speaking range.
âItâs over at last then,â said I, all bright and breezy.
âSorry,â she said, âI canât celebrate. My brother is a prisoner of war with the Japs. I canât celebrate.â
And she went on her way. She had such hatred in her eyes and voice, I really couldnât credit it. It knocked me back on my heels and knocked me down for the rest of the day. I never saw her again and Iâve got no idea what happened to her brother, even whether he ever came back. The way the Japs treated prisoners was unbelievable and nothing is enough to pay them back for their behaviour. I have often felt I would like to meet the man who dropped the atom bomb on them and shake him by the hand. That must have been the best thing that was done in the whole war. Even that was a better death than they gave to PoWs.
16
The Blitz
(1940â4)
I get really sick of all the rubbish about the Blitz and the cheerful East Enders who refused to be downhearted. It wasnât like that at all. It was bloody awful and the authorities were just not prepared. As always, it was the ordinary people who just had to put up with the suffering and grief caused by the mistakes and stupidity of those who claimed to know best. Poor bloody devils.
I remember the first day of the Blitz. We were living in Keogh Road then, and I was expecting the first boy so I was a great lump. Fred was at work. You worked every hour God sent then; you just went into work and stayed; you didnât have any option. My friend Chrissie came round to see me and said that if we went up the Point [Editorâs note: Maryland Point] to the wool shop she would buy some silk and crochet a dress for the baby. It sounded a good idea so I started to get ready.
Just then, Fred walked in. He looked awful. He told us that he had just had enough â I cannot remember how long he had been at work by then â and he couldnât carry on any longer, so he had come home. I got in a bit of a flap because I hadnât got any dinner ready, in fact I hadnât even thought about it yet and was only just getting ready to go shopping. What could I do for him? What did he want? and all that. But he didnât care, he couldnât care less, he just wanted to rest and told me not to bother but go shopping. He wentinto the front room (we were ever so posh because we had a front room with some decent furniture) sat in an armchair and almost instantly went to sleep. I finished getting ready and, with Chrissie, went up the shops. When we got back Fred was still in the chair asleep. I donât think he had moved a muscle while we were out. He must have been absolutely knackered.
I was about to start preparing some food when the warning went. Chrissie flew into a panic about getting down the shelter. We didnât have our own shelter but Aunty next door had an Anderson shelter and we shared that. We had even knocked down a section of the wall between the gardens so that we could go in and out easily. It had been quite useful really because Uncle had been having some medical trouble and I had been able to nip in and help when he had one of his âattacksâ. I had even been up to the hospital with him a couple of times. Anyway, Chrissie was flapping up and down about the warning and the shelter, but of course she worked out of London all week and only came back at weekends so she didnât understand how we had got used to it during the Battle of Britain. The warning was always going but nothing ever happened because the Germans were attacking the airfields, not London. After a while we had stopped taking notice of them and got on with our lives as if nothing had happened, just like I wanted to start getting the dinner ready. But she went on and on, so in the end I said that I would go down the shelter. First, though, I had to wake Fred, which wasnât very easy. When I eventually managed and told him what was going on he started on me
âItâs over at last then,â said I, all bright and breezy.
âSorry,â she said, âI canât celebrate. My brother is a prisoner of war with the Japs. I canât celebrate.â
And she went on her way. She had such hatred in her eyes and voice, I really couldnât credit it. It knocked me back on my heels and knocked me down for the rest of the day. I never saw her again and Iâve got no idea what happened to her brother, even whether he ever came back. The way the Japs treated prisoners was unbelievable and nothing is enough to pay them back for their behaviour. I have often felt I would like to meet the man who dropped the atom bomb on them and shake him by the hand. That must have been the best thing that was done in the whole war. Even that was a better death than they gave to PoWs.
16
The Blitz
(1940â4)
I get really sick of all the rubbish about the Blitz and the cheerful East Enders who refused to be downhearted. It wasnât like that at all. It was bloody awful and the authorities were just not prepared. As always, it was the ordinary people who just had to put up with the suffering and grief caused by the mistakes and stupidity of those who claimed to know best. Poor bloody devils.
I remember the first day of the Blitz. We were living in Keogh Road then, and I was expecting the first boy so I was a great lump. Fred was at work. You worked every hour God sent then; you just went into work and stayed; you didnât have any option. My friend Chrissie came round to see me and said that if we went up the Point [Editorâs note: Maryland Point] to the wool shop she would buy some silk and crochet a dress for the baby. It sounded a good idea so I started to get ready.
Just then, Fred walked in. He looked awful. He told us that he had just had enough â I cannot remember how long he had been at work by then â and he couldnât carry on any longer, so he had come home. I got in a bit of a flap because I hadnât got any dinner ready, in fact I hadnât even thought about it yet and was only just getting ready to go shopping. What could I do for him? What did he want? and all that. But he didnât care, he couldnât care less, he just wanted to rest and told me not to bother but go shopping. He wentinto the front room (we were ever so posh because we had a front room with some decent furniture) sat in an armchair and almost instantly went to sleep. I finished getting ready and, with Chrissie, went up the shops. When we got back Fred was still in the chair asleep. I donât think he had moved a muscle while we were out. He must have been absolutely knackered.
I was about to start preparing some food when the warning went. Chrissie flew into a panic about getting down the shelter. We didnât have our own shelter but Aunty next door had an Anderson shelter and we shared that. We had even knocked down a section of the wall between the gardens so that we could go in and out easily. It had been quite useful really because Uncle had been having some medical trouble and I had been able to nip in and help when he had one of his âattacksâ. I had even been up to the hospital with him a couple of times. Anyway, Chrissie was flapping up and down about the warning and the shelter, but of course she worked out of London all week and only came back at weekends so she didnât understand how we had got used to it during the Battle of Britain. The warning was always going but nothing ever happened because the Germans were attacking the airfields, not London. After a while we had stopped taking notice of them and got on with our lives as if nothing had happened, just like I wanted to start getting the dinner ready. But she went on and on, so in the end I said that I would go down the shelter. First, though, I had to wake Fred, which wasnât very easy. When I eventually managed and told him what was going on he started on me
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