War Days, and the last of Agnes

If the weather was perfect, the international situation certainly wasn't. Rumours of war had been rumbling around for some time, and it wasn't too long before what we all expected, but dreaded, happened and Great Britain was at war. I was at home when the fateful broadcast was made. Everyone was feeling sick and bewildered, not knowing what to expect.

I do know that in the middle of the first night the sirens sounded and within minutes everyone was outside, looking up at the bright moonlit sky and straining our ears for the sound of aircraft engines. But all was quiet, and we all made our way indoors not, I'm afraid, to sleep. The next day I made up blackouts for the windows, which also had heavy wooden shutters which added to the security. Work went on much as usual at first, but I had to sell the old Raleigh, just about clapped out after around forty thousand miles, and years of standing outside in all weathers, and on top of this I had no petrol ration.

We were now settling down to the so-called 'phoney war'. I travelled round by train, taking Vera with me. It soon became apparent that the jobs we were now doing were just the backlog of pre-war orders. In the works at Norwich, everyone was busy on war work, making army huts and packing-cases for aircraft.

Inevitably the day came when the last of the outside jobs was finished, and I had to report to the works. Working in Norwich soon created problems as I lived fourteen miles away and there was no suitable public transport. I thought about getting another motor bike, but could get no petrol ration at that time so I had to take the only alternative of push-biking. I had to be up at a quarter to six in order to have my breakfast and get to work at eight. Vera was a brick, and always got up to cook my breakfast and see me off. It was the middle of winter and, to make it worse, we had lots of snow. However I was dressed I was always sweating freely by the time I got to work. Then straight into the bitterly cold, unheated workshop, and in a matter of minutes I was all wet and clammy. I got continual heavy colds, and one way and another had a pretty miserable time.

The journeys home were even worse as I was tired after a hard day's work, and the fourteen miles' plug home in the snow and ice would have daunted anyone. On top of this, my wages were only about half what I had been getting, and all in all I suppose this was the most difficult period financially we ever had. I even had to give up smoking, but to be able to live at home more than compensated for all the trials. When I was slogging away into a head wind, the thought of a good fire and food, and a welcome from the missus made it all worthwhile.

Working in the factory gave me my first taste of trade-unions since printing-works days. When we were out erecting we never joined the union, for the firm didn't mind what hours we worked as long as we accepted the flat rate. Had we belonged to the union, that organisation would have insisted that the firm paid us overtime rates for the long hours, which they wouldn't have done anyway. The first day in the works brought the shop steward around, saying we must join the union, or no job. So we signed up both to keep the peace and our jobs as well. We had to sign a form saying we had been duly apprenticed to the trade, which was supposed to be a condition of joining. This was a laugh, as half the men in my department weren't even carpenters.

I think that at that time it was believed that this war work constituted a reserved occupation, which meant a delayed call-up for the younger men. As the word got around that anyone who could knock a nail in could get a job, they rolled up in dozens. Shop assistants, clerks, hotel staff, the lot, all came complete with tools! viz a Woolworth hammer and a pair of nippers. It was quite true that anyone could do the work. All a man had to do was lay the framing and boards into a jig and bang the nails in. I got a nice elderly chap as a mate, whose peace-time job was as a maintenance carpenter with Thurstons, the Fair people.

The system was to collect a job ticket from the foreman, get a trolley and collect enough material for ten sections. Everything was cut to size and ready to lay in the jig. We made up our ten sections, and I went off to the foreman to collect another job ticket. He looked at me and said "What's happened to the other sections on the first card?" I told him we had finished them, whereupon he replied "You mustn't do them as quick as that. They're supposed to last you all day. You did them in two hours less than the union rate. You can't go on like that ." This really staggered me, as even then we hadn't really hurried. I asked him what we were to do for the next two hours. He said "I don't give a damn what you do. I'm not issuing another ticket until the proper time." I said "Well, what about the war effort!", as there were around forty of us on the job, and if all of them were wasting time it was a disgrace. He got really uppity then, and said if we didn't fall into line we would probably lose our union cards and also our jobs. So, I'm sorry to say, we took the coward's way out as the thought of losing my job scared me stiff. He took a dim view of me after than, but that wasn't the end of it.

After about a couple of months the contract for that lot of sections was finished, and the buzz went round that a lot of men were going to stood off - at least - a lot of the temporary staff. Imagine my consternation when, among the newcomers, I was given my cards and a chit enabling me to take my toolbox out of the gate. It wasn't long before the foreman came to me with ill-concealed pleasure, to confirm that I was one of the unlucky ones. I told him he could keep my chit and cards, as I shouldn't be leaving. He just grinned and said "That's what you think!"

But I hadn't finished yet, and straight round to Benny's office. He was out but I had a word with his deputy and explained the situation. He said there had obviously been a mistake, and would I ring up in the morning. When that arrived, I thought it best to play safe, sign on at the Labour Exchange, and I was on the dole for the first and last time in my life. I then rang Benny, who said he didn't know what the foreman was thinking about as he had strict instructions to lay off temporary staff only. I had a pretty good idea of how it came about, but as Benny told me to report for work the next day I thought it best to let sleeping dogs lie. So back I went, and got a good deal of pleasure seeing the foreman's face when I reported for work. I signed off, after having precisely one day on the dole.

It turned out to be a good week for me. I had been trying all this time to get a petrol ration and had bought a nice little motor bike on chance. Imagine my delight when my ration came through - two gallons a week, which with care would be enough. It seemed too good to be true, sailing up those wretched hills I had slogged up on my pushbike so many times. In addition to this pleasure, it gave me another three-quarters of an hour in bed in the mornings, and additional time for gardening etc. at night.

The work was now much more interesting, as all the lights and doors had to be fitted and hung in the sections. This really sorted out the men from the boys, as several of the temporary staff who had survived the first axing had no more idea than the man in the moon how to hang a light or a door. The man on the bench next to me had already spent all day trying to hang a door, with no success at all. When I came back after dinner, there was a group of laughing men looking at his handiwork, and pointing to a blackbird's nest complete with eggs which some wag had found, and tucked it into the corner of the door frame. There was another sorting out after this, and a lot more were stood off when they proved incapable of doing the work.

As far as the war went, everything had been very quiet until one afternoon, out of the blue, real war came to Norwich. The maintenance men had been busy all day laying a new concrete floor in our shop. We were just on the point of knocking off for the day, and I was perched on top of a pair of steps putting the last screw in. Suddenly, without any warning whatever, there were a series of terrific explosions. Our shop was suddenly filled with dust and smoke, and lumps of asbestos roofing came clattering down all over the place. For a few seconds we were stupefied, then we suddenly got the message - bombs! I jumped off the steps to join the mad rush through six inches of wet concrete to the shelters. When I reached my particular shelter, which adjoined the CE shop next to ours, I could see that this shop had really caught a packet. It must have been hell inside. It was as black as ink with dust and dirt, broken asbestos sheets were hurtling down and the air was full of screams and shouts. One poor fellow lay outside the shelter entrance just about decapitated. It was absolute chaos. After a few minutes, the first-aid men got busy and soon the pitiful procession of stretcher bearers with their broken burdens of dead and wounded were filing past, to await the ambulances.

War had arrived with a vengeance. As we found out next day, a single raider had dropped a stick of bombs from Colmans, across Boulton and Pauls to the railway yards beyond. Vera had come up to meet me that afternoon, but thankfully she had gone to my friends instead of waiting on Carrow Bridge as usual, otherwise she would have been in the middle of it all. Over thirty were killed, and many more injured.

It was all hands on deck then, clearing away the debris, knocking down all the cracked and broken roof sheets and most important of all, building a lookout tower on the roof, where members of the Observer Corps could spot hostile planes and sound the crash warning. We were all a bit jittery for a day or two, but there were no more raids at that time.

One day I had instructions to report to Benny. He told me there was a prefabricated church to be erected on Feltwell Aerodrome, and would I like to go and help to erect it. I didn't want asking twice, my tools were sent on the lorry, and I was off on the motor bike. It was the first time since I had the bike that I had travelled anywhere except back and forth to work. It certainly made me realise how much I had relied on signposts. I had travelled that particular road several times in the past, and thought I knew it, but I soon found out I didn't and lost my way quite a few times before eventually arriving.

There were half a dozen or so of us on the job, and it made a nice break. The weather was good and the overtime pay more than welcome as we worked from dawn to dusk to get the place finished in time for the official opening. I imagine the church is still there - at least it was a few years ago when I went past out of curiosity. The days were somewhat better than the nights, for there was a battery of ack-ack guns on the field at the back of our digs, and almost every night they opened up at something or other, and the crashing bangs were not at all conducive to sleep.

When I finished there I reported back to Benny. He said there was another job he would like me to do. This was to build an annexe to a larger hangar at Cosford, just north of Wolverhampton. I asked the young chap who had been my bench mate if he would like to come with me, and he jumped at the chance. After a day to get organised, we travelled up by train. Apart from work, my first job was to try and get a bedsitter so Vera could come and join me. I had no difficulty, came home the next weekend and brought Vera back to Shifnal, a small town near Cosford.

It was interesting, apart from the work, as Cosford at that time was a sort of collecting ground for many of the freedom fighters and partisans from Europe who had made their devious ways to the UK. There were men from nearly every country in occupied Europe, and I often wished I could have heard the many stories they could have told of how they made their way to freedom. They looked a motley enough crowd when they first arrived, dressed in just about every variety of clothing you could imagine. After a week or two, however, they were a vastly different sight all kitted out in smart uniforms. One of the instructors told me that never in all his life had he seen men more eager to learn. All they wanted was a chance to hit back at Hitler, the sooner the better. They had left parents, wives, children and sweethearts behind, and God knows if many of them were reunited after the holocaust that swept their homelands.

On Saturday evenings there was a special train into Wolverhampton so that the boys could have a night out, and it was always crowded. It sounded like the Tower of Babel with all the foreign lads talking in their native tongues. Coming back it was noisier still, for lots of them were well-oiled. It all seemed pretty good-natured, and I never saw any particular trouble.

We enjoyed our stay as the weather was good and the countryside beautiful. The days and nights were quiet too, and we soon forgot the constant hit-and-run raids that East Anglia was getting. The night blitzes hadn't started, and the war seemed a long way away. We got a sharp reminder of what we were missing when one week our money failed to arrive. I rang up, but couldn't get through for two or three days. When at last I succeeded it was to learn that Boulton and Paul had caught another packet. Most of the office block was burnt out, and a lot of the records were destroyed.

Then one afternoon Vera arrived at the camp with two telegrams, one to say Mother was extremely ill, and another saying she was dead. This was in August 1940. I went and saw our agent on the base and showed him the telegrams. He soon arranged with the firm to send out a replacement for me, and gave me travel vouchers so Vera and I could go home. Vera's sister's wedding had been arranged for the following week, so we arrived home to a curious mixture of a wedding and a funeral in the same week. Poor old Mum - she had always looked so frail, but she had the heart of a lion. She had been far from well for some months, and I suppose I should have known it was the beginning of the end. I didn't, however, for my own life had been so full latterly that it came as a real shock to realise that she was dead.

So Agnes joined Joe in Kirby Cane churchyard, reunited after some fourteen years. No-one could possibly have had a better mother, but like many more I had many regrets that I hadn't helped her like I could have done. Not so much financially, for her last years were quite comfortable in that respect, but in not writing to her very often or going to see her more when I was at home. I was pleased that before we went to Cosford Mother came and stayed with us for several weeks. Vera was kindness itself, and I'm sure Mother felt truly welcome during her stay. She found the stairs a bit trying, so I used to gather her in my arms and carry her up to bed each night. She would laugh and say when she used to carry me upstairs to bed when I was tiny, she never dreamed that one day the positions would be reversed.

Well, life had to go on. A day or two after the funeral we had the wedding. This in itself was a mixture of happiness and sorrow, as Marjorie's husband had to go back to France after the wedding. So it was back to work. I rang Benny to see where I had to go next, and found out I had to go to Watford to do some maintenance work on some glasshouses I had erected a year or so previously. I found things had altered considerably, as instead of the houses being full of azaleas and hydrangeas, they were now all planted out with tomatoes, lettuces and other salad plants - all to raise food for the war effort.

Bombing in London had started in earnest now, and I have a vivid memory of standing in Watford High Street after visiting the cinema and reading an evening paper by the glare in the sky caused by the burning oil tanks at Thames Haven, many many miles away. I can't say I enjoyed the cinema much as there were three or four alerts during the evening. Everyone was jittery enough, and if a few people had left their seats when the sirens went, there would have been a general exodus. The Battle of Britain was in full swing, but the only indications I saw in the Watford area were the criss-crossing vapour trails in the clear blue sky, and the distant throbbing of aircraft engines.