Memories of the War years

by Wendy Ojeski, June 2000

I was not quite 5 years old when the war started in September 1939. We lived just outside the village of Hempton, on the Deddington Road, in Oxfordshire. A sleepy little village, almost cut off from the world in those days, except for 3 busses a day, to Banbury, on Thursdays and Saturdays. These were 'market days', and it was always a treat to be allowed to go with Mum and Dad to Banbury to shop. Only the grocer, Mr Dodd owned a car and he also had the only telephone in the village.

I don't remember the day the war started of course, but I do remember my mother dying all our curtains black and hanging them back at all the windows. That night Mum and Dad went outside to make sure "nothing showed through". We used oil lamps for light in those days so there was only light in the room the family was actually using. England was plunged into total darkness at night so that "Jerry" (meaning the Germans) could not see us from the sky.

I started school when I was about 6 years old. Deddington Primary school was a mile down the road in Deddington and I remember that we were all given gas-masks that we were required to carry to school every day. These gas-masks came in little square cardboard boxes with a string to carry them over our shoulders, and more than once I forgot to take mine to school. Mr Wing was the Headmaster and he insisted you walk all the way home and get your gas-mask. I don't remember that we had any idea what these gas-masks were for and I don't remember anyone ever telling us, but we were instructed as to how to wear them.

My Dad worked for a builder (Hinkins & Frewin) and I remember when the old Banbury Grammar school burned and Dad and his mates had to clean up the rubbish from the fire and he came home with pencils and notebooks that escaped the flames. One day my mother went around crying all day. She said that Dad might have to "go off and fight the Hitler Man". Dad came home and said he was declared 4F and that because of his bad eye-sight he would not have to go to fight but that he would be in The Home Guard. I remember seeing him in his army uniform and being almost afraid to look at him but also feeling very proud of my Dad. Almost every other weekend my Dad would have to go off to do his army duty, but he could never tell us where he went or what he did. Around this time too, Dad said he was working with his building contracting firm at a place called Bletchley Park. Every morning he would ride his bicycle to Deddington and meet his mates and they would ride in a lorry to Bletchley. He never did tell us what he did there but I know he came home every evening with chalky plaster dust all over his clothes.

Mum was always complaining about something called "rationing" and the longer the war lasted the more she complained. There was never enough tea and very few sweets for us children. There were no Oranges and Bananas and often no margarine for our toast in the morning. We often used the drippings from the Sunday roast on our bread. Even though we kept chickens there were never enough eggs for us to eat because we had to give the government egg man a certain amount of eggs in exchange for coupons for chicken food. Mum bought some ducks and some Banty hens in the hopes that if they layed enough eggs we could eat those instead of hen eggs. I do remember we ate a lot of liver and hearts and even brains. We fed 'lights" (beef lung) to the dog and the barn cats. These offals were not rationed. This way we could save our meat ration for Sunday dinner. Dad had a big vegetable garden and he grew lots of potatoes, beans, peas, and marrows and cabbage. He always grew sweet peas too. I think that was his way of saying that even with the war there was still some beauty around us if we just took time to look. Life was not easy in those days for anyone. We had no running water and when the well went dry we had to walk to the village pump and fill up buckets and lug them home.

One morning I woke up and went down to breakfast and there were two strange girls in the kitchen with Mum. She said they were 'evacuees' and their names were Joyce and Pat and they were from London. They were going to stay with us for awhile. Joyce and Pat were "big girls". I think they must have been about eleven or twelve. Seems to me they were always in trouble with Mum. The end came one day when they were caught trying to sell the green, unripe apples they had picked from Mums' apple trees. A lady recognized them and told Mum.

After that there was a steady succession of evacuees from London. I remember Doreen Wright. She was like a sister to me. Doreen came to us with only the clothes she was wearing. Mum said I had to share my clothes with her. She was about my age, around eight years old, and when my Aunt got married Mum made us both dresses from the leftover material from the bridesmaids dresses to wear to the wedding. I recall they were two different shades of blue. To us they were the most beautiful dresses anyone ever had. Doreen left us very suddenly. One day Doreen and I were helping Mum clean the house and we were dusting the furniture just like we did every Saturday. All of a sudden a lady who  said she was Doreens' mother came into the house and said that she didn't want Doreen to be our maid. Mum tried to calm her down and explain things and invited her to stay over night. When we woke up in the morning both Doreen and Mrs Wright were gone. I have  often wondered what happened to Doreen in the East End of London with all the bombing. I hope she survived.

Then there was Alex. He was a bit younger than me. Someone I could boss around. Alex was a brat. He would chase and tease those Banty roosters all over the garden. One day Mum had just finished giving the kitchen floor a good scrubbing and here comes Alex, screaming with a Banty rooster right on his heels. Right into the kitchen and the bucket of dirty water goes flying all over Mums'  clean floor.

Mums' ducks all had sore eyes and one day Mr Hudson the baker told my mother that he had seen the Bantys pecking at the ducks eyes. We ate a lot of chicken soup after that and when I asked Dad where the Bantys were and he said they were hiding in the barn.

I remember going shopping with Mum to Banbury one Thursday and the air-raid sirens sounded. Everyone crowded in the shelters under the Town Hall in Banbury. The talk was that the Germans were trying to bomb the gas works. pretty soon the All-Clear sounded and we all got on our busses and went home. Another early memory is of laying on my back on the lawn in the garden in the afternoons and seeing what seemed like hundreds of planes flying over-head. Mum said they were going to bomb Germany. Hempton was surrounded by, I believe five aerodromes, both British and American so there was always the sound of a plane flying overhead.

Two of my Aunts were very young and pretty soon they came home with two American soldiers. These were to be my new Uncles. Uncle Bill and Uncle Eddie always had plenty of 'candy' for us children and also brought lots of other good things to eat to my Grandmothers' house. One day I remember seeing long, long, lines of American army lorries lined up along the road outside the house where we lived. They were a cheerful friendly bunch of men and were only too happy to give the children sweets in exchange for cups of tea and drinks of water. Mum said they were going off to fight the Germans. Thinking back, I wonder how many of those Yanks died that month and how they must have been missing their own children back in the United States of America.

One day Dad went off to London to work on 'bomb damage repair'. The firm Dad worked for were ordered by the British Government to try to make some of the houses that had been bombed livable again, at least temporarily. Dad came home every two weeks and one weekend told us that he was staying at the Royal Veterinary College. He jokingly told Mum that when the sirens sounded he and his mates never bothered to go down to the shelters. Mum was very upset and cried and made Dad promise that from now on he would heed the sirens. Sure enough just a few days later the college took a direct hit. Dad and his mates crawled out of the debris and told us about the animals that had to be destroyed because they were so badly injured. Around this time too, Dad told of having to help pull people out of bombed out houses in London. Often they were children and Dad would cry when he told us about it.

I only spent a few months at Deddington Primary School and from there I attended St Johns' Priory in Banbury. I walked to Deddington every day to catch the Oxford bus to school. One day we were in class and Mother Gertrude came to the classroom and told us that the war was over and that we could all take the rest of the day off. I don't remember how I got home that day but I do remember that night my Dad walking all the way from the Railway Station in Banbury in a real bad storm so he could be with us to celebrate VE day. Oh, what a celebration that was. There was a big party in the village with cakes and jelly for the children and lots of games and prizes. A few months later another huge party when the Japanese surrendered and World War 2 was officially over for good.

Unfortunately this was not the end of all the British peoples' troubles, Everything was still rationed and many things were rationed for at least another five years. Gradually though, things started to appear in the shops like sweets and oranges and bananas. People could go to the seaside again and the streets were no longer dark. The soldiers who survived came home and even though houses were hard to come by not too many people complained.  My Aunt Margie married her American soldier and went to live in the Unites States. Once she was settled in Chicago she began sending packages home to Hempton containing all kinds of treats and surprises. I remember she sent tea-bags to my Grandmother who could not for the life of her figure out why those crazy Americans went to all that trouble to put tea in those little tiny bags. Grandma spent a long afternoon carefully cutting those tea-bags open and putting the tea in the Tea-Caddy. The first time Aunt Margie went shopping in America she proudly went home with about ten or twelve dozen oranges. She had never seen that many oranges before and was afraid that if she didn't buy them then they would be all gone tomorrow. How her new family laughed at her. They had no idea that in England oranges were a delicacy, because they were grown in huge quantities in Florida and California in the United States and there were more than enough to go around.

It's hard to believe that many of todays children have never heard of The War, or if they have, it's just a chapter or two in a history book. They have no idea that just 50 years or so ago their Grandparents lived and died in this war and that many other family members made sacrifices that allows todays children to live in peace. Let's try to keep the memory of the war alive so that those who died and gave so much, will never be forgotten.