Blitz Kids (3 page)

Whilst most of Britain’s youth listened to the announcement and wondered what effect this war would have on their lives, some of their contemporaries immediately realized that war was about to turn their world upside down. At Eastney Barracks in Portsmouth, fourteen-year-old
Len Chester suddenly discovered what it meant to be on active service in wartime. The youth was part of a group training to be ‘boy buglers’, who were employed on warships to sound orders to the crew by bugle call.

The son of a south London policeman, Len had applied to join aged just thirteen:

Volunteering for the marines had been simple. He collected papers from a recruiting office, filled them in, got his parents’ consent and then was called to central London for a medical. For the first time, the thirteen year old entered a world far different to a sheltered life of school and home. He entered the world of men:

First of all, there was a medical to pass. Their vision was tested, then the would-be marines had to strip off and line up ready for inspection. As a boy among men, the physical differences were laid bare for all to see:

Having endured the humiliation of public nudity, Len Chester swore the oath of loyalty and took the ‘King’s shilling’. He was officially a member of His Majesty’s Armed Forces. The pride this inspired was soon deflated. After he took the shilling, the Recruiting Sergeant informed him he had eaten a lunch costing 1 shilling and sixpence and
therefore already owed the Royal Marines sixpence. Then it was home, back to the world of childhood, to await his orders.

On 3 May 1939, aged just fourteen years and twenty-eight days, he left home and travelled to Portsmouth to begin training as a Bugler. He would serve for four years as a boy, then for twelve years as a marine. His father did not hide his feelings: ‘He was as “Proud as Punch” to see his son going to fight the Hun.’ Notably, his mother was less effusive. She kept her emotions hidden. Whilst everyone else was expecting a war, the thought didn’t cross the youngster’s mind. ‘I had no idea or experience of war. Everything new is an adventure at that age. And I thought being a marine was going to be a big adventure.’

During the summer of 1939 Len Chester had watched many changes at Eastney Barracks. Reservists were being called up and arrived at the barracks dressed in caps, uniforms and equipment that seemed like relics of another age. They were time-served marines, men who had done their full service and retired. To the fourteen year old these men, most in their late thirties and early forties, appeared ancient. Yet the political crises that had caused their recall meant little to the teenager. His summer had been spent learning the bugle calls and drum rolls and trying to master the flute. For him, Sunday, 3 September was a special day: ‘It was our Sunday church parade. It was the first time I’d been to it in full regimental dress. It was always a bit of a spectacle. The public were allowed in church and we used to do a bit of a show for them. But war was declared whilst we were in church.’ The padre announced that the civilians should return home and the marines should return to their barracks. For Len Chester the announcement of the declaration of war was less important than the cancellation of his chance to perform in front of an audience. He thought to himself: ‘Mr Chamberlain could have left it another hour!’

Returning to the barracks, Len had no idea what was going on elsewhere in the country. Whilst other boys his age were being evacuated, he was suddenly immersed in the world of war. Their first instructions came through almost immediately: ‘Everyone thought there’d be bombs falling on us straight away. They were worried about rabid animals roaming around on the bombed cities. So we got our first wartime order.’ The order they received was direct but shocking. It simply read: ‘Drown all cats.’

For children like Bill Edwardes and his classmates, the threat of war had been hanging over them for a year. The Munich Crisis of 1938 had given children a taste of what was to come. For Roy Bartlett, living with his parents above their West London hardware shop, the impending conflict had little impact:

The sudden arrival of gas masks was the one thing that changed their world. From early 1937 factories had been producing gas masks at a rate of some 150,000 per month and these had started being issued in 1938. With their issue, war was no longer something that concerned
only the adults. At Roy Bartlett’s school, the distribution of gas masks was a less than formal occasion, despite the efforts of the instructor:

He and his classmates soon realized that gas mask cases had many potential uses: ‘If you stood three on top of each other it became a cricket wicket. Stand them three yards apart and they were goalposts for football. Or you could chuck them up into trees and knock conkers down.’

Despite the light-hearted antics of children who were too young to understand war, there was a serious undercurrent that soon impacted upon them: evacuation. In preparation for war, some schools had embarked upon evacuations, moving their pupils into the countryside for safety. Born in July 1929, Colin Ryder Richardson was at Arnold House School in St John’s Wood, London, at the time of the Munich crisis. Suddenly the children were told the school was moving to Scotland:

For Roy Bartlett, the discussion of evacuation seemed somehow unreal:

It was just the start of a process that saw some sixty million changes of address in six years of war, a remarkable figure considering the population stood at less than fifty million.

Despite the opposition of children who had no desire to be evacuated, the story of the children’s war effectively began on Friday, 1 September 1939. The evacuation of the cities, ports and industrial areas began immediately. This was the starkest possible warning of what ‘total war’ might mean: the transportation of one-and-a-half million people out of danger. Never before had such a movement of population been attempted in the UK. There were 735,000 children who were separated from their parents and a further 426,500 mothers with young children. From London alone, 339,000 children left London in the government scheme. Many more left the city with private schools or with families who decided to relocate to the countryside.

All across London and the big cities, parents were faced with an uncomfortable choice. The government reaction, though extreme, was deemed logical. For all the tears it inspired, from children and parents alike, the threat of modern war was too great for anything else to be done. It was a terrible dilemma: should they lose their children to the safety of the countryside or risk staying – and possibly dying – together?

In east London’s Bethnal Green, war had been prefaced by the rise of the Blackshirts and the conflict between them and many of the locals. Nine-year-old Reg Baker, who had watched the street fights in defiance of his parents, was under no illusion that the world was a violent place. The East End was a rough place, but his local community was close-knit and generous – those with spare cash would willingly loan their last pennies to a mate in need. His was a world of pawnbrokers and constant hunger, a world where a bus trip to Oxford
Street seemed like travelling to another planet. Winter and summer, Reg wore the same battered woollen jersey, threadbare trousers and worn-out shoes: ‘You put cardboard in your shoe, but it’s no good if you step in a puddle.’

He was under no illusion about the world he lived in. Even the most loving parents had little time to show affection to their kids. Often it was the women who suffered most from the frustrations brought on by poverty, as Reg Baker soon realized: ‘They were such drab days – drink was the only way out. That’s why men got violent.’ The violence made an impression on the youngster:

The violence only stopped when Baker’s elder brother had grown tall enough to intervene: ‘I came home one night and my old man started on Mum. My brother came over and bang! He knocked him down. Dad sobbed – I think he was embarrassed that his son had hit him.’

When the time came for London’s children to be evacuated, it was no wonder both Baker and his parents were happy for him to go. Having one fewer mouth to feed made a significant difference – even before rationing was introduced. And so, when the time came, Reg made his way to school alongside his classmates. In later years Baker was always struck by one thought: whenever he saw photographs of evacuees they seemed to be well dressed and carrying small suitcases or wearing rucksacks. That was not his experience. He was dressed in his normal ragged clothes and had travelled with a carrier bag containing little more than a tin of condensed milk.

The children gathered at their schools. The older ones were evidently enjoying the adventure, anxious to discover what life would be like in the countryside and keen to maximize the opportunity. Younger children held their mothers close. Family groups held hands, the eldest sibling urged not to let the others out of their sight. In Ealing, Roy Bartlett had voiced his opposition to evacuation and his parents
had originally accepted his protests, agreeing he should remain at home. When they discovered the rest of his school were going away the decision was taken out of the nine year old’s hands, his mother arguing that she did not have time to teach him at home. So he joined the classes assembling in his school playground at six in the morning:

As the mothers cried, the evacuees had labels tied to their coats, were given a ‘goodie bag’ of food for their first meal and lined up to board the buses: ‘We were excited. It was an adventure. Which over-rides the fear. I was going with all my mates.’ As they boarded the bus, the children could hear their mothers shouting to them: ‘Don’t forget to write! Don’t forget to change your socks! Don’t forget to wash behind your ears!’ As Reg Baker left the East End for Oxfordshire he considered it an adventure. The most exciting thing was that they were given a bar of Cadbury’s chocolate: ‘It was supposed to last the whole day. I’d eaten mine by the time I left Bethnal Green. It was a real treat – I was always hungry.’

That Friday, as the children began their journey, there were awkward scenes the like of which the country had never seen. On the brink of total war, the children reached railway stations where they passed columns of soldiers heading off to join their units. The juxtaposition of the two was a stark reminder of the changes that were taking place. At stations, the evacuees climbed onboard one of the 1,500 special trains that had been laid on to carry them away from home. Around 600,000 were herded on to requisitioned buses and driven to their destination. The bright red of London Transport buses seemed incongruous in the country lanes as they weaved their way into the villages to unload their youthful cargo. On his bus, Roy Bartlett found the journey seemed to last for hours. It was all an illusion. By the time they reached their destination they had travelled just twenty-four miles. One lucky group of children were even evacuated from London
to the Norfolk coast on a pleasure steamer more used to transporting holidaymakers on day trips.

In their excitement most of the children failed to notice that some faces were missing. In every class there were a few gaps, children whose families refused to let them join the exodus. In east London, soon to be one of the most bombed parts of the country, there were plenty who decided to take their chances. When the Morris family heard the news that young Alf was going to be evacuated the discussion was brief. Alf listened as his mother boldly stated: ‘If I die, he dies with me.’ The decision was final: the whole family would face war together, come what may.

The children arrived at their destinations, some clumped together with friends, others holding the hands of siblings. It was a pathetic sight to see these lost and lonely children nervously waiting to see what would happen next. The comics they carried, bought by parents as a going-away gift, seemed altogether sadder than when they had begun their journeys. The pages were crumpled, courtesy of so many eager hands. They had served their purpose, keeping the children occupied on the journey; now they were little more than a reminder of home. Likewise, those who had left in their best clothes, seemed dishevelled after hours of travelling. Above all, behind the little bravado offered up by some, there was a quiet air of caution – and not a little sadness – surrounding the evacuees.

As hundreds of thousands of children began the exodus from the cities, a vast army of helpers was recruited to help look after them. In some areas, schools organized their senior pupils and prefects to support the evacuation system. Boy Scouts and Girl Guides played a major role in helping to collect children from railway stations and then deliver them to their new homes. Girl Guides also volunteered to clean homes, many of which had stood empty for years, to be used for housing evacuees. Their work also entailed using their sewing and handicraft skills to make blackout curtains. In the opening days of the war, many Guides were fully engaged in war work: as well as cleaning houses, they were looking after children and helping to dig air raid shelters. Once the evacuees were selected, Guides who had passed their ‘Child Nurse badge’ volunteered to help at nursery schools that had moved to their area.

One teenage volunteer was Jean Redman. At fifteen years old, she was just one year older than many of the evacuees. The daughter of a dentist, Jean was selected to assist at Bedford Town Hall: ‘I was seconded from school to help with the evacuation. The town clerk asked the Head if there was anyone who would be available to help with the evacuations. My friend and I had done our exams so we volunteered.’ After mustering at the Town Hall, Jean and the other volunteers walked to the railway station where they collected the children: ‘On the first train they were fairly young. Some were crying, but some were happy as they thought it was a holiday.’ The children were marched through town, with adult volunteers trying to keep order. They were then deposited in the local Corn Exchange, where they awaited selection.

Jean Redman watched as the children were assessed by potential foster parents:

Arriving in the village of Wooburn Green, Roy Bartlett and his classmates exited the bus with some trepidation, then were marched into the village hall: