How Britain Kept Calm and Carried On

by Anton Rippon

  Anonymous

  One night, at my other grandmother’s house, as twelve of us gathered, the air-raid warning sounded. There was no time to run to the shelter before an uncle shouted: ‘Duck! There’s a bomb coming!’ I flew under my mother’s skirt, two aunties scrambled under the table, and the rest cleared the room in seconds. Only when we heard nothing but silence did we realize it was another false alarm.

  Brenda Shaw, Kingston upon Hull

  During the war I lived on a hillside above Hebden Bridge in Yorkshire. Up on the moors there was a searchlight squadron and I remember very late one night my mother and I were alone – my father was on fire-watching duty – when there was a knock at the door. Outside stood two soldiers, who were obviously very drunk. One of them had a black cat in his arms, which he tried to sell to us for ten bob. We told him we weren’t in need of a new cat, since the one in his arms was ours.

  J. Purdis, Essex

  Football matches in London were the worst. They were always being interrupted. I used to take my ukulele with me and when we came off, we’d have a sing-song in the dressing room until the all-clear sounded and we could resume the game. George Formby numbers were particularly popular.

  Jack Wheeler, Birmingham goalkeeper

  My mate’s father was an ARP warden. On his first night the sirens sounded and he was struggling to put on his kit. He finally managed to get everything on – uniform, gas mask, cape, steel helmet – except his new rubber boots – they were like wellingtons – that he’d left till last. He planted his feet in them and took one step forward, only to fall flat on his face. They were still tied together with string. He was rolling around on the floor, his wife was shouting to him that the Luftwaffe was coming, and he just looked at her and said: ‘Well, they’ll have to wait because I’m not ready yet.’

  George Bradshaw, London

  I was a gunner on a gun site on a bomber station in 1940 when bomber stations were being heavily attacked by German aircraft, and a football match had been arranged between the RAF personnel and the gunners who were operating the low-level-attack guns. There was this match, being played near my gun site. For that reason I was allowed to referee the game. In the middle of the game, we hear a low droning sound. It was a day of low clouds. We look up at the aircraft and it is a Ju88, a German light bomber. And so I raced to my gun, whipped on my steel helmet and respirator that we had to wear – you never knew when there was going to be a gas attack – and manned the guns in refereeing kit. We had to abandon the game.

  Ken Aston, international football referee

  At Friargate Station, Derby, ticking was heard coming from a parcel. With war imminent, and recent IRA bombings, this was no time to take a chance. The suspicious package was placed in a bucket of water and firemen called. It was relief all round when the ‘bomb’ was revealed to be no more than a small ornamental clock belonging to a passenger on her way to Staffordshire. Laughter all round . . .

  Bernard Buckler, Derby

  I remember one game between Charlton Athletic and Millwall at The Valley in 1940. There were only sixty seconds remaining when the air-raid warning siren sounded. The raid was a heavy one with shrapnel from nearby anti-aircraft guns falling on the stadium. The 1,500 spectators took cover and when the all-clear sounded, the game resumed and the final minute played out. Millwall won 4–2. Can you imagine, people just hanging around while an air raid was taking place, just so that they could see the final minute of a football match where the result was already beyond doubt? I think that shows just how much people took things in their stride.

  Frank Broome, Ottery St Mary

  During the Blitz one bomb scored a direct hit on a house a few doors away from ours in the East End. It was a right mess, and out of it a big bedstead was thrown right across the street and landed on its legs. And, would you believe it, there was a pair of trousers, neatly folded, still hanging over the rail.

  But I think the funniest thing I ever saw was in the West End. It would have been late in 1944, and I was in a long queue, waiting for a bus. Suddenly we heard a doodlebug. Then all went quiet and everyone chucked themselves on the floor. We had no idea where it was going to land. Fortunately, for us at least, it was some streets away. Everyone got back up and the queue reformed. Then I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned around to see a ‘city gent’.

  He said: ‘Excuse me, but I think I was in front of you.’

  I won’t tell you what I said to him.

  George Foster, London

  FOR KING AND COUNTRY

  It was something that my mother often used against my father. Even thirty years after VE Day, she would, when provoked, remind him of the day in September 1939 that he asked her to stand in a queue and find out how he could avoid military service. To be fair, her version of the event was tailored to suit her point. On the day war broke out, my father was a Linotype operator – a typesetter – employed by the Hull Daily Mail. As such, he was in a ‘reserved occupation’ and, like most other skilled tradesmen, would have found it difficult to be accepted into the armed forces even if he had wanted to join up. Which he clearly did not, but all he had asked her to do was to pop down to the Labour Exchange and collect the relevant forms.

  He was not alone. In 1939, and unlike in 1914, there was no patriotic surge to join the Colours. Memories of ‘the last unpleasantness’ were still raw. Conscription had ended in 1920, but in May 1939 the rapidly deteriorating international situation saw the introduction of the Military Training Act. Single men aged between twenty and twenty-two were liable to be called up as ‘militiamen’ to mark them as separate from the regular army. They were even issued with a civilian suit as well as a uniform, just to underline their status as part-time soldiers who would undergo six months’ basic training before being discharged into a reserve, from where they would be recalled for short training periods and an annual camp.

  But before the first intake had completed their initial six months, war was declared and they found themselves regular soldiers. The National Service (Armed Forces) Act had been passed and now all men between the ages of eighteen and forty-one (by 1942 the upper limit had been raised to fifty-one) were liable for military service, except if they were medically unfit, of course; or unless they were in one of those coveted reserved occupations like lighthouse keepers or newspaper Linotype operators.

  Many servicemen on the Home Front found themselves billeted with civilians. My parents took in men from the Royal Signals who were stationed at a nearby telephone exchange. One of them stood six feet eight inches tall, and was universally known as ‘Nelson’, after the column, I suppose. Another, a Russian, was some kind of electronics genius. He was also an accomplished musician who spent his off-duty hours playing classical music on the family piano, to the delight of my parents and his army colleagues alike. Until, that is, he made a dramatic exit. One hot summer’s afternoon, two military policemen hammered on the front door, looking for the Russian. Seconds later, he leapt out of the open front-room window and fled down the street, the Redcaps in pursuit. My parents never saw him again and never learned of his fate, although my mother soon discovered that, as he made his escape, the mysterious Russian had grabbed a row of pearls given to her by her cousin Fred who, before the war, had been a rubber planter in Malaya. He was now languishing in the notorious Changi prison after being captured by the Japanese while serving in the territorial Johore Volunteer Engineers.

  ‘Oh well,’ she said later, ‘I suppose the poor man was desperate.’ She hadn’t a clue as to what the Russian had done to attract the attention of the authorities, and she didn’t really care. She always had a soft spot for a rebel and the Russian’s role in bringing a little colour into an otherwise drab and difficult world was more than sufficient compensation. For years after the war we had his business card, printed in the Cyrillic alphabet. Sadly, through several house moves, I lost it long before becoming interested enough in his story to research it further. I still do have, however, a pre-war Russian bankno
te that he left behind. Perhaps it was some kind of payment for the pearls after all.

  From all accounts, the soldiers were welcome guests but, a few weeks after I was born, Nelson and his fellow signallers took leave of our house. Nelson kept in touch, returning to visit a few times after the war. I have the faintest recollection of this giant in khaki, so I assume he must have remained in the services. Before he left us, however, Nelson had one more duty to perform. A couple of weeks into January 1945, I was baptized at St Werburgh’s Church in Derby, a few yards from where the German POWs had been recaptured three weeks earlier. Nelson was there, acting as a proxy godfather for Uncle Jack, my father’s brother and a Desert Rat who had fought in the Royal Artillery with the Eighth Army at El Alamein. Uncle Jack was by now serving in Palestine; for some reason, the army wouldn’t let him come back just to be my godfather. The best he managed was a Christmas card from Bethlehem, which was nice.

  Even animals served, and in 1943, the People’s Dispensary for Sick Animals created the Allied Forces Mascot Club in order to recognize animals and birds that were serving the Allies during the war. A cat called Andrew became the club’s mascot. Andrew did not himself go to war, but as he was stationed in London he had to endure air raids on the capital, although it was reported that he kept calm and carried on sleeping through most of them. But he also seemed to know when a V1 rocket attack was due and when Andrew took cover, everyone else knew that it was time to do so. Weighing more than six kilos, he was a fawn-and-brown tabby with a spotless white front, tummy and ‘socks’. But, best of all, he boasted an inverted ‘V for victory’ on his nose. Winston Churchill no doubt approved.

  I was a photographer in the forces and my assistant and I had been working in an army vehicle depot. The officer in charge was telling us how a vehicle that would not start had them all baffled until somebody noticed that a small bit of dried mud had sealed the reserve fuel tank, covering the small hole in the fuel cap, thereby stopping the air from entering and allowing the fuel to be drawn through to the engine. Well, the following day we were assigned to an army scheme that was in progress on Bodmin Moor and, making our way across the moor in a very remote area, we came across an American army ambulance that was broken down. So we pulled up and asked what was wrong, and the driver and his mate said that when they switched over to the reserve fuel tank the engine showed no life at all.

  I tipped my assistant the wink and he strolled round the vehicle to check for mud on the fuel cap. We were in luck . . .

  My mate quietly knocked the mud from the cap and we both walked to the front of the ambulance. We told the driver and his mate that we had not long returned from filming in Africa and that, while there, we had picked up some witchcraft that might help him. We told them to stand by the ambulance and rest one hand on the bonnet while raising the other hand in the air. They were to repeat after us the special magic words that we would recite. We went down on one knee and began to recite a load of mumbo-jumbo that we made up as we went along. After a while, we stood up and confidently told them that the engine should now start. On the second push of the starter, low and behold, the engine sprang to life. You should have seen those Yanks’ faces! They gave us chocolate and some other gifts and drove off full of praise for African witchcraft. We found out later that the two British cameramen who had learned witchcraft from Africa were the talk of the American unit.

  Chas Keith, Malton, North Yorkshire

  It was just after Dunkirk, at an airfield near the Norfolk coast. Everyone was jittery. I was a lance bombardier on an anti-aircraft gun. My mate was a bombardier. All units were at a stand-to. Everyone, including the locals, was wondering, ‘Where will they land?’

  Early one evening, my pal and I went for a walk and a pint. Having discussed what everyone assumed was the imminent invasion, we arrived at a small local pub and decided to start it on our own. Outside the pub rested a bike and inside, one country worker talking to the old landlord.

  ‘The invasion has started,’ said my friend. ‘Give us two pints.’

  ‘Get these chairs outside,’ he ordered, which I did.

  ‘And get these pictures off the walls!’

  ‘What for?’ said the landlord.

  ‘The maps go there,’ I said. ‘This is now Division HQ.’

  All of this was carried out at great speed – including drinking our beer. I’d stacked the chairs and pictures against the wall.

  ‘They should be arriving shortly! Let’s take a look.’

  Gazing professionally down the road, I said: ‘What next, bombardier?’

  ‘Every man for himself,’ he said, jumped on the bike and was gone.

  I took to my heels and ran after him . . .

  L. R. Dyke, Great Yarmouth

  It was in late 1940 that I was on a course at Harlesden. We were bedded down in a disused factory and had to provide a guard during the night. More a case of the usual ‘bull’, actually. I was on one night when, at about 10 p.m., a plane could be heard approaching at quite a low height. He suddenly appeared overhead and commenced to fire a burst of tracer down the High Street. Of course, we were not supplied with any ammo, although only the good Lord knows why. So I rushed into the company office and yelled: ‘Quick, sarge, give us some ammo, there’s a bloody Jerry out there.’

  My thought was, of course, that with the plane at such a low altitude, I might be able to score, at least if only to let the blighter know that someone down there was alive to the danger.

  The sarge replied: ‘The ammo’s in the safe!’

  ‘Well, for Pete’s sake, open it then!’

  ‘Can’t – the orderly officer’s got the key.’

  ‘Well, call him!’

  ‘He’s not here. He’s gone to the pictures!’

  Stan Lynn, Woodford Green

  As an army officer undergoing flying training in 1942, prior to taking up duties flying army aircraft, I had reached the stage where it was time to do my first solo cross-country flight. My progress up to that stage had been achieved in shorter time than the rest of my group, so it was not without some cockiness that I climbed into the cockpit, taxied across the airfield and took off on my first flight out of sight of my instructors.

  My course was a three-legged one and I completed the first two safely but, during the third leg something affected my judgement and I realized that my navigation had gone wrong. After circling around I made a big mistake, I began to zigzag and after about two hours’ flying, with one eye on my fuel gauge, I began to wonder how much longer I could remain airborne.

  It was then that I saw, under my port wing, what was obviously an aerodrome – although not my own! Happy again, I headed into wind, made a reasonably good landing, got out and began to saunter across to report my arrival. But it was only as I entered the building that I realized my position – an army type reporting to the RAF that I was lost.

  However, they did their best not to show me too plainly that they were amused and I was given a meal and some drinks, while arrangements were made to advise my chief instructor. Only later did I really become embarrassed – when a plane arrived from my Flying Training School, with two pilots, one of whom was to fly me back to base.

  Alan Cox, Epsom

  The time was June 1940. I had been in the army all of two weeks, but there had been little formal training as our new Regiment ‘A’ Co, 6th Buffs [Royal East Kent Regiment], was still being formed. So far it had been just a few days to form a platoon, then a week on the rifle range, and now we were at the former Daily Sketch holiday camp at Dymchurch in Kent. On the parade ground we were taught the rudiments of standing guard and then, in pairs, our first two hours of night guard. In a field.

  The purpose was, I suppose, to watch for parachutists and I know we were keyed up for anything. The night was cloudy and, with the moon, there was a mixture of moonlight and darkness.

  Suddenly my mate said: ‘Look at those two men at the far end of the field!’

  I looked and, sure enough, there we
re two men bent double and creeping along beside the hedge. We both panicked a bit, I think, and tried to remember what the sergeant major had tried so hard to teach us.

  I said: ‘What do we do?’

  ‘Challenge them!’

  ‘Who? Me?’

  ‘Yes, you know, “Halt! Who goes there?”’

  Somewhat nervously I did just that, but there was no reaction from the men. Now we were for it, I had to challenge again with the knowledge of what followed if they did not respond. They didn’t, they just carried on with their slow advance along the hedge.

  Now, the sergeant major had stressed that if the enemy failed to respond to a third challenge then we were to open fire!

  So, at my third challenge: ‘Halt, or I fire!’ I released the safety catch, put one up the spout and, with my rifle at my shoulder, prepared to pull the trigger. It was only when I’d actually put pressure on the trigger that the two men at last responded – with a loud ‘Moo-oo!’

  It was a black and white cow, its front and back ends split by a black patch, thus providing the ‘two crouching men’.

  The sergeant major never heard of that episode, but he did hear of the sheep that was shot on the golf links, and the man on a cycle brought down by a bayonet through his front wheel when he failed to stop.

  R. A. Cook, Grantham

  The permanent accommodation at my flying school was limited and many of the trainee pilots were housed in tents pitched in a single line in the shadow of a high hedge.

  During what was a really hot summer, one of the trainee pilots, Lieutenant John Hemmings, used to regularly strip off and wash down with water from a canvas bucket outside his tent. One day a voice – an excited female voice – was heard to exclaim from the other side of the hedge: ‘There you are, I told you so! He does it every day!’