Life of Schoolboy during WW2

I was 9 years old when the war started in 1939 and my first recollection is of the blackout and Air Raid Wardens shouting "Put that light out!" This rule was strictly enforced because German bombers were flying overhead every evening and any trace of light would help them find their way to their target which was usually Liverpool docks or Manchester.

The Germans, headed by the wicked Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, started this war when they invaded Poland in September 1939 resulting in Britain and France declaring war on Germany. Germany invaded the Netherlands, Belgium and France and the British forces in Europe had to retreat until they were surrounded on the beach in Dunkirk. The evacuation of British and Allied troops from Dunkirk is another story but over 300,000 of them were successfully rescued and brought back to the UK.

Hitler then dreamt of invading Britain and planned to reduce our resistance by cutting off our lifeline of supplies coming across the Atlantic from Canada and America. These vital supplies were transported by merchant ships which crossed the Atlantic heading usually for Liverpool which was the major port on our west coast. The Germans subsequently launched dozens of submarines called U-Boats which patrolled the Atlantic ready to torpedo and sink the merchant ships. Many were sunk and many brave merchant sailors lost their lives but some of the supply ships arrived to unload their precious cargoes in the heavily bombed and damaged Liverpool docks.

To return to the beginning of my story: as I lay in bed listening to the bombers overhead, my dad worked nights baking bread in Horwich Co-op bakehouse. The Germans weren't interested in bombing a small three-man bakehouse but carried on across the UK to drop their bombs where they would do more damage as in Liverpool docks where most of the UK's supplies of wheat and flour were being unloaded from Canada.

The blackout rules certainly hampered the German pilots and so they started to drop incendiary bombs. These were small metal tubes filled with highly flammable chemicals which, when dropped from a height, would smash through the roof tiles of a building and spontaneously burst into flames. Such a fire could be started in a house loft without the occupants being aware and so 'fire watchers' were recruited to patrol the streets.

The use of poison gas in warfare is by convention disallowed, but the Germans had used chlorine and mustard gas as weapons in the trenches in WW1 and so as a precaution gas masks were issued to everyone in the UK in 1939. (As a matter of interest, Holly's great-great granddad was gassed by the Germans in WW1 and as a result, had lung disease and died in his early 50s). The gas masks were supplied in a cardboard box with string for carrying around the neck and had to be taken everywhere and an identity disc had to be always worn.

Air-raid shelters were constructed so that the population could take cover in the event of an air raid. A wailing siren warned of an air raid and a steady tone indicated that the scare was over. Many families built a safe area within their own homes and took cover there during an air raid. I'm pleased to say that despite there being two large engineering works in Horwich, we didn't suffer any bomb damage until one Saturday night.

In Rivington on the outskirts of Horwich, the army had established a small camp with searchlights and anti-aircraft guns in the hope of catching some of the raiders passing overhead each night. My dad was an Air Raid Warden and he called me to our back door on that evening and pointed out that one enemy plane had been highlighted by the searchlights and the anti-aircraft (Ack-Ack) guns were firing at it. The plane started to dodge the lights and then BANG! My dad pushed me back into the house before the blast blew me off my feet. "That's not far away. I'll have to go," said he as he disappeared into the dark wearing his warden's black tin helmet.

The following day most of us kids went to search for the bomb site. I had inside knowledge because my dad had been there since it was very close to my grandparents' house. It was suggested that the German pilot realising he was in danger had released his high explosive land mine to lighten his load and then make a get-away. This device wasn't a bomb with fins which could be aimed at a target. It was a heavy steel cylinder filled with explosives which floated down randomly by parachute and exploded when it hit something. It landed on soft ground making an enormous crater and leaving small pieces of shrapnel and parachute silk over a big area which the local kids eagerly collected as souvenirs.

Thousands of windows were broken in Horwich and superficial damage was caused but fortunately, there were no serious casualties. I called to see my grandparents who lived only about 200m from the site. Granddad took me upstairs to the bathroom. We could see daylight through a hole in the roof and in the bath was a block of two house bricks still cemented together. That was the last WW2 incident in Horwich.

Rationing: The first commodity to be rationed was petrol and then in January 1940 the British government introduced food rationing. The scheme was designed to ensure fair shares for all at a time of national shortages. Every man, woman and child was given a ration book in which were coupons which had to be surrendered to the shopkeeper with money in exchange for food. A typical adult weekly ration was 1 egg; 2oz each of butter, cheese and tea; 4oz each of margarine, bacon and ham; cooking fat plus 3 pints of milk; 8oz sugar; a meat allowance equivalent in value to 2 chops; and 1lb. of preserves (jam/marmalade) every 2 months. People living in the countryside were often able to buy directly from farmers to obtain extra food and milk. Fish, bread and fish and chips were never rationed, nor were fruit and fresh vegetables although oranges and bananas were not generally available in WW2. Clothing was also rationed and the basic scheme ran for many years after the war and still applied to some foods nine years later when Chris and I were married in 1954.

I mentioned earlier that Liverpool was heavily bombed early in the war when 4,000 civilians were killed and 10,000 houses destroyed. The town of Wallasey lies on the southern bank of the River Mersey and to escape the bombing a large contingent of pupils from Wallasey Grammar School came to live with some of their teachers in Knowle House, next door to Rivington and Blackrod Grammar School in Rivington. In 1941, when I turned up at my new secondary school, I was surprised to find lots of boys wearing a different school uniform already there. These Wallasey boys were evacuees who'd moved to our school to escape the bombing raids and we shared lessons with them.

We generally got on well together, until one day when I had a serious disagreement with one of the Wallasey lads, probably over some trivial matter, which developed into a 'scrap' or brawl. This incident spilled over into the boys' yard which bordered the headmaster's back garden. Supporters of both sides gathered and fists were flying until suddenly we both fell over in a tangle into the head's flower bed. Just at that moment one of our staff appeared. My opponent was sent to see his teacher and I was told to report to the staff room at the end of school. This I did and was told to write out 50 times: "I must not break down the rhododendron bushes."

This I did. He looked at it, tore it up and said "Go to the library, boy. Find yourself a dictionary and do it again".