How Britain Kept Calm and Carried On

by Anton Rippon

Lucy Glasby (née Harris), Clapham Junction

  My father, ‘Jack the Barber’ (a hairdresser), and his friend ‘Fishy’ (who kept the local chip shop) were First World War veterans. One night, during the Second World War, they came out of the local pub in Jarrow. They staggered home, both a little the worse for wear. Just as they passed the nearby barrage balloon site, manned by the Home Guard, a voice boomed out: ‘Halt, who goes there? Stop, or I’ll shoot!’

  The reply from the two merry men?

  ‘Bugger off, Jim, or we’ll stop your fish and chips!’

  And, with added disdain: ‘Anyway, you’ve not got a bloody gun! It’s only a bloody stick!’

  Mr G. W. Telford, Northampton

  As an RAF pilot, I was flying a Miles Magister over Allestree Park in Derby. Our brief was to give the Home Guard a chance to guess at what height we were flying and let them have a bit of aiming practice as well. Only when we got back to base did we realize they were using live ammunition. One bullet had gone straight between my knees. The young officer in charge told an inquiry: ‘We thought they were armour-plated. In any case, we never thought we’d hit them!’

  George Watson, Derby

  I was in one of the Home Guard platoons attached to the Rolls-Royce aero-engine factory in Derby where I worked. We always expected to be a target for the Luftwaffe because the Merlin engines were manufactured there. But there was only ever one successful raid and that was in 1942 when a lone Dornier got through and bombed and machine-gunned the factory. Several people were killed, sadly, but production wasn’t really affected. Anyway, we were always on the alert but one weekend we were taken to a camp near Skegness to practise on the anti-aircraft guns.

  To be honest, we looked upon it as a bit of a break beside the seaside and, by and large, that is how it turned out. Our accommodation block was very basic, though, and the lavatories were quite a long walk away, so in the middle of the night, one by one, when nature called we relieved ourselves in a farmer’s field across the road.

  On the following lunchtime, we were called in for our midday meal and served some meat and veg. One of the lads remarked how nice the cabbage was, whereupon one of the cooks said: ‘Yes, freshly picked a couple of hours ago.’ We asked from where and he waved his hand and said: ‘Out of that field opposite.’ It was the one we’d been using as a lavatory all night. Suddenly the cabbage didn’t seem as tasty and he couldn’t understand why, after complimenting him on it, everyone instead started leaving it on their plates.

  Bernard Buckler, Derby

  I was in the Home Guard in Lincolnshire and it was one of those brilliant, moonlit nights when it seemed as though everywhere was bathed in a bright light. We heard a lone aircraft overhead but, despite the clear night, couldn’t actually see it. Eventually, the noise of its engines receded and once more there was silence. Then someone pointed to a tree in the distance. There was a white parachute in it. We debated whether to tackle the German invader ourselves, but in the end decided to call out the regular army lads from the nearby camp. Were our faces red! The parachute turned out to be nothing more than a thick covering of white spring blossom. We all had a good laugh, though.

  Geoff Hemmings, London

  In 1940, I joined what was still the Local Defence Volunteers in Cheltenham. My occupation as a plumber and slater, plus my age group – I was then thirty-one – put me in the deferred call-up class for military service. I owned a motorcycle so I became the despatch rider. I was also very keen to improve on anything that I considered to be out-of-date thinking.

  One sunny Sunday morning, seventy-two of us went to the local shooting butts to fire six rounds each at targets 2,500 yards away. We arrived about 9.30 a.m. and left about 7 p.m. But about sixty per cent of that time was taken up using flags to signal back target hits. Now I’d been building radios since I was eleven, so when we returned to the range three weeks later, I produced a simple device with a ‘speak/listen’ switch together with loudspeakers. It was a great success and reduced by more than half the time we spent on the range. We were getting the ‘target hit’ signal straight away rather than waiting for the flags. The only thing was that it cost £4 10s [£4.50], which I had to pay.

  We also had to guard a length of railway line from nightfall to daybreak, with instructions that if a German paratrooper dropped in, we had to disarm him, tie his hands behind his back and walk him to HQ, leaving some of our men to stay on guard. It seemed to me that we needed to inform HQ immediately, but that drum beating was a little ‘old hat’ while smoke signals would work only in daytime. So I constructed another radio transmitter, one that could have us reporting any incident to HQ within seconds.

  I combed numerous radio shops and second-hand dealers, and put an advertisement in the local newspaper, and eventually I had sufficient parts to build my radio. Five weeks later I had all I needed, including an alarm clock for transmitting a ‘tick-tock’ to test it. It worked like a dream and so I decided to show it to our local MP, Daniel Lipson. I took only the receiver to his house and assured him that we wouldn’t be breaking the law as there was nothing illegal about receiving radio signals, only sending them. When he heard the ‘tick-tock’ being transmitted from my home, he was taken aback and told me to put the whole thing out of sight and that he’d contact me in due course. Well, when his answer came it was: ‘No can do.’

  I knew what would happen next, so I put the apparatus away, together with a postcard that read: ‘Made by J.M.S. for use by HG – maybe. Date completed and checked 1 October 1940. Cost of construction (pair) £14 10s 0d.’ Then I waited.

  Seventy-two hours later there was a knock on our front door. There stood two detectives. They had it on good authority that I had in my possession instruments for the transmission of radio signals contrary to Section 8 of the Defence of the Realm Act. I was taken to the police station where my story was taken down and I was put in a cell, together with a deserter who was waiting for the Military Police. I thought: ‘Isn’t it marvellous? He’s in here for shirking his duty and I’m in here for overdoing mine.’

  Finally, in the early evening, they took me back upstairs. Some technical bods had examined my radio and I was free to go. It was smiles all round. They even laid on a car. My first stop was home to pick up my Home Guard kit. My second stop was the Home Guard HQ, where I handed in my resignation. I was fed up of playing at soldiers.

  The following day, my old CO asked me if I’d go with him to see the officer commanding the Home Guard in the area. The OC thanked me for my efforts in trying to improve communications and make my unit one of the most up-to-date. He said that my radio was being sent to Southern Command for testing, but later I was told that it had been impounded ‘for the duration of the war’.

  Just after that Christmas I received my call-up papers. I passed my medical and then was interviewed by a selection officer. I noticed that my card had one difference to everyone else’s: there was a dotted red line under my name. I wondered if it was some sort of code, some hint about my tangle with the authorities over my radio apparatus. Anyway, the selection officer said that he thought it unlikely that I would be called up – and I never was! I still think I was right, though, in doing what I did.

  J. M. Seward, Seaton, Devon

  We were going on patrol one night and our officer, a rather toffee-nosed chap who had fought in the First World War, got us together and gave us what he thought was a pep talk. His final words were: ‘Remember chaps, if the invasion comes tonight, then we must not let the enemy past.’ And one little private piped up from the back: ‘No chance of that, sir. They’ll never catch us!’

  Ivor Townsend, Redditch

  We had this officer in charge of our Home Guard unit in Norfolk. He was a real old duffer from the First World War. The rumour was that he’d never seen active service then, just served in office jobs in England. I don’t know if that was true because he sported a chest full of medal ribbons. I can’t imagine that he’d have been awarded so many if he’d never left o
ur shores. Nevertheless, we resented him because he never stopped showing off, constantly reminding us about his previous war service. One day he turned up on parade with even more medal ribbons. There was hardly any room left. He was inspecting us and as he walked past, from the middle of our ranks came a voice: ‘Blimey, he’s got a note on there saying, “Continued on the back.”

  The officer spun round and said: ‘Who said that?’

  No one owned up and it took us all our time to control our laughter.

  There was another bloke in our platoon who was on patrol, walking down a country road, when a car came round the corner. The lad jumped into the middle of the road and shouted: ‘Halt!’ So the driver stopped and the lad said again: ‘Halt!’

  The driver said: ‘I’ve halted. What more do you want me to do?’

  And the lad replied: ‘I don’t know. My orders are to say “Halt” three times – and then shoot.’

  Sometimes, it really was difficult to take the war all that seriously down in deepest Norfolk.

  Dennis Roberts, Reading

  Our Home Guard unit contained a couple of locals who were well-known poachers. I don’t know how they got hold of spare ammunition but they never returned from night patrol without a couple of dead rabbits under their coats. One was a real dead loss, to be honest, and there was this famous occasion when he was on sentry duty, on his own, and the officer decided to test him out. When he heard footsteps in the dark, instead of the regulation ‘Halt, who goes there?’, he called out: ‘Is that you, Harold?’ Harold was his mate, the other poacher. It was all very laid-back stuff. Bit of fun and games, really, I suppose.

  Roy Burns, Dorset

  We had to stage an attack on a rival Home Guard platoon who were supposed to be defending a water tower. I think we took it a lot more seriously then they did, though, because we were creeping up on them in the dark when suddenly there was a hell of a commotion – voices and then the sound of footsteps hurrying – and then complete silence. We wondered what trick they were playing and we lay there for about a quarter of an hour before gingerly making our way forward again. When we got within range of the water tower, we still couldn’t see anybody. The place was deserted. The other lot had apparently decided to unilaterally call the exercise to a halt because they realized that it was opening time and there was a pub down the road. It was probably a good job that the Germans never landed.

  Bernard Buckler, Derby

  Early one morning, I was on duty with a few others and we were looking for a German pilot who had come down the afternoon before. One of the lads shouted out that they had found him hiding up Conyer Creek.

  It was about a hundred yards away so we all ran over to the hiding spot. It was very marshy over there and there was lots of swearing as one or another fell over.

  When we got there a farmer with a pitch fork was standing over a very frightened German pilot who was sitting with his hands in the air. He must have had a very cold night and he looked pretty pleased to be captured.

  We took him away, but the farmer made sure he was in the lead with his pitchfork right up behind him. The pilot was more scared of the farmer than he was us and our old rifles.

  Norman Luckhurst, Kent

  In 1940 I was eighteen, and my pal, Arthur, seventeen. Only those who experienced those nervous days, after the fall of France, can appreciate the fervour of patriotism that gripped the country and caused Arthur and myself, among a million others, young and not so young, to sign up for what was then called the Local Defence Volunteers.

  To begin with, we were put through the complications of arms drill by ‘old sweats’, who showed much restraint each time rifles evaded stiff fingers and clattered to the ground. One of the ways to stop a tank, we were told, was to place an upturned dinner plate on the road. The tank driver, mistaking this for an anti-tank mine, would probably bring his tank to a halt. The rest was easy: wait for the tank hatch to open, then lob in a grenade. It sounded all right and the younger ones especially seemed to be taking it in. But I had a little nagging doubt myself. If this neat trick had already been tried out in France, then it couldn’t have worked all that well.

  Anyway, after a fortifying drink or two had helped us ready ourselves to take on the whole Nazi army if necessary, Arthur and me set off around 9.30 on a Friday evening to report for our first night guard duty. Searching for our headquarters, a deserted farmhouse, we had just crossed a boggy field when all at once a voice came from out of the darkness.

  ‘Stop!’ it said. Then, ‘Halt! I mean: Halt! Who goes there?’

  ‘Us,’ said Arthur. There was a bit of a pause.

  ‘You can’t say that,’ went the voice, sort of indignant. ‘You gotta say it. You gotta say “Friend or foe”.’

  ‘Friend or foe,’ obliged Arthur.

  After a longer pause, I could just make out this shadowy figure approaching us, holding what looked like a broom handle with a bayonet tied to it. ‘You gotta be one thing or the other,’ it complained, getting nearer. ‘I mean, I’m supposed to make you say it.’ By then the sharp end of the bayonet was waving close to our faces. ‘You gotta say it.’

  ‘We’re LDV,’ I answered before Arthur could further complicate our arrival.

  At the broomstick end of the weapon, the shadow took on a tin-hatted, white disc of a face wearing glasses. ‘How do I know you’re not just saying that? For all I know you could be foe.’

  ‘We ain’t got bloody parachutes on. We got armbands on, see!’ said Arthur, now getting a tad aggressive, thanks to the beer. ‘Ain’t you got no torch?’

  The bayonet lowered itself. ‘We’re still waiting for new batteries, like. Hold on, though, I’ve got some matches here. I’d better make sure, hadn’t I?’

  After some scraping, a flaring match broke through the blackout while this fearless guard scrutinized our armbands. We could then see he was a long-faced youth with two prominent teeth. ‘Yeah, that’s right, you got armbands on,’ he conceded. ‘Bit late, ain’t you?’

  ‘We’ll be a bloody sight later before you’ve done,’ complained Arthur.

  What a pantomime!

  Harold Richardson, Derby

  MAKE DO AND MEND

  In 1944, Archibald Brown of Tower Hill, Bruton, in Somerset, was fined £4 plus £6 costs for wasting butter, margarine, cheese, lard, bread, bacon, pickles and preserved plums. His crime? He threw them at his wife. The solicitor representing the Ministry of Food told the court at Wincanton: ‘If there is any acrimonious debate in the home or any breach of connubial bliss, rations must not be used as weapons of war.’

  Archibald Brown obviously didn’t keep calm and carry on. And neither did John Jackson, a miner from Low Valley, near Barnsley, who was sent to prison for one month after throwing eggs and bacon on the fire and sugar and tea on the floor after his wife refused to lend him five shillings (25p). The chairman of the magistrates said: ‘Wasting food in wartime will not be tolerated.’

  Each case summed up one of the great issues of the Second World War: the shortage of food, the rationing of which gave rise to plenty of examples of how the people of Britain set about to ‘make do and mend’. There must have been thousands of Second World War wedding cakes that comprised no more than an iced cardboard shell.

  Of course, food wasn’t the only commodity to be rationed. From September 1939, petrol was available only for business or essential purposes. Furniture became utilitarian. Clothing too: pleats and turn-ups disappeared from trousers, and garments were mostly plain. Women painted gravy browning on bare legs as a replacement for silk stockings, then recruited the services of a small child to draw a ‘seam’ using an eyebrow pencil. Eventually, when eyebrow pencils themselves were in short supply, a spent match had to suffice.

  But it was food shortages that dominated the nation’s thoughts. And Archibald Brown and John Jackson weren’t the only Britons to be fined for wasting it. In January 1943, for instance, a Hertfordshire woman was fined £10 with £2 costs for ‘permitting bread
to be wasted’. The court in Barnet heard that her servant – who was also fined five shillings (25p) – was twice seen throwing bread to birds in her employer’s garden. ‘Miss XYZ’, as she was identified, admitted that she put bread out every day. ‘I cannot see the birds starve,’ she told the court.

  Indeed, there were many unusual legal battles surrounding wartime food regulations. A man appeared at Tavistock Petty Sessions charged with selling eggs to unregistered customers. It was alleged that he kept twenty-five hens and four cocks when the law stated that only twenty-five head of poultry was allowed. The Ministry of Food claimed that this counted as ‘poultry’ according to the Oxford English Dictionary, but magistrates threw out the case, declaring that only laying hens counted.

  Food rationing began in January 1940, with bacon, ham, butter and sugar the first to be restricted. It wasn’t long before meat, tea, cooking fat and cheese were also rationed, and by 1942 almost everything else was too. Imagine: a grown adult was allowed only one fresh egg per week. Unless they were pregnant, of course, then they could have two.

  The Ministry of Food, under Lord Woolton, was responsible for overseeing rationing. Every man, woman and child was given a ration book with coupons that had to be produced before rationed goods could be purchased. Housewives had to register with particular retailers, which lessened the need to queue (as people did in the First World War when rationing wasn’t introduced until 1918) but as shortages increased, so long queues for unrationed goods became commonplace. Word would spread: ‘Mr Brown has had a delivery of onions.’ And housewives would rush to his shop. Sometimes, though, they joined queues without actually knowing what reward would be at the end of it. There are few reports of disturbances. When it came to food rationing, people seemed to have kept very calm.