War Recollections of Peter Latham

Peter's story of his life during the war:

"Dear Grandad
Mummy has told me that you were a boy during the war. For my homework could you tell me what life was like? Please could you tell me about rations, if you were nearly hit and if you had an air raid shelter. I heard your father was a prisoner of war. What was it like without him?
Love from Robin xxx"

"Dear Robin

Your mummy is right; I was a boy during the war. I was born in 1938 in a village in Cheshire and was one when war broke out so I do not remember that time but I was 7 by the time the war ended and so I remember more and more as the war progressed.

As a boy, knowing only the world at war, it seemed normal to me. In fact being a typical boy interested in guns and aeroplanes and fighting etc. it all seemed rather exciting. Also, because I lived some miles away from any large towns or cities and in England, we had no bombs falling close to us nor did we witness any armies fighting the war. The nearest we came to seeing any warlike activities was on news reports at the cinema and to a naive little boy this was about as realistic as a war game on a computer today. In my childish ignorance, I thought the war was wonderful and could not wait to grow up so that I could join the armed forces. Fortunately, it all ended long before I was old enough to join up.

Although no bombs actually fell on our village we often had air raid warnings because planes flew over us on their way to Liverpool and Manchester. No one in our village had individual bomb shelters but there were communal ones built in the streets. They were used earlier in the war when it was expected that we would be bombed but as time progressed it became evident that bombs were unlikely to fall on the village and the shelters became disused smelly places. When there was an air raid warning (a very loud rising and falling wailing sound called a siren) almost always at night, people tended to get out of bed and shelter under the heavy wooden tables which people had in their "living rooms". Although this was a great inconvenience for adults, it was great fun for the children. Fire wardens used to come around to the houses checking that no light was escaping from the blackout blinds that had to be fitted to all windows. If the warden did find the smallest chink of light, he would knock on the door and give the householder a thorough ticking off. Occasionally an enemy aircraft failed to drop all of its bombs on target and so, rather than take the bomb back to base the pilot would drop them anywhere and occasionally one would drop near our village. This was a time of great excitement for the children who, despite being forbidden by their parents, would rush off to the bomb crater to hunt for bits of shrapnel from the exploded bomb. Any boy worth his salt had to have a reasonable collection of shrapnel to show off to his friends.

As I mentioned earlier, toys were in short supply. I don't think I ever saw any new toys in our village, so everyone improvised and made things for instance out of old prams - the wheels were very much sought after. Everyone was very good with saws and hammers and made all sorts of things from steerable carts to tow-along toys. It would be frowned upon today, but every boy carried a large sheath knife strapped to his side. This would be used for making catapults, bows and arrows, flop guns, whistles and whittling (carving) all manner of useful items. Bits of string, nails, old tyre inner tubes and old bits of wood were very valuable items and guarded jealously. Actually, we children had a very carefree existence. It seemed that when not at school we "played out" completely unsupervised and made all our own entertainment and I never once remember being bored - in fact as a child, it is a concept I would not have understood.

I do remember some things that caused adults to be sad. I was too young to remember my father going to war. My mother showed me a photograph of him but to me, a small boy, it was just a picture on a bit of paper. Once I was told by another boy that my father was dead, there seemed a gloating tone in the boy's voice and although I had no affectionate thoughts for my father, I did not like the boy saying my father was dead, so I replied that he was not dead, the boy insisted so we started to fight. On returning home my mother detected signs that I had been fighting and wanted to know why, so I told her that the boy had said my father was dead. I could not understand why my mother burst out crying and showed me such signs of affection because usually I got told off for fighting! Much later I discovered that my mother had earlier received a telegram from the government telling her that my father was "missing presumed dead" and what is more, she would now no longer be receiving his army pay but would receive instead 10 shillings a week war widow's pension. Nine months later she received a letter from the Red Cross saying that he was alive in an Italian prisoner of war camp. It was five years before my father did eventually come home. He was in poor health after being released from a prisoner of war camp in what is now called the Czech Republic and making his way back to Allied Lines. I was 7 years of age when he returned home and my question to my mother was, "When is he going back?" He had kicked me out of my mother's bed! Later I learned to love and respect my father.

Looking back to those years, it must have been hard for adults to cope because the essentials of life such as food, clothing and fuel for heating and cooking were in short supply and luxuries like sweets, toys and nice clothing hardly existed. Most essentials were "on ration" and everyone had a ration book which was a collection of pages marked out with items to which they were entitled, divided into little blocks which could be cut out by the shopkeeper to indicate that the holder had had his ration for that week. How much of the entitlement you were given was determined by the government on the basis of how much was available to distribute. So, some weeks you might get an extra portion of, for example, butter, but other weeks you may get little or sometimes even none. I would say that while amounts of essentials were very very small by the norms of today, they were adequate if people planned carefully. It is an amazing truth that poorer people were generally healthier during the war than before.

People, however, were often kind and supportive of one another, and there was what was called a "make do and mend" approach to life. For instance, my mother had trained as a tailoress and often people would come to her with an old coat, which being old fashioned would have had a lot of material in it. My mother would re-style the coat using less material, and for payment, keep the surplus material to maybe make a jacket for herself or even a coat for me. A person may have kept a pig and a few chickens on a small piece of land. People living nearby would save any food waste such as potato peelings or caterpillar-eaten cabbage leaves to feed to the animals (nothing was wasted) and in return would be given a few eggs or, when the pig was killed, might get a small piece of pork or bacon. People would grow vegetables in their gardens and when, as often was the case, there was a temporary glut they would give surplus to their neighbours. Some people may crave for sugar but not be too worried about drinking tea, so they might swap their tea ration for sugar. Then there were always little "Under the Counter" deals going on. These were strictly illegal arrangements, when for instance some men from our village worked on boats that sailed down the Rivers Weaver and Mersey to Liverpool. There were always illegal dealings going on in the ports and I remember on one occasion a large sack of peanuts appeared in the village and the contents were distributed to the children who had never seen peanuts before.

You know me, when I get started I can ramble on forever, however, that is probably enough to give you an idea of how the war was for me.

Love granddad x
June 2009