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.
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!”
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| 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!
