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The War to a Child of Cumbria

I was seven years old when World War 2 began. On Sunday, September 3rd, my two brothers and I were at my grandfather’s house, as usual, waiting for my parents to arrive so that we could go ‘en famile’ to chapel where my father played the organ. At about 10.00 am we were told to our amazement that we would not be going on that particular morning, as the Prime Minister was going to make an announcement. We lived in what was at that time a fairly remote part of England — West Cumbria — where religious sectarianism was as rife as in 1960s Belfast! The neighbours and all my family were gathered together, as my grandfather, by virtue of the 75foot mast in his back garden, had the best radio reception in the area. We children were banished to the next room and told to be quiet so that everyone could hear what the Prime Minister had to say. When he announced that ‘…We were at War’, I said to my brothers, (aged five and four, respectively), “I wonder who we’re fighting,” and the 5-year-old, after some consideration said, “It must be the Catholics!” I was not in the least surprised.

We never saw or heard a bomb at close hand in our neck of the woods, but we were supplied with a Morrison Shelter in which to hide in the unlikely event of an air raid. This shelter was a large iron and mesh structure which took up the larger part of our front room and we were supposed to share it with the people next door. The man of that particular house was extremely fat and I used to have nightmares, not about the Germans bombing us, but about Kenneth from next door getting into the shelter after everyone else and blocking the entrance so that we couldn’t get out. My father, to allay my fears, put a notice on the shelter saying “K 1st”. We never had to use it so my fears were groundless and it was very useful as a stage upon which we could perform our impromptu concerts!

The most vivid memory I have is of being awakened in the middle of the night and taken out on to the cliffs in front of our house by my father to see the wonderful display of light in the sky. I thought it was a magnificent firework display until my mother arrived on the scene and berated him for exposing us to the sight of the horrendous blitz of Glasgow to the north.

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