War memories from my Dad
Mar. 3rd, 2018 12:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
amberdreamsI was sorting out a drawer of stuff yesterday and found this memoire written by my Dad for an event in Shrewsbury a few years ago, collecting people's experiences of WWII. I've got Mum's reminiscences too, so I'm going to type those up next. I'm putting them here mainly for me, though some might find them interesting. :D
1939 War Experiences – Paul Byrne
Not so sour grapes!!
My first memory of the 1939-1945 war was being evacuated to Sandbach in Cheshire but at nearly seven years old I was not aware that evacuation was anything to do with the war. In August 1939 the government of the time thought it would be a good idea to evacuate all the children from the cities they thought might be threatened by bombing if a war began. War was not declared until September and by then many of the parents of the children thought that their children might as well be back home.
As a six year old in Liverpool things at that time were a bit confusing. I remember it was a bright day when my class and the rest of the school were ushered onto buses to take us to the railway station and onto the train which was to take us to Sandbach. I had no idea where Sandbach was, or how far away it was. I do not remember, as some evacuees do, saying goodbye, crying, the journey, or any of the other things I was supposed to remember. When we arrived at Sandbach we all went to a school from which we were sent away with our new ‘foster parents’. I was one of the last to go as I was with my two brothers, John aged eight, and Francis aged five, and who would take on three brothers from Liverpool?
Our new foster parents were a brother and his two sisters, all unmarried and very rich, by our standards. The Beeches all seemed old to me but then every adult seemed old. We stayed with the Beeches until December that year, when my father came to take us home for Christmas. We never went back (and I never did see the end of that Saturday morning children’s cinema serial). Incidentally the Beeches thought my eldest brother would come to a sticky end (he ended up a Jesuit priest). They wanted to adopt my younger brother, while they were just glad to get rid of me (could this be because I’d eaten most of Mr Beech’s prize grapes from his greenhouse?).
Not long after returning to Liverpool, being now seven years old, I was moved to the ‘big boys’ school. Unfortunately this was condemned, although it was still being used as a school in 1975! For the next term we were educated in various people’s front rooms until moving to the “Tin School”, which had been used as a school for handicapped children, who had been moved to the country. My school was a Catholic school where boys and girls were separated.
In May 1941 came the Blitz, when the bombing of Liverpool really started. The docks, the town centre and Bootle got the heaviest of the bombing. I lived near the Dingle oil jetty, which also got a pounding, but I must say this did not seem to affect me. Every day, after watching the bombers flying over Liverpool, we used to collect hot shrapnel off the streets and take it in a tin box to the local police station. At the beginning of the war the streets around the Dingle where being used by the army for training, and we children took great delight in telling the Blue team where the White team were. The nearby Sefton Park was surrounded by anti-aircraft guns and barrage balloons, having been taken over by the military. Later, when the Americans came, we watched them playing a new-fangled girls’ game which they called baseball.
My father, who had a protected job, joined the Home Guard, and being tall was made a Lance Corporal and stood guard at the local military HQ. He was dismissed because he refused to make the officers’ tea! He then had to join his local Air Raid Wardens where he seemed to spend most of his time teaching the other wardens how to play solo-whist!
By the end of the war, rationing did not worry me too much, as children got the best of everything food-wise anyway, and we knew a seaman who would occasionally bring us a banana or two. I suppose the war had not been too bad to me.
At the end of the war, bonfires were lit all over the city and I can remember trying to count how many I could see ‘over the water’, across the Mersey.
-------------------
AMB note: This is typical Dad - his memory was so bad; ask him names of this friends from old photos and 90% of the time he didn't have a clue. And the 'nothing much worrying him' - seems like that was something in-built, and there from an early age! I miss him and his glorious vagueness.
1939 War Experiences – Paul Byrne
Not so sour grapes!!
My first memory of the 1939-1945 war was being evacuated to Sandbach in Cheshire but at nearly seven years old I was not aware that evacuation was anything to do with the war. In August 1939 the government of the time thought it would be a good idea to evacuate all the children from the cities they thought might be threatened by bombing if a war began. War was not declared until September and by then many of the parents of the children thought that their children might as well be back home.
As a six year old in Liverpool things at that time were a bit confusing. I remember it was a bright day when my class and the rest of the school were ushered onto buses to take us to the railway station and onto the train which was to take us to Sandbach. I had no idea where Sandbach was, or how far away it was. I do not remember, as some evacuees do, saying goodbye, crying, the journey, or any of the other things I was supposed to remember. When we arrived at Sandbach we all went to a school from which we were sent away with our new ‘foster parents’. I was one of the last to go as I was with my two brothers, John aged eight, and Francis aged five, and who would take on three brothers from Liverpool?
Our new foster parents were a brother and his two sisters, all unmarried and very rich, by our standards. The Beeches all seemed old to me but then every adult seemed old. We stayed with the Beeches until December that year, when my father came to take us home for Christmas. We never went back (and I never did see the end of that Saturday morning children’s cinema serial). Incidentally the Beeches thought my eldest brother would come to a sticky end (he ended up a Jesuit priest). They wanted to adopt my younger brother, while they were just glad to get rid of me (could this be because I’d eaten most of Mr Beech’s prize grapes from his greenhouse?).
Not long after returning to Liverpool, being now seven years old, I was moved to the ‘big boys’ school. Unfortunately this was condemned, although it was still being used as a school in 1975! For the next term we were educated in various people’s front rooms until moving to the “Tin School”, which had been used as a school for handicapped children, who had been moved to the country. My school was a Catholic school where boys and girls were separated.
In May 1941 came the Blitz, when the bombing of Liverpool really started. The docks, the town centre and Bootle got the heaviest of the bombing. I lived near the Dingle oil jetty, which also got a pounding, but I must say this did not seem to affect me. Every day, after watching the bombers flying over Liverpool, we used to collect hot shrapnel off the streets and take it in a tin box to the local police station. At the beginning of the war the streets around the Dingle where being used by the army for training, and we children took great delight in telling the Blue team where the White team were. The nearby Sefton Park was surrounded by anti-aircraft guns and barrage balloons, having been taken over by the military. Later, when the Americans came, we watched them playing a new-fangled girls’ game which they called baseball.
My father, who had a protected job, joined the Home Guard, and being tall was made a Lance Corporal and stood guard at the local military HQ. He was dismissed because he refused to make the officers’ tea! He then had to join his local Air Raid Wardens where he seemed to spend most of his time teaching the other wardens how to play solo-whist!
By the end of the war, rationing did not worry me too much, as children got the best of everything food-wise anyway, and we knew a seaman who would occasionally bring us a banana or two. I suppose the war had not been too bad to me.
At the end of the war, bonfires were lit all over the city and I can remember trying to count how many I could see ‘over the water’, across the Mersey.
-------------------
AMB note: This is typical Dad - his memory was so bad; ask him names of this friends from old photos and 90% of the time he didn't have a clue. And the 'nothing much worrying him' - seems like that was something in-built, and there from an early age! I miss him and his glorious vagueness.