Chapter 2: War Comes Home - January 1940 to July 1940

Merry Christmas, everyone. It's the 24th of December, 2023 as I write this. I'm back to this diary.

This chapter covers what happens in the first half of 1940. Things are starting to ramp up. Rations are active. Civil defence is called.

Granny is just 17 years old on March 1st, 1940. One of the best things is having a garden, which granny's father had. Granny and her family were able to eat well entirely thanks to that.

It's interesting that she mentions eating raw carrots in relation to seeing in the dark, which is a classic tale told. It in fact comes from it being a piece of disinformation launched by the allies after their creation of radar, to keep the Axis off the scent of the new technology the allies now had access to.

We see mention of the famous Maginot Line, put into words by granny as "the Germans have walked round the edge of the impregnable French Maginot line."

Keep an eye out for the entry of May 29th - then look up the Little Boats of Dunkirk. It's a truly inspiring story.

Other highlights of this chapter sees my great uncle Gordon volunteering for the RAF (spoilers: he becomes a pilot!), bombs get a little closer, and the "lily-livered, weak-kneed Neville Chamberlain" is "kicked out" in favour of Winston Churchill.

Just after Christmas they added sugar to the list of rationed goods.

Nobody came from Hull to spend Christmas with us but we did get quite a long letter from them.
My cousin Bob, who is two months older than me, left school last July and managed to get a clerical post in the Education offices.
He spent the first three days of his working life on the pier shepherding children onto the ferries that took them across the River Humber towards their evacuation homes.

When the war started he was put on night telephone duty at the evacuation H.Q. which is situated in an empty school. They are on the first floor and on the ground floor is a Civil Defence First Aid Post.
When the siren sounded in the early hours of the morning, they were instructed to take all the phones off their hooks before joining the first aid staff in the shelter. He has no idea why this was done.
He is hoping the war will last long enough for him to get involved in it.

Gertie came to spend Christmas with us. Her train was one and a half hours late. She says the railways are pretty disorganised. The Pullman coaches of the Brighton Belle are lined up just outside Victoria Station. Since they have managed to convert Green Lines into Ambulances I would have thought they could have found some use for those coaches.

There are a lot of ‘women in trousers’ working as porters, ticket-collectors and bus-conductresses.
I saw Maurice Terry in the village today. He was in his army uniform. He was a senior when I first started school and he looked so different from the school boy I remembered.
I can remember how some of the boys used to entertain us with their antics in Mass Singing lessons. I would like to see John Wallis in his army uniform and his supporting cast of Hodson, Thompson and Victor Peacock in their R.A.F. uniforms.
Peter Patchet, Ruck and Vick are in the Fleet Air Arm, but Crump, Gladwin and Martin are in the Navy.

January 10th
We are back at school and the trenches are now completed. They have built them on the hard tennis courts as it is the only flat suitable space. They are really slits lined with concrete with earth piled up over their ‘lids’.
At one end four concrete steps lead into them while at the other end is a bucket toilet.

Miss Morris is in charge of our shelter and I am her assistant.
She will collect a list of absentees from the office and I will go straight to the trench with the ‘roll’ when the siren sounds.
She will sit in the middle of the trench on one of the wooden benches which are along each side and I will remain near the entrance.
This arrangement suits me fine. I am terrified of getting buried alive so, if the bombs start getting too close, I shall nip up the steps to be blown to bits on the surface instead of suffocating in a hole in the ground.

January 24th
There has been plenty of snow over the weekend and on arriving at school we found all the Girls toilets frozen.
With so many of the tradesmen called up it will be a long time before a plumber arrives to repair them.
We are to use the Mistresses’ cloakroom and that will create some problems as there are only two lavatories for one hundred and thirty girls.

Gordon has fitted a headlight mask to his motor-bike. It consists of a metal disc with a horizontal slit in it. They are compulsory for all motor vehicles so he made himself a mask at work because they are very expensive to buy from a garage.

March 1st
My seventeenth birthday and Mum has managed to save the ingredients to make me a lovely birthday cake.
None of the shops in the village have closed and we have registered with Mr Binns and J.R. Downing.
We have 1/10d worth of meat each per week (children under six get half that amount).
All the brains and sweetbreads go to the hospitals but the rest of the offal is ration free, if you can afford to pay the prices they ask for it now. Chickens and rabbits are also off ration but we don’t worry with those as Dad can snare rabbits for us.

The wealthy people bought stocks of food to hoard but many of them have no idea how to store it. They are upset to find rats nibbling at their sacks of flour and ants in their sugar. One lady tried to make her tea last longer by putting camphor balls in her tea-chest. At least they will have plenty of liquor in their cellars to drink with all their damaged food.

Mum manages very well. She puts all our rations together to buy a joint of meat. We have it roast on Sunday, cold on Monday, sliced and heated in gravy on Tuesday, minced on Wednesday, and the leftovers turned into rissoles on Thursday.
We have plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables from Dad’s garden so we are never hungry.
On Friday, while the bone is boiling up to make stock for soup on Saturday, we try to have fish. It is not easy to get as the fish-mongers never know when there will be a delivery but when some does arrive word soon gets round and I jump on my bike to go and join the queue for it. There is also whale-meat at the fishmongers if you like it.

Last month they started Summer-time so that we get an extra hour of daylight in the evenings which is a great help as I cannot see in the dark although I eat plenty of raw carrots.
Yvonne’s brother Peter is in the R.A.F. and so are Alan Fuller and Ken Frostick. Enid Haley’s brother, in his army uniform, came to school to see the staff. He had us all howling with laughter describing ‘square-bashing’.

The brass buttons on the battledress trousers are supported by extremely strong braces. He swears they would lift an elephant.
In physical training when they are continually bending over to touch their toes some of these buttons are wrenched off and they go pinging all over the parade ground. If you lose too many then you are reduced to all sorts of antics to retain your trousers.

Some of them haven’t got forces gas masks yet so they have to do a gas mask drill in the civilian ones.
I can just hear the ‘Honkity-Parps’ as the troops march back and forth across the parade ground.
The noise makes them snigger until finally there is so much noise they cannot hear the commands given by the sergeant-major from inside his service respirator.
I can imagine the utter chaos when the eyepieces mist up too so that nobody can see where they are going either.

April 8th
There is still no bombing so I accepted Gertie’s invitation to go up to London today. This morning we went shopping in Oxford Street and I have bought a tapestry to make for Mum’s Christmas present.
We had a meal at Lyons Marble Arch Corner House. It was Gertie’s treat and I noticed it was expensive but I was surprised we did not have to give any coupons for it.
There are lots of vegetables but no fruit in the shops. As we walked through the Park I noticed vegetables growing in the flower beds. It is part of the ‘Dig for Victory’ campaign.

April 20th
Today I was elected tennis captain but the news of the war is not so good.
Germany has invaded both Norway and Denmark and both cousin Albert and Uncle Albert have gone overseas.

Phillip Clarke is staying with Mrs Chapman for a few days as his ship is in port for essential repairs. He is in the Merchant Navy and he took the trouble to tell me about the convoy system.

The merchant ships have to break through an enemy blockade of surface raiders, mines, submarines and aircraft to bring us the essential supplies for the factories and keep us from starvation.
The merchant seamen do not have a uniform but their life is just as dangerous as any serviceman’s.
None of these ships are designed to withstand bombs and torpedoes and a ship loaded with ore goes down like a stone in about 60 secs so none of them have a chance of getting off it.
An ammunition ship disintegrates just as quickly although more spectacularly. If an oil-tanker catches fire it will blaze for hours and help the U-boat captains pick out even more targets.

He says that they dare not take off their clothes during a voyage and some of them keep their life-jackets on too. If they are fortunate enough to get off the ship when it is hit there are only open boats or wooden rafts to keep them alive until another boat can pick them out of the sea.

Very often these frail craft are damaged during the sinking of their ship and even with them the occupants are exposed to the elements until another ship in the convoy can pick them up.
The big passenger liners like the Queen Elizabeth and Queen Mary do not travel in convoy but rely on their speed to get the troops from Canada, New Zealand, Australia, India and other parts of the Empire here.

May 10th
The situation is getting worse and there are soldiers on guard at both entrances to the ‘Works’.
All men from 20-27 are liable for call up and on a news bulletin at 10.30 a.m. they said that the Germans have walked round the end of the impregnable French Maginot line.
Tonight there are soldiers billeted in most of the houses in the village and the fields on either side of us are filled with men camping out.
They haven’t any tents but are rolled up in blankets lying on the ground.

Dad and I have been watching the widening of the river. He says it is for a tank trap and that is why they are also building concrete block houses in all the fields surrounding the ‘Works’.

One bright spot, we have kicked out that lily-livered, weak-kneed Neville Chamberlain. I’m sure we can’t win a war with a bowler hat and rolled umbrella. Winston Churchill is our new Prime Minister and he sounds as if he means business.

May 20th
Yesterday I had a letter from Marcelle. She is my French correspondent. She is still at home in the Pas-de-Calais but she is obviously very worried.
I don’t know what will become of her if the Germans overrun all of France.
Sylvia Bowden, one of the senior girls when I first started, came to school today. She looks smashing in her A.T.S. uniform.
She told us Ena Newbury and Pat Stanley are in the W.A.A.F. I bet they look good too. It is a pity Sylvia did not see Miss Morris but she is away with a broken leg.

We had an air raid warning last night and Gordon took his twelve-bore with him into the garden to keep an eye out for any paratroopers landing near us.
Dad was fast asleep in his chair but when a shot rang out he was instantly awake and on his feet and shouting “What the hell is that lad up to now?” Dad then rushed out of the back door. It was a little time before they returned.

When they came back Dad pushed Gordon through the back door, saying “Now, tell your Mother what you have done.” Squaring his shoulders Gordon said “I’m sorry Mum but I’ve shot the cat. I heard a movement in the bushes and I thought it was a Jerry.”
After a brief pause Mum said “Is Trixie dead?” When Gordon said “Yes Mum we’ve buried her in the garden.” there didn’t seem anything more to say so we all went to bed but it was a long time before I went to sleep.

May 26th
Gordon is in Edenbridge hospital having all his teeth extracted and we’ve heard Uncle Albert is in France.
Gordon is hoping to be well enough to play football for Lingfield on Saturday but I shudder to think what Uncle Albert is doing as we are not getting any news from the war front.

May 29th
We are getting our troops out of France. Gordon says it is chaos at Gatwick. All the hangars are piled high with equipment being flown haphazardly across the Channel.
There are odd boots flung on top of guns, medical supplies and ammunition. Gordon thinks we are in a bad way and he’s not going to hang around any longer. If they won’t lift his exemption clause he will threaten to go to the papers with his story of “Goings on at Gatwick.” Dad is alarmed and warns him he may finish up against a wall being shot.

All the sign-posts are being piled up in the Highways Depot and Mrs Binns told Mum that her relatives on the south coast are taking their little boats across the Channel to get our men. They told her rowing boats and the London barges are being towed across. Even the big yachts and motor cruisers from Cowes are going.
All the talk is of INVASION.

June 3rd
My young sister Barbara sleeps with me now in my double bed because she can sleep better if she has somebody near her.
I like the arrangement because I have cold feet and I can warm them up on her when I go to bed.

At 2.58 a.m. we were shaken awake by a tremendous crash. I couldn’t think what was happening and Barbara was crying. This morning we were told it was bombs falling at Forest Row.
So now we know what to expect. I went into the sitting-room to do my piano practice as soon as I came home from school and was surprised to find Mrs Hankey there with Mum.

She had a telegram which she was showing to Mum. It said her son was missing at Dunkirk. I did not know their son was a doctor or that all the medical units had stayed behind in France to help the wounded.

June 10th
We had a stirring message from Winston Churchill on the wireless today. He said “The battle which General Weygand called the battle of France is over. I expect the battle of Britain is about to begin.”

Gordon has been released from his exemption and is going to Croydon on June 15th to volunteer for the R.A.F.

June 22nd
Cousin Albert and Alan Fuller have both visited us as they are on leave. Albert was telling us what a close shave we had at Dunkirk.

He wonders how any of them got away but somehow most of our forces managed to get to the embarkation ports of Cherbourg, Brest and Dunkirk.

Gordon has passed his medical Grade 1 A1.

June 25th
We had our first visit to the shelters at 1 p.m. today.
I don’t know why Miss Morris has been away from school for the last few days but I am glad that she returned this morning, as she organised board games for the juniors while the seniors carried on with the lessons from books that they had grabbed from their desks when the sirens sounded.

Barbara had a medical today as they are considering sending some of the younger ones to Canada.

July 26th
Although it is a lovely fine day our spirits are low because Gordon went on the 8.41 train this morning to take the tests to see if he is suitable material for a pilot.

August 3rd
Gordon passed all the tests and left for Blackpool this morning to have three weeks basic training before starting on the special training.
Grandad and Auntie Lily arrived by train from Hull in the evening.
Tomorrow Dad and Grandad are going to start building an air raid shelter in the bit of garden outside the back door.

We are expecting to hear the Germans have landed on the south coast at any minute so we are gritting our teeth and preparing to face the enemy.