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PART 3

Food rationing was introduced as soon as the war started. Everyone was issued with a ration book and everyone issued with an identity card with one鈥檚 individual identity number on it. You HAD to carry this document at all times.

Food was rationed first; meat, margarine, butter, sugar, bacon, eggs and tinned food, sweets and chocolate also. Oranges were for children only and bananas disappeared. Later, clothes were rationed and eventually bed linen, blankets and even furniture. (The Mosquito Lighter Bomber was made of wood!! So were sub-assemblies made by the furniture industry). Sweets were rationed and chocolate. Weekly rations were something like; butter1-2ozs, margarine 4ozs, sugar 4-8ozs,cheese 2-4ozs and so on. Bread was never rationed but bakeries produced the 鈥淣ational Loaf鈥� made from wheat grown in this country which meant that the bread was an off-white greyish colour and didn鈥檛 taste like 鈥減roper鈥� bread 鈥� you got used to it. When I left school and started work at the end of 1941 both Dad and I were classed as manual workers and eligible for and extra ration of cheese, 4 ozs extra, which helped a lot.

One of the substitutes that appeared was powdered egg brought from America (eg ration was one egg per person per week). You re-constituted the powder with water and used it for making cakes or puddings or if you cooked it gently in a saucepan and kept stirring it turned into quite reasonable scrambled egg to have on your National Loaf toast!!

A friend of ours used to make sponge cake using liquid paraffin (a laxative) instead of butter of margarine; it was fine, nice and light but had a slight taste of paraffin when swallowed!!

Extra sugar was allocated in the summer for jam making when fruit was in season. Rose hips were collected on a large scale in the countryside and crushed to make Rose Hip Syrup. This was allocated to young children, as was concentrated orange juice in bottles. All school children had 1/3 pint of milk at school each morning.

Dad decided to keep chickens and established his flock in a run behind the Anderson shelter. We gave up our egg ration in exchange for an allocation of chicken meal and corn which, mixed with boiled household scraps, fed the birds. We ate the eggs but could never eat the chickens, which became family pets! Dad and I cultivated a piece of ground alongside St Margaret鈥檚 Church (with permission from the vicar). Savages bakery stabled their horses next to the plot so we got plenty of fertiliser. We grew vegetables and potatoes and survived very well for 鈥渢ownies鈥�!

As I said, clothes were rationed. 鈥淢ake do and mend鈥� was the slogan and by the end of the war everyone looked rather drab. There were very few stockings for the ladies; many stained their legs with gravy browning and painted a black seam (very fashionable) up the back of the legs using mascara (eyelash) and a fine brush!

Towards the end of 1941 or early 1942 all woman had to register for war work. Mum was within the age limits, registered, and duly had an interview. Dad and I were both working so it was declared that Mum should go to work each afternoon, five days per week. Dad鈥檚 brother Herbert, who lived with us, was a charge hand in the stores at the Humber Motor Company and found a place for her in his stores. This was accepted by the Ministry of Labour, who organised the whole scheme, and so Mum became a part time war worker! She didn鈥檛 like it at first but when she got to know people quite enjoyed it. Few married women worked before the war. Mum certainly hadn鈥檛 since she was married. 鈥淎 woman鈥檚 place is in the home鈥� was the saying in those days. It broadened her horizons; she met new people; the wartime spirit shone through.

One of the people she met was Joyce Parnell. Joyce came from a village, Shilton, about four miles north of Coventry. When she left school she was in service at 鈥淣ewnham Paddox鈥�, the 鈥淏ig House鈥� at Monks Kirby where she then lived, and she met and married Reg (Parnell) soon after the outbreak of war (in mid1940 actually). She left the big house and came to work in Coventry at the General Electric Co (GEC) making radios for the RAF and was earning about 拢8-10-0 per week, a phenomenal wage. The GEC factory was bombed and Joyce was directed by the Ministry of Labour to work at the Humber, where Mum met her and they became good friends. The GEC factory was repaired and re-started production and Joyce was offered her job back. The Ministry refused to let her transfer back so she was stuck for the rest of the war earning about half the salary she could earn at the GEC!! 鈥擳he Government controlled the labour market.

Soon after they were married Reg was conscripted into the army from his job as a farm labourer and Joyce went to live with her parents in Shilton. Reg was enrolled in the Royal Armoured Corps, given 6 weeks training (about all they taught him was how to drive a tank), then sent on four days embarkation leave and shipped out to join the 8th Army in North Africa with the 2nd Armoured Division in Egypt. Joyce travelled with him, via London, to Bovingdon in Hampshire where Reg obtained a four day sleeping out pass to be with Joyce. They never met again until 1946 when Reg was demobbed, having fought right across North Africa to Tunisia, then in Sicily, and finally all the way up to the Italian Peninsula, with the 8th Army. Such was life for millions of people.

As I said, all women had to register for work and thousands of unmarried ladies were directed to work in industrial towns like Coventry to be trained and replace men who had been 鈥渃alled up鈥� into the forces. It was estimated that about 30.000 women were drafted into Coventry from all over the United Kingdom. They were housed in specially built hostels; like army camps. They consisted of brick-built dormitory blocks, single storied, with communal washing and toilet blocks and a dining hall and kitchens. The dining halls were also used for social activities; dances, whist drives, bingo (known as 鈥淗ousey-Housey) in those days), lectures etc. Each dormitory block was divided into two rows of rooms with a corridor down the middle. Each room was about 8ft by 6ft and contained a bed, a wooden bedside cabinet with three drawers and a wooden wardrobe approx two and a half ft square and a wall mirror. The walls were a plain brick colour washed in cream paint. The hostels were often built on part finished housing estates, where all the services were available, each holding about 750-1,000 people. After the war these hostels helped to alleviate the chronic housing shortage.

As the 鈥淏attle of Britain鈥� drew to a close in September 1940 a call went out from the Ministry of Aircraft Production for aluminium to build aircraft. Everyone was asked to donate aluminium utensils, pots, pans, frying pans, anything. These were collected from collecting points in each street and taken away to be smelted down to be reused.

Early in 1941 a similar scheme was instituted for cast iron artefacts, railings, monuments, World War 1 memorabilia like tanks and guns, which adorned parks and open spaces.

Many of the houses built, like ours in the late 19th and early 20th century had brick front garden walls topped with ornamental cast iron railings and gates. One day a gang of workmen appeared with a lorry in our street armed with sledge hammers and cutting torches and carted the whole lot away to be melted down and be used for armaments. Many parks in the city had 6ft high railings round them and iron gates, which were locked at night. All these disappeared. Gosford Green, the Bowling Green, Gentlemans Green all suddenly became open spaces in the true sense. The change in our environment was profound.

In December 1942 the Japanese attacked the American base at Pearl Harbour in the Philippine Islands in the Pacific Ocean and went on to overrun vast areas across the Pacific. In 1942 they overran the British base at Singapore. My mother鈥檚 youngest brother, 鈥淯ncle Percy鈥�, who I never met, was a regular soldier in the Royal Artillery. He had been based in Singapore with his wife, Auntie Edna, who I met after the War, and escaped on the last boat to leave. He told me his story. He was of course captured by the Japanese and imprisoned with many thousands of others in appalling conditions in the notorious Changi Jail. Later he was put, with thousands of other prisoners onto a Japanese troopship to be transferred to work on the infamous Burma Railway. En route an American submarine torpedoed this Japanese ship. Very few of the prisoners survived. Uncle Percy managed to swim ashore to a small island where he died of pneumonia.

The nearest I got to him was to see his name: 鈥滲attery Sergeant-Major P Patmore 鈥� inscribed on one of the many marble columns in the Singapore War Cemetery that contains the names of 40,000 servicemen and women who have no known graves in that area.

Back on the Home Front it was not all doom and gloom. Twice a day the wireless produced a programme, 鈥淢usic While You Work鈥�, which was broadcast in factories by loudspeakers to keep up the spirits of workers working long hours six days a week. Ballroom dancing was very popular, both in dance halls and factory canteens, as were band concerts in the parks and entertainments organised for 鈥淗olidays at Home鈥�. And, of course, there was always the 鈥渨ireless鈥�.

Cinemas were popular. There were over 20 in Coventry and thereby hangs a tale.

The film 鈥淕one with the Wind鈥�, a blockbuster by today鈥檚 standards, was to open at the 鈥淩ex鈥� cinema, Coventry鈥檚 newest and finest, in October 1940. Before it could open the cinema was destroyed by a direct hit. The Empire Cinema put the film on just before Easter 1941. After two showings came the Holy Week Raids and the Empire was hit by a (small) bomb! No other cinema would show the film in case they were 鈥淕one with the Wind鈥�.

The 鈥淓mpire鈥� was repaired and during the winter of 1944-45 showed the film again. By that time the invasion of Europe had taken place and the armies were up on the German border. The Government had lifted the blackout restrictions. One night I took Verney Greenacre, a lovely girl, too see 鈥淕one with the Wind鈥�. When we came out the City Engineers had got ONE street light working in Hertford Street. There were hundreds and hundreds of people just standing and looking at it. We had not seen one for 5 years. It had been a long time!

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