Vinnie's War

by David McRobbie

  Take 1 pound (500 grams) each of diced potatoes, cauliflower, turnips and carrots; three or four spring onions;

  one teaspoonful of vegetable extract; and

  one teaspoonful of oatmeal.

  Cook all together for ten minutes with just enough water to cover.

  Stir occasionally to prevent the mixture from sticking.

  Allow to cool; put into a pie dish, sprinkle with chopped parsley and cover with a crust of potatoes or wholemeal pastry. Bake in a moderate oven until the pastry

  is nicely brown, then serve hot with gravy.

  In my family, a staple of our diet was dried egg, or powdered egg. This was a yellow powder which could be mixed with water or milk, then fried, scrambled or used in recipes.

  Every bit of spare land was made available to people in the form of ‘allotments’ where they could grow vegetables for themselves. In this way, a lot of men and women began to enjoy healthier food as well as getting regular exercise. A government slogan of the time was ‘Dig for victory’, urging people to grow their own food.

  Clothes and shoes were also rationed, and to buy these you needed clothing coupons. There were stories of women who wanted to get married in a bridal gown but didn’t have enough coupons to buy the material. Often family members, friends and neighbours would give up their clothing coupons so that the wedding could be as traditional as in pre-war days.

  Petrol was also rationed and private motoring was banned, so there were no joy-rides or excursions by car. Sweets and lollies were also in short supply; to buy them you needed what were called ‘personal points’. Personal points were included in the ration book. Since rationing developed as the war went on, the books often included coupons or points that were not to be used until people were told. Then when sweets, bread or potatoes had to be rationed, the government announced that those unused cou-pons could now be used.

  Schools went on more or less as they had done before the war, except most of the younger teachers had been enlisted into the armed forces. To fill the gap, many old teachers were brought back out of retirement. Sad to say, a few of them just wanted a quiet life in the classroom, so they taught badly and punished severely.

  Pupils often had lectures and warnings about finding and touching what were known as butterfly bombs – small anti-personnel bombs that were packed into a large canister. When the canister was dropped from a German aircraft, it opened and the butterfly bombs fell out. Each one had ‘wings’ that allowed the bomb to float down and land unexploded. Once on the ground, the butterfly bomb could explode if anyone touched it.

  Towards the end of the war, German prisoners came to our school to demolish the baffle walls that had been built to protect us from bomb blasts. Our headmaster warned us very sternly that there was to be no fraternising with the enemy. But the German prisoners were amiable enough and worked cheerfully. They didn’t seem to want to be at war any more than we did.

  The war intruded into every aspect of life. Our childhood comics, such as Dandy and Beano, featured funny stories about Addie and Hermie, meaning the German leaders, Adolf Hitler and Herman Goering. In our comics, both were por-trayed as greedy and bumbling idiots who could never get anything right. In this way we learned to laugh at our enemies and cheer ourselves up. The New Zealand-born cartoonist David Low worked in Britain for the Evening Standard newspaper and was fearless in his cartoon depictions of Hitler and the Nazis. (See page 74 for an example of his artwork.) Hitler in particular was unusually sensitive about such criticism. After the war, it was revealed that David Low had been on the Nazi death list.

  Government propaganda was everywhere: on posters and in newspaper advertisements; in cinemas and on the radio. One common message was: ‘Careless talk costs lives’, meaning that people should be careful of what they said to each other in case they could be overheard. There was a fear that German spies were in Britain, always keen to learn what was going on so they could inform their masters in Germany. Other slogans were: ‘Is your journey really necessary?’ and ‘Coughs and sneezes spread diseases’. And as always, there was the suggestion that people should ‘Make do and mend’.

  The government propaganda unit also invented ‘the Squander Bug’ to try to get people to stop spend-ing money on things they didn’t need. This was a pretend character shown in newspaper ads and so on, being wasteful. The government preferred people to buy saving certificates or saving stamps. You bought stamps of whatever denomination and stuck them into a book. Later you could redeem the value, plus a small bit of interest.

  Another famous wartime slogan was ‘V for victory’. Every girl and boy in Britain knew that the morse code for ‘V’ was dot, dot, dot, dash, as in: •••—. This motif is also heard in the opening of Beethoven’s ‘Fifth Symphony’, which the BBC broadcast to occupied Europe as a sign of hope. Winston Churchill, the British wartime prime minister, often gave the ‘V’ sign with his fingers.

  Since the war played such an important part in people’s lives, it wasn’t long before it featured in popular songs. Some of these were: ‘Who Do You Think You’re Kidding, Mister Hitler?’, ‘There’ll Be Bluebirds over the White Cliffs of Dover’ and ‘We’re Gonna Hang Out Our Washing on the Siegfried Line’.

  From time to time, there would be flag days: these were ways of raising money from the public. On one of those days, for a penny you could buy a small paper flag to celebrate the Royal Navy, the Army, or the Royal Air Force. There were also public displays designed to cheer people up and show different branches of the armed forces at work. They would exhibit things like a captured German mine or a German bomber that had been shot down.

  Most children knew all about German warplanes and what they looked like. Some could even tell an aircraft from the sound its engines made. The names Heinkel, Dornier, Messerschmit and Focke Wulf were well known. We also knew about our own aircraft, especially the Spitfire and the Hurricane fighters. Our bombers were the Stirling, Halifax, Blenheim and Lancaster, and later when the Americans came into the war there were Flying Fortresses.

  With so many men and women away fighting in the war, there was a shortage of workers at home. To fill this gap, many women took up work in factories, driving trucks and ambulances, or loading and unloading ships. There was a Women’s Land Army, whose job it was to work on the land, at farms, helping to maintain food production. Certain jobs were declared to be ‘reserved occupations’ though, meaning they were so important to the war effort that the men and women who filled those positions were exempt from military service. Such jobs were coal miners, steel workers, skilled tradesmen in factories and railway-engine drivers.

  As well as doing these jobs, many men in reserved occupations did voluntary work at night. Some became arp wardens, or fire-watchers who stayed up at night in high vantage points to keep a lookout for fires that had been started by German incendiary bombs. Many men joined the Home Guard, a volunteer army whose job it was to guard German prisoners and to defend their local area against attack.

  Women, too, did volunteer work, such as with the wvs – the Women’s Voluntary Service. They assisted people who had been bombed out of their houses and looked after evacuee children amidst their other duties.

  Children at school also did their bit. In my school, they held a competition to see who could collect the most books and magazines. These were sent to the armed services so they could have something to read when they weren’t actually fighting. As a prize for the biggest hauls, the lucky boys or girls received a cardboard badge with a rank on it: captain, sergeant and so on. I only received a private’s badge, and when the boy who got a captain’s badge tried to order me around, we got into a fight.

  Despite the war, people still wanted to be entertained, so the cinema became very important. It took the audience’s mind off the bad news. The big hit of 1939–40 was Gone with the Wind, which people queued for hours to see, and sometimes saw again
and again. Boys and girls could attend a Saturday matinee and watch an exciting American adventure film and maybe a Mickey Mouse or Donald Duck cartoon as well as a serial. At home the radio was popular, although in those days it was called the wireless. As the war went on, more and more comedy shows began to appear. For boys and girls there was Children’s Hour each afternoon.

  Sometimes there was an air raid when a film was showing. Since the audience couldn’t hear the siren, the projectionist flashed a message on the screen; then everyone went to the nearest shelter.

  The day the war ended in Europe – known as ‘VE Day’ for ‘Victory in Europe’ – there were celebrations all over Britain, and for the first time, people didn’t bother about the blackout. Street-lights came on again. Three months later, the war against Japan also came to an end, giving people an opportunity to celebrate once more.

  After it was all over, people in Britain tried to get their lives back together, but it was difficult as so many men and women had died or been seriously injured. Many things had changed. Children, too, had gone through hard times, what with evacuation, fear of air raids, and all the other disruptions to their everyday lives. King George VI recognised this and sent a certificate to every young person in Britain, together with a shilling. The message read:

  Today, as we celebrate victory, I send this personal message to you and all other boys and girls at school. For you have shared in the hardships and dangers of a total war and you have shared no less in the triumph of the Allied Nations.

  I know you will always feel proud to belong to a country which was capable of such supreme effort; proud, too, of parents and elder brothers and sisters who by their courage, endurance and enterprise brought victory. May these qualities be yours as you grow up and join in the common effort to establish among nations of the world unity and peace.

  George ri

  My grateful thanks to Erica Wagner, Publisher of Books for Children and Teenagers at Allen & Unwin, for her unfailing enthusiasm and support in the early stages of preparing the manuscript, and for her wise counsel over these last twenty years or so.

  Thanks also to Catherine McCredie, Senior Editor, Penguin Books, who read a very youthful version of the story and made valuable comments.

  Editing is that part of a book’s production where the author discovers the words and phrases that should have been written in the first place. My gratitude goes to Rosalind Price and Elise Jones, who negotiated the editing with grace, wit and the greatest amiability.

  Lastly, to the many girls and boys, and their parents, who lived through those war years: may it never happen again – but then, evacuations still take place all over the world, and in so many different ways.

  David McRobbie is the author of many bestselling books for children and young adults. He has published more than thirty titles since 1990, and many of his stories have been adapted for television, including the very funny Wayne series, Eugénie Sandler PI, Fergus McPhail and the gripping thriller See How They Run. His young adult novel Tyro was shortlisted for the 2000 Children’s Book Council of Australia Book of the Year Award for Older Readers.

  David’s background is a varied one: he has worked as a ship’s engineer, a primary school teacher, a college lecturer, a parliamentary researcher in Papua New Guinea, and a radio and television producer with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. He lives in Toowong, Queensland and writes full-time.