CHAPTER EIGHT

THE YANKS ARE COMING

 

By 1943 my mother got a key for another house in South Street after six months in the cottage and by this time we had managed to get a bit more furniture, all bought from the auction rooms I might add.

My father came to stay for a while and believe it or not he brought with him the piano that had been in the pub cellar. I still think to this day that my mother was more pleased to see the piano than she was my dad.

He also brought with him “Blue” the lovely blue Persian cat that we had. My father used to be a stevedore and he came home one night in May of 1940 with a beautiful blue Persian kitten that he had found abandoned in the hold of the ship. My mother had an instant bond with that kitten and Blue, as we named him, was my mothers shadow. When the blitz started and well before the siren wailed out its warning he used to stand clawing at the side of the door. It gave us time to get our belongings together and get down the Anderson shelter. Shrapnel had hit Blue about three times but my mother nursed him back to life each time and she always shared her food with him although we were rationed.

Blue had to stay behind with my father and sister until we got a place of our own in this new town that we had gone to live in for safety. My sister had already joined us in Loughborough some months before. She was 18 years old by this time and working at the Brush Engineering works. When we did finally get a house my dad brought Blue down to us. It was then that my father said that Blue had saved his and my sisters life because a direct hit bombed what was left of the house and it buried my father and sister alive.

They were trapped for 48 hours but Blue wriggled away from them and somehow found a way through all the bricks and mortar that lay on top of the Anderson shelter. His continuous meowing and clawing at the debris finally brought the firemen to the spot where dad and my sister were still trapped. My sister had NEVER told us about this incident and I can only assume that she was still traumatised by it. We never knew anything about this until Blue was in my mother’s arms. We were SO proud of him and he was over the moon to be back with his beloved mistress, my mother.

Our joy lasted for two weeks because our neighbour was anti cat and he put poison down that Blue licked and he died in agony in my mothers arms two weeks after surviving all the horrors of the blitz and saving two lives. I still weep about it now. To think he had gone all through that to die the way he did. We could not prove it about the neighbour but if we had I think my mother would have brained him. She would definitely have been locked up for good. I must add here that many animals were put to sleep when the war started. My mother would not let Blue be put to sleep.

I can recall going to the pictures with my mates one evening and as I walked home I witnessed this little carry on. I laughed SO much at this incident I put it in a rhyme and here it is.

A TRUE WAR STORY

It was way back in the war years of nineteen forty three
When this incident took place and it can still tickle me.
Everything was rationed and water was precious too
We had to use it sparingly even when we used the loo.

It happened as I made my way home when I was just thirteen
I waved goodnight to my mates, to a cinema we had been.
When I spotted a couple under next door’s bedroom window
Suddenly an old man shouted out and told them where to go

But the courting got quite vociferous, the old man got irate
As he shouted loudly, “Buzz off, you two its getting very late”
But the couple carried on and the old man they did ignore
“ Are you going to shift yourselves or do I call the law?”

The pair just carried on oblivious to the old man’s plea
And what happened then was a complete surprise to me.
The old man opened the window and with a bucket in his hand
He poured the lot over the couple on the spot where they did stand.

The couple stopped abruptly as the man shouted in dismay
“ I’ll have the law on you old man wasting water in this way
I have a mind to call the police and have you put in jail
Drowning us with water from your bloody great pail”

The old man was not at all worried by this menacing threat
As he waved his fist at the couple standing there all wet.
“ I told you twice to clear off and now you know” said he
“ And that wasn’t fresh water it happened to be my pee.”!!!!!!!!!

The couple went off reeking of an awful of a urine stench
Their ardour wasn’t just dampened it had also had a drench.

 

In August 1943 my sister got married to one of the local chaps much to my mother’s distress because my sister had become pregnant. I can still see my mother sobbing her heart out sitting at the kitchen table and when I asked her what was the matter I was told I was too young to know. I was by this time 13 years of age. I was old enough to clean and do the washing and starch curtains. Plus cleaning up after my mother throwing food or anything else that was handy at my father, but not old enough to know that my sister was pregnant. I found out after by overhearing a conversation.

I had to be a bridesmaid although my sister got married in blue. Everything was still rationed and my mother managed to get quite a bit of food from singing to her cronies.
As I said my father had joined us for short time and he got a job at Morris engineering works. The same place that my youngest brother Johnny worked at. Johnny was nearing calling up age and he just could not wait to get his enlisting papers.

Towards the end of 1943 a rumour had been going round that the Yanks were coming to the Midlands. My youngest brother had been called up by this time and was now in R.E.M.E.

The Yanks came alright and Loughborough had never been so alive. They even found out about my mother and started to look for Ma Johnson as they called her because she would sing all their favourite songs. I could not believe how they seemed to revere my mother until one day I overheard one Yank say to his buddy "Lets go and find Ma Johnson, have you ever heard her sing ' Danny Boy ' Toby?" Toby replied, " I guess I haven't, is she good" "She's great and did you know her first name is Amy"? It suddenly dawned on me that the Yanks thought my mother was a relation to the famous pilot Amy Johnson who had lost her life over the Thames Estuary while ferrying planes back and forth to help our pilots. Crazy, but perfectly true. My mother used to invite one or two Yanks home for supper if she could get twopennorth of bones to make bone broth with. They loved her because she was like a mother to them. In her eyes they were someone's son, husband, brother or father in a strange country and my mother was trying to make up for the absence of her first born who was fighting the Jap’s in Burma. Plus her youngest son just being called up who was sent to North Africa.

I can remember just before the Yanks were shipped out for the big push the American band came to Queens Park and started to play. A lot of people had turned up thinking that it would be a brass band but even the die-hards got " In the mood " when the band started swinging it. It was brilliant because they were playing Glen Millers music and when they played music that could be jitterbugged to the Yanks who were not in the band grabbed any young girl who was watching and proceeded to jitterbug them all round the bandstand. What a wonderful memory I have of that day. Sadly they started moving out and we all knew why.

It was during this time that my mother took in the two German Jews who had fled from Germany. They had been cruelly treated and raped by the German officers and managed to escape by dyeing their hair blonde. I have no idea how my mother came by this brother and sister. I only know that she de-loused them and kept them for about a month until the authorities found them a safe haven. Yvetta--pronounced Yetta-- and Karl both died of T.B. within two years of each other. They idolised my mother and called her Momma and still came to see her after they left.

Just after Yvetta and Karl went my mother had the offer of moving into number 3 South Street that she jumped at because it was bigger. It had three bedrooms instead of two and we were not so cramped. My mother was quite pleased because she said that it would house her piano better. The comical bit about her and her piano was that she could not play the darn thing.

1944 the 6th of June was when the invasion started. I can remember looking up in the sky to see hundreds of our planes flying overhead and wondering how many would return from the trouble that lay ahead. It was an emotional time to see this sight and I had to write this.

This poem is written as a tribute to all the thousands of men who took part in this most historical day that ever went into history books.

Deliverance Day June 6th 1944
How well I remember Deliverance Day in 1944
This was the beginning of the end of our six year war.
Many nations took part in this exceptional historic day
To help bring back justice and take tyranny away.
I watched with bated breath as our planes filled the sky
Many would be wounded and many would also die.
What a lot we owe to all that took part in that historical day
They gave us back our freedom and banished evil away.
We should never forget those who fought for us to survive
Just Thank God they gave you freedom and you are still alive.

 

The V rockets had started over London by this time. This was to be another exodus of evacuees from London who had wandered back home after getting homesick from being evacuated previously. My auntie, who lived in London was in hospital and seriously ill so my mother arranged for her and myself to go to visit Aunt Mary. I was not very happy about this because I had an aversion to hospital smells and always used to pass out. My mother said that I could go to the nearest picture house and then come to the hospital ready to make our way back to Loughborough. We duly arrived at St Pancras Station and made our way to the hospital.

After I found what ward my aunt was in I made my way to the nearest cinema. Meanwhile the V rockets had started to come over but they seemed to be moving further over London and not in the spot where I was making for. I spotted the roof of the cinema at exactly the same time as a V rocket came over and as it cut out I knew that the cinema was going to be the target. I shot into a doorway and covered my head with my coat. The explosion lifted me off my feet but I was not hurt in any way excepting for shock. Was that bloke called God, who my mother always called upon during the blitz, looking after me?

I had a narrow escape by not being in the cinema at that time. I do not know how many people lost their lives in that cinema that fateful day. I made my way back to the hospital where they treated me for shock. I was thankful to see Loughborough again when we got home. Three weeks after this incident the evacuees started coming from London to escape the V rockets and my mother took in three brothers who did not want to be parted from each other. They took to us straight away because we spoke like them. They stopped with us for about six months.

The end of this bloody war was getting nearer and the undercurrent of excitement that everyone felt was a feeling that had no words to describe it.

When Victory in Europe was declared the celebrations went on for days. The ban on the blackout was lifted it was wonderful to be able to see at night where you were going and lights were turned on just for the sheer pleasure of lighting up the streets.

We had double British summer time during the war. This meant the nights stayed lighter and it was very often light at midnight. It played havoc with the body clock though and I very often wondered how the animals went on especially the cows at milking time.

I feel honoured to have lived through the Second World War and if any one were to ask me if I would rather be a youngster today I would answer very emphatically, "definitely not".

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