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The first few months of 1940 were fairly uneventful as far as we children were concerned, and as a family we still had Nell and the three boys living with us. Of course nell was always anxious for news of Frank, and would stand at the front gate, waiting for the postman - or postwoman - to to hand over those familiar Service Issue air-letter forms, beginning 'Darling Nellie'. We settled back to regular schooling, the routine only broken by rehearsals for the school concerts in aid of War Weapons Week, when Creswell and Whitwell vied with Clowne to produce the highest total of monies collected, and also invested in National Savings. We were all encouraged to buy sixpenny savings stamps - two and a half pence in today's currency. Thirty of these filled a card which was then exchanged for a Savings Certificate worth fifteen shillings - 75p today. There was a device like a large thermometer erected on the outside wall of the Senior Girls' School and we checked it every morning to see if the red arrow had been moved up nearer the target.
The school concerts were always a great success. Usually held in the Mount Zion Chapel's Sunday School room, it was standing room only half-an-hour before the first item. I remember Mrs Gosling's class, first year seniors, once opening proceedings with 'Funiculee Funicular', and now when I hear one of the Italian tenors singing this I am instantly transported to that schoolroom and those young girls' voices. There'd be sketches and recitations and solos, and the older girls had a choir which was really quite good. I remember dancing a 'Highland Fling' with three other girls. Where we got the kilts from I'll never know. There was very little in the way of entertainment in clowne so it was hardly surprising that our efforts were well received.
In due course, following 'War Weapons Week' we had 'Warship Week', 'Wings for Victory Week' and 'spitfire Week', with the formula varying very little. We had poster competitions in the schools during these weeks with prizes for the first three in each age group.
I remember vividly one concert which the Lowestoft evacuees gave when one of the items was 'The Parade of the Tin Soldiers', to the tune of that name. about a dozen boys, amazingly dressed in immaculate white trousers, scarlet tunics with shiny brass buttons, and black leather crossbands, and tall hats like those worn in the Peninsular wars. They wore shiny black soft leather boots and their faces were made up with round red patches on their cheeks,and bright red lipstick on their lips, and they carried wooden rifles. A small boy in school uniform drilled them and their timing was immaculate. American Marines never did better. The end was fantastic - or so we thought - when the boy pushed the soldier at the end of the line and the whole lot collaosed like falling dominoes. The concert ended with their school choir singing 'Eternal Father Strong to Save' which was the hymn they sang every morning in assembly. The whole audience rose to join in. Though Clowne is about as far away from the sea in any direction as it is possible to be, that audience sang with the understanding of the perils that faced fathers, brothers, uncles and cousins of those young lads.
There were other concerts taking place during these weeks, and I remember a Male Voice Choir singing on a makeshift stage in the pit yard just off Creswell road. I'm not sure where they came from.
Nell mounted an exhibition of all the gifts sent back by Frank from the Middle East.He had now moved to Egypt from Palestine. She had been given the use of a small empty shop - I believe it used to be Symonites electrical shop- just below the 'Nag's Head'public house. Frank had spent eight years in India with his regiment in the 1920's and had brought back beautiful artifacts for his sister and she lent some of these to Nell for the exhibition. I remember a lovely Mother of Pearl model of the Taj Mahal, and beautiful Kashmir shawls, and a set of Indian elephants carved from ivory, each one diminishing in size, until the smallest one was only about a quarter of an inch high, but every detail was perfect. From Palestine and Egypt Frank had sent rugs with with beautifully woven pictures, exquisite pieces of jewellery, like spiders' webs, a set of German wireless earphones with Telefunken stamped on them - one of the spoils of war. A wooden cigar box held two beautiful giant butterflies - or were they moths? -An Arab head-dress with the woven band that fastened round the head to hold it on securely - a treasure indeed for the Nativity scenes in the school and Sunday School Christmas plays. Beats a tea-towel secured by a snake belt. For we children there was often a box of Turkish delight, and although I tried hard to like it I never took to it, and to this day can't bear the sweetness and the scent of it. There were many more treasures, and all these things arrived safely, wrapped securely in stout canvas. A miracle of wartime conveyencing of mail. Nothing was ever lost to enemy action.
One afternoon lessons were interrupted by the air-raid siren sounding. Those girls who could reach home in five minutes ran home, taking one or two friends with them. Our class went to Miss Hibbert's house which was next to the school She had a cellar ans we all crowded into it and sang wartime songs. @Rollout the Barrel', 'There'll be Bluebirds over the white cliffs of Dover', 'The Quartermaster's Store', and a few others besides. All too soon - for us- the all Clear sounded and we were all marchd back to school where the other classes were cowering in the cloak-room among the coat pegs. Later brick shelters were built at the bottom of the school playground but I don't remember an occasion when they were used.
These are some of the memories school and family in the early 1940's.

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