Child from Home (25 page)

Quite often we were given a plateful of heavy suet pudding with salt on it, which Mrs Harris had steamed in a muslin bag over a big pan of boiling water. It was about the size of a football and it filled us up but it lay like lead in our bellies. We ate what was put in front of us or we went hungry. One day, for a change, she made a Spotted Dick (suet pudding with raisins in it) and I remember getting a clout round the lug for saying something rude about it.

On our nature walks Miss Francis encouraged us to collect the rosehips that bulged red and shiny on the briars, and she told us that they would be made into rose-hip syrup which was rich in vitamin C. In the past we had used their hairy, close-packed white seeds to put down each other's shirt collars and we called them itchy-backs. In our spare time we scoured the hedgerows until barely one was left on the bushes for the poor birds to feed on in the winter, and for our efforts we received four pence per pound. I think I made about tuppence profit, but Mrs Harris – to my dismay – made me put a penny of it into the collection plate at church that Sunday.

So the swallows departed for warmer climes and our days in the village passed uneventfully. We popped the white snowberries that clung to the spindly twigs in the hedgerows. The rosy-cheeked apples reached full ripeness and the sweet smell of cider filled the air beneath the trees as the fallers fermented. We ate many of those that were still in reasonable condition, but it was customary to leave the last apple on each tree for the fairies. Locals called the curved, brownish-green, sweet and succulent Conference pears, ‘banana' pears. As their weight bent down the boughs in the orchards, it made it easier for us to do a bit of illicit scrumping. We did not see it as wrong when fresh fruit was so scarce and we were so hungry. When some of the kids were seen and recognised, they were reported to the school and, after they had received their just deserts from Mr Fox, they spit on their hands and held them under their oxsters (armpits) as that seemed to ease the stinging pain a little. Mr Harris said, ‘We used ter rub a raw onion on our 'ands to deaden t'pain but they're 'ard to come by these days.'

The blackberries in the hedgerows grew fat, turning from red to juicy black and they stained our lips, tongues and fingers. As autumn moved on, the leaves of the horse chestnut and beech trees were tinged with brown making them engaging to the eye. We had watched the spiky, tri-lobed fruits of the horse chestnut trees slowly growing to full size all through the spring and summer. Conkers became the ‘in thing' again, and as we took the mahogany-brown seeds from their cocoons they had a slight smell of iodine.

Using an old skewer from Mr Harris's cluttered shed, we bored a hole through them and suspended the best ones on thick string. We had dried them slowly in the airing cupboard and soaked them in vinegar to harden them, and Jimmy had a few from the previous year that were now dry and really hard. Thinking we were in with a chance, we set forth to conquer the rest but someone always seemed to produce a better one. After many hits and a few wins, the first fatal cracks began to appear in our would-be champions.

The seven-fingered leaflets on the horse chestnut trees were just starting to turn brown, but they became a sorry sight after the lads had bombarded them with large sticks in an attempt to knock down the spiky seedcases. The ground inside the graveyard gate was thickly littered with fallen twigs and leaves and some of the boys received ‘six of the best' on their backsides from the headmaster. A number of irate women had complained that the heavy sticks the boys had thrown up just missed them when they were blown down by the strong winds.

Jimmy sometimes walked up to Mrs Evans's bungalow to see the various aeroplane models that Terry Waddington's dad had carved for him, but he would not be getting any more. While working at Linton-on-Ouse airfield, he had been asked to swing the propeller of a Tiger Moth biplane to start the engine. His foot slipped, and as he staggered forward the spinning propeller almost severed his right hand and he had to undergo major surgery and receive treatment for a long time.

At potato picking time, the farmers were starting to get extra help. We saw groups of prisoners of war, from the camp that had been set up at Strensall, working in the fields for the first time. The Italians wore dark-brown battle dresses with a large red circle sewn on the back, but the Germans had yellow, diamond-shaped patches on their grey uniforms. They were brought over every morning in army lorries and groups of four or five were dropped off guarded by a soldier armed with a loaded rifle and fixed bayonet; they were then returned in the evening. In July, thousands of them had been brought to Liverpool by ship and were put in barbed wire-encircled enclosures all over the country. The farmers were delighted with their new ‘hands' and Miss Curry told us that they found the Germans to be the hardest workers. She had said to the whole school, ‘Don't worry, they are not Nazis. Those have been taken out and put into other special, well-guarded camps.' Even so, we were very wary of them and never went near them, as we had heard too many horror stories about them.

Living four doors up from us was Mr Cliff Hartshorn and his wife, Mary. They had no children and he was a harness maker, cobbler and shoe repairer by trade. Partially deaf, he worked in the large wooden shed in his back garden mending shoes for a small fee, and he didn't seem to mind us standing there watching him. We would stand there for ages – especially if the day was wet – looking on and marvelling at his speed and dexterity. At last, after many long weeks, he got round to repairing our leather case ball, and we were eager to get the precious ‘casie' back so we could play with it in Widd's field. I measured my success by how many kicks I got rather than how many goals I scored, which was usually nil. Widd's field was the centre of our little world when we were out of the house.

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.