A Teenager Growing up in England During WWII, the Blitz and Other Childhood Memories by Colin Green
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
A Teenager Growing Up in England during WWII, The Blitz and Other Childhood Memories By Colin Green suppose the background of what follows is a deep regret that not something you got hospitals involved in. I was baptized in I did not ask my parents more about their lives while they St. Michaels Church, as John Colin Green. I have no idea why I were still around. I would love have to had my Mother’s I was always called Colin – perhaps to distinguish me from recollections of living as a young child with her mother in a the son of my parents’ closest friends – the Waldeck’s – David workhouse in Oxford; I should hasten to add that her mother and Nancy - whose son and only child was called Henry John was matron there. Obviously, living through the Blitz in Smith Waldeck. At that time Henry was an unpopular name Birmingham was an interesting part of my early teens, so I for a child – God only knows why – so he was always called have penned my recollections John, which I suppose left me below. I’ve added some other with Colin. wartime stuff while I was My first schooling was at about it. Miss Webb’s Kindergarten on Perhaps I need to say a bit the Chester Road, next door to about the City of Birmingham. Chester Road Station. I believe Obviously the largest city in I was still there when we moved the U.K. is London, about eight from 34 Sycamore Road to 34 million folks, interestingly Beacon Road, Sutton Coldfield. almost exactly the same This house does exist - you can size as New York City. The Google it. My next school country’s second largest was the Rev. Keyes School for city, occasionally contested boys, and from there to Bishop by Scotland’s Glasgow, is Vesey’s. I was very good at Birmingham, whose current math and science. I never, population is around one never understood chemistry million, and located about one and enjoyed English and hundred miles north-northwest This is 34 Beacon Road, Sutton Coldfield. (Google Streets history. As for a comparison of of London. and Maps) Erdington and Sutton Coldfield, One of the many odd basically lower middle class things about Birmingham is vs upper middle class. There that it has an alternative name – Brummagem, and note that are so, so many things in my childhood that I could talk about, I said alternative, and not nickname. The first, apparently but, sadly, and understandably, they are just the snapshots of an evolution from “the home” - “ham” of Beorma’s tribe,” memories. One of these is why didn’t my parents realize that I appeared in writing in 1086. Folk are not so sure about where was very near sighted? I can remember an occasion when we Brummagem as a place name came from, but I can point out were all in the back garden and a formation of aircraft flew over. the local places such as West Bromwich, Castle Bromwich, and We all looked up but I could not see them. I told Mom and Dad, Bromsgrove are alive and well today. For many, many years but it didn’t spark their curiosity. It only became obvious when I citizens of Birmingham have been referred to as Brummies. had to have a physical at age 11 before being admitted to Bishop I was born in Erdington, on Birmingham’s northeastern Vesey’s Grammar School (BVGS), a very modestly prestigious perimeter. I am a Brummie. Fortunately, whatever English public school, where “public” means “private.” accent I have left is that of Wiltshire, where my Dad grew up. The doctor asked me to read the chart, even in those days I was born on May 21, 1927, the day Lindbergh landed at it started with a big E, and that’s all I could read. The doctor Le Bourget. I have had, and still have, a fascination of aircraft! said, “Mrs. Green, I think you had better get your son’s eyes At that time we lived at 34 Sycamore Road, Erdington. Don’t tested.” I can recall Mom taking me to an optician in the Great go on line looking for it, someone put a road through that plot of Western Arcade, and I can still recall my first sight of what the land to give access to the large, then inaccessible chunk of land world was supposed to look like – a pink and black dress on a “behind” Sycamore Road. I believe I was actually born in a mannequin in the window of the dress shop next door. nursing home just round the corner on the Chester Road. These But the real point of this memoir is to talk about me and were the times when childbirth was a normal part of life, and the Blitz. No one is quite sure why the German air raids on 292 American Aviation Historical Society Journal, Winter 2019 Short S.31 was half-scale version of the as yet to be designed Short Stirling four-engined bomber. (AAHS photo archives) England during WWII were called the Blitz, but it stuck. The A38. This route takes you through Filton, then the home of word, of course, was coined from the type of warfare unleashed the Bristol Aeroplane Co. on the right as one heads south. The by the Germans – Blitzkrieg - lightning war – rapid movement Bristol aero-engine company was on the other side of the road. of overwhelming forces with focused close air support. As we passed by the airfield there was an odd looking four- The Germans lost WWI, and the conditions agreed to in the engine aircraft. Much later I learned that it was the Short S.31, Armistice laid huge financial obligations on an economically the half-scale version of the as yet being designed Short Stirling destroyed country. Resentment by the German working class, four-engined bomber. I have no idea why it was there, though now populated by the demobilized German Army, was huge, this may have been round the time that the RAF stated that they and the German Workers Party was born. Hitler became a preferred that the Stirling used Bristol radial engines. member and rapidly rose through its ranks, powered by his While we were visiting all the adults listened closely to the brilliant oratorical style. In 1921 the party became the National radio news. I can remember my father listening one day and Socialist German Workers Party, or Nazi for short. In 1929 the saying, “We had better go back.” Clearly an unspoken “war is Nazi party was recognized as a legitimate political entity, by coming” was in the front of his mind. 1932 it was the largest party in the Reichstag and it was granted When WWI (yes, One) broke out, my Dad volunteered absolute power in 1933. Hitler became Chancellor, later Fuhrer. for the Army. At that time, Dad was a draughtsman at the Austria was taken over in March 1938, and Czechoslovakia was Great Western Railway works in Swindon, having finished occupied in March 1939. Hitler then turned his attention to the his apprenticeship as a cabinet maker in March 1914. It is no Danzig corridor issue. Bizarrely Danzig was part of Germany surprise that he was slotted as a Royal Engineer,2 rose to the on the Baltic, totally surrounded by Poland. Both Britain and rank of corporal, hence he was very happy in building quite France signed aid pacts with Poland, I believe in May 1939, big stuff. but that didn’t stop Hitler unleashing blitzkrieg on Poland on After Dad was discharged from the Army in January 1919, September 1, 1939. he returned to Great Western in Swindon, where he was politely In case you are wondering what all this meant to me, I informed that, as he had volunteered for the army, the GW was suppose it is around seven or eight years of age (1935 for me) not obliged to give him his job back. He was able to find an that one begins to become aware of the world beyond one’s opening for a rolling stock draughtsman at the Metropolitan family and friends. In those days, the news of what was going Carriage and Wagon Works, Saltley, Birmingham, so Dad on in the world came via BBC radio or newspaper.1 Radio and Mom, who were married in November 1918, headed for broadcasts started at 10:15 a.m. with a quarter of an hour’s Birmingham, settling in Erdington. Anglican service, “New Every Morning.” So I became quite It was natural for him to build an air raid shelter near the aware of a man in Germany called Hitler, and that we, as a bottom of the quite long garden at 34 Beacon Road. And it was nation, were quite worried about him. just as natural that 12-year-old me would be helping him. One of my father’s sisters lived in Plympton, Devon, with The shelter had four bunks, left and right, one above the her husband. It was normal for the family to visit them for other. Half in the ground, sloping entrance way, no recollection the summer holidays. This was roughly a 200 mile car trip. of the door. All covered with about eight inches of well packed I can remember sitting in the back of the car watching at the soil. We were working on it on Sunday morning, September 3, petrol pumps, as the petrol was pumped up by hand into a large 1939, when Dad said: “let’s go and listen to (Prime Minister) glass container, from which it was released through a hose to Chamberlain,” who was to address the nation at 10:30 a.m.