rental accommodations in London were owned by the local municipal government, otherwise known as “The Council”.  Therein an austere group of bureaucrats were put in charge of making housing waiting lists and checking them twice, or as many times as they considered proper.  We were on such a waiting list!  I’m not sure what choices the “Waitees” had, but I do know that some people were assigned to Prefab houses, and some were sent out of London to satellite cities, but the preferred option was to stay in London, close to schools, shops, jobs and other familiar surroundings.  

But that meant you had to be on the “lucky” list to get a brand-new brick built flat in a low-rise apartment building on a council estate, with all mod con, such as a bathroom with a bath and running water, and every room with that great unknown: central heating!

Mum certainly believed in luck, but as I’ve mentioned, she didn’t depend on it.   She liked to give it a little nudge.  One of her nudges in this regard was to make regular visits to the local council offices with all four of her children in tow to plead her case and ask if her family’s name had come up yet?   Her question of course was accompanied with copious and constant crying and much hand wringing.  I’m pretty sure that the council employees ran for cover when they spied, once again, Mum and her brood coming through the door.  Four unruly children and a blubbering mother.  

What could they do?  I know what they did in our case.  They put us to the top of the list.  We were the first family to move into a three bedroom council flat with central heating and all mod con!

Birmingham & Harrogate

Birmingham and Harrogate

D-Day June 1944 was an uplifting time for Britons.  At last, we were taking the initiative, we were moving forward.  For once, fewer bombs were falling on London than on German cities.

No doubt this really ticked off Hitler who had engaged the services of Wernher Von Braun https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wernher_von_Braun the scientist with a penchant for inventing flying objects.  Londoner’s first introduction to his skills was on June 13^th 1944 when the first of the flying bombs christened “Buzz Bombs” or “Doodle Bugs” made its appearance.  Because of the limited range of these objects, South London where we lived was a prime target.

V1 - Buzz Bomb or Doodlebug

Anyone unfortunate enough to have experienced these V1’s will tell you that the thing they remember is the sound.  It did not sound like a plane.  It was a hard to describe “buzzing” sound.  (I’ve heard it described as a motor cycle engine).  The scary part was when this sound stopped, that meant the bomb was ready to drop! Unless you were a Saint, everyone wished for the sound to continue and for someone else to be its victim.

Soon, however, Von Braun upped the stakes.  The silent and stealthily V2 rockets became the norm.  So, this may have been the time when we once again took up our evacuation adventures.  But then again my memory being what it is these trips could have occurred earlier.

In order to write these stories I’ve been doing quite a bit of research on the internet about World War II and evacuees. While it’s a wonderful source for checking dates it’s also a treasure trove of personal stories.  When I read some of these accounts where children were ill-treated, some half-starved, I am forever thankful that our mother fit the criteria for accompanying us: pregnant women and mothers with children under five. Sometimes she fit into both categories.

By now, our evacuating family has reached it full complement: Mum, Me, LS, LB, and finally LLB.  This is a good point to pop in one of the lovely poems by LS:

My mother’s third baby's expected

She tells us she's going to knit

An undershirt for this unborn one

A miracle if it should fit

She bought herself a ball of white wool

A very good pattern and read it

She'd never done any knitting before

So we had to give her credit

Many times with wool in hand

The pattern she'd try to figure

The undershirt remained at row one

But her tummy sure grew bigger

My mother’s fourth baby’s expected

She tells us that she will finish

The undershirt for this unborn one

Her hopes we wouldn’t diminish

It could have been around this time when we were sent to Birmingham.  I’ve never been able to figure out why Birmingham?  It was and is an industrial city that suffered bombing throughout the war, so why send evacuees there?  

Perhaps a more pertinent question would be why would they want us?  Surely it wasn’t for the money.

We couldn’t have been there very long because I have an almost blackout of memories from that period. 

However, I do know that Mum being Mum was not one to forego an opportunity because I recall a visit we all made to a WVS (Women’s Voluntary Service) centre where we were all outfitted with clothing for free.  I remember it most vividly because the shoes I was given were hideous to my burgeoning teenage eyes!

Our next stopover is in Harrogate, Yorkshire.  Here we are billeted in a huge communal stop-over type of building, prior to being boarded elsewhere.  We are housed in a room that had bunk beds that I thought were pretty neat; I’d never seen the like before.  It was fair sized room that overlooked a large garden that backed onto railway tracks.  The sound of the trains became a comforting sound that I’ve always liked.

Every family was expected to contribute to the running and care of the household.  We sat as a large group for meals and while I’m sure there was a roster for all kinds of jobs I only remember having to help with the washing up.

Our stay here was delayed because LS became very ill and needed to be hospitalised.   Also, there probably were not a lot of households ready for a mother and four young children. After LS returned, our billeting came through and I hated it!  Mum and the two youngest were in one house with sweet pea flowers around the front door, and LS and I were living in a house controlled by a miserable harridan of a woman, on the opposite side of the street.

I think it was while we were there that notice came that I had won a scholarship to attend a school that also had been evacuated and was operating from a satellite site in the countryside of Woking.  Time again to pack up and leave!

1946 Edition of first Post-War School Magazine

However, I never did get to the Woking site for Mayfield Grammar School for Young Ladies; by the time forms had been completed, uniforms arranged and directions received, wonder of wonders; the war was over and the school returned to its home in Putney.

Evacuations are done with and life returns to normal, but that begs the question: what is normal for this little Covey of Cockneys? Is there another another tale to be told?