[guide.chat] war milkmen and manure
- From: vanessa <qwerty1234567a@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: "GUIDE CHAT" <guide.chat@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 16 Jan 2013 00:43:26 -0000
Milkmen and Manure
My memory is unusually good; I remember lots of things that happened to a
little kid during the war. This is probably the funniest of the lot.
On Saturdays, Dad went to his allotment to dig for victory. I used to love
going with him. He explained everything to me - how a tiny seed turned into a
big cabbage, and how one spud planted on top of manure produced lots of spuds.
I was the eighth of nine children. My two biggest brothers, Jimmie and Pat,
were teenagers and ever so big. Poor little Eileen, I was an undersized little
shrimp.
One day when Dad had finished the day's lesson on how to make the plants get
nice and big I said "What can I do to make myself as big as Jimmie and Pat?"
Dad told me I'd soon grow if I stood in the manure heap long enough.
Some minutes later Dad turned round and looked with horror on his little girl,
dripping with brown sticky stuff.
"What are you doing in there?" he asked.
You've guessed the answer:
"You told me to stand here. Have I grown big yet?"
Mr Ibbotson used to bring the milk - about four pints a day because we were a
very big family. He came with his big Shire horse, Billy. We all loved "Ibby"
and the horse was every child's friend. One day another milkman started to
come, with just one bottle. The milk was in a different kind of bottle from
Ibby's. The new man was not very nice to children, so I asked my mother shy she
let him come.
Mother told me the new man's milk was TT, and TT meant tuberculin tested. It
came from special cows, whose would not give people the dreadful disease called
tuberculosis. My mother told me Mr Churchill didn't want babies to get
tuberculosis, and that was she bought TT milk - only for my baby sister.
I was furious! My friend's Dad had nearly died of TB. Mr Churchill cared about
the baby but it was OK for me to get a dreadful disease that could kill people.
To this day I remember how much I resented the baby for being more important
than me. I must have been the youngest person in the world to hate Winston
Churchill for his policies.
Fortunately I learnt later that without that great man we war babies might
never have smelt the sweet perfume known as FREEDOM. I'll forgive him for the
TT milk incident.
We did not suffer from the bombing as much as the people in the South and
Midlands. Obviously it was easier to bomb the places nearer to Germany. A lady
who grew up in a city that was absolutely blitzed told me that was not the
reason. She really believed none of the northern cities and towns were involved
in war production. How mistaken she was! Middlesborough iron foundries smelted
the iron to produce the steel. Much of that was made into girders, and probably
railway lines. I know they did "big stuff" because long ago they made the
components for Sydney Bridge, the Golden Gate at San Franciso, Brunel Bridge,
Plymouth and other huge bridges all over the world. During the war they would
have been involved in the war effort.
There were also the Sheffield steelworks.
Where I was born it was all textiles. "Shoddy kingdom" is one name for our
area. The shoddy was recycled cloth. Rags were sorted, shredded, spun and
woven. The woman who said our area had done nothing for the war effort got
quite a shock when I told her the servicemen and women would have frozen to
death without the textile trade. Same for civilians - you didn't all walk round
naked did you?
I am one of the lucky war babies. Because we were so far north, I have no
memory of air raids. Now I live in the West Country, I have many friends who
huddled in air raid shelters during the war. Plymouth and Exeter were badly
bombed.
Now you know why my war memories are of milkmen and manure, not bullets and
bombs.
These stories took place in the West Riding of Yorkshire
NOT QUITE A MEMORY FROM MY HUSBAND JOHN:
I must have been the youngest survivor of the last night of the Coventry Blitz.
At the moment my Dad saved my life I was minus a few hours old - in other
words, in the womb but desperate to pop out. I couldn't wait to pop out to look
at the flashing lights and hear the big bangs.
Mother went into labour. Dad got her into the car and set off for the Maternity
Home.
As he turned a corner, he saw an Air Raid Patrol man at the other end of the
street, signalling him to turn back. At the same moment, Dad saw a stick of
delayed action bombs landing in the middle of the street.
Dad thought "This is not a good time to practice my three point turn". He put
his foot down, drove over the bombs, terrified the warden, then turned at the
next corner and delivered his wife safely to the maternity home.
A few hours later Mum safely delivered me.
Now you know why I am thankful to be alive.
Submitted to this site by Eileen Richardson
from
Vanessa The Google Girl.
my skype name is rainbowstar123
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