• Welcome to this forum . We are a worldwide group with a common interest in Birmingham and its history. While here, please follow a few simple rules. We ask that you respect other members, thank those who have helped you and please keep your contributions on-topic with the thread.

    We do hope you enjoy your visit. BHF Admin Team

1942 Memories

sparks

sparks

knowlegable brummie
Memories

Make believe games shouting, “bang you’re dead” without actually killing someone.
Toothpaste tubes that were made out of a lead type material that you could roll up from the bottom, and they stayed rolled up.
Taking the accumulator round to the shop in Wheeler Street and exchanging it for the one that had been on charge so that we could listen to the radio.
The delicate job of changing the gas mantles which were so fragile.
Being happy to find an orange and a few new pennies in my Christmas stocking.
Being able to make everything you would ever need with a Meccano set.
Going down the cellar to bring up a bucket of coal.
Carrying in the old zinc bath ready for bath night.
The bands that came down Lennox Street every Sunday.
Taking a few old clothes to the rag and bone man in exchange for a goldfish with a limited life span.
Catching the 69 bus to Snow Hill station, going in a side door in Livery Street, and placing a half penny on the track and trying to double it’s value.
Scrumping apples round the Maypole when it was just country lanes.
Peashooters, our weapons of mass destruction.
Buying sliced pickled onions by the pennyworth from a shop in Farm Street.
A few more memories in pictures. at www.memories-1940s.moonfruit.com
 
Last edited:
Not quite 1942 but not much different...
Crushing salt blocks with a wooden rolling pin.
Winding the mangle on washing day.
Shelling peas (and trying not to get caught eating a few!)
Watching coffee being made in the perculator (gurgle, gurgle!)
Summer afternoons with the windows open and the wireless turned down so as not to annoy the neighbours.
Watching dad prune the rose bushes - always on March 1st every year.
Banking up the fire with 'slack' in the winter to keep it alight all night.
Raking the ashes out into a tin box, letting them cool before putting them in the bin.
Watching the dustmen carry a full bin on his shoulder and tipping it into the dustcart.
Polishing your shoes every night ready for school.

I'm imagining I'm back at home in the 50s now!
 
1942,
finding your way home in the "blackout"
Practicing donning Gas masks,
Checking black out is OK
collecting shrapnel
sleeping in the air raid shelter
queueing up for coal allowance
just a few of 1942 experiences
 
Memories - Just a few years after 1942

Watching the band march up Soho Road on a Sunday morning.
Going to the bomb sites in Hockley with my friends and climbing over and under barbed wire to get in to find ‘jewels’.
Having fish paste on toast for Sunday tea.
Taking biscuits to the Prisoners of War mending the pavements in our street.
Mom painting a line up the back of her legs to look as though she had stockings on.
Feeding the chickens in our back garden and collecting eggs.
Watching Dad kill a chicken and the chicken running around afterwards.
Playing games in the street like ‘Froggie cross the water’ and ‘Statues’
Being made to go to Sunday School every week.
Playing in my friend’s Anderson Shelter in her garden, and under the Morrison shelter in her kitchen.
Dipping my finger into a mix of cocoa and sugar in a cup as a substitute for chocolate.
Going to Mrs Payne’s sweet shop in Villa Road once a month (?) for our sweet ration.
Going to Handsworth Park to the Boating Lake to catch tiddlers.
My Dad taking us to town after the War to see the lights back on.


Judy
 
Lovely memories of life in those long ago days but still so fresh in our memories. I was only l2 months old in late 1942 so for that year the stories are anecdotal. My father was on nights mostly at Bournville Power Station and cycled there from Erdington, which wasn't easy with no lights and a
couple of ack-ack posts en route. They moved around so he never quite knew where they were located and they would start up as soon as enemy planes appeared overhead.

Meanwhile, Mom and my brother born in January 1940, the beginning of a very snowy winter, also had myself to look after.
She preferred to spend the air raids underneath the stairs in the pantry rather than in the Morrison shelter in the garden. It was very damp there as a lot of people in Brum found out after they had dug their shelters into their gardens. The type of porous base soil/rock held the water very well. Mom's father came to stay with the family for a while and as I have mentioned before caused a bit of a stir with his torch through the windows at night.
I realize now that she must have been very frightened but mainly people didn't talk about their fears and just did what they could to stay safe.
 
Waking up on the day I should have started school, only to be sent back to bed because I had measles.
 
Had a fairy cycle for my 6th birthday in April, tried to cycle on it to the top of Barr Beacon with my parents but it broke down en route and was left at a house in Bridle Lane. I had to resume my normal position on the pannier of my dad's bike. We collected it from there on the way back down, to find to my joy that it had been repaired by the friendly occupant.

Wasn't it that year that I went to the circus in the Big Top in New Street which blew down in a gale a day or two later?

In July I was taken for a day to Church Stretton where my big brother was doing his basic Royal Artillery training before embarking for North Africa. A happy, sunny day of which I still have the snaps.

Chris
 
My last year at school left in 1943 age 14yrs , starting work, six day week 48 hrs per week plus 1/2 hour a day on Mon to Fri compulsary overtime.
 
July 1942 - Big Girl Guide sister, me and Dad's Russell lupins, neglected but apparently surviving.

It's a shame that early colour film was so grainy but I suppose it's a miracle that it was there at all.

Chris
 
No, Wendy, from a positive film - in other words from a positive colour transparency. I'm not even sure whether negative colour existed at that time.

Chris
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top