A Child's War (11 page)

Down at the Elephant and Castle, incendiaries fell so fast 16-year-old Bill Sherrington dashed to the nearest shelter for help, but found only sour looks –he must be mad to venture abroad on a night like this. So Sherrington battled heroically on his own, darting into houses the owners had left . . . stamping out some bombs . . . using a stirrup pump on others . . . tipping a flaming flower-box into the street seconds before the window frame caught.

There were many other small local groups. John Merritt remembers one which was set up in Virginia Water, Surrey:

About 1942 I started going to Sunday School at Christ Church in Christ Church Road. At about this time the vicar started a club for its children, boys and girls, and this was to be called the 4Cs club, standing for Christ Church Commando Cadets. This sounds rather military now, and on reflection, it seems to me to have been a mild form of the Hitler Youth. Our uniforms were to have a military look: grey material and a black beret. These never did materialise during my time there – but we did have a badge with 4Cs intertwined on it.

Our activities consisted of map-reading, tracking and signalling, much the same as the Scouts or Guides would have done. I was aged about 9 or 10 at the time and I quite enjoyed our meetings. I think the vicar was the only adult present, as I don’t recall any other grown-ups.

War or no war, for most boys and girls there was still spare time, and children being children they found ways to enjoy themselves.

With no television to watch, no computer games to play, children passed their time in other ways. Comics were immensely popular – there were far more titles available at the start of the war than today. For younger children these included
Rainbow
,
Chick’s Own
,
Playbox
and
Tiny Tots
; for older children such favourites as the
Beano
and
Dandy
,
Knockout
,
Chips
,
Comic Cuts
,
Radio Fun
and
Film Fun
. From 1940 paper shortages led to many comics closing down, including
Tiger Tim’s Weekly
,
Larks
,
Golden
and
Magic
. No new titles could be started on a weekly basis, but several small publishers produced one-off comics from time to time as paper became available.

Younger children’s comics carried on with no change to established contents, but characters in the ‘older’ comics went to war.
Comic Cuts
had ‘Big-hearted Martha, our ARP-Nut’, the
Dandy
had ‘Addie and Hermie’, alias Adolf Hitler and Herman Goering, shown as inept food thieves, while the
Beano
featured ‘Musso the Wop’, alias Mussolini. Barbara Courtney: ‘We used to read comics, the
Beano
and the
Dandy
, my favourites were Desperate Dan with his great big steaks, and Lord Snooty.’ Iris Smith: ‘I used to get half a crown [2
s
6
d
; 12½p] a week pocket money. I bought the
Girl’s Crystal
comic every week – we used to take it down into our shelter – we had an Anderson – and Mrs Brain – she and her husband lived with us then – used to read the serial
Barry and his Mobike
to us all.’ – unlike many of today’s comics, there would be several written stories in a comic of the time, so they lasted for hours.

As the war progressed those comics that remained got smaller; before the war many had been the size of newspapers. The number of pages also decreased; in 1939, for example, the
Beano
usually had twenty-eight pages, by 1940 it was down to eight, with colour printing used only on the cover.

The US forces brought with them glossy American comics such as
Superman
and
Batman
. These seemed even more glamorous compared with their monochrome wartime British cousins. Charles Harris: ‘I never got pocket money – I used to earn 6
d
going out with the baker on his round. We spent it mostly on sweets and comics, the
Beano
, the
Dandy
, the
Rover
and the
Hotspur
were my favourites. We also got American comics, like
Superman
, and
Batman
, but they were thick, like books. When you’d finished with them we used to swap.’

Most comics produced a Christmas annual, and this continued throughout the war. At the beginning of the war other books were produced with the war in mind, such as the
Black-out Book
, designed to be used in the shelters: ‘Here is the ideal companion for those black-out evenings – a volume which has been aptly described as “The One Hundred and One Black-Out Nights’s Entertainment”. Problems which Father will enjoy solving, quiet corners for Mother, puzzles and things to make for the children, games and competitions, nonsense rhymes and brain tests for the entire family’ – it almost makes an air raid sound fun!

Children’s books also continued to be produced, some using the war as a background for their adventures. Richmal Crompton’s hero William Brown had a wonderful chance to exercise his ‘talents’, in
William and the ARP
(1939) later published as
William’s Bad Resolution
,
William and the Evacuees
(1940) later published as
William the Film Star
,
William Does His Bit
(1941),
William Carries On
(1942), and
William and the Brains Trust
(1945). Among other things, William manages to have fun helping refugees, in air-raid shelters, collecting salvage and chasing suspected spies, hoarders and black marketeers, as well as causing trouble for an air-raid warden, the Auxiliary Fire Service and, of course, the police.

Enid Blyton continued to produce children’s books throughout the war, although the war itself was rarely mentioned in them. Her output was prolific, with over 100 titles published between 1939 and 1945. Some were for smaller children, such as
Five O’Clock Tales
(1941) and
Enid Blyton’s Happy Story Book
(1942). For older girls, she produced, among others, the St Clare’s series of books, the first,
The Twins at St Clare’s
, appearing in 1941, followed through to
The Fifth Formers of St Clare’s
(1945); St Clare’s was a girls’s boarding school which the war seems to have passed completely by. For boys and girls the Famous Five appeared in
Five on a Treasure Island
(1942),
Five Go Adventuring Again
(1943),
Five Run Away Together
(1944) and
Five Go to Smugglers’ Top
(1945).

W.E. Johns’s hero, Biggles, once again took to the air – although he would by now have been well into his forties, having become a fighter ace in the First World War – in eleven wartime books, spanning almost every corner of the war. Titles included
Biggles Secret Agent
(1940),
Biggles Defies the Swastika
(1941),
Biggles Sweeps the Desert
(1942) and
Biggles in Borneo
(1943).

In 1941, Johns introduced a new female character, Worrals, in
Worrals of the WAAF
. She went on to appear in
Worrals Flies Again
(1942),
Worrals Carries On
(1942),
Worrals on the Warpath
(1943),
Worrals Goes East
(1944) and
Worrals of the Islands
(1945).

Malcolm Saville began writing at this time, publishing his first book
Mystery at Witched
in 1943, followed by
Seven White Gates
(1944),
Trouble at Townsend
(1945) and
The Gay Dolphin Adventure
(1945), which has lost, or perhaps gained, something in the changing use of language over the years.

The BBC had been broadcasting television programmes since August 1932, but television sets were available only to the rich – for the vast majority of people the radio, or the wireless as it was called, was the main form of home entertainment. It was on the wireless that most people heard the Prime Minister announce that Britain was at war. Television broadcasts ceased immediately, and the radio schedules were changed - a new version of the
Radio Times
was even rushed out on Monday 4 September with the new schedules in. The children’s programmes were broadcast in
Children’s Hour
, between 5 and 6 o’clock, every day but Sunday. The original choice for that Monday, the first day of the war, was scheduled as:

Another story of Samuel the Snail

Some favourite gramophone records

The cases of Constable Crush

The best and easiest way to keep fish

There is a saying that truth is the first casualty of war. On Wednesday 6 September children’s programmes were back, but only for
half
an hour, and so they remained throughout the war – they were still called
Children’s Hour
, so in that sense the
Radio Times
was, in a way, correct, but the children were not fooled. However, this was partly made up for by the fact that an edition of
Children’s Hour
was introduced on Sundays.

Up to 18 September 1939, the
Radio Times
published no details of what was on
Children’s Hour
, but from that date the programmes were listed again, starting with
Another story from Mostly Mary
, followed by
The Zoo man
.

The programmes continued to be introduced by ‘Uncle Mac’ (Derek McCulloch) with the words, ‘Hello children everywhere’, and besides short prorammes of the sort already mentioned, there were serialisations of classics, such as
The Wind in the Willows
, and
Great Expectations
, and old favourites such as
Toytown
, with ‘Larry the Lamb’.

Sylvie Stevenson: ‘We used to listen to
Children’s Hour
on the radio – there was Uncle Mac and
Toytown
– I liked that. Then there were the serials. We also listened to the Ovaltinis on Radio Luxembourg.’

During the day there were two sessions of broadcasts for schools, 11.00 to 12.20 and 1.50 to 3.00. A typical programme might be:

11.00 Announcements and singing

11.05 British history – from coast to coast 11.25 Singing

11.30 Interlude

11.35 Nature study

11.50 Physical training

The schools programmes proved to be especially useful to those pupils who had not been evacuated and had no schools to go to, or to those receiving home tuition or part-time schooling.

Of course children listened to other programmes too. Particularly popular were
The Brains Trust
, a discussion show;
Paul Temple
and
Appointment with Fear
– thrillers;
ITMA
(‘It’s That Man Again’) a comedy hosted by Tommy Hanley, which included such characters as Colonel Chinstrap, Mrs Mop and Funf; and another favourite,
Charley McCarthy
, a ventriloquist act (Charley was the dummy!).

Popular singers included Vera Lynn – the ‘Forces’s Sweetheart’, Arthur Askey, George Formby, Hutch – real name Leslie Hutchinson, and Gracie Fields. There were also bands such as Geraldo’s Orchestra. Live bands always featured at local dances (discos not yet having been invented). Ken Kessie recalls one in Moreton:

You had the hops, the dances on Saturday night, you met your girlfriends there. The music was played by ‘Alberto and his Band’; a saxophone, a drum kit and a piano. Alberto, he was never really Alberto, probably Albert, he played the saxophone.

In the absence of television, the cinema was one of the most popular forms of entertainment – almost everyone went to ‘the pictures’, at least once a week. Iris Smith: ‘Every Saturday we queued up for the cinema – there were long queues – everyone went to the pictures – my favourite was Judy Garland.’

In addition to the feature film, which was the main entertainment of the evening, there would be a second or ‘B’ film, one or two cartoons – such as Disney’s
The Fuhrer’s Face
, where Donald Duck dreams he lives in Nazi Germany – and the newsreel. Ken Kessie: ‘My favourite was Betty Grable – the flea-pit in Moreton was a must on Friday or Saturday, Sunday it was closed of course. We all went to church on Sunday morning – mostly to see the girls.’

No film programme of the time would have been complete without a ten-minute newsreel, made by Pathé Gazette, British Movietone News, Gaumont British News, British Paramount News, or the American ‘March of Time’ – in the absence of television these were the only moving pictures of the war the British public saw. There were usually also Ministry of Information films, such as
Five Inches of Water
, which showed why it was important to use only a small amount of water in the bath, or cartoons such as
Dustbin Parade
, showing the importance of salvage collecting – all done with a certain amount of humour.

Wartime films can be split into two types. First there were those based on the war, telling stories, usually adventures, in which the heroes fight Nazi spies, etc. Among these was the 1942 classic
Went the Day Well?
, in which the inhabitants of an English village, including a young evacuee played by Harry Fowler, fight off Nazi storm troopers. Second there were what we might call ‘escapist’ films, such as Disney’s
Dumbo
, released in 1941, which had nothing to do with the war, but which helped people to forget such things as the Blitz – but only for a while. Charles Harris:

Then, of course there was the pictures, we used to go Saturday morning. If you went to the cinema in the evenings, when there were the air raids, if there was an air-raid warning, they used to put up a notice on the screen saying ‘The sirens have gone if you want to go to the shelter’, but they kept on showing the film, we always stayed to watch the end.

Particular British favourites included George Formby, top British box office star from 1939 to 1943 – Formby always played the same character, an amiable idiot who always won through in the end. His wartime films included
Let George Do It
(1940), where he took on Nazi spies; one scene, in which he dreamed of flying to Germany in a balloon and punching Hitler on the nose, was a huge success, British audiences cheering at the top of their voices. In another film,
Get Cracking
(1943), George played a Home Guard. Other comedy favourites included Arthur Askey, and the Crazy Gang, a comedy group which included Bud Flanagan, who years later sang the theme tune to the BBC’s comedy series about the Home Guard,
Dad’s Army
. Of course, they were not universally popular – Charles Harris recalls: ‘I couldn’t stand Arthur Askey, “big-hearted Arthur” they used to call him, we called him “big-headed Arthur”!’