Blitz Boy

by Alf Townsend

  I reckon we struggled for half a mile carrying that huge lump of lard on two planks back to the hotel. It looked like we were going to get a right telling-off at first, because it was getting dark and we were well late for our grub. But, as soon as the big matron saw the lard, she went all moony-eyed and ga-ga. She grabbed hold of me and gave me a big squeeze into her ample bosom that smelled strongly of carbolic. ‘Who’me be a clever boy then?’ she chortled. ‘Best be off to the kitchen and get out them big pots to boil it up,’ she said, still hugging me furiously. The next day, every family in the hotel had a rare treat, a huge bowl of delicious dripping and I was flavour of the month for many days!

  A party for the Vacs. (London Metropolitan Archives)

  The modern, well-fed kids of today who lack for nothing, may find the significance of that story very difficult to comprehend. But us kids in the war had no fats whatsoever, be it butter, margarine or lard. Our staple diet consisted mainly of bread, potatoes and an assortment of vegetables, very rarely accompanied by a tiny piece of meat thrown into the pot in an effort to add some flavour and make it a casserole. What we need to remember is that Britain imported most of her food during the war and Hitler’s U-Boats were sinking many of our ships. And if our boffins hadn’t come up with the brilliant sonar detection device, we may well have all starved! With the benefit of hindsight, our total lack of fats and sugar as kids could well have proved a blessing in disguise. The latest scientific research indicates that adult health is almost certainly linked to what we eat as kids. Now, some researchers are saying that many of the children who grew up in the austere war years are among the healthiest adults and should enjoy longevity. It’s a funny old world isn’t it, childhood deprivation of food equals very healthy OAPs!

  One of my favourite pastimes during my stay at Pentire was to go down to the Gannel when the tide was out, armed with my bamboo cane with a meat skewer tied to the end, and wade through the fast flowing stream, trying to spear flatfish, just like the Indians did in the films. My endeavours hardly ever brought any success. The only thing I can remember spearing was one of my feet! But, it was a wonderful way to enjoy a warm summer’s day in the peace and quiet of the country. Other times I would wander off completely on my own to the far end of Pentire Head. Then I’d clamber down the rocks dangerously close to the huge waves breaking on the headland. I’d select a huge boulder that was farthest out to sea and just sit on it for hours, paddling my feet in the water and staring out at the ocean. I’d think of my Mum and my Dad and my brother and two sisters. And I’d think of London and the Blitz and sleeping down the Tube and the damp Anderson shelter. Then, I’d worry about whether my Nan and my aunties and uncles were still alive, or if any of my mates had been killed by the bombs. In fact, I would go over my young life in detail, trying very hard to rid my mind of the dreaded ‘red monster’ and of the terrible months I had suffered at the hands of the Witch. I suppose, looking back, you could say it was very helpful therapy of the mind. And I still do it when I’m playing my beloved golf to help to relax me.

  The scary thing I often think about now was that not a living soul knew where I had gone. If I had slipped and got washed out to sea nobody would have known my fate. But it’s only when you are mature that you start to worry. Young kids, especially young lads like me, never had any reason to feel fearful about climbing over slippery rocks on a stormy headland, simply because we could never perceive any dangers in our folly!

  The sun always seemed to shine while I was living in the Pentire Hotel. I roamed the beaches and the golf links like a free spirit. So, apart from the distinct possibility of getting drowned or breaking my neck climbing cliffs, I was quite contented doing my thing.

  It was every young boy’s dream come true – I woke up one sunny morning, opened the curtains of my bedroom window that overlooked the L-shaped lane around the hotel and got the shock of my young life. There in front of me, and as far away as the eye could see, were lines of massive tanks, great big guns on wheels, trucks and jeeps and a whole army of soldiers in uniform, all wearing strange helmets. I flew down the stairs and crashed into the bosom of matron. ‘Hold back there, young Alfie,’ she said, putting a firm restraining hand on my shoulder. ‘What be the big hurry?’ ‘I’ve just looked out of my bedroom window, Matron.’ I gasped, ‘and I fink the bloomin’ Jerries have landed.’ She let out a loud chuckle and ruffling my hair with her hand, she said: ‘You’me got a real vivid imagination, young Alfie. Them b’ain’t be Germans, them be Yanks and they be on our side in this terrible war.’ I’d never heard of Yanks and I had no inkling where they came from, but I couldn’t wait to go outside and greet them. From that very day, I’ve always reckoned the Americans to be the kindest and friendliest people I’d ever met. Can you possibly imagine the scene on that day? There was me, a scruffy young cockney, wandering among these huge soldiers who were all talking with a funny accent and puffing away on cigarettes and cigars. There were lots of officers around, all looking resplendent in their tailored uniforms. One of the officers must have been the boss-man because he had big, gold-leaf clusters on his shoulders and was surrounded by other officers who kept saluting him. Suddenly, he saw me and said in a loud and imposing voice: ‘Looks like one of the locals have come to greet us guys.’ The other officers standing next to him all turned around to look at me and started laughing – rather too heartily. You know the sort of laugh you have to make when your teacher cracks a joke that’s not funny! ‘Don’t you call me a local mate,’ I replied angrily, ‘I come from London and I didn’t ask to come ’ere.’ ‘Hey, hold your horses tiger,’ said the bloke with the gold-leaf clusters, whacking his shiny stick against the side of his leg. ‘We came over to fight the Krauts, not to mess with you London guys.’ He sauntered off, closely followed by his entourage of junior officers who were all sniggering and looking back at me like a bunch of school kids.

  I suppose my biggest initial surprise was to see all the black soldiers. As I stated earlier, back in London it was very rare to see one black man, let alone a whole company or more! Even at my tender age, I was growing up brainwashed by my bigoted Dad into believing that black people were different, or even inferior to us whites. Sadly, that bigotry was passed from generation to generation. That also showed among some of the young GIs as I got to know them. I loved the guys from the Deep South with their Southern drawl. They were so friendly and polite and always addressed me as ‘Suh’. But as soon as a black GI walked past, they would shout out cruel things like: ‘Where you going boy, you best go and pick that cotton’. Then they’d all sit around laughing and joking. Most of the black GIs just bent their heads and moved on without replying. But, I learned much later many of them joined the Military Police or SPs as the Yanks called them. With their prominent white helmets they were nicknamed ‘Snowdrops’ and were feared by the GIs. Anytime there was a brawl in a pub or a club involving American troops, the ‘Snowies’ would appear and start wading in with their batons. I suppose this could have been an outlet for their bitter resentment of being considered second-class citizens in their own country.

  Meeting these black soldiers had quite a profound effect on me in later life and by the time I had become politically aware at the end of the 1950s, I followed the Civil Rights Movement with great interest and sympathy. Their imposing leader, Martin Luther King, was a truly great orator and his passionate speeches used to send shivers down my spine. On a personal level I thought, why should my hero, the great singer and world star Nat King Cole, have to stay in a ‘coloureds only’ hotel when he toured the American South? And why didn’t the black people of America ever have equal civil rights to their white neighbours? Their sons, brothers and husbands were willing to fight and give up their lives for their country in both world wars. Surely that made them Americans to the core and equal citizens?

  Nearly all the Yanks were very friendly. They missed their own kids and took a shine to me, this chirpy little cockney sparrow. Within a couple of days, the regular sentry
patrols had a nickname for me, ‘The Little Limey’. It wasn’t until many years later that I discovered the derivation of the word ‘Limey’. Way back in the days of the sailing ships and probably during the American War of Independence, many, many sailors met painful deaths due to scurvy. Then somebody discovered that eating lemons cured the terrible disease by providing vital Vitamin C. Not so the Brits. Whether by design or for reasons of economy, we decided to give our sailors limes. Hence the Yanks’ slightly derogatory term for the Brits, passed down through the generations!

  I was a born scrounger and a cadger. If you didn’t have the chat, then sometimes you didn’t eat. My scrounging skills resulted in building up a nice little supply of chocolate bars plus dozens of sticks of chewing gum. I can’t profess to be the very first person to have coined that well-known wartime saying to the Yanks – ‘Got any gum chum?’ – but it was certainly in my repertoire long before it was made famous by the comedians!

  When I eventually went back to school after God knows how long, my supply of goodies became a valuable swapping commodity among my classmates. Bars of chocolate, Hershey Bars, I think they were called, never to be seen in sweetshops during the war, were like bars of gold. You could literally ask for the shirt off someone’s back in exchange. The local adults were getting quite friendly towards me as well, simply because I also had a supply of Lucky Strikes, Camel and Chesterfield cigarettes. The Yanks used to give me packs because they wanted to hear me say. ‘My Mum’s dying for a fag.’ Then they’d all fall about laughing like mad. How was I to know that in American terminology, a ‘fag’ had a different connotation?

  The American troops were billeted in many of the big hotels in Newquay and we were forever hanging around the kitchens hoping to cadge or nick something. I can still remember the huge columns of wooden boxes stacked outside, with Coca Cola written on them. We used to take out one of the funny-shaped, empty Coca Cola bottles and hold them up to the sun so that light reflected through the thick glass like a prism. At other times we would peek into the communal shower rooms, specially constructed for the Yanks. What you have to remember is nobody but nobody, ever took a shower in the 1940s. This was a real revelation for us to see all those naked young bodies covered in soap suds, especially the black guys. We would creep up to their mess hall and watch the GIs queuing up for their grub or ‘chow’ as they called it. Again, for kids who existed on bread and jam, it was a revelation to see so much different food dished out. They had fried eggs and baked beans and huge steaks and, would you believe, even thick slices of pineapple on their steaks. At the time we envied the Yanks because they had so much more than us. In fact, we had nothing! But we couldn’t possibly comprehend that many of these lovely guys would never see their families or loved ones again in the terrible battles to come in Europe. We were simply jealous and very hungry kids!

  The tanks, guns, trucks, jeeps and soldiers seemed to be a permanent view from my bedroom window. I used to wander up and down the convoy, chatting to all the guys as they lay under the tanks and trucks, getting themselves oily and dirty. When the whistle blew for ‘chow’, out would come the dice and all down the convoy there would be groups of guys playing ‘craps’ for money – quite often, big money. These incidents came to my mind and made me grin many years later when I was doing my National Service in the RAF. It was strictly against Queen’s regulations to gamble and you could be put on a charge if you were caught, which of course I was. Yet the Yanks gambled all the time, often with senior NCOs and, in some cases, with officers joining in! I think the Queen’s regulations have got it just about right, because many of the American boys lost their whole paychecks.

  One day, I was talking to my friend ‘Sarge’ and trying to cadge some more candy off him. I honestly thought Sarge was his real name and ‘Corp’ was the real name of his buddy. What did I know about the different ranks in the army? Sarge was a real nice gentleman. He had told me he was a farmer from the Mid-West and that he had five kids. He must have been well over 6ft tall, with big shoulders and big hands. What absolutely fascinated me about him was that his chest hair always sticking out of the top of his green khaki tee-shirt. He had a tanned face with fine white teeth and when he spoke, it was like the sound of deep, rumbling thunder. His buddy, Corp, was totally the opposite. He was half Italian, small and wiry and his hometown was New York.

  ‘I’m sorry, Little Limey,’ drawled Sarge, ‘no more candy because we’ll be shipping out soon.’ This was an absolute disaster. The Yanks had helped me and my family and many of the other families to survive, thanks to their generous gifts of tins of food. I grabbed his hand and led him to the front of the convoy, just under my bedroom window. ‘See that lamp post, Sarge?’ I said, pointing to an old-fashioned street lamp with big glass window panes at the top. ‘Before you leave, can you please hide some candy bars in the long grass at the bottom. Please, please, Sarge,’ I said, clutching his hand very tightly.

  I stayed up late that night and slept like a log, I never heard a sound. The next morning I pulled open the bedroom curtains and all the Yanks and all the tanks and guns and trucks and jeeps had vanished, just like magic. This made me feel very sad because many of them had become my friends and they were lovely people. After breakfast, I walked outside to see if there were any of my mates still around in the lane, but they had all gone. The only signs they had ever been there were the tyre marks and the deep tracks made by the tanks. Suddenly I remembered the old lamp post and I put my hand down into the deep grass and found a package addressed to the ‘Little Limey’ from ‘The Guys’. I was touched and more than sixty years on, I’m still very touched by this marvellous generous gesture. These brave young men were getting ready to join the largest armada the world had ever seen, in an attempt to invade Nazi-controlled Europe. Many would be killed and maimed in the bloody battles to come. Yet they had found the time – the very night they were pulling out – to have a ‘candy collection’ for a young cockney cadger. Isn’t it any wonder that I have a deep and lasting affection for the American people? I can only hope and pray that my friends Sarge, Corp and all their buddies made it home safely again after the war. I was just a young kid of nine, so how did I know what these brave young men would have to face? I’ve often wondered in the ensuing years if any of my American buddies from Newquay were on Omaha or Utah Beach at the D-Day landings.

  Life wasn’t quite the same at Pentire after my American mates had departed. I still did the beachcombing and wandered down to the Gannel with my home-made spear. But I spent a great deal more of my time sitting alone on the rocks at the end of the headland and thinking what my American mates were doing. I honestly thought they had gone off for a training exercise and that they would return to Pentire at any moment. But they never came back to me and sadly, many of them never probably came back to their families and loved ones. I still like to think that their short friendship with the ‘Little Limey’ maybe helped them to think of home.

  Then, one day, out of the blue, our Mum said we were on the move again. I said my goodbyes to all my mates and matron once again smothered my head in her ample bosom saying, with a twinkle in her eye. ‘You’me be a good lad for your Mummy, Alfie, and if you’re a bugger, I’ll come over and smack your bum’. The Cornish are a funny people, they use ‘bugger’ for everything. Our final destination before the end of the war was the Cliff Close Hotel. It was situated at the other end of Newquay, just a stone’s throw from the station. It was actually the first building on the right, past what I can only call a ‘sunken lane’. I have since learned that this sunken lane used to be a tram-track before the war. So, we packed up all our bits and pieces, walked down to the main road and waited for the old bus. Yet again, we went past the golf course and down Crantock Hill and through the town. We all piled out at the bus-stop, just before the station, and eyed our new home from the outside. To me, it looked all right. It had probably been an average-priced sort of hotel before the war and had seen better days. It had a big, sloping terraced fr
ont garden and a huge back garden. We could have a good laugh here, I thought to myself, just as long as we are not sharing with any old miseries and a matron telling us what to do all the time. Luckily as it turned out, we had the whole place to ourselves!

  I staggered up the steep stone steps of the overgrown, terraced garden, still dragging my battered old suitcase. I can still picture the big old front door – it reminded me of a church with a stained-glass window! Mum put the huge key into the lock and with a loud creak and a groan, the door swung open. Us kids dashed inside to explore and raced up the imposing staircase, throwing open all the different doors on the top landing. There were great squeals of delight as we counted all the bedrooms and all the bathrooms. It looked as though we could each have a bedroom and a bathroom all to ourselves! Then we dashed downstairs and into the massive garden around the back of our new home. This is great, I thought to myself. I could have a dog and a cat and any other animal I wanted!