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Elizabeth (Betty) Wyatt 3

1939

Neville Chamberlain (The Prime Minister ) came back from his meeting with a piece of paper signed by HITLER to say Germany would not go to war with us.

Not long after we all sat round the Wireless and heard the fateful words “We are at War with Germany“.

I was 10 at the time as it was Sept 3rd. We all had to go to be fitted with Gas Masks and the little babies had ones to cover them all over with a perspex cover to be able to see them.

The Gas Masks were kept in a small cardboard box with strong string to put over your shoulder and we had to take them everywhere we went.

Air Raid Shelters were taken to the houses (for every other house). They were made of galvanised sheets curved at the top, fixed together and small opening to get in and they were let down in the ground about 3 feet. They also had to build public shelters in streets all over town.

I remember my 11th birthday. I was having a lovely time with my friends at my party and the sirens went ( the warning enemy planes were coming to bomb us). It was the first time we had heard the siren, and all my friends hurried home as fast as they could.

I was going to the Senior Girls School at St Annes now and they had shelters underground, and we all had to go in them when the sirens rang.

Also in our leather bags,( we all had now for our gas masks in the shape of the mask). We had to have two pieces of cotton wool for our ears in case of bomb blast and a toffee to keep our jaws together.

My Grandad was living with us in a lovely house in 2 Cuffington Avenue. 3 bedrooms, bathroom with wash basin and bath and the toilet upstairs in a separate little room. Front room and dining room and a kitchen and a lovely long garden.

Mum and me had our double bed brought down to the front room and when the sirens went in the night i had to put trousers and a blazer over my pyjamas. Mum and me would run round to our neighbours garden as they had the shelter. We had the share it with Mr and Mrs Pavey and Audrey and Brenda their daughters, they were 8 years and 11 years old, and a man and his wife from the other side of the Pavey's.

So that was eight of us in a 6x6ft square of space. My Grandad wouldn't go in the shelter he always stayed in the house.

Sometimes the raids would go on for hours and we all were terrified as we could hear the bombs falling and the explosions. Also we could hear the Ack Ack gunfire trying to shoot the planes down. (We have since learnt that Brislington had a munition factory, so no wonder they were bombing us).

We would all hear the whining of the bombs falling and waiting for the explosion and hoping they wouldn't hit us or our homes. Also we were always tired as none of us were getting enough sleep. In the end Mrs Pavey put some mattresses on the floor of The Anderson Shelter and we all slept on them, or tried to sleep. We laid head to feet, eight of us in a row.

Mum had to get to work by eight and I had to get to school, so we would all stagger out of the shelter and rush to eat and get ready and wash. I had quite a long walk to school all up Bloomfield Road and all down one side of St Anne's Woods and up the other side to get to the Seniors. I walked with my friend from next door Audrey Pavey.

We had food rationing and Mum used to put our 3ozs Butter (1oz per person) in a Basin and add milk and beat and beat it to make more and leave it to set.

One day my Grandad thought it was custard and he ate it all. Mum was very cross.

My Gran (my Dad's mother) was ill with heart trouble and she always wanted Mum to look after her. So Mum and myself went to live with Aunty Doris and Uncle Reg and my Gran for a while till she was better. Aunty Doris ran a Guest House at 110 St Michaels Hill and she had the chorus girls from The Hippodrome stay there and many other acts. Once she had Billy Scott Coomer and his wife and little boy, so they were given a sitting room as well.

The bombing got really bad so Uncle Reg put a bed for Gran and one for Mum and me and one for little David in the cellar and we all slept there. A coal cellar led off and there was an opening on the pavement for the coal to be tipped down. It was going to be my job to crawl up through the coal cellar and up to the pavement if we were bombed and trapped in rubble.

One day all the electric and gas was off and another time there was no water.

The lorries would stop in the street and we all went out with buckets and bowls to collect water from the lorries.

One night the bombing was so bad we all decided to so to a Street Shelter and as we went out the front door i looked down the hill and i saw all Bristol alight, great flames leaping up from Castle Street and Victoria Street, a terrible sight, and then i saw a man with bandages all over his face. I was so frightened.

By now my Gran had a cousin in West-Harptree and they decided they would all go and stay with her. They wanted Mum and me to go but Mums sister Gladys asked us to go and stay with her in her Pub in Croydon. So we gave up our house, it was rented and put our furniture in store and my Grandad decided to go down to Devon. Mums two brothers were in the forces, Jock in the Air Force and Fred in the Army.

We stayed in Croydon for a while, Mum served in the Pub Bar with Gladys and Ernie. I went to the Seniors School there and soon made friends.

Uncle Fred came on leave and stayed and i can remember walking to the shops with him and felt so proud him being in his khaki uniform.

Then my Gran wanted us to to stay at West-Harptree. So off Mum and me went, and Grans cousin let us stay there. The house had 3 bedrooms, one for Mr and Mrs Pearce ( Grans cousin and husband), he was a postman in the village. One for Aunty Doris and Uncle Reg and David. One for Gran. Mr and Mrs Pearce's son slept downstairs in the front room. So Mum and me had every night to walk up Ridge Lane and sleep in one of the Council Houses ( the row where Tom and Dot live).

We paid her of course, it was very clean and I loved the soap, it was Geranium. We thought it was wonderful to sleep all night and no bombing and to wake to the sound of cows mooing in the field, and the Cockerel Crowing, bliss !

Mum got a job at Bolloms Bristol. She got a lift in a car with some people each day as the Bus wouldn't have got there in time.

I attended the village school, it was a long room divided by a curtain. One side juniors and one side seniors, and another small room for the infants.

On Tuesday evening after school we held a library and i had two rubber stamps, one with the date and on the other date the books were due back. I felt very grown up stamping the books.

Mum and me loved the country life and would pick primroses and wild violets along the lanes.

Gran got ill again and was bedridden, so she always wanted Mum to look after her more than her daughter Doris. Mum would look after her at night and then go to work with very little sleep. So i slept downstairs in a bedchair. Then Gran had to go into hospital and died. Mum and me could then have the bedroom.

We used to listen to the wireless, or play cards or board games or bagatell in the evenings and knit socks or Balaclavas for the Troops.

I joined the church choir and we sang an Anthem at Christmas and Easter. We had a choir practice each Wednesday evening.

Later on we had a telegram telling us my Grandad in Devon had fallen and was in Exeter Hospital. So Mum and me had to catch the bus to Bristol and a train to Okehampton where he was living and then to the Hospital. We just managed to see him before he died. A while before he had got a report saying Uncle Fred was reported missing. So he didn't know if he was alive or not ( as it happened he was taken a prisoner of war in Singapore by the Japanese).

Mum and me had to fix a funeral in Okehampton. The British Legion arranged it as my Grandad was an old soldier. Jock arrived when it was over he had been stationed in Scotland.

It's now 1941 and Bristol had a terrible raid on the Good Friday.

Nancys wedding was Easter Saturday we all went to Bristol for it. Nancy and her family, Mum and Dad and sisters were living in a house in The Mall, Clifton.

That evening the sirens went and we all took shelter in the Rocks Railway. It was very safe under all that Rock. We were in our best clothes too. It was packed with people there all night all the time.

Aunty Doris, Uncle Reg and David moved to a flat in the next village Compton Martin, so Mum and me got two rooms in the School House.

We had our furniture from Bristol and used some of it and the rest put in store in the village.

I left school at 14 and started work two weeks before Christmas in the Village Grocers shop, 12/6 a week 65p. 9-1 and 2-6 weekdays and 9-1 Saturdays.

For the War Effort the village held Whist Drives and Auctions all fund raising.

The men who were too old or young joined the Home Guard or Observer Corp.

Some Yanks (Americans) were stationed on the Mendips and came to the Saturday Dances at West-Harptree, East-Harptree or Compton Martin. The girls thought it was wonderful.

After a while some Black Americans got camped at the Mendips as well.

The Black and White Americans didn't like each other.

Once at a West-Harptree dance, two or three Black Yanks came into dance and all the White Yanks walked out. That's how bad things were then.

I had one American White Yank a young lad, kept asking me for a dance, and i always danced as it would have been rude to refuse. But as for romance i wasn't interested as i was going out with a local boy Jim.

Mum and me moved to a two roomed cottage next to the Village Garage. The stairs were sloping backwards, we soon learnt how to walk up them.

After a while Mum got a job in the Village Baker's shop so no more travelling to Bristol.

1944

When we were 16 we all had to do something for the War Effort. Work on the land, join a youth movement or sell National Savings. So i used to go round the village with the National Savings and Jim worked on the land.

We all had food rationing, sugar, butter, margarine, sweets, lard, cheese, bacon, tea, meat, bread and coupons for a month to buy tinned food. Also coal was rationed. We had clothing coupons and we used to darn our stockings so neat no one knew they were mended. We would use the black or dark skirt from one dress and the flowered top from another and sew them together and make a new dress if we didn't have any coupons left. It was called “ Make Do and Mend “ a slogan we all used. We saved paper bags, rubber bands, buttons, zips, brown paper. We unpicked jumpers and used the wool to knit gloves and scarfs.

The Garden Fete was held in the vicars garden. Us young girls served the teas on the lawn.

In the village we all joined the WI and learnt how to make Blackberry and Apple Jam, and we would take baskets and pick 7 or 8lbs of Blackberries at the woods in Compton.

We would put on Concerts and Plays to make entertainment for the village.

1945

At last the end of the war was in sight. When we heard the war was over in Europe in May, the village had dancing in the street and then up to the Village Hall. Everyone was so happy and hoping the war in the Far East would soon be over.

The following August it was finally over. The men would be demobbed and coming home. The Pubs were only allowed so much beer and spirits. The Crown at Harptree that night only had Cider and Whisky.

We would soon hope rationing would end. Uncle Fred and Jock were demobbed and came and lived with us for a while.

PEACE. NO BOMBING. AFTER 6 YEARS OF WAR.

NOTE REGARDING RATIONING

EACH PERSON

1 EGG A WEEK

¼ lb TEA A MONTH

1oz BUTTER

2oz CHEESE

2oz LARD

3oz MARG

½ lb SUGAR

¼ lb MEAT

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