Avril Avery (front) as a child in Sheffield during WWII
Since I was born in 1938, I am among the last generation to remember how World War 2 affected children in particular, and also our elders. So I feel it is right to write down my memories before I start forgetting.
I was born in Sheffield, where there were several big steel works and munitions factories, which produced weapons. So German bombers used to come over to try and destroy these places. When they were spotted in the distance, a loud siren sounded to alert the people. My earliest wartime memory is probably of being bundled at night, while still very sleepy, into a scratchy ‘nigger brown’ siren suit, and zipped up against the cold. Then I was carried away down into what I now know was an air-raid shelter. Later I was told that we lived in a terraced cottage in Hatfield House Lane in Sheffield, in one limb of an L- shaped set of buildings. When we emerged in the morning, after the ‘All Clear’ siren had sounded, our cottage still stood, but the buildings at right-angles had been demolished by a bomb. ‘God takes care of the widows and orphans’, said my mother. (Our next-door neighbour was also a widow, who cared for me while my mother was teaching). During the night, long beams called search-lights scanned the sky to try to find where the enemy aircraft were, so guns could shoot at them. There were big grey balloons tethered above the city in places, to provide an obstacle to incoming planes. I thought they looked like elephants in the sky.
Later we moved to 16 Beck Road, which was convenient for Beck Road Junior & Infants’ School, where my mother worked as an infants’ teacher, and where I started school. From time to time, an air-raid siren would wail, and we were all marched out of the classroom and down into a vast long shelter. We were always told it was a practice, and enjoyed the boiled sweets which were dished out to us. The teachers told us stories, and we sang songs, so we were not frightened. Children from some cities, where there was considered to be great danger, were sent to stay in homes away from their parents. They were called evacuees, and in my school we had a number of them with their teachers from London. They spoke with cockney accents, which seemed strange to us – we spoke broad Yorkshire, and sounded strange to them, no doubt.
There were men in tin hats, called air-raid wardens who went around checking that everyone left their homes for underground shelters when the siren went. They also checked each evening that no-one had a chink of light showing at their windows in the darkness, so that enemy aircraft could not so easily detect where towns were. There was a so-called blackout each night. We and everyone else had blackout curtains, which made it easier to go to sleep in summertime. After the war, I remember Dad taking me for a walk around the estate after dark to see the well-lit windows. The street lights remained darkened too, throughout the war. Afterwards each time they came on when we were playing in the street at dusk, we kids used to cheer. We were so happy.
There was a lot of talk of the ‘Jerries’ (slang for Germans), and whether they would come that night. When a plane droned overhead, we all looked up to see if it was one of ours. For years later, the sound of an aircraft brought me a feeling of fear. Of course I didn’t realise the Home Guard were watching out for any trouble. Dad used to put his greatcoat and beret on after tea on some evenings, get on his bike and go off to the Vickers works to do this duty. I had no idea what it meant. He was a cost clerk there by day. Anyone connected with munitions factories were excused war service, and in any case his sight was poor. One brother, Uncle Sid, was a signaller in the Navy, but he and the youngest brother, Uncle Charlie, were the only ones of Dad’s family who went to war. (My own father had died in 1938, the year I was born, before the war started.)
Some children had parents who worked in the factories, and maximum production involved shift work. So children were provided with extra time at some schools, and my mother was involved in this supervision at a different school from mine. How she got there I don’t know, but I was given a halfpenny for the bus, and somehow got off at the right stop even in the dark in winter. There we children were given a drink and a large biscuit to keep hunger at bay. Then we played ring-games and danced in the Hall, or listened to stories in the classroom, or sang songs. I don’t remember drawing there, because even paper was in short supply, though we had some in our day-school.
Because of the difficulties of shipping, many foodstuffs were in short supply and were rationed. Each man, woman and child was issued with a ration book, which contained coupons allowing one to buy basic foodstuffs and clothing. These were sometimes traded among friends who preferred a larger share of one item, and a smaller share of another. It was also possible for people to buy scarce items on the ‘black market’, which was illegal. There were substitute items available such as dried eggs, and dandelion or chicory coffee, and mate tea. I liked scrambled eggs made with the dried form of egg, and sometimes I didn’t appreciate the boiled fresh one provided ‘because it will do you good’. To leave anything on your plate was considered very wasteful, and many people of my generation still find it difficult to leave things, even if there is too much for us to start with. We had a very small sweet ration, (I think it was 2 ounces a week about 60 grams), so sometimes Mum put a mixture of cocoa and sugar in a screwed round piece of greaseproof paper to enjoy instead. In the summer we children took a bottle of water or Tizer to the park with our ‘sweets’ and enjoyed playing on the swings and roundabouts.
Because Mum was a teacher, she had many kindnesses from local parents, and was able to buy extra coupons from those with large families. She also brought home the first banana I had when I was about six -I didn’t know how to peel it! All children under five had an entitlement to a bottle of concentrated orange juice, and cod liver oil from the local clinic. I loved the ‘clinic orange juice’, which was very sweet, but hated the cod liver oil. So Mum was able to swap bottles with someone whose child disliked the orange juice. (Oranges were generally not available in the shops because we could not grow them in England). Rose-hip syrup was a rare treat, generally reserved for babies, as it was easier for them to digest. I remember helping to collect rose hips at the end of summer, to be sent away and turned into syrup. My Dad had an allotment, and also cultivated our garden for vegetables. Many people dug up their lawns to make room for growing foodstuffs. The slogan was ‘Dig for Victory’, to encourage everyone to keep up good health by eating well. Recipe books were produced by the government, to tell housewives how to make best use of anything they could get. If a supply of sugar, for example, reached a shop, there would soon be a long queue of people waiting to spend their sugar coupons and buy some.
My mother had remarried in 1944, and therefore was allowed some extra clothing coupons. She bought some (rather flimsy) flowery material for her bedroom curtains, and a new plum-coloured suit to be married in. My step-cousin, Joan and I had pretty frilly blue dresses. Most clothes, especially socks, which became holey were mended again and again. The saying was ‘Make do and mend’. There was even a place where people could take outgrown children’s clothes and shoes, and replace them with the next sizes, which someone else had given in. My stepfather’s sister, ‘Auntie Lil’ was a seamstress, and made me some dresses from cut-down adult ones, so I was rather well-off for clothes. She also made a stuffed monkey with a red waistcoat for me and my Joan, for Christmas. My Uncle Ernie made a scooter for each of us too, using wood and old pram wheels. They worked a treat. Toys were scarce, and often re-cycled. Paper was scarce too, so people kept their old wrapping paper and string to use on presents again. I enjoyed Christmas with my new relations, since Dad was one of 7 children in a close- knit family. (I knew none of my blood relations, because my mother had lost touch with all of them.)
Only the very rich had cars, and petrol was rationed in any case. Steam trains were packed, and travel was difficult. People could not afford holidays, and travel abroad was impossible, except for the armed forces. So ‘Holidays at home’ took place in local parks in the summer school holidays. This involved entertainers cheering up the masses with variety shows and competitions. Uncle Bill and my parents persuaded me to go in a children’s’ talent contest one day. I went on the stage and sang ‘Early one Morning’. This resulted in third prize for me, and we had to go into town subsequently to collect it from an office somewhere -I can’t remember what it was, probably a paint-box. (My loyal supporters thought I should have been first of course – a dancer and another child beat me to it).
The railings round the gardens of many streets and parks showed only as stumps, because the metal had been stripped off and melted down to make armaments. You can occasionally still see these places in streets to this day, because they would be expensive to replace. The gaps left by bombed buildings remained for many years, and you could sometimes see glimpses of what they had been like inside, because an open wall with wallpaper still on it might be left, as well as a fireplace.
Finally peace came, and there were a lot of celebrations when the war in Europe ended in May, 1945. Our family had arranged a holiday in a little Lincolnshire village called Aby, to stay with a friend’s friend, because Mum wanted to be Head of a village school. There was a village fete, and Mum was surprised to be asked to judge the Children’s Fancy Dress show – teachers were treated with great respect in those days. Back at school, we had a Thanksgiving service, when we sang ‘Now thank we all our God’, which still means a great deal to me. I was a good reader, and was asked to read the psalm, which I did. I am fairly sure it was Psalm 100:
‘Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands.
Serve the Lord with gladness.
Come before His presence with singing.
Know ye that the Lord- He is God
It is He that hath made us and not we ourselves.
We are His people and the sheep of His pasture.
Enter into His gates with thanksgiving
And into His courts with praise.
Be thankful unto Him and bless His name.
For the Lord is good His mercy is everlasting
And His truth endureth to all generations.’
Avril Avery (née Tyler) 2005