Chapter 4: War

Chapters:

1: Beginnings, 2: Doreen, 3: Moving On, 4: War, 5: Peace, 6: A Long Encounter, 7: Family

		In 1938 I had a holiday in Switzerland. We were staying in a village called Brienz and there was a souvenir shop there which we visited several times. This was the time when Germany under the Nazis started invading other countries or threatening to, and our Prime Minister went over to negotiate with Hitler. Our holiday was cut short and we were told we had to travel home. We went to say goodbye to the people in the souvenir shop and they invited me to stay with them in Switzerland were I would be safer! I would love to have but knew my parents would be devastated, so travelled home. Trenches were being dug in London Parks to shelter from the expected air raids. However the Prime Minister returned from Germany with an agreement which he said would guarantee “peace in our time”. So we all returned to what we thought would be our normal life.
In March 1939 it was my 21st birthday – a great day because then it was the time when we became adults. I sang happily “I’ve got the key of the door and can do as I like” – a song traditionally sung at 21st birthday parties, but my mother soon put me in my place saying “as long as you are living in my house you will do as I say!” March 3rd was also the date of our office party held in a hotel somewhere in Shaftesbury Avenue, London. Everyone formed a circle and danced round me singing “21 today”. I was so shy and embarrassed I wanted to drop through the floor! I was even more embarrassed when my father turned up to take me home – I was furious at being seen as a protected little girl – my poor father was not thanked for having driven to London to fetch me. Later in March my parents gave a dinner and dance for me at a Mecca ballroom in London (a kind of restaurant chain). Of course lots of relations had to be invited but there were a few of my friends there. We all wore long evening dress, which was the fashion then. Mine cost over £1! My only disappointment was that the young man meant to be my partner for that evening could not come – he was in the Air Force and unable to get leave, so my partner was one of my cousins who was no more thrilled than I was! Of course, the great event in 1939 was the start of the war with Germany on 3rd September. We in the civil Service actually knew some days before the declaration that something serious was likely to happen as we were told to listen to the radio for news and to stay at home. After a few days we were to go to our nearest Post Office to get instructions as to what to do. My father went to the local garage to get petrol only to find it shut with the proprietor telling customers it had been requisitioned by the local authority for possible use as a mortuary as there might be a large number of casualties when air raids started!
On the day war was declared the siren warning of an air raid sounded and my poor mother panicked, certain that death was imminent. However the “all clear” sounded almost at once, and it was explained that a plane had been seen which turned out to be “one of ours” – an expression we were to hear quite often later in the war. Some relatives of my mother’s had been visiting from Australia and came to stay with us and were frantic to get a boat home. One evening there was a strange noise and looking out could see a dark shape above the houses and huge flashes. The Australian visitors were terrified, saying “it is Hitler’s secret weapon”. My father said he was going out to have a look and came back laughing – it was a barrage balloon which had torn loose from its cables and was sailing up our road hitting all the telephone wires, so we all had a look. It was huge and quite alarming with all the sparks flying. The Australians were so unnerved they left the next morning determined to find a boat home or somewhere to stay out of London. I was quite enjoying myself – an unexpected holiday and the excitement of wondering where I was going to be sent. However, when I got my instructions, I obviously was not going to find a much more interesting job. I had to go to the Lloyds insurance building in the City. When we arrived there (all the staff from our old office in Carey Street) we were shown to desks in a rather grand hall. The men sat at desks behind a low kind of railing and girls had desks behind the men. Our work was quickly explained. We were now the staff of the “War Risks Insurance of Shipping”. Huge losses were expected and the Lloyds insurance brokers would not be able to meet the cost, so the government had to cover it. We were each given a large type of ledger and a pen. The brokers would bring in certificates of insurance on which were details of the ship and its cargo and the value. The men had to check the certificates, decide on the rate and work out the cost. The certificates were then passed to the girls who had to enter details and then add up the total cost – some brokers brought in large numbers of certificates. When we had a total the broker would write a cheque. With typical Civil Service organisation nobody had thought to ask if we girls had any ability in adding up, nor had they thought of getting adding machines which though by today’s standards were fairly primitive might have been more accurate! It was quite chaotic in the early days. The stream of brokers coming in seemed never ending. When we closed we had to balance our books and often had to stay late with no overtime, just 2s.6d (about 12p) for our tea. But worse than that was stumbling along in pitch dark, bumping into the piles of sandbags outside office buildings whilst walking to the station. However, there were no air raids. One sad piece of news reached us – the young man in the RAF who had been unable to come to my 21st birthday party had been killed when his plane had been shot down over Heligoland – I suppose on a reconnaissance flight. When the first daylight raid occurred many months later I was in a cinema in the West End of London with my friend Eileen. We were immediately told to leave the cinema and found crowds of people all trying to get buses. I eventually managed to get to a tube station but trains were only going as far as Bethnal Green. When I came out onto the street I was told there were no buses going east. I walked all the way back to Liverpool Street to see if I could get a train. After a long wait I finally got one. I was sharing a carriage with two elderly women who proceeded to tell me that there were hundreds of casualties in the Bow area. The train travelled very slowly and when we got near Bow there were trains alight on the sidings and it was quite frightening. I had to leave the train at Leytonstone and try to get a bus home. Eventually one came and by the time I reached my stop the sirens had gone again for an evening raid. An air raid warden met me as I was hurrying along and scolded me for being out on the street and told me to hurry home. My parents were of course by now frantic, so when I arrived I was scolded again for being out so late and hustled into the Anderson shelter in the garden. Nights were spent in the shelter at the bottom of the garden (a corrugated iron construction buried half-way up in a hold dug in the earth and with sandbags placed around). Getting to the bottom of a long garden in pitch dark – no torch light allowed – and often with anti-aircraft guns already spitting large lumps of shrapnel overhead was not easy. After a miserable night we emerged when the “all clear” siren sounded to try to get washed and dressed and have breakfast (sometimes almost impossible if electricity, gas and water pipes had been damaged by bombs). One particularly difficult morning I had reached a point not far from my office when the siren sounded again and a very officious warden pushed me into a shelter despite my protests that I wanted to get to work and of course when I finally arrived at my office found myself being reprimanded for being so late! During this period of constant raids one of my cousins was getting married. All the guests arrived at her parents home feeling unwashed and untidy but were soon cheered by being persuaded to have a drink before going to church so that by the time we arrived at the church some of the guests were a bit confused, including the bride’s mother who had put her hat on back to front! The ceremony started even though the sirens had sounded for another raid. Suddenly there seemed to be a “dog-fight” (as it was called) between our planes and the Germans right above us. The shriek of diving planes and the rat-a-tat of bullets firing had us cowering in our pews and I’m sure many urgent prayers being uttered. However we all soon cheered up at the reception with plenty of food and drink until we all had to hurry home before the inevitable evening raid. After some weeks – several months I think – of this we were getting tired. Some relatives living about 40 miles north of London invited us for a weekend. Strangely we still had petrol for the car so travelled there. On the Sunday evening we could see a great red glow in the sky in the direction of London and knew it must have been a big raid. The next morning we drove as far as we could into London. My father told me to get out and try to walk to my office. Buildings were still burning and the smell was horrible. I felt quite scared, especially when I saw soldiers with guns and bayonets guarding government buildings. When I reached the office there really was not much point – it had not been damaged but we could not contact other offices so eventually had to try to get home. Meanwhile my poor parents were trying to find a way to get home. Traffic was in chaos and when they came to a busy junction had completely come to a standstill since there were no policemen to sort out the traffic jam. To my mother’s horror my father got out of the car, went into the middle of the crossroad and started directing the traffic and eventually everything started moving.
			Eventually the constant raids came to a halt but it was almost at the end of this period before the Civil Service decided to evacuate us to the country. They had commandeered a large country house near Ascot in Berkshire for our office and we lived on the premises. It was a beautiful house set in large grounds with a lake, a swimming pool and a farm and a direct entrance into Windsor Park. It was the home of the head of Shell petrol company. His wife and daughter moved into a house on the estate. We had to sleep about six to a room in what were beautiful bedrooms. Ours was the best with a balcony and views over the gardens right down to the lake, and we had a huge bathroom with the largest bath and wash basin (all of alabaster with gold plated tapes) we had ever seen – the snag being that, with so many people living in the house the amount of hot water available was very limited and so we had a quick dip in about 2 inches of lukewarm water!
We females who were permanent Civil Service staff were the first to arrive (the men from the Carey Street staff stayed in London). We were joined later by staff from other government departments not connected with war work. Later still it was realised we needed adding and calculating machines and girls (who were not Civil Servants) who were proficient operators of these were recruited and joined us at our country house called Buckhurst Park. A housekeeper-cook was recruited and married men on the staff were asked if their wives would like to join them on condition that they worked in the kitchen – a vast place lined with wooden and lead-lined sinks. The food was pretty awful. We were each given our ration of cheese (about 1 sq inch) and some sugar but the rest went to the kitchen. By the end of the war we hated the sight of vast bowls of mashed swedes. Still, on the whole we enjoyed life though it was a bit restricted – the head of the office was a very old-fashioned martinet who kept a strict watch on “his girls” as he explained that he was “in loco parentis”. The fact that many of us were over 21 seemed to have escaped him. We were allowed to go to the local “picture house” which opened once a week in what seemed to be an ancient village hall. There was a country house nearby used as a convalescent home for British soldiers and we were invited to join their Scottish dancing group, which we enjoyed although we stood the risk of being stamped on by soldiers who had to dance in their thick uniforms and heavy boots. When we were all settled into a routine and things were quiet in London we were allowed to go home at Saturday lunchtime and return on Sunday evening. We used to leave it till the last train to Ascot and have to walk home along the Ascot race track, about 1½ miles and very spooky (no torches allowed of course). At first we used to jump out of our skins when screech owls flew out of the trees at us and when we got to the lodge house of Buckhurst Park we had to walk up the mile long tree-lined drive – quite terrifying for London girls. We were told we could use the swimming pool but first it had to be cleaned so we all set to. However when it was filled I can’t remember whether we ever got to swim in it as we were told it had to be a reservoir of water in case the house was ever fire-bombed and the local fire brigade were coming to teach the staff how to use the pumps. Girls as well as men were expected to take a turn and I think the fire brigade had a wonderful day watching girls trying to hold a fire hose. When they turned on the water it transformed the hose into a writhing snake and we simply hadn’t the strength to hold on to it and were falling about squealing! We also had to take turns in fire-watching in the house at night – two girls and two men together in two hour stretches. Depending on which men you were teamed with it could become a very trying time! When the USA joined the war a party of American officers and men arrived at a nearby large house and the social life began to look up, but our participation in it was very limited by our vigilant boss. In fact he issued an edict that as aliens no American could set foot on our premises as it was British government property! When the Americans heard how meagre our rations were they sent up a lorry full of food but were not allowed into the drive. The woman at the lodge house benefited though. There was a walled garden attached to the grounds in which was grown beautiful fruit and there was a home farm which we could not set foot in because they had a pedigree herd. Lady Deterding who owned our house was soon sending fruit and other goodies to the American officers mess and no doubt received other goods in kind. We never saw her or any of her goodies, nor I think did any of the poor British soldiers. The Americans invited us occasionally to their dances and would collect us in a lorry in the village. We were amazed at the way officers and men all mixed together and called each other by their Christian names. A few of us started a little drama and music group to while away the evenings and one night we invited some Americans (having to our surprise received permission which of course involved the boss being present all the time until they were safely off the premises). Although we put on several shows for our own staff we didn’t repeat the invitation to the Americans as it was obvious they didn’t understand the jokes or know the songs. I decided one day that I would like to join the Wrens (the women’s naval service). I had an interview in London and was told I would be accepted but was later told that the Civil Service had informed them that I was already on war work and could not be released. I was very disappointed as I kept getting reports from my old school friend Catherine who was now an officer in the Women’s Royal Air Force and sounded as though she was having a good time. In the summer we used to get on our bikes which we had been allowed to take there and would cycle into Windsor through Windsor Park. We were also allowed to take out the rowing boat on to the lake in our grounds. In the evenings we would play table-tennis or have a sing-song around the piano and occasionally go to a dance held by the Americans. One disappointment for me was when my friend from primary school days was getting married in London. I asked for time off from work and was refused. She was marrying a boy who lived close to us in East Ham and we had been part of a group of long standing friends. He was in the Scouts and we were in the Guides. He was now serving in the Navy and had to leave directly after the wedding to join his ship going to the Middle East and did not return home for a very long time. The groom had earlier introduced me to a fellow shipmate of his who happened to live near me. Whenever Edward (as this friend was called) was on leave he would come to see me and we would go out (at weekends only when I was at home). This went on quite pleasantly until he knew he would shortly be going abroad and wanted to make it a serious commitment but I said “sorry, no” at which he was upset but I really had no more feeling for him than as a friend so felt it better to be honest. My mother was disappointed – I think she felt he would be a good son-in-law – he worked for the Westminster Bank and if we married her precious daughter would still be living close by! Later one of my Australian cousins came to England. He was a pilot and later won the D.F.C. for secret flights he made over France dropping members of the Secret Operations Force who were helping the French resistance to fight the Germans occupying France by sabotaging railways and ammunition dumps etc. The flying operation was dangerous as he had to find small lights or fires lit in fields as a sign where to land or to judge where his passengers should drop by parachute. But as he said he was lucky to return home and he doubted whether many of those brave men and women he dropped ever got home unharmed. He invited my mother to join him for the ceremony at Buckingham Palace which was a great moment for her. Eventually the lull in the bombing raids ended. Germany had developed a new weapon – the flying bomb. They were soon christened “buzz bombs” because they made a droning noise. When the noise stopped that meant they were coming down so that was the time to dive for shelter though there was very little time to do so.
	Our house was damaged one week night (so I was not there). Part of the roof was blown off and some windows broken and soot came down the chimney and the water tank leaked so a good mess was made. My mother said men came very quickly to put tarpaulins over the roof and board up the windows. My parents went to stay with relatives in a Hertfordshire village but eventually returned home. Later in the war we had the rockets which were launched from France. I found those quite frightening – there was no warning of their approach – just a horrible thudding noise as they exploded. One week-end when I was home they were exploding every hour – it seemed on the hour – and we felt we were watching the clock waiting for the next thud. My mother asked me not to come home at weekends as she always felt they were falling more often when I was there!

In 1944 people were asked to volunteer to spend a few weeks on the land. Two or three of us decided to spend part of our leave doing that and in June we travelled to a house in the country. Some of the other girls already there were from the East End of London where they worked in what were called “sweat shops” machining cheap clothes. They had never been in the country and I think couldn’t wait to get back home. We were picked up in lorries and taken to a field where we had to weed rows of experimental grasses (not helping food production as we had thought). It was early June and one day we heard this droning noise coming towards us and the sky became full of planes (D. Day had started but we had no idea then of what we were witnessing).

Chapters:

1: Beginnings, 2: Doreen, 3: Moving On, 4: War, 5: Peace, 6: A Long Encounter, 7: Family