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Joan Hawley (nee Cook)
My Wartime Experiences

I lived in Birmingham. I was 10 going on 11 when the war started. My parents had a drapery and wool shop, in a block of 8 shops, chemistry, grocers, shoe repairers, greengrocers, cake and bread shop, Post Office and sweets stationery etc and a butchers. On September 12th I was due to go to a new school (George Dixon’s Grammar School) all girls. I was previously at Bournville School (Cadbury country) which I loved.

Friday Sept 1st we were evacuated to Gloucester. I did not know any of the girls as the only one from my district (Muriel) was not going.

We boarded a train at Kings Norton station (a suburb of B’ham). Some of the girls were very rowdy, and someone broke one of the train windows, through playing about with the blinds. Being an only child I had not met such behaviour before. I had not been away without my parents.

On reaching Gloucester we got onto a coach, which stopped in various places and people would come out to choose who they wanted. Myself and another girl called Margaret were billeted with a family who had a daughter about our age and several adults in the family. It was very crowded and Margaret and I had to sleep in a single bed together, and I was always falling out and being in trouble for doing so.
I had never slept in a bed with anyone else before.

I can’t remember what the food was like but I know we had no milk or sugar and had to drink tea with Condensed milk which was very hot (hurry up says ‘auntie’), and tasted horrible. While in Gloucester I met another girl called Joan Cook.

Sunday Sept 3rd war was declared. My Mother wrote to me and said so-----I had no idea what an actual war was or what it meant!

One night all the adults went out and left us three girls in on our own, in bed. During the evening the daughter came in to our room, woke me up and said I’m going now. I thought she was off back to bed. It turns out she was sleep walking and went out and turned up at her Grandmother’s a few streets away, where the rest of the family had gone. There was a mighty row, my teachers were informed the next day, and I was moved to another billet.

This was in Stanley Road were there was a daughter two years older than me, Greta and a son Ivan who must have been about 17/18 as he joined up soon after. ‘Uncle’ was a van driver for a bakery and used to bring lovely Madeira and fancy cakes home.
On a Saturday he sometimes took me with him on his round. He also grew all their vegetables and lovely beetroot (which I have never been successful at). ‘Auntie’ did not work, a lovely lady, very motherly. I should think they were a bit older than my parents, maybe into their 40s/50s. I settled in nicely. Greta introduced me to the Ovaltinies and we collected all the badges etc.

We had part-time schooling, sharing with Ribbleston High School for Girls. We did some mornings in a church hall at Tuffley under Robin’s Wood Hill (we used to go for long climbs up this in later years). The whole school was together in the one hall, so you had us first years right up to the upper VIth.

At the Christmas we were allowed home to Birmingham. When I went back to Gloucester after the holiday I was very unsettled. ‘Auntie’ could see that I wasn’t
happy, so she wrote (no phone) to my Mother. The outcome being that she came and took me home to Birmingham. The whole school came back by the Easter! We kept in touch with Gloucester, and used to go back and forth by coach most school holidays. Greta and I are still in touch.

So, I settled down back home and I was able to pal up with Muriel, we joined the Girl Guides and Church Youth Club together. Then the bombing started. Oh what ‘fun’, down the shelter every night and off to school the next morning. I just don’t know how we kept up with it, and loads of homework too.

Straight away there were blackouts, so my father had someone make a board that could be pulled up and down, with pretend curtains for when it was down at night, so that we did not have to look at the horrible blackout curtains. I sometimes went with my Mother to the local cinema where she did so many hours per week as an Air Raid Warden.

We lived about a mile from the main railway line that ran from Bristol to Birmingham and on up to the North, so the German bombers used to fly up the Bristol channel and follow the railway line on moonlit nights.

First off we used to have next door in, Mr and Mrs Spalding and they usually had some niece or other with them. So when the planes came over, Mrs S and niece used to dive under my Mother’s big heavy dining table with Mrs S on her knees and praying to Allah---it was so funny.

My Father had a concrete shelter built in the garden--- didn’t fancy the government Anderson shelters. Guess what, when it rained it flooded! So, we climbed the fence and went into next door’s Anderson shelter. One night evidently I was asleep and Mrs S went out to the toilet, and promptly walked on me when she came back in and I didn’t even wake.

One night the school was bombed, a landmine. So, we had to take a large suitcase, go so far on the bus, and then walk about a mile to the school as most of the road was bombed. We had to get all our books (we bought them ourselves in those days) wade around in the water in the class room, and carry them back to the bus terminal. We had 3 weeks off, thought it was fabulous. Although recently my friend Muriel reminded me that we had part-time schooling at the girl’s Catholic school, so we had to mind our Ps and Qs!

Another time my Mother and I tried sleeping under the stairs, we had a small bed in the under-stairs cupboard. It was terrible because we kept banging our heads, so we soon gave that up. In the end we got so fed up with going out in the cold and wet down to the shelter that we ignored the sirens and stayed in bed.

Iris (who worked in my parent’s shop) and her sister Kathy used to sleep in the double bed by the window in my room, and I had the single bed by the door. So, when the bomb dropped outside the shop, Kathy rolled over her sister taking the mattress with her (it was a feather one), knocked Iris onto the floor, and landed on top of me!
What a shock! Fortunately, we had sticky mesh all over the windows (government advice), so all of the glass went outside, except one piece under the bed. Otherwise we would have been cut to smithereens.

There was a big hole on the green across the road where there was a telephone box and an underground public shelter, but I don’t think anyone used it (only us kids to play in). Another hole was up the road by the Post Office and another across the road on the island outside the Golden Cross pub, with water spurting everywhere, consequently all gas electric, water and telephones were cut off. There were several other hits all over our district. The shop windows had gone, so we had them boarded up with just a 1ft to 2ft square of glass in the middle, that is all we were allowed until after the war.

Most nights there was an orange glow in the sky, where the fires were burning in the city. I used to sit up in bed in the dark and watch the trucks (ambulances) taking the injured troops up to the Queen Elizabeth hospital about a mile away. Some were Germans and they used to be dressed in a royal blue battle dress type uniform, as they were allowed to come down to the shops, once they could walk about. They were always very polite.

As I got older (15/16) I went out with boys. It was pitch black (no street lights) so one boy friend (Fred) suggested he whistled ‘In the Mood’ so that we did not miss each other in the dark. We had double summer time, so it was light to almost midnight in the summer. One of the main bus depots was in the next district to where we lived. The buses stopped running at 6pm and they lined them up along the dual carriageway, under the trees, so that if the depot was bombed there would still be buses.

Of course we had food rationing and clothing coupons in the shop. So, it was wheels within wheels, we sometimes got extra meat and other food, in exchange for clothes, wool etc.(without coupons). Illegal, but then, needs must!

I can’t really remember when the bombing stopped as it seemed endless, but I certainly remember VE day May 8th 1945. I was watching a show (amateur) in one of the church halls with the Youth club, when someone came in and said THE WAR’S OVER! So, we all piled out into the road, joined arms and ‘Pally Glided’ along the High Street. Next night there were bonfires everywhere so we all went round from one to another, it was so spontaneous and so exciting. I was 16 by then. VJ was never the same, as it was planned.

I now live in Ilfracombe, and have lived in the North Devon area for 36 years.

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