Seventy-five years ago today, 6th March 1943........
I'm not doing much, really, just mucking about. I should be at school - Sandwell School in Streetly - but I've had measles and although I'm better I'm not allowed to go back yet. Not that I'm too bothered about that! So here I am, peering around the half open door of our garage, down the drive towards the gate and the hawthorn hedge which is the barrier between us and the Chester Road and the whole outside world. Mum is in the house somewhere, doing whatever she does there; or else getting ready for her W.V.S. shift or even for the weekly meeting of local housewives. They get together to knit mittens and scarves and balaclavas for the troops. Knitting and nattering, in other words. Probably talking about their sons or husbands who are far away. I sometimes go with her, if I'm not at school. One or two of the houses have lovely gardens which I can explore until tea is ready. We often get cake.
To be honest, I don't know exactly which day I am doing this, and it may not be precisely March 6th. I know it is not Sunday because the driveway is empty – the family Ford Prefect isn't there and so Dad is at work (he is allowed a small petrol ration) - and I have an uninterrupted view of the gate. Although I suppose he is often not there on a Sunday as well. That's because of Home Guard business. It is not a Monday either, thank goodness, as then the garage would be full of steam from the gas wash-boiler and the smell of bed linen being laundered, the dolly being swung backwards and forwards as fast as possible by my mother. It's jolly hard work and she has a funny expression on her face while she does it. And then the mangling. I have to keep my fingers right out of the way while this goes on. So it could be any day around now although it might even be a little bit earlier.
I am vaguely aware of what is going on in the outside world. I know that beyond our gate the world is a dreadful place although I shan't know just how dreadful it is until I am much, much older. I know that almost all of Europe is in the hands of the Germans and that life for the people there can't be imagined. These days I am always careful not to be seen to be picking at my food as otherwise I get the usual lecture - which I hate - from my dad: "If you were in Europe now you would probably be picking food out of dustbins...." It's always enough to make me clear my plate and that's a habit I shall never lose.
There are things I know about and others I don't. I know that it is the aim of every single German and Japanese to bump me off and if it is the Japs I know it will involve torture as well (because everybody knows that and often, when we go on our bikes to the Avion cinema in Aldridge, the films prove it). Such horrid things come to me in bad dreams every now and again. I know that the RAF is attacking German cities and factories every night because that is what the BBC News (read by Alvar Liddell - or "Alvanidell" as the name sounds to me) keeps on telling us. I know there is a lot of fighting in Russia as well - they are always talking about the River Don on the wireless. And in North Africa. And I know that the life I am leading is absolutely normal. I can't remember much about what it was like before; and I most certainly can't imagine what it'll be like when it's all over, if it ever is. I don't worry about much. There is nothing extraordinary about what is going on. It's just normal life. If I had a bit more imagination I would know that the grown-ups aren't relaxed at all.
What I don't know, and perhaps it's a good thing, is what is happening day-by-day. Yesterday the RAF lost 14 aircraft and their crews bombing Essen. Today is the start of a running battle in the North Atlantic between two convoys and 20 U-boats: 21 ships will be sunk over the next 14 days, against just one submarine. We lost 14 ships last week. Since the beginning of the year around 100,000 Jewish people have been deported to a place with a funny name. It's called Auschwitz. Ten days ago the first of some 23,000 gypsies arrived. Around now they are starting to build something huge at Birkenau which is next door. They'll do this very, very quickly because it is slave-labour which is doing all the work. When my mother, far into the future, learns about these places, and all the others, she will always call the people who were sent there "those poor wretches".
What I don't know either, but perhaps the grown-ups are starting to feel it, is that the tide is just starting to turn. I and most of my fellow Brummies haven't had to spend a night in an air-raid shelter for ages. And Bomber Command is getting busier and busier. They are always talking on the wireless about "last night's raid on the Ruhr". Rommel has been forced back after defeat at El Alamein last October and is becoming trapped between the British 8th Army who are chasing after him and the British and American armies which landed four months ago in Morocco and Algeria. It looks as though the Afrika Corps has had it and Rommel himself will return to Germany before the end of this week. The German 6th Army was finally destroyed last month at Stalingrad and the Soviet armies are getting stronger and stronger. And in the Far East, after all of last year's disasters, the Japanese are starting to be forced back. To me, though, what I know of this - and I only know bits of it - is all just day-to-day stuff.
I am still idly looking down the drive. Then to my amazement a figure appears on the other side of the gate. It is a soldier. I quickly recognise him. It's my 20-year-old brother. He comes through the gate and walks towards me with a broad grin. I shout to my mother through the back door. He shouldn't be here. We only said good-bye to him a couple of weeks ago. He had been home on what everyone called Embarkation Leave. I had been told that that was it, he was going far, far away and I shouldn't expect to see him again for goodness how long. And now here he is, back again.
Graham (otherwise known as Bill) has now been a soldier for 8 or 9 months. He is in the Royal Artillery. He had wanted to join Bomber Command but they wouldn't have him. His eyesight wasn't good enough. I bet Mum and Dad are a bit relieved! For exactly two years up to June last year he worked and trained at the side of our dad in the local Home Guard platoon based at Little Aston Hall stables, which they said was still full of the smell of horses. Then he was called up into the Royal Artillery. First of all he went to Church Stretton. On a lovely Sunday at the beginning of July we all paid him a visit there and Dad took some pictures with a bit of colour film carefully kept from pre-war. There he is, below, facing an unknown future with a cheery grin and a Woodbine.
After coming up the drive and greeting me in the garage there are embraces with Mum who has arrived all excited at the kitchen door when she heard me shouting for her. He explains why he has arrived unexpectedly. He has been able to convince his Commanding Officer that measles can be quite a serious illness - he himself had a bad time of it. So what about a bit of Compassionate Leave? The C.O. falls for it and now my brother looks at me, all hail and hearty, and perhaps, just perhaps, feels a tiny twinge of conscience. But there we are, and, well, a couple of days at home are not to be sneezed at.
Forty-eight hours later it will be good-byes again, this time for real; and off he will go, back down the drive, back to Woolwich and back to an unknown future. In a few days after he leaves us he will be on a troopship casting off from Avonmouth and sailing for an unknown destination.
Bon voyage, Our Kid!
(to be continued later in the month, if anyone is interested)
I'm not doing much, really, just mucking about. I should be at school - Sandwell School in Streetly - but I've had measles and although I'm better I'm not allowed to go back yet. Not that I'm too bothered about that! So here I am, peering around the half open door of our garage, down the drive towards the gate and the hawthorn hedge which is the barrier between us and the Chester Road and the whole outside world. Mum is in the house somewhere, doing whatever she does there; or else getting ready for her W.V.S. shift or even for the weekly meeting of local housewives. They get together to knit mittens and scarves and balaclavas for the troops. Knitting and nattering, in other words. Probably talking about their sons or husbands who are far away. I sometimes go with her, if I'm not at school. One or two of the houses have lovely gardens which I can explore until tea is ready. We often get cake.
To be honest, I don't know exactly which day I am doing this, and it may not be precisely March 6th. I know it is not Sunday because the driveway is empty – the family Ford Prefect isn't there and so Dad is at work (he is allowed a small petrol ration) - and I have an uninterrupted view of the gate. Although I suppose he is often not there on a Sunday as well. That's because of Home Guard business. It is not a Monday either, thank goodness, as then the garage would be full of steam from the gas wash-boiler and the smell of bed linen being laundered, the dolly being swung backwards and forwards as fast as possible by my mother. It's jolly hard work and she has a funny expression on her face while she does it. And then the mangling. I have to keep my fingers right out of the way while this goes on. So it could be any day around now although it might even be a little bit earlier.
I am vaguely aware of what is going on in the outside world. I know that beyond our gate the world is a dreadful place although I shan't know just how dreadful it is until I am much, much older. I know that almost all of Europe is in the hands of the Germans and that life for the people there can't be imagined. These days I am always careful not to be seen to be picking at my food as otherwise I get the usual lecture - which I hate - from my dad: "If you were in Europe now you would probably be picking food out of dustbins...." It's always enough to make me clear my plate and that's a habit I shall never lose.
There are things I know about and others I don't. I know that it is the aim of every single German and Japanese to bump me off and if it is the Japs I know it will involve torture as well (because everybody knows that and often, when we go on our bikes to the Avion cinema in Aldridge, the films prove it). Such horrid things come to me in bad dreams every now and again. I know that the RAF is attacking German cities and factories every night because that is what the BBC News (read by Alvar Liddell - or "Alvanidell" as the name sounds to me) keeps on telling us. I know there is a lot of fighting in Russia as well - they are always talking about the River Don on the wireless. And in North Africa. And I know that the life I am leading is absolutely normal. I can't remember much about what it was like before; and I most certainly can't imagine what it'll be like when it's all over, if it ever is. I don't worry about much. There is nothing extraordinary about what is going on. It's just normal life. If I had a bit more imagination I would know that the grown-ups aren't relaxed at all.
What I don't know, and perhaps it's a good thing, is what is happening day-by-day. Yesterday the RAF lost 14 aircraft and their crews bombing Essen. Today is the start of a running battle in the North Atlantic between two convoys and 20 U-boats: 21 ships will be sunk over the next 14 days, against just one submarine. We lost 14 ships last week. Since the beginning of the year around 100,000 Jewish people have been deported to a place with a funny name. It's called Auschwitz. Ten days ago the first of some 23,000 gypsies arrived. Around now they are starting to build something huge at Birkenau which is next door. They'll do this very, very quickly because it is slave-labour which is doing all the work. When my mother, far into the future, learns about these places, and all the others, she will always call the people who were sent there "those poor wretches".
What I don't know either, but perhaps the grown-ups are starting to feel it, is that the tide is just starting to turn. I and most of my fellow Brummies haven't had to spend a night in an air-raid shelter for ages. And Bomber Command is getting busier and busier. They are always talking on the wireless about "last night's raid on the Ruhr". Rommel has been forced back after defeat at El Alamein last October and is becoming trapped between the British 8th Army who are chasing after him and the British and American armies which landed four months ago in Morocco and Algeria. It looks as though the Afrika Corps has had it and Rommel himself will return to Germany before the end of this week. The German 6th Army was finally destroyed last month at Stalingrad and the Soviet armies are getting stronger and stronger. And in the Far East, after all of last year's disasters, the Japanese are starting to be forced back. To me, though, what I know of this - and I only know bits of it - is all just day-to-day stuff.
I am still idly looking down the drive. Then to my amazement a figure appears on the other side of the gate. It is a soldier. I quickly recognise him. It's my 20-year-old brother. He comes through the gate and walks towards me with a broad grin. I shout to my mother through the back door. He shouldn't be here. We only said good-bye to him a couple of weeks ago. He had been home on what everyone called Embarkation Leave. I had been told that that was it, he was going far, far away and I shouldn't expect to see him again for goodness how long. And now here he is, back again.
Graham (otherwise known as Bill) has now been a soldier for 8 or 9 months. He is in the Royal Artillery. He had wanted to join Bomber Command but they wouldn't have him. His eyesight wasn't good enough. I bet Mum and Dad are a bit relieved! For exactly two years up to June last year he worked and trained at the side of our dad in the local Home Guard platoon based at Little Aston Hall stables, which they said was still full of the smell of horses. Then he was called up into the Royal Artillery. First of all he went to Church Stretton. On a lovely Sunday at the beginning of July we all paid him a visit there and Dad took some pictures with a bit of colour film carefully kept from pre-war. There he is, below, facing an unknown future with a cheery grin and a Woodbine.
After coming up the drive and greeting me in the garage there are embraces with Mum who has arrived all excited at the kitchen door when she heard me shouting for her. He explains why he has arrived unexpectedly. He has been able to convince his Commanding Officer that measles can be quite a serious illness - he himself had a bad time of it. So what about a bit of Compassionate Leave? The C.O. falls for it and now my brother looks at me, all hail and hearty, and perhaps, just perhaps, feels a tiny twinge of conscience. But there we are, and, well, a couple of days at home are not to be sneezed at.
Forty-eight hours later it will be good-byes again, this time for real; and off he will go, back down the drive, back to Woolwich and back to an unknown future. In a few days after he leaves us he will be on a troopship casting off from Avonmouth and sailing for an unknown destination.
Bon voyage, Our Kid!
(to be continued later in the month, if anyone is interested)
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i take it that is your mom and bro on left and is that you hiding behind your sister ?
