by John Wright
On Saturday mornings we would sometimes go to watch the village football team. The footballers used to change in the old Memorial Hall that reeked to high heaven of Elliman’s and Algipan embrocations (sometimes called Fiery Jack), dubbin (to soften the leather), sweaty feet and cigarette smoke. The tops of the players’ leather boots, tied round and round with long leather bootlaces, came above their ankles and had leather studs nailed on to the soles. When it rained the hundreds of round holes that they left all over the pitch filled up with water, as we watched from the doorway of one of the two breeze-block air-raid shelters at the end of the field. I never understood how the players managed to head and boot the large, heavy casie so far. When it was wet and muddy it became as heavy as lead, and whenever it came near us we could barely shift it.
There were sporadic bombing raids by enemy aircraft and we knew by the sound of the engines if they were German or British. On clear moonlit nights they seemed to follow the railway lines towards York, but no fatalities occurred and the local Home Guard got in some much-needed target practice. Working with the regular soldiers from Strensall Camp, they often had firing practice in the field across the road from our classroom, and we could hear the shouting of orders and the loud ‘pom-pom’ sounds of the Bofors light anti-aircraft gun. When the wailing air-raid siren woke us during the night we were not too dismayed, as it was usually a false alarm and it meant that we could go to school late the following morning. If the all-clear sounded after one o’clock in the morning we were allowed to start school at ten, and if it was after three we didn’t go until after dinner. Even in our little village the war was never far away and Harry said, ‘You should think yourselves lucky to be living here in safety and stop chuntering on about everything.’ It was all right for him; he was living in luxury while we were always hungry and getting belted for next to nothing.
V for Victory signs began to appear on walls and doors, in windows, on the buses, in newspapers and magazines – in fact, everywhere. The determined and pugnacious Winston Churchill, affectionately known to the people as Winnie, gave his famous palm-forward, two-fingered V sign whenever he appeared in public. It was all carefully designed to raise the morale of the people and to keep up their fighting bulldog spirit, and, because of him, the British never doubted that we would win in the end. The dark chilly nights started to draw in with more dull and rainy days and, if we were ‘good,’ we were allowed to stay up late to listen to the wireless on Thursday evening at 8.30 p.m. We had to promise to be quiet or else we would be sent ‘up the wooden hill to Bedfordshire’. The extremely popular fast-paced comedy show I.T.M.A. (It’s That Man Again) was on for half an hour on the Forces Programme, having switched from the Home Service early in the war. The title had originally referred to Hitler but people thought it meant Tommy Handley. We picked up all the catchphrases – everyone in Haxby seemed to love the larger-than-life characters and their sayings. One of the much-loved characters was Fusspot, which was what Mrs Harris called me.
Sam Costa (as Flying Officer Kite) had a huge handlebar moustache and the airmen in the village said that it wasn’t a proper moustache unless it could be seen from behind on the port and starboard sides. The character that sticks in my mind most was that mysterious and scary character called Funf, who was supposed to be a German spy. It was actually Jack Train speaking into an echoing empty tumbler and Mr Harris used to frighten us, if we were talking or making too much noise in the bedroom, by shouting up the stairs, ‘Watch out, Funf’s coming!’ Whenever we heard that and slow, heavy footsteps on the stairs, we scurried into bed and hid our heads under the covers, too scared to utter another word.
The call-up age for men had been lowered to eighteen and a half years, and at the other end of the age scale men up to fifty years of age were now eligible for military service. There was a drive for salvage, including jam jars, paper, scrap metal and the like, and the people were told that it was to be recycled and used to make military vehicles, weapons and aeroplanes. The vast quantity of weapons and vehicles lost at Dunkirk had to be replaced and even old rags were pulped and used to make paper. Collection points were set up and we got a farthing for a jam jar and a ha’penny for a bottle, but they were not easy to come by.
The news, delivered in the comforting, authoritative, cultured tones of Alvar Liddell and Robert Dougall, announced that the Wehrmacht troops (the regular German army), in spite of the Russians’ scorched earth policy, were at the gates of Moscow and thousands of Jews were being shot or sent to the camps as slave labourers. When the rains started the German vehicles got stuck in the mud and when the snows came they had to endure temperatures of –27°F (–15°C).Without winter clothing thousands of them froze to death. It was a war of attrition and the German offensive was grinding to a halt.
In North Africa the British and Commonwealth forces had been reinforced (including Uncle John) and the Western Desert Force was now known as the Eighth Army. Tobruk was relieved after a siege of thirty-three weeks and the top brass wrongly believed that they had won the war in North Africa and that one more push would give them Tripoli. In truth, it had been a close-run thing with confusion, lack of communication and outdated tactics.
On 7 December the US Pacific Fleet, laying at anchor in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, was devastated in a surprise attack by over 400 Japanese warplanes that flew in at speed, sinking many ships and killing 3,000 servicemen. The USA and the British Commonwealth responded by declaring war on Japan, and Germany and Italy declared war on the USA. It was now a worldwide conflict.
From mid-December onwards snow fell at Haxby and the ground was covered in an unbroken white sheet. We brushed the snow from our clothes, which were becoming threadbare, patched and shabby by this time, and watched as it scattered on the icy wind. No lights were to be seen twinkling in people’s front windows because of the blackout and after dark the village lay hushed and submerged in a deep stygian blackness that is hard to imagine these days. No light reflected upwards which made the stars appear exceptionally bright and far more numerous.
One night we had just got to sleep when a local air-raid warden, on seeing a chink of light at the bedroom window, knocked on Mrs Harris’s door. The brave man, in his steel helmet and dark blue boilersuit, told her in no uncertain terms to ‘Put that bloody light out!’ When she confronted him with a coat over her nightie and her hair tied up in rag curlers, she must have been a fearsome sight, with her doughy jowls wobbling as she told him what she thought of him. ‘Why don’t you go and join the army like a real man instead of harassing people,’ she shouted. ‘Don’t come here bothering law-abiding folk.’ She was not amused; in fact, she was fuming. ‘Doesn’t the man understand that it’s a damn nuisance having to go outside in the cold to check that no light is showing!’ We, and poor Mr Harris, suffered the brunt of her ire over the ensuing days.
As another Christmas approached we were kept busy at school drawing greetings cards and hanging decorations that we had made from strips of coloured card and paper. We enjoyed the school Nativity play, the carol singing and the school Christmas party, where we played games and made right pigs of ourselves.
Just before we broke up for the festive season we were gathered together, and a hush fell as Mr Fox entered the room as we felt constrained in his presence. The assembled children were told of great changes that were soon to take place and we were given a letter in a sealed envelope. As I hopped and skipped up Usher Lane the glittering, frozen snow that crackled under my feet sounded like cornflakes being trodden on. There was a spring in my step and by the time I reached ‘Lenmuir’ it was snowing heavily again, with the fat, swirling flakes bringing the promise of a white Christmas. It was my first at Haxby and, to my delight, that promise was kept.
The government tried to make things a little easier over the Christmas and New Year period by relaxing the strict rationing of certain foods. In December a ‘points’ system for foods that were scarce but not rationed was introduced to prevent food being bought up in huge
quantities by the well-off. A set number of points per month were allocated but it still had to be paid for.
Ever-smiling Mam, whose love was boundless and unconditional, came to see me on Christmas Eve, and she blushed like a peony when Mr Harris gave her a kiss under the mistletoe hung over the kitchen door. She must have left a present for me with Mrs Harris when I wasn’t looking. She was sorry to go but she had to be with George on Christmas Day. The next morning I ripped the brown wrapping paper from my present in great anticipation, not thinking about the difficulty Mam had probably experienced in getting it, and we had a nice Christmas dinner as Harold Mann had killed one of his chickens for us. As a special treat at teatime, Mr Harris roasted the chestnuts that he had collected earlier. Putting them on a shovel, we watched them jumping and splitting as he held it over the fire, and we thoroughly enjoyed their hot, sweet taste; but being far from home meant that Christmas was inevitably tinged with sadness.
Over the past year a fine new school, called the Joseph Rowntree Secondary Modern, had been built. All those over twelve, or who were to become twelve in the present school year, were to go there, and it meant that our Harry and thirty-five other children from Haxby and Wigginton would be amongst its first intake. Their departure meant there would be room for the older infants of the two villages, including me, to move up to the ‘big’ school.
11
‘An Hour-glass on the Run’
The new school was a mile and a half from the village centre south of the Hilbra railway crossing and it became known locally as the ‘Joe Row’ (pronounced Joe-Roe) school. The opening ceremony took place on 12 January which marked the start of the new spring term, as the holiday had been extended to save on fuel.
Harry was surprised at the size of the school and felt a bit lost in the long corridors that were lined with modern classrooms. They now had a different teacher for each subject, whereas at Haxby they had just the one teacher. The school had a well-stocked library, a separate assembly hall and a dining room. The emphasis was on practical skills and there were large rooms and laboratories for science subjects. The girls, who all wore black gymslips, had practical cookery classes using modern ovens and the older girls even cooked the joints for the school dinners. In those days it was accepted that a woman’s place was in the kitchen.
The pair of gentle spinsters had bought Harry a good second-hand three-speed bicycle with a Sturmey Archer hub gear that ticked over quietly when he freewheeled. It was his pride and joy and he oiled it and cleaned it till it gleamed. I would often see him with the bike nonchalantly propped up against his thighs, as he stood with a crowd of girls around him.
As the sharp frosts and snowy weather persisted, I was delighted at the prospect of starting life in the big school with the others. As we trooped along the snow-covered roads, the bushes and the gossamerlike spiders’ webs were white with hoarfrost. By the time we got there our fingers were blue and our noses were red but even in the classroom it was bitterly cold with ice on the inside of the windowpanes. Our fingers hurt as the blood gradually flowed back into them and it took a long time for the coke-fired boilers to feed hot water through the pipes to the green, cast-iron radiators. I was pleased to learn that I would still be in Miss Francis’s class; she was a teacher whose smiling demeanour and friendly tone of voice brought a touch of warmth and sunshine to those wintry days. Several teachers had stayed for only short spells and being with her for another year ensured some continuity.
The tall windows of the high-roofed Victorian classroom looked out onto the snow-covered playground and the crumbling bricks of the bike shed. The wooden sills, which were about four feet from the ground, had been designed to prevent schoolchildren, like me, from seeing out and thus being distracted. The small glass windowpanes were, of course, criss-crossed with the ubiquitous brown anti-blast tape and their upper parts were opened by means of the long white cords that hung down from them. We sat on the bench part of the old wooden desks that had been made shiny by generations of shuffling bottoms. The lids were covered with scratches, graffiti and ink blotches left by countless village children; many of them now parents and grandparents themselves.
There had been an influx of new children into our class as the formidable Miss Curry told us that Singapore had fallen to the Japanese on Christmas Day. Most of them had been attending the tiny school in Wigginton, but due to increasing numbers of evacuees, a few had been having their lessons in the minister’s vestry or in the old Wesleyan Methodist Chapel. One of them was John Wade, who was a month older than me, and he had been among the first evacuees sent here.
He was a cheerful lad with a round, red, moon-like face and he now sat next to me and we became good pals. I showed him how to do pencil sketches of Spitfires and soldiers in uniform, as drawing was one of the few things that I was good at – apart from chattering and laughing, which tended to land us in trouble. As we crouched over our ink-splotched, penknife-etched desks, John said, ‘I were billeted with a family in Wigginton when ah first came ’ere yer know. We walked t’ t’house from t’railway station when we came ’ere at start o’ t’war. The people ’ad t’choice of billeting RAF lads or us evacuees and Mr and Mrs Allinson kindly took me in. They were a ’appy and ’ard working family with two kids. That were eight-year-old Bernard, and baby Pauline, who were only about ten months old.’
I was green with envy when he had told me, ‘Bernard had a real Meccano set and an electric, model-train set an’ all. It ’ad two engines, carriages, goods wagons, stations, tunnels and tracks. One o’ t’ engines were a glossy green “Flying Scotsman” and it were all laid out on t’floor of his big bedroom.’ How lucky could you get? I thought. ‘Mr Allinson worked at gas works on t’outskirts of York an ’e pedalled to work every day on an old push-bike. When he were not at work, ’e spent a lot of’is spare time working in ’is garden. ’E were allus busy so I didn’t see him all that much.
‘Through a gate at t’bottom o’ their back garden, after passing t’outside toilet, was a big field that ’ad a pond an’ a small brick building in it,’ he continued. ‘Next door, in t’first house, were t’Fletchers and they ’ad a fair amount o’ land an’ all. Mr Fletcher were just a little fella. ’E were a butcher and a farmer and ’is parents ’ave lived and farmed there since before t’turn o’ t’century. They ’ad a butcher’s shop and a barn that were full of straw and hay bales. Me and t’lads from next door used ter make dens in it. They ’ad a cow byre where they milked t’cows by ’and an’ we played in t’fields for ’ours an ’ours.’
He was a right chatterbox and I couldn’t get a word in edgeways. He told me that the Fletchers’ two sons, who were young men at the time, worked on the farm. John said he enjoyed helping them out by putting the beet and turnips into the opening at the top of the shredder while one of them turned the handle. The Fletchers had two young evacuees from Middlesbrough. At a later date one of them was taken seriously ill and was taken into York County Hospital, but when his mother was informed she refused to come, stating that she ‘did not wish to know’. John told me that during the snowy days of early 1940, he and Bernard had built a real igloo in the corner of the yard and had sat snugly inside in the glow of a lighted candle.
John was moved another three times before he came to Haxby School and was now living with the Dixons at Holme Farm. This was a smallholding just west of the Co-op store and his sister and six other evacuees, one of whom was Dot Sirman’s brother Ray, were billeted there. He said that Mrs Dixon was very kind to him and he often helped Mr Dixon to ‘muck out t’osses’. John said, ‘Mrs Dixon treats me really well. A nicer person yer couldn’t wish ter meet. She works five days a week as a domestic servant and cleaner for Mr Butterfield. One of my regular chores is ter collect three copies o’ t’evening newspaper from Torville’s shop and tek ’em t’ t’Butterfields, Dixons and their friend Mrs Lee. Ah do odd jobs for Mrs Butterfield from time ter time, such as sorting out logs for t’fire.’
I was delighted when,
at the end of the month, Mam and Dad came to see me. Mam told me that she had replaced Dinner Lady who had given up her post as cook. Dad had managed to get a forty-eight hour leave pass and they wrapped Jimmy and me in newly knitted woollen scarves and balaclavas and, holding our woollen-mitted hands, they took us through the snow-covered village. They spoiled us rotten, buying us cakes, small toys, sweets and comics from the local shops. Dad was wearing his khaki gloves and had his thick army greatcoat on and I felt so proud to be his eldest son and to be seen out in the village with him. I was tender and very sensitive around the ribs and Dad, knowing this, tickled me mercilessly. He repeatedly threw me up into the air and caught me in his strong arms after Jimmy and I had bombarded him with snowballs. When he laughed his whole face lit up.
Dad was proud of his regiment, and its badge – a side view of a large-wheeled cannon – was tattooed on the bulging bicep of his right arm. I thought that Mam, although her cheeks were lightly rouged, looked rather tense and pale, but the strain of the war left many people feeling run-down and anxious and children are quick to pick up on these things. Whenever they came to see us – even when Mrs Harris knew in advance – they were never offered a meal and were unable to stay overnight. We had so much to say and the time fled, and all too soon it was time for them to leave, as they had to catch the bus back to York station. I turned away with my heart breaking after yet another touching farewell. My lip started to tremble and the tears rose unbidden and I tried to take my mind off them by taking my newly bought Beano comic up to our cold bedroom. I tried to immerse myself in the adventures of Big Eggo the ostrich, Pansy Potter the strong man’s daughter, Lord Snooty, Tommy the tin can boy, and Herman the German (the latter, of course, was a caricature of Goering), but it didn’t work! As someone once said, ‘happiness unalloyed is not for sentient beings’ and I could not get the thoughts of Mam and Dad out of my head. I huddled under the bedclothes with my knees up to my chin shaking and crying my eyes out. I felt so alone and homesick and the snow falling from the leaden sky reflected my feelings.