91热爆

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by Elizabeth Perez of Stockport Libraries on behalf of Elizabeth Chapman and has been added to the site with her permission. She fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.

It was September 1939. The grown-ups had talked of nothing else for weeks! The wireless bulletins were peppered with such phrases as "commencement of hostilities" and "breaking off diplomatic relations", and now here it was at last! We were finally at war with Germany. Britain was appalled . . . and the rest of the world looked on at Europe with bated breath!

But September 1939 to me meant not primarily the war (I was only ten years old at the time), but the fact that I was about to start at an exciting new school. Indeed, in my mind the war became a very remote factor as I was much more interested in my new school uniform, a brand new satchel and a lovely shiny gold and brown badge complete with Latin motto, all of which denoted that, from henceforth, I was to be a pupil of Stockport Secondary School, one of the most prestigious schools in the town at that time. The school building was situated at the corner of Greek Street and Wellington Road South and in those days was affectionately known as 鈥淭he Tech鈥�, as it had originally been a part of Stockport Technical College next door. The school, as such, exists no longer, but the impressive late Victorian edifice still remains.

Accordingly, on a certain golden September morning, in 1939, I found myself in the playground of Stockport Secondary School with some fifty or so other "new girls", all waiting to be enrolled! This was interesting. I looked around at them. Who might possibly be a friend? Who might possibly not be a friend? The girl in horn-rimmed spectacles looked terribly clever, the sort who was good at arithmetic. What about that girl over there? Now she . . My cogitations were suddenly dismissed by an authoritive voice bidding us to form "twos" and to proceed inside school. We were each duly allocated a cloakroom peg and private locker in the cloakroom, which was situated in the basement of the school, and we were then taken upstairs to be "sorted out" into various forms. It turned out that the very bright pupils went in to the "Alpha" form, the "middle of the road" pupils (of which I was one) were put into the "Beta" form, and the less apt or "indifferent" went into the "Gamma" form, which state became something of a badge of shame subsequently, and not to be mentioned if one could help it!

Finally we settled in. Time-tables were allocated, new exercise books and text-books were issued and we each had a desk with a private padlock, which I thought was very grand! My class-mate seated on my left was a little Scottish girl named Margaret MacDonald. She was very sweet and had a lovely Scottish accent. She was madly keen on history. Little did we realise that we were about to live through a pretty important piece of history ourselves!

Life proceeded smoothly and interestingly for a few weeks and then it slowly dawned on us that things were never going to be quite the same again. Autumn was now upon us and a team of workmen came to fix something known as 鈥渂lack-out鈥� blinds to the huge windows. Late winter afternoons saw us working under electric lights with the black-out blinds firmly drawn down. The school was also used as a night-school for adults so the large black-out blinds were left up until the next morning.
What changes were to be in store for us! We all became used to hearing the wail of the air-raid sirens warning us of approaching aircraft. When this happened we had to follow a very strict air-raid drill. We would have to stop immediately what we were doing, stand by our desks, form a single file and walk quickly downstairs to the basement. This basement, luckily for the school, made a very fine air-raid shelter. It had been reinforced with massive wooden stanchions and had extra wooden benches lining the corridors. There were some 300 girls, so there was room for us all. Sometimes we took work downstairs with us, or at least had a book to read, for often the raids would go on for several hours. It was always a great relief when the steady note of the "All-Clear" siren sounded, and a great "Ah-h-h" would go up from the staff and pupils alike! Oddly enough, I never once remember feeling afraid during the raids at this time, although the teachers were, as they were very concerned for us!

Another aspect of life was the "Gas-Mask"! Gas-mask drill became part of our regular routine. We each had a gas-mask contained in a square cardboard box furnished with a shoulder-strap so that we could carry it around at all times. Gas-masks were fearsome-looking objects consisting of a cylindrical metal nozzle perforated with holes, this nozzle being incorporated into a rubber face-piece which had straps to go round the back of your head. Twice a week we had gas-mask drill, which consisted of putting the gas-mask on correctly, learning how to breathe through it properly and how to cope generally in the event of a gas attack. Mercifully, we never had one. I do not know how I would have survived in the event of a gas-raid as I couldn't breathe in my mask under normal circumstances! The masks smelled very strongly of rubber and metal combined and were distinctly unpleasant to wear! It was absolutely obligatory to carry them with you all the time, and woe betide any child who arrived at school minus gas-mask. You were promptly despatched home to fetch it back with you!

We all had to carry identity cards with us, so what with having to remember hockey-sticks or tennis racquets on games days, our school-bags with the appropriate homework books, our gas-masks, our travel vouchers, sandwiches, dinner-tickets, money etc., we dared not forget anything and had to be thoroughly organised! I can鈥檛 remember anyone ever grumbling particularly. We all accepted things in the miraculous way that children do and, despite the war, got on cheerfully with the business of getting educated!

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