The Home Front in World War Two

by Susie Hodge

  In the prelude to the war, the government prepared the evacuation programme by dividing the country into three types of area: Evacuation, Neutral and Reception. Evacuation areas were particularly important locations or industrial areas that would be likely targets for enemy bombers, while reception areas were rural places that were considered relatively safe, such as Kent, Wales, Derbyshire and East Anglia. Of the five and a half million who met the criteria for the evacuation scheme, only about 30 per cent actually went, but even so, it caused huge disruptions to both the families who were separated and those who took in evacuees. Anne Maltby remembers the day she was evacuated with her school to New Mills in Derbyshire on 1st September 1939.

  “My elder sister Jean and I went to the same school, so I don’t remember being sad about leaving our mum. But I do remember being thrilled about the train ride and eating a tomato sandwich on the journey! Looking back, our mother must have been distraught, but we accepted it all, we weren’t aware of the dangers then. When we arrived in New Mills, we were all herded into the playground of a school where local ladies came up to us and literally picked who they liked the look of. I was the same size as one woman’s daughter, so I suppose she thought it would be a good idea to take me in. She said, ‘I’ll have that one,’ as if she was choosing sweets. I panicked and clung to my sister and luckily one of our teachers (they were all evacuated with us) told the woman, ‘I’m sorry, she has to go with her sister.’ Another lady took us both, but I hated every minute of the evacuation and was very happy to return home a few months later.”

  On the other side of things, Peter Jones was an only child living in Tredegar, Wales. In 1939 he was 13 when his mother took in an evacuee from London and he hated having to share for the first time! Fortunately the boy did not stay long and in the next phase of evacuation the following summer, Peter and his friends were ready to throw stones at a train that was rumoured to be bringing a school of boys to Tredegar. Peter’s daughter recounted the story: “The Tredegar boys all lined up, ready to attack the evacuated boys, but when the train arrived and the doors opened…it was a girls’ school! Suddenly, the evacuees were very welcome!”

  Those in London had to deal with all eventualities. In about 1941 when Stan Bell was walking to school in Hackney, a German pilot flew quite low and began shooting:

  “I was walking across Clapton Common. There were lots of other people about, going to school and work. The German plane flew down – he must have been a rogue pilot as he began shooting at us with a machine gun. Everyone ran and sheltered where we could until he had passed. Fortunately, he was too high to hit anyone.”

  Early on in the war, Jean Pink had been terrified of both gas masks and barrage balloons, but she said:

  “The doodlebugs, which came later in the war, were the most frightening of all the bombs. They flew independently, with no pilots and then dropped on civilians. They first attacked London in June 1944. You could hear their loud buzzing sound as they came towards you, which stopped suddenly when they were about to drop. It was terrifying when you heard the buzz and even worse when it stopped. Other bombs that the Germans dropped later in the war were known as butterfly bombs because they were quite small and had wings. A butterfly bomb didn’t explode on impact but only if someone touched it as it lay on the ground. They looked like toys, so policemen came to my school to warn us about the dangers and tell us not to touch them. Articles were printed in newspapers to warn us about them too.”

  Although London was the most bombed of all British cities, Hull was the second most severely targeted, with 95 per cent of houses damaged or destroyed over the course of the war. One evening early in 1941, John Maltby, a child living in Lincolnshire, was walking along a country path. “Where I lived was high enough to see across to the River Humber, but one night I was out and could see as far as Hull, it was so brightly illuminated by all the incendiary bombs. It was shocking to witness, but we were desensitised to the horrors of war as they came daily.”

  Many children were more upset by their pets’ distress than by anything else. Gas masks were produced for horses, but they were expensive, and none were produced for any other animal, although the RSPCA produced a leaflet advising on ways of keeping pets calm, including padding dogs’ ears with cotton wool and tying a mask across their eyes. The leaflet stated that “few cats would tolerate anything of the kind”. Anne Maltby recollected: “My father was in the First World War so had experience of digging trenches. He and my two brothers dug a trench in our back garden, lined the floor with planks of wood and put a vertical ladder on the side. They made a ‘lid’ for it too. As soon as the air raid siren sounded, my dog would run down! Don’t ask me how he managed the vertical ladder, but he did – both ways, down and then up after the air raid!”

  Yvonne Gilan who was eight years old when the war broke out, raised money for wartime causes:

  “My mother made me a tray with pink ribbon round my neck and I went to all the neighbours’ houses, selling lavender bags, bath salts in pink net bags, felt pen-wipers – because we used fountain pens then and the ink often needed wiping – spills (for lighting gas fires) in painted boxes, string shopping bags, pin cushions, handkerchiefs embroidered with little crinoline ladies (very popular) and decorated candles. Sometimes my friend Kathleen came with me. I sent the money I made to Clementine Churchill for her War Fund and she sent me a letter thanking me for it....which I still have. Everything on the tray was made by my grandmother, my mother, my Aunt Netta and especially my beloved godmother, Aunt Mary.”

  Yvonne explained how her mother, grandmother and aunts were exceptionally creative:

  “They were hoarders, you see, so anything they had was used, any bits of wool, ribbons, net. They knitted, sewed and used up everything. I used to make cotton reel mats. It’s called French knitting nowadays and I did it with wooden cotton reels. It was such fun when the knitting started to come through the bottom of the reel. Once I’d made a long enough piece, I finished it off and coiled it into spirals to make the mats.”

  Yvonne’s Coil Mats

  A wooden cotton reel

  Four nails

  Wool

  Needle and thread

  Crochet hook

  1. Press the four nails into the top of the cotton reel.

  2. Thread the wool through the cotton reel from top to bottom.

  3. Wind the wool twice around the nails in an anti-clockwise direction. Do not pull it too tightly.

  4. With the crochet hook, lift one strand of wool up and over the other strand and each nail. Continue working in this way, going round and round, hooking wool over each nail and previous stitch an anti-clockwise direction and as it emerges from the bottom, tug the knitted cord gently.

  5. If you want to change wool colour, simply cut and tie a new coloured wool to the previous colour, but make sure that the knot is pushed inside the nails.

  6.When your cord is long enough, cut the wool, leaving a short length and thread it through each loop. Pull tight to fasten off.

  7. To make a coil mat, curl the knitted cord in a flat spiral and stitch it together.

  Jackie Watson remembers going regularly with a friend to neighbours’ houses, pushing a wheelbarrow and collecting people’s paper and glass salvage, and then wheeling the full barrow on to a WVS collection centre. In 1941 the Ministry of Information issued a leaflet especially for 14 to 18 year olds. Headed: “You can help your country”, it explained:

  “The difference between this war and the previous wars is that now we are all in the Front Line in a struggle for the principles of freedom and justice and respect for the laws of God and honour amongst men. Whether we are in uniform or not, we are in the war. And no matter how young we are or how old we are, there are jobs we can do for our country.”

  The leaflet suggested ways these young people could help, such as taking charge of some of the air raid precautions in their home; learning how to deal with a gas leak or a burnt-out electric fuse; cooking some meals; bec
oming the main salvage collector in the home; growing vegetables; helping elderly or invalid neighbours; learning first aid and making splints and bandages. They were urged to work hard; to be careful what they said; keep smiling; keep fit; save all they could and to be as independent as they could. By the end of 1941 it became compulsory for everyone aged 16 to 18 to join a youth group. Committees were established to advise on the most suitable groups for each individual. National youth groups with local branches included: The Red Cross Society and the St John’s Ambulance Brigade, Scouts and Cubs, Girl Guides and Rangers, Boys’ Brigade, the Air Training Corps and Women’s Junior Air Corps, but there were also many others. In general, youth groups were places where young people met and socialised, but they also learned useful skills, such as first aid, nursing and handicrafts (girls only), how to help with the Civil Defence, some learned unarmed combat and had weapons training (boys only).

  Schools participated wholeheartedly in the war effort, some adopting particular military units for example, as they raised money, saved, collected, grew vegetables and donated. Some schools started “Spitfire” or “Warship Funds”. By raising money for these named causes, schoolchildren could learn how much of the money they had saved would buy something essential for the war like a Spitfire or warship. It was important that along with the adults, children felt as if they were making a difference. In 1940, more than 6,000 school savings groups started. Rosemary Winters recalled:

  “We were encouraged to save regularly at school by buying Savings Stamps, which were stuck into our savings books. During the war everyone was encouraged not to spend money frivolously but to put as much as possible into National Savings by way of stamps which were 6d each, or Savings Certificates which cost 15 shillings with interest after five years to help pay for the war. Thirty savings stamps could be exchanged for a Certificate. Every school, organisation and business set their own target for special weeks such as ‘Spitfire Week’, ‘Support our Soldiers’ and ‘Warship Week’. At our school, we ‘adopted’ a ship and wrote letters to the sailors on board.”

  Boys were taught to be useful in the woodwork department while girls were taught to knit or sew and make things to send to the Front and to help their families. Toys were in short supply as materials were scarce, being needed for more essential wartime items. Many toys were either home-made or second-hand, as a new business emerged, known as “toy exchanges” where children (or parents) either swapped or sold toys they no longer wanted. Most home-made toys were knitted or sewn, or made of paper, card, tin or off-cuts of wood. Jean Pink remembered how early on in the war she read Enid Blyton’s Sunny Stories and later Girl’s Crystal. She played with her rag doll and was happy to cut out paper dolls and their separate clothes, attaching the clothes to the dolls by folding tabs or doing cotton reel knitting. She also remembered making pompoms using wool and milk bottle tops. During the war, milk bottles were wider at the neck and the tops were made of circular card with a small central push-out hole. Jean explained:

  “We’d put two milk bottle tops together and wound wool around them through the central hole, round and round over and again until the hole was closed up and the card circles could no longer be seen. Then we cut round the outer edge of wool and tied another piece of wool between the two pieces of card so the bulk of the wool was held tightly in the centre. We took away the two circles of card and fluffed out the pompom!”

  The BBC catered for children with its daily (half-hour) programme, Children’s Hour, which ran competitions to encourage children to help with the war effort and there were also two schools’ programmes each day during the week. Comics were still produced, the favourites including Sunny Stories, Girl’s Crystal, The Beano and The Dandy, although like newspapers and magazines, they were subject to paper shortages and diminished in size. Children’s books were still produced and enjoyed by many, including Richmal Crompton’s Just William, who became involved in numerous wartime scrapes, while Enid Blyton continued to produce various books for children of all ages, including Five O’Clock Tales, The Famous Five and the boarding school stories of St Clare’s, which ignored the war completely. But childhood did not last long. Most children left school at 14 and went straight to work. By 18 the majority were conscripted for the services or for war work. Joan Easton remembered: “Everyone was asked to help win the war by making extra efforts and working harder and on the whole, everyone did.”

  Cardboard cakes

  As restrictions and shortages increased, everyone had to work harder and be more innovative. Along with many other sayings and catchphrases, the mottoes “be thankful and never grumble” and “never leave any food on your plate” were often uttered. With so many severe restraints and deficiencies, these positive aphorisms helped to keep people focused. At some moments, things became so bad that everyone’s resilience and fortitude was tested and sometimes in unexpectedly trivial areas. In July 1940, coming soon after the Battle of Dunkirk, the making or selling of iced cakes was banned. It was just a small thing in the umpteen other hardships and sorrows, but iced cakes were such a symbolic part of some of the happiest of occasions in British life, such as weddings and christenings, that it disheartened many. As usual, creativity came to the fore. Within a short time, smaller plain cakes were made for weddings and other such celebrations, covered with simulated icing – often cardboard tiers (like upside-down hat boxes) that resembled real icing, while some made knitted ‘icing’ covers, that looked rather like tea cosies. If there was to be a reception, usually friends and relatives helped by saving and pooling food coupons, but even so, refreshments were always frugal.

  Few newlyweds took honeymoons, and family holidays were rare. The beaches of the South and East coast were barricaded with barbed wire and their hotels were mainly requisitioned for military use, so these pre-war destinations became almost out of bounds. In 1942 the government introduced the “Holidays at Home” scheme, encouraging people to find things they could do locally rather than travelling far away. Employees did not have time off for holidays as in peacetime and anyway, there were travel restrictions. Special cheap day and weekend excursions were organised by bus and railway companies, although these were mainly to help parents who were trying to visit their evacuated children. The Holidays at Home scheme was run by local councils who put on concerts, parties, fairs and other forms of local entertainment. Thousands also responded to a government campaign to take working holidays on farms. Margaret Ronaldson who lived in Bow, London, recalled: “Even if holidays hadn’t been cancelled during the war, we’d never have been able to afford to go away, so we were pleased to go and work on a farm. We went to the same one in Kent every year for about four days each time. There must have been over a hundred people staying there, all doing the same. Some stayed for two weeks. It was hard work, but lots of fresh air, everyone was cheery and the food was marvellous and every night, we all had a sing-song! It was a wonderful atmosphere.”

  With so many people away – in the services, evacuated, in the Land Army or nursing – letter writing was an important aspect of the war. To help everyone in what could sometimes become a difficult task, advice on letter writing was printed in newspapers and magazines. In September 1940, Good Housekeeping printed an article written by the highly-respected writer Daphne du Maurier, whose best-selling novel Rebecca had been published in 1938. This is a small excerpt from her article entitled “Letter Writing in Wartime”:

  “…Any murmur of ‘self-pity’ will not be helpful to the writer. The woman who dares to write: ‘This agony of separation is too much for me to bear’ cannot be forgiven. Whatever she does, and must feel in her heart, of strain and anxiety, no sign of it should appear in any of her letters. Men are not always the sturdy, stalwart creatures we imagine and a yearning letter from home may bring the nervy, highly-strung type to breaking-point.”

  It was not just the “nervy, highly-strung type” who was considered, but the entire British nation. It was imperative that everyone kept positive and confiden
t. This was all an essential part of “doing your bit”. Apart from a short time in the summer of 1940, everyone in Britain firmly believed that they would win the war.

  8

  HOME LIFE

  “This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it

  is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.” ~ Winston Churchill,

  November 1942

  Austerity measures affected home life in just about every aspect. It was impossible to go shopping as it had been in peacetime. Obtaining basic items that were needed at home was difficult at best and more often than not unobtainable. While it was invariably mainly women who felt the lack of clothes, make-up and toiletries most keenly; everyone craved for plentiful food and other home comforts. After all, it was not just the luxuries that were scarce, but essentials as well, such as bedding, curtains, cutlery, crockery, light bulbs and even cleaning materials.

  Only those who had been bombed out of their homes or newlyweds were allowed to buy new furniture. Second-hand furniture was almost as difficult to get as, like toys and wedding dresses, they were desirable commodities, snapped up by desperate buyers – and prices soared. In August 1944 Good Housekeeping ran an article called “Wartime Hope Chest”. Written by Christine Palmer, it suggested ideas for those setting up home. One area focused on “Second-hand Furniture” and ran:

  “Second-hand furniture presents all kinds of exciting possibilities. Freed from ugly mouldings and clumsy handles, it can be given new beauty by stripping and painting with flat white paint. Decorate, if you wish, with simple designs, using artists’ colours and a good camel-hair brush. Victorian whatnots can be converted easily into bedside tables or dumb waiters. Ornate Victorian mirrors, which can often be bought for a song, stripped and painted white or any pastel colour, can be hung over a low table or shelf to make most attractive ‘dressing tables’.”