How Britain Kept Calm and Carried On

by Anton Rippon

  By the time I had brewed some tea during a lull in the bombing, the ARP arrived to ask how many refugees I had and if I could cope. I could, and bedded everyone down in the corridor with blankets and pillows.

  Just as we were dozing off, there were loud screams from the lavatory on the corridor and the sound of fists pounding on the door. The poor girl in the nightdress had gone in there and the door, being the only one left on its hinges, was out of true. The lock had jammed and refused to yield to pressure. Eventually the ARP had to return with a pickaxe to free her – not an easy task without injuring her.

  Twenty-two years later, I met this girl again in Brighton. She’d grown into a poised and elegant young matron and invited me to her charming home where we laughed about the caricature element in that horrific night of long ago.

  Mrs C. Tennant, London

  Although I worked as an electrical and magnetic instrument maker, in the evenings I played in a band. At the height of the Blitz, we were playing at a function in Altrincham, in a large hall that doubled up as the local ARP headquarters.

  On this particular evening, there was a big raid and many of the dancers left, either to go on ARP duty or just to get home to their loved ones.

  Suddenly there was a huge explosion, the building rocked around the clock, and the doors on all the emergency exits were blown open. I was ready to run off stage when I saw the pianist still tinkling away, so I stayed too, even though there was now nobody dancing.

  Eventually the all-clear sounded and we had time to take stock. The first thing I noticed was a large switchboard for the lighting and telephone. Someone had pinned a notice to it: ‘If the alarm bell goes once, raiders approaching; if the alarm bell goes twice, raiders in the vicinity; if the alarm bell goes three times – the bloody building has been hit.’

  Anyway, by now the pianist had joined me. I said: ‘That was a brave thing to do, carrying on like that.’

  ‘Carrying on?’ he said. ‘I couldn’t stand up for fright.’

  Frank Budgeon, Manchester

  We’d just had a bad raid and in the morning the street was littered with rubble and broken glass. A group of workmen arrived to clear up the mess. Suddenly one of them grabbed a sweeping brush, danced a little jig, and shouted out: ‘’itler’s blinkin’ ’ousemaid, that’s all I am.’ It made us all laugh and, for a moment, forget what had happened to us.

  H. R. Harvey, Southampton

  We lived in a three-storey house in Keyham, close to HM Dockyard. One night there was a particularly bad raid and all of us except my elderly grandmother – she was in her eighties – were huddled under the staircase. Grandma sat defiantly in her chair against the passageway in a sort of alcove.

  We all sat there, listening to the awful sound of the heavy bombs, breaking glass, and incendiaries coming down like falling rain. Grandma seemed oblivious to all this, but kept complaining: ‘There’s an awful draught round my back and legs.’

  Getting no answer, she shouted to her long-suffering son: ‘Sid! Go and see if the front door’s closed.’

  Uncle Sid emerged from under the stairs and went dutifully along the passageway. He was gone an awfully long time and Grandma kept saying: ‘Where’s he got to?’

  Eventually, he reappeared. She said: ‘Well, was it open?’

  Uncle Sid said: ‘Yes, it was open all right. And if I could have found it, I’d have closed the bloody thing for you.’

  Actually, although our house hadn’t suffered a direct hit, when the raid was over we found that it was so badly damaged it was uninhabitable.

  Iris Brokenshire, Liskeard

  I remember a story from the Lincolnshire Standard at the time: A Post Office engineer was ordered one night to go to an anti-aircraft battery site because their telephone was reported out of order. It was raining and a severe blackout was in force. In addition, the sentries on that particular site had a reputation for being trigger-happy. The engineer tried to announce his approach by calling loudly at intervals: ‘Telephones! Telephones!’ Suddenly, almost at his elbow, a voice said: ‘Trying to sell ’em, mate?’

  R. M. Gale, Littlehampton

  My mother was having tea with an old friend when the sirens sounded. Bombs started dropping close by and my mother and her friend, who was a very corpulent lady, both dived simultaneously under the dining table. My mother’s stout friend couldn’t get her entire frame beneath the table and was left with her posterior jutting out.

  My mother laughed and said: ‘That’s a fine target for Hitler!’

  Anonymous

  I was in Forest Gate Maternity Home in 1940. I had to stay there nearly three months, as I’d been very ill through kidney trouble while I was expecting my first baby. I had an uncanny knack of hearing the bombs coming down before anyone else, so I used to tell everybody to duck under the bedclothes. Well, I eventually had my baby boy on 9 October at 11.30 a.m. About an hour and a half later, at dinner time, there was a raid with no warning sirens. The nurse was just going to get my baby for me to feed him, when I heard a bomb falling and shouted at everyone to duck. I did so myself and, thank God I did, for when it was all over I emerged from under my bedclothes and I couldn’t believe it. My bed was covered in glass. Even the window frame was on the bed. I stuck my head through it and said: ‘I think I’ve been framed!’

  Mrs W. M. Shaw, Ilford

  My mother and father were huddled in the shelter during a raid one night. The old lady next door had joined them and she was complaining about the cold. So my father said that he’d brave the bombers and go and make some cocoa. About fifteen minutes later he returned with this big jug of lovely steaming-hot cocoa. The old lady was salivating at the prospect of it, so much so that her false teeth fell out and the bottom set went straight into the jug. Everyone just looked at each other. Then my father fished them out with a spoon. It’s safe to say that the old lady had the jug to herself. And every time she shared the shelter after that, they kept a close eye on her dentures.

  Ted Harrison, Derby

  In 1943 I was in my late teens. Because of the damp in the Anderson shelter, my father, mother and I decided to stay indoors. My parents slept under the dining-room table, me in a recess away from the French windows, on feather overlays, plus top covers. At that time, Jerry, if he still had bombs left after a raid, dropped them anywhere. Well, one dropped nearby and the soot came down the chimney and covered me. My father got the vacuum cleaner out to clean it off me, still holding his long johns with one hand and cleaning me with the other. He was six feet tall. It was the funniest sight I’d ever seen! He didn’t think it at all funny, though.

  Jesse Aitkens, Broadstairs

  I was about ten years old and living in Grimsby when we suffered a particularly bad air raid. Our family – Mum, Dad, myself and two small sisters – made our way to our garden shelter. Our neighbours were doing the same. We settled ourselves down and realized we were in for a bad night with planes overhead, bombs dropping and anti-aircraft guns going off. Suddenly my dad said: ‘Heads down and pray like mad!’ Then, we all heard it getting closer and closer – a loud whistling sound. A bomb dropping!

  I remember thinking that I didn’t want to die, but Dad said: ‘That bomb’s taking a helluva long time dropping!’ and shot off down the garden along with several other terrified and confused neighbours. Well, we waited and waited. When he returned a few minutes later he said, angrily: ‘That blasted Mrs So and So!’ It seemed she’d put on the kettle to make a cup of tea and the whistling sound had been her kettle! She never dared to use her kettle during night raids again.

  Joan Campbell, Grimsby

  We had several bombs drop where I lived. One night we were in our air-raid shelter when my brother came in the doorway. Just then, one of the bombs seemed to drop very close to us. My brother, very keyed up, said: ‘That’s blown my bloody hair all over the place!’ The funny thing was – he was bald!

  MRS E. A. HOOSON, SWINTON, MANCHESTER

  My story takes place on 6 Septe
mber 1940, when I was living in Liverpool. It was the day before I was to be married and I was thirty-eight years old. The air-raid alert sounded at 8 p.m. My brother, my youngest sister – who was in bad health with TB – and myself all got under the stairs. My mother insisted on going to bed. Her philosophy was that, if your name was on a bomb, you’d get it anyway, and she wasn’t prepared to lose sleep over it. Well, sorry to say, that night we got a direct hit on the front of the house. Luckily, it was only a 250-pound bomb. But my dear mother was trapped in bed with the roof on top of her. We screamed for help from the ARP wardens and, finally, they got her out alive. She was very shocked and had a bad cut on her forehead. Well, the funny part of it was when the ARP warden said to her: ‘I can still hear your chimney clock chiming!’ she replied: ‘I only paid thirty shillings for it off a Jewish jeweller. He must have been an honest man!’ With the neighbours’ help we cleaned her up and, after a cup of tea, things didn’t seem so bad. Sadly, I lost four sisters and two little nieces in the Christmas Blitz that followed.

  Phyllis Essex, Malvern

  After every air raid – and they came every day – all the services had been badly damaged. This particular day there was just one small pipe left, with a little water dribbling through it. People came with buckets, bowls and saucepans to get water. Us nurses invented a guessing game as to whether it would be a bucket, a bowl or a saucepan. It helped to get us through the day.

  L. Davis, Tipton, Staffordshire

  Like many hundreds of others past military age, I joined the Auxilliary Fire Service just before the outbreak of war. I did my training at the Bethel Street fire station in Norwich and at a brewery around the corner. Eventually Norwich acquired a fire float. One Sunday morning, after I joined the crew of about eight men, we did a practice run to Colman’s Mustard Works and, after a good drill, the officer in charge, who was my brother-in-law, gave the order to go ashore for a break and a smoke. The ground was a bit marshy where we were to step off the float and, grabbing my rubber boots with one hand, I slipped on mud and fell into the river, much to the amusement of my comrades and the workers at Colman’s.

  On another occasion at Colman’s, following enemy action, we arrived as the front wall of the building collapsed straight down, sinking the barges that were full of grain. Colman’s had its own small works fire brigade and they worked alongside us. After a very hard shift, I arrived home to discover that, not only was I covered in spots of black soot from the engine, but that I had my rubber boots on the wrong feet.

  D. Bushell, Norwich

  In April 1941, the Luftwaffe again picked on Norwich as their target for bombing with high explosives and incendiary bombs. Huge fires were started at Carrow Works, which was the home of Colman’s Mustard. I was then a section leader in the Auxiliary Fire Service, stationed at Lawrence Scott’s Gothic Works. We were called to attack the fire at Colman’s from across the river. After about three hours – around two o’clock in the morning – we wanted to get in closer to the fire. This meant crossing the river and taking the hose over. To do this, a boat was needed. Looking along the riverbank, I saw, reflected in the water, a rowing boat. It was just what we wanted. I said I would get in, so the crew could hand the required equipment to me. The riverbank at that spot was about five feet down to the water. So I jumped down. But, instead of landing in the boat, I went straight through the bottom into six feet of water and oily mud. I didn’t know until then that the boat had no bottom. With just my head out of the water, it took four men to pull me out on the end of the rope. They had to put me nearer to the fire to dry out before I could carry on.

  A. G. C. Tompkins, Norwich

  One Friday night during the Blitz on Norwich, there was a fire at a timber yard just opposite our boat station. The crew were fully engaged using two forward water nozzles and two after nozzles, plus some hand hoses, when a market trader, known as ‘Alf the Handbag King’ from Bethnal Green – he came to Norwich every Friday and stayed near our station ready for business on Saturday – offered his services as he couldn’t understand why two burly firemen were required to manage only one hose. Of course, he didn’t realize the strength required to hold a hose steady. He was duly kitted out and instructed how to stand his ground. Full pressure wasn’t put through at once, but when it was, he was down on his back and drenched with water. We never saw him again.

  D. Bushell, Norwich

  It was a very stormy evening. The rain was really lashing down when the sirens went. My boyfriend and I rushed to the air-raid shelter, which was under a church. Women and children were wailing, screaming and crying – when we reached the steps leading down, there was a little Jewish air-raid warden with his torch showing the way down. His tin helmet settled on his ears and, with his long mac, he cut quite a comical figure. As people passed by, he kept repeating, over and over, in a heavy Eastern European accent and something of a lisp: ‘Thix theps down and mind you don’t trip!’ As each of us walked down those six steps, we repeated his little ‘catchphrase’ and within five minutes everyone, frightened children included, were laughing and joking. He was only a little man ‘doing his bit’ but he cheered us up no end.

  Mrs C. G. Atkins, Bourne, Buckinghamshire

  I was living temporarily in Streatham Hill, SW2, and was helping the local voluntary services. During one air raid, a block of flats close to Streatham Hill Station received a heavy blast. I was helping an ambulance man assist a lady who was pregnant. Five small children surrounded her. All were, thankfully, unhurt, but since the windows etc. were gone, and all utilities like gas and electricity were affected, we were taking them to temporary shelter. It was 1 a.m., so they were all in their nightclothes. The mother was a very cheerful cockney type. I was endeavouring to fit a small boy of about six years old into some trousers, handed to me by his slightly older sister. The boy was shrieking and not cooperating. ‘I don’t want to put my trousers on!’ Amid all the chaos, and with the AFS and the ARP all around, his heavily pregnant mother looked at her five children and said: ‘You see! He’s just like his dad. My husband has always got his trousers off!’ I thought that it was commendable that a woman with so many little ones to take care of, not to mention another on the way, could still joke about her predicament.

  Mrs A. Olins, Finchley

  I was in London throughout the Blitz. My mother and I would sit by the fire reading until about half past ten and then we went to bed. We had no air-raid shelter. The house rocked sometimes as many bombs dropped very near – but we’d no wish to be out in the cold garden. In 1944, when the V1s were coming over, I was getting into bed when one just cleared our house and burst about sixty yards away. All the windows came in on top of me, but by a miracle, I wasn’t badly cut.

  Earlier in the war, during the Battle of Britain, near us there was a big field in a built-up area, although it had never been used for anything. I was told that it was a burial place for hundreds of plague victims. One Sunday morning we had a daylight raid and I saw, for the only time, German aircrew bail out. I knew some bombs had fallen nearby and when the all-clear sounded, I went out and walked to this field and a bomb had dropped on it. An elderly woman came along with an armful of bones. I said: ‘Whatever have you got there?’ And she said: ‘Bones – we’re supposed to keep them for salvage, aren’t we?’

  Stanley Norman, Brighton

  Although I was born and raised in South Yorkshire, I spent the Second World War in Eastbourne where I was partly responsible for checking damaged property. At one of the few houses still occupied in a supposedly evacuated, leafy street, there lived three very typical ‘Old Lace and Frilly Ladies’. The area, which was close to the town hall, had been repeatedly bombed, but it never seemed to worry these three. One afternoon I was making a hurried check after a daylight raid, and I knew some nearby houses should really have been knocked down. As I got to the doorway of the house occupied by the three ladies, I found them busily brushing up plaster, dust and garden soil that had blown into the front hallway. They
were not happy and told me that had they not had to keep the front door open – which was the practice to avoid worse damage from the force of any blasts – then the mess with the garden soil would have been avoided.

  On the outer fringes of Eastbourne there was an electricity station. Opposite stood a row of council houses that were, for the most part, uninhabited. Following raids it was usually my job to check those that were still lived in. At one house, belonging to a real ‘Cor Blimey’ type whose husband was serving in the army, I got no reply although the house appeared to be intact. Just to be sure, I went around the back to the garden, where I found her pointing at a hole and a heap of wood and broken glass. When she saw me she shouted out, as if it was my fault: ‘Look what that so-and-so Hitler has done to my old man’s greenhouse!’

  L. G. Lee, Croydon

  I had a small guesthouse in Clacton, about one hundred yards from the seafront. There were two NAAFI girls staying with me, as they worked in the Towers Hotel that was their headquarters. Naturally, most of the properties were taken over by the military, which organized dances etc. at their mess. One of the girls had been invited to one of the army dos and on that particular evening enemy action put out the lights in the NAAFI and shook the building considerably. This girl was worried about having a wash on the premises as time was cut fine for her date. The water had been turned off, but she groped her way to the kitchen sink and ‘felt’ some water in the bowl. She hurriedly washed her face and put some powder on. She was adept at the latter as she often did this in the dark of the cinema. As she’d a greasy skin, she liked her make-up. The air raid didn’t last long and the lights were soon back on in the mess. As she entered everyone stared at her. She looked such a sight. She didn’t realize that the bowl contained soot that had been blown down the chimney during the raid. Our glamour girl is teased to this day by those who’ve passed the story on, especially since there were some really dishy officers there that evening.