The Blitz

The Blitz

It’s well to remember that most of these stories take place with the war as a backdrop, and to acknowledge that these war years were not all chocolate bars, trains and Downton Abbey footman.  

It’s hard to forget the BLITZ of 1940 (from the German word Blitzkrieg meaning a violent surprise offensive by massed air forces).  That was the period when Hitler let loose his mighty Luftwaffe over the skies of London.   For sure it was a surprise and it was definitely violent! 

If you really want to know more about this time then a little GOOGLE search will get you all manner of serious and detailed information. My stories will be less detailed and will be merely based on my memories. 

Suffice for me to say that Londoners are a hardy bunch and our family was no exception

It might have been at that time or it could have been later when the government realised that perhaps we needed a little protection from these heavenly handouts!  As a consequence brick shelters were erected on streets.  If you had a grassy patch behind your house you had an Anderson Shelter installed. It was half sunk into the ground and built of curved sheets of steel.  In a nice dry environment these would have been a great idea. See picture! 

England however does not fit that description and being flooded out was a regular occurrence.

If, like us, you had a concrete yard with no grass that could be dug up then you were the happy recipient of a brick surface shelter with a concrete roof.  Flooding was not such an issue for these – the rain ran in one door and out the other.  The main problem with these was the workmanship; bad construction and substandard mortar.  Some of them collapsed without even smelling a bomb!

Now that you've seen the outside here's a peek at the cozy inside:

It may be worth remembering that our particular shelter is featured in a couple of upcoming stories; one that involves LS and a set of dentures, another that shows the happy go lucky play of all three siblings.

As a family we were very happy to have this shelter because it did double, sometimes triple duty.  For Mum it was a storage shed for items that she really did not know what to do with. For LS, LB and LLB it was a playroom both inside and on the roof.  I found it to be a quiet retreat for reading a book. One thing I do remember however is that it was never ever used to shelter us from bombs!  From my recollection the shelter of choice for us children was under the kitchen table!

So to get back to the BLITZ:  Saturday, September 7^th 1940 was a typical London day – CLOUDY!   Londoners were nervous and on edge.  France had fallen and the threat of a German invasion hung heavily in the air.

It’s been said that if Hitler had chosen this time to send his troops across the Channel they would have been met by the Home Guard and the ARP!  The Home Guard was a group of older men who were too old to join the army. (They were nicknamed "Dad's Army".  I think there was a BBC television show called this at one time.)
The ARP stood for the Air Raid Patrol.  They had no uniforms but they had helmets for their heads and some other interesting equipment that can be seen HERE. Generally, what they did was to keep looking at the sky to see if enemy planes were coming over.  Their other big job was to run up and down the streets in the evening yelling at people to close the drapes so that no light could be seen from the sky. It’s not difficult to imagine that if these groups had come head to head with Hitler’s Panzer divisions I for one would probably be speaking German today!

But, instead of that, Hitler decided to soften-up the Londoners before parachuting his Panzers.  Between five and six o'clock that Saturday evening, just as my Dad was about to tuck into his sausages and mash, prior to his pint at the local, the sky became black with almost 1000 bombers and fighter airplanes as they flew up the Thames estuary toward London where they dumped bomb after bomb after bomb on the city below.

For 57 consecutive nights, from September 7^th until November 2^nd 1940 the bombs rained down!  In London 43,000 people were killed, 51,000 seriously injured and 88,000 slightly injured.

Many houses on our street were completely demolished, but our family was very lucky, no one was injured and no one died. But I was scared. 

This occuured in BALHAM - which is on the south side of Thames - close to where we lived.

Every night, like a good little girl I would say my prayers and beg God to kill Hitler.  Each morning I would go outside where I would see scattered all around large and small pieces of shrapnel, (pieces of metal from the bombs that had been dropped) strewn all over the sidewalk. After the fire blitz, when incendiary bombs had been used, there were pieces of charred and burnt objects floating down from the sky. We kids collected the shrapnel and even vied with our friends as to who had the biggest or best looking piece.  Apart from collecting shrapnel the war also influenced the games we played. 

There was no T.V. to watch so a great deal of time was spent outside, running and jumping. But the games that are worth telling about involved imagination and . . . well, I’ll leave it at that. These games will be the subject of an upcoming post.

Cast of Characters

Cast of Characters

I may change my mind later, but right now I’ve chosen not to identify them by actual name, rather each character will be assigned initials and a short introductory description as follows:

LS -- Little Sister - Beautiful –with gorgeous chestnut brown hair, masses of curls.  People were always remarking that "She's gonna break a lotta 'earts".  No one ever said that about me.  I was totally envious, breaking hearts seemed like a very powerful thing to be able to do!  Naturally she looked up to me as her older sister as evidenced by the following note she wrote when she was about 11 years of age:)

LBB – Little Big Brother – Tough – Scrapper. 

LLB – Little Little Brother  – Adored his LBB

As their official baby sitter these two characters were the bane of my young life.  Don't be fooled by their blonde innocent looks because as LS said they were always naughty!  They spent their time scrapping like two young lion cubs, but as you can see from the following picture LBB  has a very protective arm around LLB!

Mum – Loved us all in her own way, but vacillated on every promise.  She wasn't that good at cooking or sewing or knitting, but she had a strong personality and people loved her.

Dad - Fair but strict disciplinarian, taught me much.  Jack of all trades.  He could mend a broken clock, or handbag.  He could resole shoes, play a great game of darts and cook a Sunday roast.

GM - Grandmother M – Mother’s mother.. Known as Nanny.  Creative lady who made paper flowers that she sold at the local outdoor market.

GD - Grandmother D – Father’s mother - Known as Granny.  Said to have been a professional cook. Her organized life style was evident in her well kept home and the enormous ginger cat that was her constant companion.

Time Frame

These stories will probably not be told in any linear fashion and will generally meander through the years 1930’s up until the 1950’s.  But sometimes I may steer off course when some unexpected memory prompts me.

I might as well start with the event in my own life that has done more to mold my character than any other.   For that you will have to tune in to the next episode.

'Til then . . . 

Clearing Up This Cockney Confusion

Many London people call themselves Cockneys, but you only get the real stamp of approval if you were born within the sound of Bow Bells. 

Figure1 .Cheapside_and_Bow_Church_engraved_by_W.Albutt_after_T.H.Shepherd_publ_1837_edited

I can do that.  I was born at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital well within the sound of those bells. Neither my mother or father or my three siblings can do so. That’s not surprising since the bells are located in a built-up non-residential area of London and Barts (as it is affectionately called) no longer provides neo-natal services.  In 1993 it was recommended that hospital service should be delivered closer to where people lived. Barts was identified as a hospital with a catchment area that had a low population and the hospital was threatened with closure. 

This would have been tragic for a hospital that was founded in 1123 and is the oldest hospital in Britain.  Its long and colourful history deserves more space than I can allot to it here.

Figure 2 The King Henry VIII Gate at Barts was completed in 1702

So, I’ll exercise my legitimate right to call this blog “A Covey of Cockneys”, because the person telling the tales is me and the people I’ll be “Telling Tales” on (mostly my family) who all consider themselves Cockneys.

So, I might as well start out by filling in a little background on what it means to be or think oneself to be a Cockney. As I’ve had to explain to many a person over the years the term has nothing whatsoever to do with roosters or genitalia.  Like so many other words in the English language it is ascribed to many different sources. Not surprising when it’s said to have been around for hundreds of years.  It’s probably derived from the word “Cockayne” or a similar French word which was applied to the city dwellers, mainly Londoners I guess, and its meaning was not exactly flattering.  So, let’s leave that and move on to map out Bow Bells.

Because of its name, the district of Bow is often labelled as being the Cockney designator, but it can’t be because it sits 4.6 miles east of London’s centre.  Whereas, the church of St. Mary-le-Bow is in the city centre and St. Bartholomew’s Hospital where I was born is considered to be within the sound of the church’s bells.

Here's a link if you would like to hear the Sound of Bow Bells.  Not sure if this counts as a Cockney designator if played as a baby is born?

So now that we’ve got that settled, the question arises: Why am I doing this?  This telling tales out of school, this public airing of the family linen?   The answer is very simple: I’m getting old.  Soon it will be time to relinquish my space on this marvellous planet to make room for someone yet unborn.  But, before I go I’d like to leave a little record to show that I did pass through. Although these tales will mainly be of interest to my immediate family, if you’ve strayed this way by accident or design – please come in – you’re welcome to read about our lives, perhaps you’ve had similar experiences.