Were you, or someone you know, living in London during WWII?

[lozengeoflove]

I’m really interested in what experiences women had of living in London during WWII. I’ve read so much about the male experience of fighting but I’d like to hear how women found the domestic life in London during this time.

Currently re-reading Sarah Waters ‘The Night Watch’ and would really love to hear about first hand experiences.

My grandparents (now deceased) were living in East London in WW2. I heard all sorts of stories from them, I always loved hearing about it. But the overall impression is that is wasn't the jolly old time of pulling together and having fun that you tend to hear about or see on TV, it was a terrifying and stressful time that went on relentlessly for years. Grandad in the trenches, cold, wet, hungry, terrified, homesick, and grandma at home, no idea if her new husband was still alive, terrified of planes and bombs appearing at any minute, both of them continually grieving for friends and family regularly lost along the way. They lived a good life afterwards and were always cheery but now I'm older I have no idea how they coped with such prolonged trauma.

I wrongly remembered that it was set in London, but Mrs Miniver gives a very moving description of a woman’s experience during WW2.

You should read the Cazalet chronicles for a middle class perspective of life in the war, they're not all set in London but big chunks are. The author (Elizabeth Jane Howard) was in her 20s during the war, so the detail about meals, clothing etc is all accurate.

My DM was 11 when war broke out. She lived in south London . Lots of teachers went off to war, and school wasn't great.
She left school and started working fulltime at the telegram office in central London. She told us of the boxes and boxes of telegrams that they dealt with that were being sent to tell families someone had been killed in action. At the age of 14 she travelled to work by train with her tin hat on and with her gasmask handy.

My grandmother left rural - SUPER RURAL - south-west Scotland to train as as a nurse in London in 1936, and lived there until 1942.

I often wish I had asked her more about her life(I think she was a bit of a party girl!).

MIL lived in Pimlico during the war. Bombed out twice and evacuated twice, eventually coming back to help her mother with a new baby. She stayed in touch with the family she lived with for many years.

My aunt did her nursing training at St Stephens in Fulham and was there when it was bombed. They were then moved to a hospital (Joyce Green?) before France, where she was one of the first nurses to arrive after D Day.

My DH was born in London in 1942. His Dad was in the army fighting in Italy and North Africa. During bombing raids his Mother had to shelter with him in the Sloan Square underground station. They were ultimately evacuated to "rest centers" and to Stockport and then Leeds. I honestly can't imagine how tough her life must have been.

By the end of the war she had four children and they were housed in a huge old house near Crystal Palace that had multiple families. They then had council housing where DH's parents lived with the family and then for the rest of their lives.

Sorry I misspelled Sloane.

My DDad was a baby living with his mum in east London during WWII. I know that they didn't have an air raid shelter so they had chicken wire round the kitchen table. A bomb landed on the house next door and their ceiling came down. His mum was hurt and had head injuries (I don't think she fully recovered).

One of my other relatives was situated in London during the war and was in the ATS. I'm not sure what she did exactly. I did hear a story about the little sister going awol during a raid because she'd gone rushing out to look for the cat and everyone was worried sick.

One of his friends in later life was a child living near Sheffield at the time. He said that he and his friends would go up to a hill in the countryside nearby and watch Sheffield being bombed. He said the whole place was lit up by it. Must have been horrific for kids to see.

@Beecham and @NineOClockOnASaturday thank you, I’ll look those up.

@LoveFall imagine having to live in the underground station night after night, with strangers!

We have Chislehurst Caves near me, where people took shelter during WWII.

So, I pretty much I'm bored of social media. It's full of shit.
I've read many posts on here re social media upset, "they didn't 'like or comment on my post.
Replies, I find, are more often that not, 'why would you care what people on social media think, Etc.
But, for me personally, it's not just these people! My Facebook, is full of family and long term friends as well as friends from the past who are no longer friends. Also, the ex friends that it would be very telling/confrontational if you deleted them.
My point is that social media, can very much be used as a weapon and it's hard to ignore. No matter how little you 'should' care.
Is it just me?

I think the chicken wire round a table air raid shelter was called a Morrison shelter and we're considered a reasonable alternative to the Anderson

Yes, I think that’s right about the two types of shelter.

OP - when the museums reopen, think about a trip to the Imperial War Museum. They’ve always got a lot of interesting stuff about the home front. Have you seen Foyle’s War (it’s always on a repeats channel somewhere)?

My friend's grandmother had an Anderson shelter at the bottom of the garden.

Whenever there was a bombing raid, she would stand at the back door and send her eldest daughter to run down the garden to the shelter. When she made it to the shelter, she would send the next one, and so on until she ran down herself carrying the baby.

My friend's mum remembers running on her own, scared, to her older siblings (she was the third child) and only found out later that her mum did this because she thought that if a bomb did fall she would only lose one child.

What a thought process to have to go through.

@headlock

So, I pretty much I'm bored of social media. It's full of shit. I've read many posts on here re social media upset, "they didn't 'like or comment on my post. Replies, I find, are more often that not, 'why would you care what people on social media think, Etc. But, for me personally, it's not just these people! My Facebook, is full of family and long term friends as well as friends from the past who are no longer friends. Also, the ex friends that it would be very telling/confrontational if you deleted them. My point is that social media, can very much be used as a weapon and it's hard to ignore. No matter how little you 'should' care. Is it just me?

Wrong thread?

Not London but my parents were small children further north during the war. My dad lived in Sheffield and remembers seeing the sky red with flames from bombing and the stench of acrid smoke, and my mum remembers seeing the same redness over Liverpool from her home in Chester. She also remembers going to a medical appointment in Liverpool the morning after a raid and her grandad having to lift her over the thick fire hoses that were still being used to put out smouldering buildings around Rodney Street.

My mum had a friend in later years who'd been an ambulance driver in Liverpool during the war. She sometimes saw naked bodies hanging from trees as a result of particularly bad blasts. The friend never really got over it despite becoming a music teacher after the war, which is how my mother knew her.

@ContessaVerde

That’s so interesting Hunting. I didn’t realise POW’s were still in camps that long after the war.

@ContessaVerde I agree - he was discharged officially in 1948 and had to go back to Munster for his discharge from the army. He took the train back with Bert Trautmann.

DM was born in 1928 and lived in west London during WW2. She said the teachers used to let the kids sleep at their desks if there had been air raids during the night.

She has dementia now, and for a while thought that she was living through it again, and taught me that you can tell the difference between our planes and enemy planes by listening to their engines - one is constant and one is intermittent. Hellish time to relive for her mind.

DM used to either go in the cupboard under the stairs or under the kitchen table. Her mother used to take the sofa. One day she woke up with a start thinking the intermittent sound she could hear was a enemy plane overhead - but it was the cat sitting on her chest and purring!

Dm lived in what was Kent but now outer London. Her father was a stationmaster and they got bombed out from their flat above the station in March 1945 when a v2 rocket landed near the railway. My gf was out on fire-watch at the time but she and my gm were asleep in bed and got showered with glass and shrapnel.

My other gf was an auxiliary fireman from the South Coast who was posted to London during the Blitz.

My grandma (now passed) witnessed the Catford school bombings as she lived close by, it was horrifying. Lots of stories, mainly about rationing and being constantly hungry, people you didn't know trying to get into your Anderson shelter at night. It was quite a desperate, scary time rather than the jolly, "all in this together" attitude that we associate with it now. Aspects of daily life were frightening.

American GIs used to call out to her when she was in the park, offering nylons and chocolate for her to talk to them. Before having children, they refused to leave their bed when the bombs dropped and stayed up all night, listening to the sounds. There was a story about them running up a hill dodging bombs, but I'm not sure about that.

Her best friend gave birth on a crowded tube platform, it was being used as an air raid shelter at night. Her mother and another woman helped deliver the baby and they all got up in the morning and walked home with a baby.

The effects of the war and rationing went on for years afterwards.

There are a few mass observation books that are worth a read. We are at war is a good one.

A woman in Berlin is a diary from the other side. The woman documents the fall of Berlin.

Wow HuntingoftheSnark that's a claim to fame!

I've just read the link about Catford school bombing. It says there is some debate about whether he knew it was a school or just a public building. Grandma swears he flew so low that she made eye contact with him.

My grandmother (and uncle) stayed throughout and my grandad was stationed at Biggin Hill so came home