Chapter 1: In the Beginning - September 1939 to December 1939

Hi everyone, Luke here with my opening piece. I have nothing groundbreaking to say except - It's starting now. The entries beginning September 5th, 1939.

From this day forward in the entries, we're going to read about air raid sirens, conscription, my great uncle Gordon, granny's family, and of course - her path forward through education and pushing ahead amongst the war and chaos around her.

Again, there will be some formatting I am inserting to make the entry a little more readable, such as bolding the entry dates so you can easily track the timeline of events.

The following entries immediately follow the previous post in this series, seen here: https://lukematon-nz.ghost.io/chapter-1-in-the-beginning/

No words from the diary have been changed, only formatting, and additional media added to supplement the writing.

September 5th
Gordon has plenty of work as a tool-maker at Gatwick. It is a reserved occupation.
We were issued last January with a hand-book about reserved occupations and a Conscription Act was passed in May for all men 20 and 21 to undertake 6 months military training. Now they have passed the National Service Act and all men 18 to 41 are liable for conscription. We had another air raid warning but we neither saw nor heard anything.

September 10th
The U-boats are active and they have sunk the Athenia and the Courageous with a
near miss on the Ark-Royal. They have started a convoy system but I do not know how that will help.

We have the Home Service back again and there is a jolly funny new programme on it called ITMA meaning It’s That Man Again.
The stars are Tommy Handley and a Mrs Mop who keeps saying “Can I do you now sir?”

The King spoke to us on the evening of the outbreak of war, but we have heard nothing about the whereabouts of the royal family since then.

Gordon ran into the back of a lorry in the blackout on his motor-bike. They brought him home and Dad was able to direct them to Newchapel where they had to deliver material to a building site. They are building [rest of line unreadable - double printed]

At the Harvest Festival service the vicar told us we would have Evensong immediately following Matins as we must save the fuel needed to heat and light the church.
I have an evacuee in my Sunday School class so, to make him feel part of our community, I gave him the turnips, swede, carrots and beetroot I had taken for the Harvest Festival, to hand over in church to the vicar.

Mr Clarke came to see us. He told us that in London they have dug covered trenches in all the Parks near busy shopping streets.
He has been issued with an Anderson Shelter which is two curved pieces of corrugated iron with another flat piece to fit the curve at the back.
He’s erected it in his garden in Streatham.

In all the streets there are 10ft by 8ft concrete boxes with sand bags round them to be used as A.R.P. warden’s posts. Eros has been boarded up in Piccadilly Circus and the snakes in the London Zoo have been killed.
There are barrage balloons moored in the Parks.

September 26th
We started school again and Taffy (our Headmaster) told us it is essential for the
national welfare that education continues. We have a boys school to share our premises.

The name of this school is Haberdasher Askes and they have come from North London.
We will work for six mornings a week with additional periods in the afternoon for organised games and physical education.
The Askes will work the other way round. Apparently the Staff have been working ever since war was declared.

Another school from Brockley in South London has been evacuated to Oxted and our school hall was used to receive the evacuees and allocate them to private families.

The Brockley school children will have to go to school in the village and church halls because there is not room for them in any of our school
buildings.

The day after this allocation Taffy found a filthy old pram piled high with battered suitcases sitting on the ‘hallowed ground’ of our school’s front porch.
Poor Miss Morris and Miss Jenkins were instructed to wheel it down to the Council offices where they were told to take it to the lodge at Perryfield Farm.

Apparently its owner and her children were too dirty to be sent to a private home. As neither Miss Morris nor Miss Jenkins had heard of Perryfield Farm they had to ask at the Council offices for a route map.
When they eventually found the place they were shocked by the scene of desolation and squalor.

The poor young mother (about 25) was utterly bewildered and greeted them with “They say it’s a war. Wot’s a war?” The eldest little girl of about ten dragged them outside to see an ‘amazing sight’. It was a cow! All the chemicals for the lab are now stored in a shed up the field and those we need must be fetched before each lesson.

September 30th
We were all issued with Identity Cards and ration books today. We have to register at the shops of our choice by November 23.

Anybody who is not on the National Register is to be held in an Internment Camp. They have made Lingfield Racecourse into one of these camps.

Dad is now such an important person. His Identity Card has a third page which will allow him to move about freely if there is a curfew. He also has a Forces gas mask and service revolver.

October 18th
Yesterday Taffy warned me to be ready to receive my Prefect’s insignia so I polished my shoes, combed my hair and pulled my black stockings straight but nothing happened.
Today, when I was totally unprepared he called me up to the platform in front of the school to receive them.
Miss Dean gave me such a dressing down for my slovenly appearance that I can see if I want to remain a Prefect I had better mend my ways.

October 27th
We had our first gas-mask drill and it was quite amusing as you can blow wonderful raspberries with them.
They do look quite scary so the little children have Mickey Mouse ones and the babies have hoods to cover their prams or cradles, for which their mothers have to pump bellows to circulate the air through them.
Mr Callard has made me school pianist and I shall enjoy that job.

November 3rd
I played the hymn at assembly for the first time this morning.
Although I did not leave enough time for them to draw breath between the verses, Mr Callard was very pleased with my performance.
Petrol is now rationed and there are some cars with gas-bags on their roofs. The trains are very bad after dark.

All the blinds must be down and there is only a pencil of blue light in the carriages.
There was a nasty accident when a train pulled up at the signal before Oxted station and one of the carriages was on the bridge.

A passenger thought it was the station, and the parapet of the bridge the platform, and he opened the door and stepping out fell to his death on the road below.
We can now use hand torches provided we cover the front with two thicknesses of tissue paper and turn them off when the siren goes.

November 16th
Ronnie Vine is home on leave. He is on H.M.S. Worcester. On his sleeve he has a badge which looks like the barrel of an old cannon. He says it means he is a ‘gun-layer’.

I had visions of him laying the guns out on deck but after he had finished laughing at my daft ideas he explained how he lays the gun on the target for firing.
I can see it is no easy task with a heaving sea, the ship shuddering from its own recoil and the explosions of the enemy shells falling nearby.
Ordinary life is going on in spite of the war.

Last week I went to visit my friend Yvonne Eldon in Dormans Park where she has just got a job with Major Steven’s daughter as a ‘nanny’ so babies are still arriving as well as older folk departing.

December 4th
This was a very important day for me as it was my last chance to matriculate. I decided to play the hymn and read the scriptures at Assembly so that I did not have time to worry about the English Examination that started at 9.30 a.m.
I wonder what use a bit of paper will be to me if I don’t survive this war.

December 13th
I am elated today because for the first time we beat Whyteleafe at hockey. I scored three of the goals and we won 5-4.

I have been training my team for weeks and we have spent every morning break on the hockey field practising passing and goal shooting.
But my feelings of self congratulation must take second place to the war news which is good too.

We cornered the GRAF SPEE a pocket battleship and her captain scuttled her in Montevideo Harbour. I’m starting to learn a bit of geography as up to now I had never heard of the River Plate which is where she was trapped.

It looks as if I may get a chance to get into this war because there are 43,000 volunteers in women’s services as well as half a million men under military discipline. There are 1,000 girls in the Women’s Land Army too and others in the Queen Alexandra’s nursing service.

I am getting up a Christmas entertainment for the Sunday School because the vicar thinks it is most important to carry on as usual.

December 15th
Last night Uncle Arthur told us that cousin Albert has been called up.
Albert always got into mischief with Gordon and I when we were still at Lingfield Council School.
I don’t think any of us will forget the night we were all put to bed with no tea except bread and milk. (I hate the stuff, but always had to eat it because I was so hungry).

On the way home from school we had all gone to paddle in the floods covering the road at Waterside and had forgotten it was bonfire night.
It is the only time we didn’t become part of the exciting crowd at the celebrations.

Watching the rockets and one torchlight procession from the bedroom window was no substitute for joining the crowds in the village and chanting the bonfire prayers.

I loved shouting:
“Guy Fawkes, Guy Fawkes, was his intent,
to blow up the King and Parliament,
In a cellar he was catched
with smouldering fuse and burning match-head.”

Then, as Mr Fuller raised an enormous Guy packed with fireworks above our heads he would ask “What shall I do with him?” and the five thousand crowd screamed “burn him” and he did, with the wonderful Golden Rain pouring out in all directions interspersed with enormous bangs. It will be another sort of fireworks that we can expect now.

This morning as I was playing ‘It Came Upon a Midnight Clear’ a great trickle of fear ran down my spine when I realised I might never speak to Albert ever again.

This war is getting personal and I hope nobody noticed my tears falling on the piano keys.