Jeffrey Worth's Wartime Childhood Memories

Jeffrey Worth has many childhood recollections of the Second World War. His earliest was of being held up by his father one night and seeing a red glow on the horizon, probably the result of an enemy air raid.

The atmosphere in the family home was one of darkness, heaviness, and a lack of colours with everything being uniform and the word utility being used a lot. The only question on people's minds was when was the war going to end.

Food was rationed with no real eggs, only the powdered version from America, no bananas or fruit. As the house had a garden, some food was grown there to supplement the family rations.

Jeffery's father worked in a reserved occupation supporting airfield construction, so he served in the Home Guard, often participating in exercises in the local park, Bradgate Park in Leicestershire. He also acted as a firewatcher keeping an eye out for enemy incendiary bombs dropped during air raids.

Jeffery was the third child of four and with his mother's hands full with his siblings, often travelled to work as a two-year-old with his father to work in the cab of his truck. On one such occasion, whilst visiting a new American airbase, some of the American aircrew wanted to take Jeffery for a flight. His father obviously refused their offer!

Jeffery also remembers the German POWs working in the fields around their Leicestershire village and often wandered down to join them. One day, his mother came to collect him to take him home for dinner, but one of the German POWs stood upright, gave her a short bow and said, "Boy had dinner" as he had shared his rations with Jeffery earlier. To him, these men were tall, blond giants who were very well-behaved.