Life as a kid in WW2 by Terry Morris

Life as a kid in WW2 Back to Home Page

By Terry Morris Born in 16th June 1933 Huncote , Leicester England- emigrated to New Zealand and died there 2nd July 2002

Where and how does a person start a story like this or whatever you call it?

From the beginning seems so long ago, but at times it seems like only yesterday.

Well the start must be 1933, not that I can remember - I was born to Roland and Eleanor (Nelly) Morris with three older brothers [Owen, Ted, and Roy ] and a sister [Eileen] on the scene already, in a small house out in the countryside of Leicestershire. A place called Huncote - story has it that they sat a pig on the wall to watch the local band go marching by in the yearly parade.

Not long after my birth we moved to another country village called Countesthorpe, nick named NIFFY, why I don’t know. The only reason I could come up with was that the local sewerage farm did niff a bit with the wind in the wrong direction.

My younger brother was born there [Norman] , some two years younger than me, and once that was over we moved to South Wigston. It was a new housing estate called Landsdown Road Estate, but the locals called it Rat Alley because it was built on an old refuse tip site. By about this time and probably before the arrival of the last brother in the family I was just starting to realise what life was all about.

The Coronation celebrations roland

Dad- Roland Morris

My first real memories would be the coronation in 1936, my Dad’s firm (he worked for a transport business) gave a big party, where we sort of dressed up, and they had a parade of old trucks etc. On seeing old photos of myself and my next brother (Norman) at this time we looked like girls, with long blonde curly hair, wearing ankle socks and coats long enough so that you couldn’t see whether you had trousers on or a skirt. I must have hated that, as young as I was.

Well it was not long after I can remember Mam going down to the shop (at the top of the street - Goodwins), saying "Won’t be long, shutting the garden gate behind her. Not to be left out, I looked at the gate, too high to climb over, that gate latch..... surely I can get that open -I didn’t know it [the latch] had a large spring to return it after opening. Anyway I had to climb onto the bottom rail of the gate to reach the latch, which I managed to push up. The gate opened with me on it and I released the latch which had taken two hands to push up. Down came the latch with my left hand in the way, there was my left thumb with the top cut off - hanging by the skin on one side only. No I didn’t cry, I was in the precarious position of hanging on with one hand whilst my feet were just touching the floor, so I wasn't able to get away from the gate, and it was still swinging open and closed. Eventually I screamed as loud as I could. Norman was there but he was too small to help me. I think everybody in the street came to see who was being murdered. The man next door came to my rescue and that’s when it started to hurt- blood everywhere. Mam appeared on the scene and of course nobody in the street had a car - so off we went on the bus to the hospital. My first of many visits in my life. I think I had the top plonked back on my thumb with something like a towel wrapped around it. Anyway all turned out okay, even if it is a funny shape nowadays.

The house we lived in was very small - small kitchen with the toilet outside next to the back door. Upstairs there were two bedrooms - now how did five boys and one sister, Mam and Dad fit in? One bedroom had a double bed with iron railings top and bottom along with a single bed as well. The other bedroom had two beds, one for Mam and Dad, and the other bed of course for my sister Eileen. It seemed to us she was spoilt because she had a bed all to herself! But looking back it was great - three small boys in a double bed and the two oldest in the single bed. One thing about it was you never felt afraid, always safe in bed all together.

The bed with railings had brass knobs on the corners which we found were removable. This came in useful. How or why I don’t remember but Dad sold, or had boxes of sweets in the house- something to do with the business he was in. We all had to take turns in raiding the boxes or jars before going to bed - which worked out great. After a few out of each box or jar we had to get rid of the evidence - the sweet papers. This is where the knobs on the bed ends came in - we removed the knobs and all the sweet papers were pushed down - it wasn’t long before they were full. When we were discovered of course I had nothing to do with it. I was too small to think of such an idea, so it came to a sudden end, though I still don’t know who got the hiding for it, must have been one of the BIG ones..........haha.

Next on the scene was John in 1938, and after he was born there seemed to be a lot of posh men calling, they all had little cases and were all too dressed up for the area we lived in. They turned out to be the local council people, our house was now classified as over crowded. Now I ask you?.. only nine in a two bedroom house, it was great we have never been so close as a family and were afraid of nobody! Well we got our marching orders, Mam had to go to the local council offices, needless to say I had to go with her, the big ones were at school just me Norman and baby John, my sister looked after John and Norman but Mam daren’t leave me with Eileen as I might get up to no good! The council offices were a good two miles walk away, up over the bridge (called the Spy and Cop - named after something to do with the Boer War in South Africa.) It seemed so big [the bridge] in those days with the railway and station underneath it. This particular area was to become a large part of my life in the next few years.) On arriving at the council offices - a great big Victorian building- we went from office to office - we were on the move again. The council had built a new street for families such as ours consisting of all large houses. (Much to their [the councils] regret as they would learn later!) Thirty two houses full of kids - boy what a street that was!

We got number 15, on our first visit we had a large old fashioned pram full of stuff. Going down the street the road was all dug up with gas pipes, power and water still going in. Once inside the house we just couldn’t get over it, FOUR bedrooms and what was this..... a toilet inside and upstairs AND a bathroom. The kitchen was reasonable with a gas stove and sink, a separate dinning room with a lounge. The fireplace had a modern range with two ovens and hot water, there was no electrically heated hot water in those days. Oh dear looks like we’ll be getting too many baths in this house, what next?

Just about everything we had was moved there on a barrow and pram, and I think we had to borrow the barrow! There was a large garden at the front and rear, it backed onto the fields - great. There were people moving in up and down the street which was a dead end. The house at the end had six bedrooms and was where the Grangers lived - all nineteen of them. To this day I still don’t know all of them probably because some of them had already grown up on arriving in the street and I was only about five.

Next door were the Tower's with five boys, then there were Spencer’s, Brooks, Steven’s, Hughes, Pugh’s, Caves, Treacle, Linitt’s, Swan’s, Rudkins, Jone’s, Buckby’s - it seemed like hundreds of kids later to be called the Coro gang after the street name - Coronation Avenue.

After getting to know each other we started to split into age groups, the existing teens didn’t want to know us young kids. It still left plenty to go round in each group, some were in between and played with both groups. We found the best place to play was the back fields during the daytime and the street at night (the street had gas lamps which came in handy later on as we got older.

By the time we were all getting settled in we were all going to local schools about one and a half miles away - hell of a long walk at that age. We were getting close to the beginning of the war [W.W.II] - I still remember being told to keep quiet whilst the radio was on for the news. It came one night in September 1939, war had been declared and all men of Dad’s age had to report to the local barracks. We were all upstairs in the bedrooms and watched from the window Dad marching up the street with a bag on his shoulder and the other men following him. It looked funny but off they went, little did we know it was for six years and that some wouldn’t be coming back.

To kids of our age group it seemed like the families suddenly got smaller - no Dads about , older brothers gone too. In our family I ended up being the oldest at home. Dad was in the army (Royal Army Services Corps), Owen in the army (Kings Own Scottish Battalion). Ted-Royal Navy, sister Eileen in the ATS and Roy in the navy too.
owen

Owen Ted Eileen Roy

Then there's me Terry, Norman and the baby – John. Roy only saw the end of the war in the navy. Later still I went into the RAF, Norman into the airborne army (Paratroopers) and John into the army (Royal Signals).

dad-terry

Me - Terry Norman John

Mam was always at home to see us come and go.

Meanwhile all the houses we had come from left whole streets empty, but not for long. As soon as the bombing of London started families - train loads of them - began to arrive at the local station the Spy and Cop and filled all the houses in Rat Alley. I think they became more over crowded with evacuees from London than when we lived there. Everybody was asked to give whatever they could house wise to help them. Little did we know then as kids that these new arrivals would become our rivals ... grrr.

Next we were all seeing men knocking on doors asking for all your aluminium pots and pans to help the war effort. These were needed to make planes etc. Then the iron railing fences etc were cut down from properties without as much as a thank you. Of course nobody gave a thought to the fact that now us kids could get into places shut off before with fences. It made our world a much larger place with free access to places beyond our dreams!

Our first introduction to the war after the arrival of the evacuees was the bombing of nearby towns. We sat at the bedroom windows at night watching Coventry burning night after night; it was only 25 miles away. While all this was going on everybody was under what was called Blackout - all windows had to be blacked out at night so that no light showed for bombers to see. ARP wardens walked the streets checking all windows for lights showing.

By this time our gang was moving through the railway yard wondering what all the things were in the open railway wagons in the sidings. We discovered they were German aircraft that had been shot down. Well if you’d ever seen ten kids climbing all over them AND then finding machine guns still inside the aircraft!

Wouldn’t it be nice to have one of them in the street nobody would beat us then.

Well it wasnt to be, railway police chased us off. They couldn’t catch us, they had no chance, they were retired policemen that had been called out of retirement at the request of the railway. All the young ones had gone off to war. After we were put to bed that night we sneaked out (the council slipped up by putting a concrete awning over the front door!) we went out the bedroom window onto the awning and jumped to the ground. We had been talking earlier about finding the machine guns to others and discovered the most saleable thing was any parachutes or the perspex in the cockpits. So off we went into the dark - we were being very brave of course having been told the dead pilots might still be in the planes, but together we all met at the bottom of the street. Since we were talking MONEY we decided that even if we got caught sneaking back into home (which happened many times) it would be worth the risk.

On arriving at the railway we found that the wagons we had been working on before had gone, now don’t forget it was dark there was no lights because of the blackout, and it was 10 o’clock at night - very late for us. Well not to be outdone we split up and went to see what was in the very large railway siding. Off we went agreeing to signal if anybody found anything. I had Norman with me and wouldn’t dare go home without him, there was also Mick and Jim Granger - I think we all held hands...not because we were frightened (not much!). It was so we didn’t get lost in the dark. We came across what was to be the first low loaded wagon we had seen. After half an hour in the dark and inspecting it we found the plane was sort of together bodywise, though it had no wings but the tail looked good in the dark. We all found our way in through a hole in the side.

Wish we had a light can’t see a thing.

We did manage to get right up in the front into the cockpit. It was like a dream world if only we could get a light - there were all sorts of things to play with.

What can we do? Not much without a light.

We all sat there, what next? All of a sudden there were noises coming from further down the track, we could hear people running and shouting.

God! Hope the others haven’t been caught and snitched on us... but they don’t know where we are, best to stay still and say nothing.

Somehow we managed to touch each other in the dark to reassure ourselves that we were not alone. After what seemed like ages things went quiet again.

Okay what do we do now? Don’t fancy going without something to take with us or we will have failed our mission and besides we don’t want to go home to a hiding for doing nothing.

If it had have been daylight, sitting there in the cockpit would have given us a good view, which is why before any of us could do anything more we could see a small light coming towards us, the person was walking....

Do we make a run for it? Hide or stay put?

Well we had little choice the light was already there. There was a clanging of heavy chains. So four of us sat frozen to the spot. Nobody daring to talk, though now I’m sure nobody would have heard us anyway. Things went very quiet. We could hear a train in the distance and then suddenly a big crash. (I’m not sure if I peed myself but I’m sure that the others did!). We were on the move - the things going through my young mind -

What’s Mam going to say? ...Another hiding? .. How are we going to get back home from hundreds of miles away?....

We still daren’t move, we were not going very fast but still going. It seemed we went miles. Then all of a sudden... stop.

Shall we get out and run for it? But where are we? Oh no we’re moving again.

By now we were desperately trying to be brave and holding each other's hands...

we’re going backwards.

There was a crash and a bang and then quiet. We were still moving though quietly for a few minutes, then another crash into the other wagons but we stopped.

It’s time to go I don’t care where we are.

So being slightly older than the others I decided we should make our way out. We jumped out and stopped to get our bearings. The moon had come out a bit and it was easier to see. When all four of us were out we found we were back where we had started. We’d just been shunted onto another line with more crashed planes in wagons.

Instead of taking off we decided to do or die. The next wagon had a plane with a broken cockpit,

some perspex each!

Mission accomplished we thought we’d better move off, we were full of the joys of spring.

Hope the others had the same success.

We all managed to get in home without being missed, it was all right for Mick and Jim their Mam was deaf half their battle was won!

Next morning we all got together talking about last night's goings on. All the others had been chased off before finding any goodies. So as proud as punch we showed off some of what we had got. Next plan was getting the place sorted out and where everything was. Though we weren’t going blind again [without light] so we took it in turns each day after school getting into the wagons containing the planes so we could all get a chance at the spoils of war.

Now all this was great we made many planned raids on the railway wagon, collecting all the perspex we could, but what good was a load of perspex up to 1/2 an inch thick? There were no outlets for it, some how the war was still going on all around us and this was our biggest worry. Then lo and behold a prisoner of war camp not far away from us became our outlet. Most of the prisoners were employed on farms - digging drains, or making roads etc. Who’s going to talk to them? Not me. I wasn’t scared of them, I just wasn’t giving them a chance to get me.

Now Norman was coming to the front - mouth wise, he could talk to lamp post for ages. So he volunteered with a little push from us. We all watched from a safe distance, in case they grabbed him then we could fetch the police. Well as only he could, he came back saying there would be no money but they wanted the perspex and would swap for things instead. Norman was on trial. Off he went, then he came back with all sorts of wooden things they’d [the prisoners] made. A monkey climbing a ladder, four chickens on what looked like a table tennis bat with a weight on a string hanging through and underneath, so that when you swung the weight the chickens pecked the bat.

God what do we want all this girly stuff for, haven’t they got any guns or bombs or stuff like that?

So we sold them to the local toy shop and said we had made them - weren’t we clever, and so we were in business.

The perspex came back to us to sell on the prisoners behalf, no money again just fags. [Cigarettes] They made beautiful rings and bangle, necklaces etc out of it.

Where do we get rid of this lot?

Well there was nothing like it in the shops so all the girls at school were falling over backwards for them. CASH only we weren’t into anything else in those days, girls were yuck! Well for every packet of fags for THEM there was a packet between us kids and needless to say only the rough fags were on the shelves in the shops : Abetulla, Phasser, Nosegay... most I think were made from camel dung but still it was a smoke when nothing else was around.

This went on for a long time, a great trading from our point of view. Then the prisoners were getting money from somewhere else. Who ever was trading with them was trying to cut us kids out. Well we found out one school lunchtime that we had a traitor in our camp, we were all together except for one person missing. There was nothing to do but keep an eye on the prisoners from afar. They were having lunch in the canvas nissen huts and HE appeared near the huts and all of a sudden he came running out screaming with prisoners chasing him with a spade trying to hit him. But as always when being chased he can outrun anything or anybody - NORMAN. He had been trading on his own and finished up robbing the prisoners by telling them everything was four times dearer than it actually was. This had gone on for a couple of weeks but they found him out, so he came back into the fold.

The war was moving on and for the time being we were giving the prisoners a wide berth. Local places were getting bombed, part of the town was bombed one night, why we didn’t know. But a few nights later they came back to try to bomb the power station (only 3 miles from us), but they missed, a good job too, as the hospital was only two hundred yards away. Still they came back in the daylight - we were all sitting around a fire in the field near the bottom of the garden. Norman had pinched a mat off the clothes line that Mam had been beating ready to take back in home. We were all sitting on it when the sirens went off for an air raid. We did nothing, who would want to bomb kids in a field? Everybody was talking about what to do if a bomber came over during the raid - just about all of us said we weren’t afraid and would stay where we were, no sooner said than they were over us really close with a British spitfire chasing them. When I say low I mean low, if anybody had stayed near the fire (where earlier they had said they would) you could see the pilot in the cockpit, a two engined Junker fighter bomber. Well some bright spark thought we must put the fire out or they would see us and drop their bombs. Mam’s mat was thrown on the fire to put it out; it was all over in seconds. So back we came, not getting far away. Mam’s mat on the fire with a great big burn hole in it. I think I know who did it because he said to put it back on the line and blame the Germans for shooting holes in it (about a two-foot hole!) So back on the clothesline it went. Guess what........... we got the blame but not for what actually happened. Mam said it must have been a spark from our fire - little did she know how true it was!

The bombers dropped their bombs making a run from the fighter, most of them went straight down the Leicester RaceCourse. Well we were just about there before the bombs landed! They went about on and a half to two feet into the soft ground.

What a trophy, a German bomb would be worth a few bob.

So my shadow and me started digging around one bomb and Mick and Jim on another. It didn’t take us long before we were the proud owners of a 7lb incendiary bomb - the type that starts fires.

We took it in turns carrying them home, all we said on the way was

Don’t drop it on any hard ground because it might go off.

They were still live, they hadn’t gone off at all. Creeping around the back of the house we got caught by Mam wanting to know what we were upto? On finding a small 7lb bomb stuffed up our shirts she got all carried away.

Oh dear what’s wrong?

She was screaming her head off, we were told to put the bombs in a bucket of water (later we were told this was the worse thing we could have done with them being phosphorous). It wasn’t long before the street was taken over by police, army, vans, trucks... Everybody was called out of their houses and had to wait at the top of the street, while THEY took the bombs away, and nobody gave or paid us anything for them! Never mind we had bigger ones to come later.

After this we became very popular, everybody wanted to talk to us - though we never did tell them that we had actually dug the bombs up. Even at school the next morning the headmaster told the school what brave boys we were, that we had found the bombs and put them in a bucket of water and then told the police. (What do they say about tongue in cheek?) Still it was nice to be top dog for a while.

Most of the country was going through a patch of “Dig for Victory” posters on walls and bill boards everywhere. Kids of our age couldn’t understand how you could beat the Germans digging for victory. We thought, maybe if you dig holes then the Germans would fall in them. Anyway we would do our bit. All the fields at the back of the houses had been ploughed up with spuds, cabbages, and carrots growing. So we all went with spades and digging for victory we finished up with trenches all over the fields about 3 foot deep. We then found out that if we covered them with old roofing iron it made a good trap. But instead, in one we ended up digging a small fireplace and making a great den. Three or four of us in each hole and of course with plenty of spuds growing up around each den, we’d put spuds on sticks and hold them in a fire until they were black them break them open and eat them. The only problem was the fire. It smoked a lot because of lack of air - we used to block up the entrance. We all finished up with black faces white eyes and tears streaming down our faces. What a great night out in a den, but we lost interest in it because we always got into trouble going home with black faces.

It wasn’t long before the farmers were ploughing up the potatoes and pickers were there in force. It wasn’t long before the first tractor fell in a deep hole in the field either. The tractor was pulled out by another tractor with all the pickers help. Well it must have happened half a dozen times- we were watching from a good safe distance up a tree. We thought the holes had worked great BUT they were meant for the Germans not the farmers.

Dig for Victory meant plant vegetables in your garden instead of flowers. Well we had tried, but we wished they would explain things properly, it happened a lot of times, just couldn’t understand what all the posters were going on about. Like- mind what you say somebody might be listening - now ain’t that daft, people should listen when you talk. Coughs and sneezing spreads diseases catch them in your handkerchief -

then what do you do with it? Anyway we don’t have handkies, we only have jumper or shirt sleeves!

Buy a Plane for your town.... or help buy a ship.....

we’d love to buy a plane but they wouldn’t let us have it.

The only way we got anything was to nick one but where could we keep a plane?

The war was still going strong in all the news at the flicks [cinema]. There was still 100% war effort. One day people in the street came around home to see Mam. They were talking about Dad (who was by this time hard to remember) our mind were racing away, we had seen this happen to other families, their Dad killed in action (or brothers or uncles) or missing. What it turned out to be though, was the newsreel on the pictures [cinema] the night before had my Dad in them at the evacuation of Dunkirk from France. So Mam went to see the manager at the Wigston picture house, the result was we went to a private showing of the newsreel. All the soldiers were in the sea wading out to try to get to the waiting boats. It was a scene I would never forget, although at the time I didn’t really understand any of it. Dad was saved with thousands of other soldiers, and we were top of the street gang because of Dad being on at the pictures.

All over the country camps were being built - (by this time the yanks had joined the war 1941). The Yankee camp was on the race course army camp, down next to the railway (which now had armed guards) and the council building had been taken over by female army ATS. Best of all was the aerodrome just out of Oadby where bombers took off every night. Of course we were getting around the countryside covering large areas, and into everything. Anywhere there was guns, bombs, or food, we found it. How we won the war God knows, we were like junior commandos, no one could stop us, underground, over fences, once we even tried to make a glider to get over one high fence. We made canoes from sheets of roofing iron; we folded them down the middle then we nailed a piece of wood at either end, nailed a piece of wood across the middle for a seat and then melted pitch from the road to seal the ends. They were a bit “airy” so you had to sit still and keep the balance or else upside you went. We found if we blocked up the main storm water drains we could create a flood around the army barracks, so we could use the canoes to get into the barracks without having to get by the armed guard at the gates. We did most of this in the semi-dark because during the war years we had “double British summer time”, clocks were altered by two hours in an effort to save power. [So it was still quite light late at night]. Once inside the barracks we hid the canoes and ran around looking in windows, climbing on roofs. What we found was a storage place for the army engineers as well as the mess hall and the kitchens

(to be raided as soon as possible!)

We watched the soldiers sitting ready to eat their meals, there was nobody in the kitchen. In we went, about half a dozen of us, two left at look out. There wasn’t much we could lay our hands on, it was mostly uncooked stuff, but Norman opened one of the big ovens -

Boy what a big bread pudding, ready to eat.

It was hot and seemed to be in a three foot square cooking pan, though it was probably only 18 inches square, we grabbed it and took off. Imagine it, six kids running with a big pudding all frightened they would miss out on their share. We had to take turns in carrying it because it was so hot. Quick into the canoes and away. We could hear a lot of shouting in the background, but we were on the water and away ... ready for a feast in our den so far away!

We decided to call at the ATS - the girls army place at the old council offices. We already knew our way around, it was still daylight and we were only doing a recky [look around] finding out what’s what in their kitchen, dinning room etc. The ATS women spoke to us and told us nicely that we shouldn’t be there.

Sorry we seem to be lost.

(Haha). It was posh compared to the men’s barracks; they had flowers on the dinning room tables, there were nice curtains at the windows, all the tables were set out (not like the men’s where they had mess tins etc). Well our plan was set for later that night, it would still be semi-dark at eight or nine o’clock. When we returned there was a lot of action in the dinning room, food was being put on tables and being summer time the windows were open with the curtains drawn for blackout. We climbed through the windows and stood on the large old Victorian window sill behind the curtains. We were still too high up to reach the tables - so we made a “make shift” fishing rod ( a cane with a hook in it). By the time we had done that the tables had more food on them than we had ever seen. Once the room was empty we started hooking up the food, mainly cakes etc , as fast as we could, passing the catch to the lads below outside. The ATS women started to come into the dinning room so we took off for a good feast outside with the rest of the lads.

Not being satisfied(!), we went back but gave the dinning room a miss and headed for the kitchen. There was nobody there so in we went.

No food about, but the shelves that go all the way upto the ceiling are full of biscuit tins, the lower ones are empty and we can’t reach the higher ones.

Anyway the clown of the gang grabbed a chair, one of those fold up types and up he went, found some full tins and passed them down. After two tins part full the door opened and in walked the an ATS Sergeant - the kitchen was full of kids - needless to say we took off. The clown up on the shelves jumped down and landed on the chair, which folded up around his waist. We were running up the street with two tins of biscuits and Alka [the clown of the gang] following with the chair still wrapped around him. Well we couldn’t go back there again, when we tried all the doors and windows were locked shut.

The only time we went back there was a bit later in the piece, when we climbed on the roof area to try and watch the women getting changed and dressed up to go out. At this stage we had an extra one in the gang, - John, the baby of our family who HAD to come with us. Well this time we were caught and surrounded on this flat roof. How and where the escape plan came from I don’t know, but around the building was a path with a six foot wall - which we had used to climb up onto the roof - we threw John from the roof over the wall into somebody’s garden, and then all ran and jumped from the roof over the wall down into the same garden. In the garden there was this woman standing by the clothes line when eight or so kids ran past her to the street, picking John up along the way and all she could do was stand and wonder what the hell was going on.

Time moved on and we had just about come to the end of local places to raid, so we decided we would have to get some type of transport, bikes, trolleys or something. So the only place we could think of was the local tip. Now why we couldn’t understand, but nine times out of ten when we went to the tip we were chased off by policemen. It was only rubbish! So the only way we could get in was through the back, up the railway lines, across the fields and over the fence - which is what we did. We found plenty of old bikes complete with tyres but the inner tubes were shot. We managed to make 3 or 4 bikes out of the wrecks, some had big wheels on the back some had two small wheels and so on. We tried bike shops for inner tubes, but only managed to get 2 or 3 second hand ones. The rest of us stuffed the tyres with grass clippings and tied the tyres with tape or string etc. Which was okay until the string wore out and the stuffing came out! We also made a couple of trolleys which we towed behind the bikes, we made them out of pram wheels. These were okay until you were going downhill and the trolleys wanted to pass the bikes. We ended up a heap in the middle of the road. We tried letting the trolleys go downhill by themselves, but forgot they had no brakes, so whoever drove them down the hill ended up in the drains at the side of the road, or if they were lucky under the hedge! I stuck to my bike. Our next problem was lights for them, we came up with a couple of old carbine lights but we had to BUY carbine from the cycle shop, which turned out to be cheap and easy - and also lead to a great story later on!

All set up, one night we took off for the Yankee base some 3 miles away. Nobody had any idea what to expect. Once again we found armed guards at the gates. We did a bit of a recky around the place and found what seemed to be about a 20 foot fence with barbed wire on the top. There was a brook [a small stream ] running round the fence, only a foot or so deep. From the camp came a 2 foot concrete pipe (it was large to us) for storm water to run into the brook. If it came out of the camp then we could get in through the pipe. So it was a case of "who dares" go into the pipe to see where it ended. I was one of the four to go up the pipe, John and two or three others stayed behind until we found where the pipe went. We all stuck close together making sure we could touch each other, just in case you were afraid. After a while the light from the end of the pipe was beginning to look like a pinhole and we were getting a bit worried,

had we better go back and try somewhere else?

We decided to go a bit further, it was getting pitch black in there. We came up to what we thought was a man hole some 4 to 6 foot up. All four of us managed to get in the “up” pipe, which had metal rungs on the side of it. At the top was a man hole lid - which we had to lift off - God - me being first (I was pushed there) I had the job of getting the lid up and off. It seemed very heavy but all of a sudden up it went. It was actually quite light but the muck around the rim was holding it down. I had a quick look around and then up and out, all four of us. We put the lid back in place in case anybody saw it off. The place was piled high with covers over everything. This was great as we were able to hide underneath the covers and not be seen. We found heavy boxes which we couldn’t open, but we did a good recky so we could come back later with some tools to do the job with. We went back 2 or 3 times but couldn’t get into the pipe because of the rain which meant the pipe was half full of water. After what seemed like years it was nearly empty so armed with jemmys hammers etc. Up the pipe and all the way back to where we’d been last time. Semi-dark was the best time to do it, quiet as we could be we managed to get the boxes opened, they were full of bullets, cannon shells of all sorts and sizes - that’s why the place had armed guards. We filled our pockets stuffed our jumpers inside our trousers so that we could put more inside the jumpers. Right, out from under the covers across to the manhole - only to find it was a hell of a job getting down the pipe with our waists being twice their normal sizes. But we managed it. Back into the street at home,

What are we going to do with all this ammo?

We took some to school to see how it sold. It worked out we could get a ha’penny per bullet, but the market was soon flooded and sales stopped. Every kid at school was running around with live ammo in their pockets!

At the weekend we were at the tree den across the field from home

- what are we going to do with the rest of the ammo?

Well it turned out we nailed bullets on top of the fence with staples and used a hammer and nails to fire them, just like a gun’s firing pin. God know where they went but it was great, it took us most of the weekend to fire all of the ammo off. We tried to make fire works by emptying gun powder out and packing it into all sorts of things but it only went off with a big flash. We did well considering - no accidents - except for our mate Alka, the clown, by the time we found him he was only 19 shillings and 11 pence in the quid [sterling pound]. When it was his turn to fire off his bullets he was okay for a bit then one didn’t go off first try so he tried again, this time making sure the nail was on the firing cap of the bullet. He hit it with the hammer, the bullet fired, and the hammer shot back (as it always did) but he had his head right behind the hammer, which hit him and gave him a lovely black eye.

Some of the dads and brothers were coming home on leave bringing home some momentos. The first ones we liked were the bullet cases made into fag [cigarette] lighters, they looked great, AND we could get all the bullet cases we wanted. BUT who could make them for us? Well a chap living in the street was a bit of a spiv [a con man into everything] he had been in the army but we thought he had been kicked out. He could lay his hands on anything and everything, so we told him we could get bullet cases for him and he agreed to buy from us. Needless to say he had more cases than he could deal with so the market dried up again. One day he (Bill Riley the spiv) said if we came across any lead scrap he would buy it off us. Well we looked around a bit here and there and Norman came up with some saying he found it on the tip. Well we searched the tip and found none, but he still kept coming up with this lead and getting paid for it. We were helping Bill make toy lead soldiers, animals etc in his house. We melted the lead on his gas stove pouring it into moulds, trimming them off, painting them and then packing them into boxes while he was out selling them around the town. There were none available from anywhere else because of being war time. Then he had to stop work for a while because the council were after somebody who had been ripping off all the lead waste pipes to the drains from every house in the street. There was water going everywhere but down the drains, it was only then that we realised where Norman was getting all the lead from.

We just about covered the area trying to discover where the lead was. At a row of old cottages a couple of streets away we came across an old pump in the garden well. This had served the cottages before town water was available to them. It turned out to be 3 inch lead pipe from the pump to the well some 15 foot or so. It took a lot of getting out but it paid for a feed of chips and a night at the flicks and a Saturday morning matinee for all us kids. We all thought old Bill was great - but now we know he robbed us blind.

Bill was also in the black market for clothing coupons. If you had the money you still needed coupons to buy shoes etc. Bill would come up with the coupons for a few bob each set. He was into fags; he was growing tobacco plants in his house they were everywhere. He had drying lines strung from wall to wall upstairs, he never slept upstairs he said it was warmer down stairs. Anyway we all got to try some of his fag tobacco, we ended up walking around with grey-green faces for days.

Food was hard to come by in the early days of the war. Rations kept you alive but that was it. So it was poaching for us on Sundays, that was the best day. Mam came up with a bottle of orange made from black market orange juice (it was for pregnant women), a couple of slices of bread with dripping on it or jam if you were lucky then off we went, the great hunters. We could cover upto 10 or 20 miles, all over the country searching for rabbits, duck eggs or any country chicken sheds we could raid. Rabbits became the main targets, we put down snares on our way out and checked them later on our way back home. We’d sometimes get one or two. We had been told by older people what to do with them, hold them by the back legs, if it’s still alive, and whack it at the back of the neck to kill it, we got quite good at it after a few times. Then we’d use our home made knife, it was made out of a hacksaw blade that had been ground on the edge of the concrete step, with a handle made out of a piece of wood. While it was still being held by the back legs you cut the belly open from the between back legs up to the chest, then you’d turn it over so that the guts fell out. You’d do it there and then so that it was lighter to carry it the few miles home.

We got chased every other week by police and farmers but we never got caught, apart for one Sunday. We were at what was once an old quarry, but was now full of water with reeds growing all around it where plenty of water hens nested. We were collecting eggs, after we had tested a few seeing if they contained little chicks or blood. We were doing well because these birds were like ducks and had about 15 eggs per nest. Well we got caught, red handed as the saying goes. A big red faced farmer and a couple of his men stood over us and gave us a choice

The police or you can take a swim!

If you said no police he threw you in the water, if you said yes he boxed your ears and kicked you up the backside. When it came to my turn I had made up my mind that if I got chucked in the water and got wet Mam would give me a hiding when I got home - so, I got one round the earhole and a kick up the backside and was told not to come back again. Off we went .... only to hide to see what they would do. They took all the eggs and put them under the hedge and off they went to work, probably hoping to pick up the eggs on their way home. As soon as they were out of sight we were under the hedge took the eggs and off.

If we took home a couple of rabbits we never seemed to get both of them to eat, but later we found Mam was trading them for sugar, margarine or jam etc. There was a lot of people in the black market game. You weren’t allowed to have a pig without it being registered, so that when you killed it half went to the Ministry of Food. The same with chickens you were only allowed to keep so many eggs the rest went to the Ministry. We had a chap on an old motorbike with a sidecar shaped like a coffin, inside were two bins where he collected any food scraps at night and in returned you were promised a bit of meat when he killed the pig- he kept it on an allotment garden in a shed out the back. I think we finished up with a few bits of bacon, which WE didn’t get to eat, though we had bread dipped in the fat - it was lovely.

We never went without a ration of meat even though it was very small, a small tin of corned beef for four to last a week. Every Wednesday I would have to walk five or so miles into town to queue (for heart, kidneys, black pudding etc) at about six o’clock in the morning and wait for Mam to arrive and take my place in the offal queue. She’d arrive at about eight, stick a couple of sandwiches in my hand (breakfast) and send me off to school. If I was lucky it would be bread and marge with jam (though the marge in those days was like axle grease), though most of the time it was lard dripping - still if you were hungry you ate anything - well nearly!

When winter arrived with only hot water from the fire we needed fuel. Coal was rationed about a bag a week for each household. (About 1 cwt. - a hundred weight). We had to cook using this fuel as well. So off I was sent at six o’clock in the morning on Fridays to the gas works coke sale. I would take the big old pram and once in the queue I’d climb in the pram and cover myself with the sacks for the coke and have a bit of a nod until about nine o’clock, when the office opened up. You’d pay your two bob get a ticket and go down to get the coke then it was weighed in the sack and off home all two miles of it with a pram full of coke - great a day off school.

Another job I usually got was going to the old abattoir where they killed stock - I got a message to get up there , there was some meat for sale, I had time to grab some money and off I went. Most of the time I would get there only to find out it was another horse, and not fit for human consumption. But you still bought what you wanted and they painted it with green type of dye, then you paid for it and was told where the tap was out back. Legally they had to put dye on meat not fit for human consumption but we washed it off soon as possible outside - I can’t complain it was great to eat after Mam made stew or pie out of it.

Don’t go thinking that I was the only one doing all this running around. All the oldest kids in each family had these types of jobs to do. We were all together still as part gang. While doing a lot of this queuing you found out where things were and what shops had what - apart from food sweets etc fags were a prize to get hold of. They were always wanted, Woodbines, Players, and Park Drives being top of the list. Costs were on average about ten pence ha’penny per ten, If you were shopping around for them for somebody and managed to get paid, the rate was one fag for every ten you got. We tried all the gutter mixtures, we swept up at the pictures, bought fag paper and a fag rolling machine. Then we undid all the dog ends (cigarette butts) we had swept up, put the tobacco in a tin - and found out the hard way that this mixture was too dry - later we learned to put a few potato leaves in the tin for bit of moisture, that way it didn’t drop to bits being too dry. Some bright spark once reckoned you had to put salt peter into the mixture, well we were game to try anything which we did. Believe me, we all sat round in a group turning out our first 1/2 dozen fags with the salt in them. We all lit them and it was like smoking a fire work cracking and going on, but still very sweet to smoke.

Long Street School Wigston- photo taken on a visit back to the UK as an adult.

None of us liked school at this time, because of the war all the young teachers had been called up and we finished up with every teacher out of retirement, all over the age of 65, some 70. God what a bunch of old crocks! The headmaster was Mr A R Kind and my teacher Mr A Wild, he carried on like his name, another teacher Mr. Strikland - which he was!

I made one of the greatest mistakes of my life not knowing at the time, we all sat the eleven plus exam, or what ever it was called in them days, - you didn’t seem to get the results like you do nowadays. We finished up with a letter each to take home to our parents, which we opened before they got to see them, everybody’s was the same except mine. It said did they want me to go to this other school down South Wigston, Tech grammar school - so I ripped up the letter, I wanted to stay with my friends they were not shipping me off by myself. Well things got a bit airy at school, I fell out with the woodwork teacher and got a bonk on the head with piece of wood. My own teacher seemed to be on my back most of the time.

One day after a maths lesson old Archer Wild had marked our work and was going over the results. He made me stand up in class, which I hated - telling everybody how I had made stupid mistakes on two or three maths problems or I would have received a good 100%. He then questioned me in front of everybody, I found the answers hard to come by, so he hit me in the back with his fist and walked back to the black board to show everybody what I did wrong, bearing in mind I was one of the top in the class at maths, and of course by this time I was crying, I thought

bugger this

and picked up the wooden block holding the ink well and threw it at him. I missed, hit the wall in front of him, it bounced back and hit him on the forehead, the pot ink well smashed on the wall covering his face with ink. Oh dear the silly so and so turned round and asked who did that, and all the girls shouted

Morris did it -

I was ordered out of the classroom and told to wait for him. He went to the washroom. I took off before he came back

I’m not waiting to get a hiding from nobody!

Like a burke [idiot] I went home but Mam wanted to know why I was home so early. So I told her, knowing full well ‘the mouth’ [Norman] would tell her when he got home from school. Not much was said until the next morning, I had made up my mind not to go back to school ever again. Mam said you have to go today or tomorrow and face the music, so off I went. God, was I afraid, though not on the outside that anybody could see. When I got to school all the kids picked me up in the air and carried me around the playground on their shoulders. What a hero! The teacher came out to blow the whistle to call us into class, and who was it but Archer Wild, and he saw me being carried around. We all went into our classes. Archer Wild called out the names on the register, when it came to my name

Morris-Here (all quiet)- Go out into the hall and wait for me this time. Which I did, he came out of the class- Follow me straight to the headmasters office. And with that he left me there with Mr Robert Kind, what a name!

-Well Morris what’s the punishment to be? The police and be charged with assault, or six strikes of the cane with your trousers down in my office, or six in front of the school tomorrow morning. Your choice....

Well I wasn’t going to let him take my trousers down, and I daren’t get the police involved and get done for assault, so I had to face six of the best in front of the whole school in the morning. Time passed very slowly that evening, though the morning seemed to arrive so quickly! Everybody was telling me what to do - put onion on your hands - put hairs on your hands.... but first and foremost - Don’t cry in front of the whole school.

There were four or five hundred kids all in the hall with teachers standing around the perimeter. Prayers went off okay, so did the messages. Then it came to my turn and all went quiet.

Morris come out here,

up on the rostrum I felt so small against the big pig.

Pass me a cane.

There were half a dozen or so, I picked a thick one - I didn’t like the look of the thin ones. I got three whacks on each hand, boy did it hurt. I think some of the girls in the front row were crying for me. I was then told to go to the toilets and wash my hands. I was off, once in there I cried to myself

I’ll kill him as soon as I can.

The whole event made me King Pin of the school, even though there were kids bigger than me there.

It wasn’t long before we were playing pitch and toss in the playground for a ha’penny a go. We took it in turns to see if you could get your ha’penny close to a mark, then you’d toss up coins in the air, if you were the next in turn you called heads or tails and then collected what ever landed your way and so on. Well we all got caught red handed by my friend Archer Wild. He took the money off of all of us, wrote our names down ready for the assembly next morning. There were 75 names called out in turn for the cane - everybody was asking me what to do seeing as I was ‘king’! All I could think of was

hope you get called out last, then he might be knackered.

My name came about the middle, so I thought I might be okay. But they were onto us and changed the caning teacher every ten or so boys. So we all got whacked about the same and they kept our money. By this time my brother was getting me into trouble at school, he was running around telling everybody

my brother will get you if you touch me,

it turned out that I was involved in a fight every other day because of him. He was getting too brave for his boots, and for mine! A kid about my size and as rough as hell (even by my standards) took to Norman and gave him a hiding - which he probably deserved - but he’s my brother and without knowing this Ken Booth was delivering the challenge to me. So I had to make a time and a place - the old bowls park at lunch time. The school was alive everybody taking sides. What a day! Straight from school, across the road to the old bowls park. Well he wouldn’t say he was sorry to Norman, so that was it and the fight began. We fought just about everywhere in the park at one time all the chaps playing bowls came over to watch. We both finished in such a state, by this time everybody had gone back to school it was 1.30 pm, we’d started fighting just after 12.00 noon! Our shirts were ripped off our backs, our noses were bleeding, we had cut lips but no black eyes! We were knackered, we just looked at each other and laughed even though it did hurt all over. We called it a draw and we both went home instead of going back to school. Ken made a mistake the next day he didn’t go to school, but I did looking like I’d really been done over. So I was still ‘king’. Meanwhile I had told Norman

anymore fights - you can do it yourself!

School carried on, with the occasional caning every now and again. The greatest moment for me was when I won the school colours for playing football [soccer] and they had to be presented to me in front of the whole school by the headmaster, which I’m sure really stuck in his throat considering our past relationship! After that whacking he’d given me I was really laughing in his face. So that all went okay AND I was still ‘king’.

The worst war time event that affected us at school happened when we were all in the playground getting ready to be called back into class. A bomber flew over ahead. The weather was brewing a real thunder and lightening storm. The lightening struck the plane right above the play ground, next thing it burst into flames, it seemed right above us, then there was a loud explosion, we could feel the heat from the flames. The crew had started to jump out, but their parachutes were only partly open when the explosion hit them. There were parts of plane dropping all over the place, engine bits going into houses and the rest on the school gardens. While this was going on above us, we were making for the street, our exit was back through the school and then into the street. There was a teacher trying to block the way but he didn’t last long, when I saw him he was lying on the ground with every kid around galloping over him. Finally in the street we started to look for bits of the plane only to find bits of bodies, a hand and wrist still wearing a watch, there were bits and pieces all over the place. So we took off up the road, the shop windows had been blown out and there was fruit all over the pavement and on the road, so that became a free for all, we’d never had things so easy and laid on plate before!

School was closed for a couple of days after that while they cleared up the bodies hanging in the trees and roofs in the school gardens. Most of it was picked up and put in bags. It turned out the plane was from the local aerodrome and the crew of nine were Polish.

That renewed a curiosity in us and we decided to go up to the aerodrome to see if we could help! We left it until the weekend so that we would have plenty of time since it was 4 or 5 miles away. We met at 4.00 pm so that we could be at the aerodrome by early evening. We had seen guards before at other places , but here we thought we’d never get in. So our minds were made up - the only way in was under the fence - we looked for a place where the bushes were near the fence. We thought that if everybody used tunnels to get out of prison camps then why couldn’t we tunnel our way in. We agreed to start tunneling there and then and finish it off the next day. We got stuck in and found it easy going

at this rate we’ll be in tonight, we’re digging better than rats

No sooner said than we were in.

What next. We’ve got to have a look in the bombers, its’ a four engine Stirling with guns in the front, rear and at the top, boy do I want a go with them.

I think my shadow was going on about hiding in one and going up on an air raid to Germany.

It’s all talk, I would have to go with him to hold his hand and I’m not that daft! Unless that is they let me fly it myself!

This turned out to be a big flop, we managed to get near the hangars, and we could see the bombs being loaded onto the planes, but that was it, next thing we were all on the run. We had been spotted by the guards, so off we went and finished up hiding in the tunnel for what seemed like hours until the guards went away. What a disappointment and the journey home seemed like hundreds of miles. When we got there it was dark but we all sat in the street. So we tossed up to see who would have to go up the lamp post and get a light from the gas lamp. Somehow our friend Alka won. So up he went doing the monkey climb, opened the lamp door put his head in to get a light, gave a bit of a whimper, but came down with a fag alight. He’d burnt off his eyebrows and the front of his hair.

We lost Alka for a few days thought his must be growing his eyebrows back - we found him a few days later watching the Germans building roads in the fields behind our houses. He had been watching the driver of the small bulldozer. We pulled his leg about him being able to drive the bulldozer. He said he could. So we bet him a couple of fags he couldn’t do it. But he was game and said he could

When?

After they’ve gone for lunch

They had lunch in the canvas nissan huts. They all went in and vanished from sight. The bulldozer wasn’t far from the huts, so off he went and we all climbed in the trees to watch him. He was onto the bulldozer in seconds, he had it started and next thing he was off, we could tell he didn’t know how to steer it! Well it crashed into the end of the huts, it was only going slowly but it looked funny a dozer going in one end of the huts and Germans running out the other end carrying their lunch. By this time Alka had jumped off and was running like hell, so he lost his bet and only got one fag!

After this whole gangs moved in with large bulldozers that had scrapers at the rear, used for cutting out road ways all over the place. We found we could climb on the back of the dozer for a ride. The driver had no chance of knowing we were there once he moved off. Everything went okay for the first week, the driver would chase us off time and time again, then I think he got fed up and so he finished up with ten or so kids on the back! Then this one time after the driver had started up we jumped on but Bert somehow slipped and trapped his foot in the steel frame and the wheel just cut his toes off. He fell off screaming he couldn’t walk, he leaping 3 - 4 yards at a time. We got him home and by this time somebody in the street had a car. Mr Buckby - his Dad managed to get his shoe off and wrapped Bert’s foot in a towel, then they took off to hospital with poor old Bert. We went back to the building site, found the toe cap of Bert’s shoe. The toes were still inside it, so we ran back to Bert’s house and banged on the front door. His Mam came to the door so we offered her Bert’s toes. She chased us off with a brush (broom ) handle saying it was all our fault. We still had the toes, so we decided to have a funeral for them and we could tell Bert about it when he came back. (Everything turned out okay for Bert, he even got in the army later on.)

Back to the railway area - this time we found if we wired six inch nails to the track just before the main line train came, that after the train had run them over they were flat and made great knives. We’d attach some flash looking wooden handles to them and finished up with one each. We made a few extras and sold them at school. From this we got another idea, the shop up the street was run by an old lady with poor eyesight. What we did was take some old Victorian ha’pennies and put them on the railway track, like we did with the nails, only afterwards they were the size and appearance of pennies, doubling our stakes! We got away with it for ages until some silly so and so put new coins on the tracks which showed up their ha’penny markings much clearer, so we were found out and that all ended up with the town being full of large Victorian ha’pennies!

But that poor old lady in the shop hadn’t seen the last of us, she was a bit slow and her eyes not much better. We found that when it was dark we were able to get in the shop by standing on each others shoulder’s, we could slowly open the door and the person up above could grab the bell to stop it ringing, then we’d all be in fill up our pockets with any loose sweets handy and go out the way we’d come in. It was a bit risky in case anybody else came in while we were there so we didn’t do that for long. BUT we did find the back of the shop where all the returned bottles were stored. There was upto three pence return on some the bottles, so we’d collect enough bottles to get us into the flicks and take then back to other shops for the cash return. We always managed to get a bit of cash between us to carry on our adventures, other people were paying for our entertainment.

We found the swimming baths far too dear at sixpence a go, and besides that the water burnt your eyes. So we made our way to the ‘cut ‘ every chance we got. The ‘cut ‘was a canal cut out by man about a hundred years before. It was used a lot during the war because it was cheap transport. It was great for swimming - always warm - it was okay except for the occasional dead dog or cat that floated by.

Time was marching on, we had seen ‘Dads Army’ parading in the streets - The Home Guard- all old men marching around most of them with broom sticks for guns. I think guns would have been too heavy for most of them to carry, so we thought it was time for the Coro Gang to help out and be ready.

Now where could we get some guns?

Well no chance, so we decided to make our own. First models were a bit of a bang so it was back to the drawing board. One of the lads was good with woodwork so he got the job of making the handles which had to fit into 2lb Jam jars. Next was a job for the others, they had to collect National Dried Milk tins (baby food at the time) this was the ammo of the day. It was also my job to get the firepower from the cycle shop, carbine, this was used in the car lamps and cycle lamps. I had to tell a few lies - my dad wanted it for something or other - once all the ingredients were collected the guns were made ready for action - Saturday was trial day. We all had our winter warmers these were made from tins with nail holes punched in the bottom and 1/2 inch up the side. A piece of soft wire was fiited to either side of the tin to form a handle, the idea was each of you light a fire in your tin, and once it was alight you swung it around your head and it got going just like a furnace (also a good fag lighter) Into the bottom fields we’d go where we’d dug couple of slit trenches 20 yards apart. With four boys in each trench ( it took two to operate each gun), we’d place a small piece carbine on top of the jam jar, then somebody would spit on it and place the dry milk tin 1/2 way down into the jar (which made for a tight fit), the tin had one nail hole in the bottom which you put your finger over, you then counted to twenty, your mate with straw got light from the winter warmer at twenty you removed your finger from nail hole and the lighter straw placed on it with igniting the gas in the tin small bang and the tin flew off and landed in the other slit trench or hit somebody if you were lucky or a good shot. This was great game getting better every day, though a few of us were getting lumps, bumps on our heads but no real accidents, apart from our friend he was in the other trench (Alka). He was having trouble putting the lighter straw on the nail hole and his mate was growling at him, all the gas was escaping and the tin just going plop and dropping off the end of the gun - not to be out done just because he was slow operating the straw his mate Alka made sure he put the light on the nail hole - putting his head right in front of it. A nice big bang and he had the bottom of a tin imprinted on his face, even the embossed name. No blood but he screamed, jumped out of the trench and ran off home, didn’t see him till the next day - which was a big laugh all round, two black eyes and big round ring on his face. We were going well but we weren’t much good against the Germans, you would have to more or less stick it in their earholes to get the best results! Well what next, a few more trials - hand grenades - these were made up of stolen pop bottles (must have flip flop or screw top) We decided to all get in one trench, no throwing at each other, this was for real, we must have fire power to kill. One trial at a time - few lumps of carbine were put into a bottle and then we’d pee into it,

not too much better hold the rest for later!

Then we’d throw the bottle as far as possible and wait for the bang - first few needed a few alterations

bit more carbine not too much pee

soon we had it ironed out, with correct amounts of each they exploded. BANG! It could be heard everywhere and glass was flying about our heads with us all in the trenches. The only problem we had was having some bottles that were thin and some thick, so the time to explosion changed. All this was going on over four weeks, we’d always start off with few shoots at each other with guns with flying tins and finish off with few hand grenades we were ready to fight. It was probably our last day as the carbine was running out, so we decided to finish it off. We shared out all the carbine left, and everybody hada turn, all went off okay! It was Alka’s turn, we saw him throw the bottle, we dived in the trench but some how it had looked different, we all waited for the bang. Nothing. Kept waiting not daring to move we were asking

-Did you put carbine in Alka?

-Yes, all of it!

-Did you pee in it Alka?

-You didn’t pee too much in it?

-No

-Well why hasn’t it gone off?

By this time we were all crouching down peeping over the top of the trench, it seemed like ages but we all started to stand up

-Where’s the bottle Alka?

-Out there somewhere.

He was a big lad and quite strong, so it could have gone quite a way, we didn’t want to go look for it, but Alka did, and he found it, we shouted out to him

Don’t touch it!!!

But we were too late he picked it up. It was then that we saw it was not a normal bottle but an OXO bottle, about 1/2 inch thick glass, much thicker than the other bottles. It went off in his hand, the movement had set it off. We hit the dirt. We heard a scream and looked back, Alka was still in the same place with the bottom of the bottle rammed into his hand, apart from that the rest had missed him. We managed to get the bottle bottom out of his hand (seemed like he didn’t want to let it go) and found an old shirt (rags I think) to wrap up his hand. We took him home, and told his Mam he fell on a bottle (phew) so all was well. Trials were complete so we were ready for war!

How could we get more armaments? Yaks (sling shots or catapults) were okay but had a limited range, so we doubled the rubber on the side that doubled the power, but only one or two of us were strong enough to operate them. Bows and arrows weren’t very good either - they were only good for close fighting. We had to find something better, so we threw away the bows and made the arrows twice as long. The flights were made of bird feathers. We’d cut a little nick around arrow just below the flights, place a piece of string with knot at the end in the nick, wrap the string around the arrow, then a length of the string was taken to the bottom of the arrow and wrapped around your hand. You would then throw it from far back as you could reach. The arrows finished up going about a hundred yards, it was great! We called them FLING ARROWS! With old razor blades fitted in the points just for effect, we tried getting rabbits with them but the rabbits ran off in all directions so we would have been lucky to hit any. However it was great chasing them all over the fields.

Still we thought we had to get more firepower. So one day when we were watching the Home Guard playing war games, throwing what turned out to be thunder flashes (like large fire works) we decided surely we could make them. So it was visit back to the Yankee camp. This time it all went very well but after going up the drain pipe to get into the camp we found just about everything changed. Still a lot of canvas covers about but all moved into different places. Under the first lot seemed to be large boxes which we hadn’t seen before, so we searched for the small boxes - none to be found. So it had to be the large boxes and did they take some opening. The noise was awful but we managed to open them WOW!

How are we going to carry them home?

They contained 75 mm shells about 2ft long, big brass cases. It would have to be one each for the eight of us, we couldn’t possibly carry more. So it was one each, down the drain pipe and out side. At home we agreed to hide them and then meet again at weekend to see what we could make out of. There was no chance of letting them off with a hammer and nail. It would probably blow your arm off.

We met at the old railway shed, the floor was covered with rubbish, old packing paper and straw. We were in a hurry to get down to business, so we opened up the first shell and found it was three parts full of stuff that looked like bits of lead out of a pencil. At the bottom there was some stuff that looked like cotton wool. So we gathered up our gear and got busy. First we rammed so much lead looking stuff down a card board tube with the cotton wool at each end. We decided that the best way to try the home made thunder flash was by using a piece of string rubbed with candle fat for fuse. We placed the tube and fuse on the ground and then standing well back we lit the fuse. We retreated quickly to the other end of shed it went off okay but instead of the big bang we expected bleedin’ great flames shot out of each end of the tube and the next thing was the whole shed was on fire, with the rest of the powder left in the middle of the floor we ran for it. After a big roar from rest of the powder, we stood outside to watch it burn, we’d never seen so many rats running out of a shed. We all finished up with sticks chasing and killing rats everywhere then we heard fire engines coming so off we went as far away as possible!

The next event turned out very sad and it brought home to us what it was meant to be killed or dead. We still had the so called bikes but we had improved on them over time and we had tyres and tubes on most of them with brakes. So when we wanted to go to the cut [canal] for a swim we’d tie a towel and cogey [swimming trunks] to the bike and with an old bag on your shoulder (containing orange drink and what ever bread you could lay your hands on) we’d head happily off. It was like this one Saturday morning, it was 11 o’clock about one mile from home and we were all going down a steep hill towards the “Spy’n’Cop”, doing a bit of follow the leader, there was a double decker bus behind us, but the first we knew of it was a squeal of brakes and the scream of one of our mates, Ronald Brookes, he was under the bus. It looked like to us that the front wheel had gone over him. He was removed and laid on the pavement right outside the ATS building, the women bought out blankets to cover him but he had turned a horrible grey colour. The ambulance came and took him away and we were told later that he died before getting to hospital. He was bought home on Monday, we lived two doors from him and were made to go and see him in his coffin. We also had to touch him, God, was he cold and he looked awful, like a little old man, and he was only eleven years old. We had never been so frightened. We, all his mates and most of the street went to his funeral. We walked in front of the hearse carrying a wreath to the church and then to the cemetery, we watched them put him in the grave, boy did it[the hole] look deep. This had a great affect on the whole street for weeks we just stayed around the street playing games but very subdued and quiet.

During this period of mourning for Ronald things didn’t seem right in the street a girl four doors up the street, Madeline, got knocked down by a car on a Saturday morning. Eric Swan got a broken leg when a swing collapsed with eight or ten of us on it. The swing was a rope tied high up in a tree which swung over a brook and each time it came back to the fence where we were standing then another person would jump on it. Must have been eight on the swing before the branch broke we all finished up in the brook with Eric at the bottom of the pile. Off to hospital for him, that was also a Saturday morning. Next was my shadow, he was on his bike and was over taken by a truck and trailer and the trailer hit him knocked him off his bike and by the time I found out he was home in bed so I didn’t know what to expect. I walked in the bedroom - Mam had told me to leave him be- from the bedroom entrance I could only see the right hand side of his face he looked okay then he turned his head his left side was bruised and scratched with teeth missing, he looked so funny like he had two faces and I couldn’t help but laugh. It wasn’t long before he got his own back on me - we were playing in the local park which also had air raid shelters, can’t remember what game we were playing but it amounted to chasing each other. I was running over the top of an air raid shelter which was set in the ground covered with soil and grass and some silly so and so left the escape hatch off the top of the shelter. I fell down the hole hitting the iron ladder a few times before landing on the concrete floor, where people came from I don’t know but the ambulance man picked me up by my arms thinking I had broken my leg until I screamed - I had broken my arm. So Norman had a laugh at my expense, another visit to the hospital. Nearly all these accidents were happening on Saturday mornings it got so that nobody wanted to go out on Saturday mornings.

It was about this time that the girls in the street started to play games with us one of the games that we played was called Johnny Mop, why I don’t know - the game was played by two teams the first team leaned on the fence all bending down behind each other holding each other around the waist. The other team had to jump on the backs from the last person bending down and get as far forward as possible till you were all on the bending down teams backs. If the jumping team all got on without falling to the ground or touching the ground they won, also if the team bending didn’t collapse then it was the other teams turn. This was when we found out girls were a bit different to us boys after jumping on their backs or holding them around their waists we had discovered that they felt different, smelt different and so decided to change the game so that no holding was involved.

In this period of time most of our lives were centred around the co-op society shops. We (our family) had a co-op number ours was 5789 - they counted up how much you spent with them over six month period and paid out a dividend which could amount to a few pounds. As most of our clothing, shoes, meat, bakery goods, milk, coal and insurance was with them it seemed like saving up. Well the coalman, the baker, the milkman and even the greengrocer delivered by a horse and cart belonging to the co-op. Most of the farm land - fields - around us was owned by the co-op. We’d jump on the back of the carts in the street every chance we got until the delivery man chased us off. All these draught horses were 3/4 breed shires very quiet and docile especially after the horses had done their work for the day, they were given a feed and turned out in the bottom field next to the co-op dairy. After seeing Bronco riding at the flicks we thought it was time to try our luck - only for the brave.

I’ll do it if you will but you go first

and all that rubbish. So we all decided Alka’s dad had been in the horse army in 1918 or there abouts so he should know better than all of us, he would have to go first (logical eh?). We finished up giving the horses any apple cores we came by illegally. So we got the horses to the fence so Alka could get on the back of one. Once he was on two or three others joined him by this time the horse was wondering what was going on he had never been ridden before he had only pulled a cart. Off he went charging around the field till one by one they fell off. Great fun was had by nearly all of us. The coalman’s horse was the only one we couldn’t get on but he still wanted to be fed apple cores. He came close to the fence one day and before he knew it Derrick Stevens was on his back, there was no chance of anyone else getting on, off he went galloping around the field. Derrick was hanging on to his mane and did two or three laps of the field which was the most anyone had stayed aboard on any of the horses. He liked to be the winner all of the time. The horse finished by dropping him and then turning on him and it picked him up it his teeth by the shoulder shook him like a dog does a rat and threw him to one side. We all ran to him and by this time he was crying but okay it wasn’t until a couple of days later after he had been to the doctor that he showed us his shoulder. He was black and blue front and back. So we decided no more feed for that horse and no more than two people on the other horses.

Things were getting a bit tough not much money to go round so we had to try to beat people with tricks like going to the flicks we found out that if half of us paid to get in then went to the toilet. We’d then pass our tickets out the toilet window so the others could get in, so we only needed half the money and spent the rest on goodies that didn’t last long though before they found us out and locked the window shut. But we did manage to get in through the exit door (fire) it had large heavy curtains over it so by arrangement those inside had to get behind the curtain and open the door for the others to get in - didn’t l?

(To be continued when my grandchildren are a bit older !)

Unfortunately this will never be updated by my dad as he died 2nd July 2002, his death has left a huge hole in our lives ........ we are the richer for having known him and so blessed to have him as a father but that makes it oh so hard to have him leave us so suddenly. He made all us kids feel safe he was so fearless and always ready to protect us, he made us laugh and he taught us heaps- and he made us believe he was invincible. To the last he was a strong able bodied man, never afraid of hard work- as long as there was a cuppa with 2 sugars at the end of it! He was gentle and persistant when needed and all dogs and horses would do exactly what he wanted!

I love my dad so much .................. I miss him.

Me and my dad.