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.

@mylaptopismylapdog

My mum who was Scottish was a nurse in dartford during the Blitz she told stories of running for shelter when the buzz bombs stopped behind her and sheltering in the underground. My favourite story is of her getting on a train to go home to Scotland in her nurses uniform ,falling asleep and on waking finding that the soldiers sat opposite had laid her across their laps so she was more comfortable.

The last part made me shed a tear but in a happy way

Nanna told me many tales and my aunt dated an American stationed in London (who sadly died in 1944) I should write them down for my kids

My granny was evacuated from London with her children as they were so young. She hated it so much she took herself and the two boys back home saying she would rather die in London than live in the West Midlands. The street next to them was bombed after that so it wasn't a safe place to be at all. The graveyard where my granny's father was buried was bombed and apparently her mother went the next day demanding to be let in. I don't know how my granny felt about that; I heard about it from another relative. There was no way to identify the remains of course and they were all re-buried in a mass grave. My granny was in an unusual position in that my granddad was exempted from military service since he worked for an aircraft company, so he was home despite being in his 20s. Granny said that when she always took my dad with her when she went to get rations because the grocer would often give her a little bit extra if he was charmed by my dad.

My Grandmother was 12 when the war started and lived in a flat in Bethnal Green. She had a lot of stories to tell. She woke one night to find half her ceiling had collapsed on her because of a bomb. After that, she was evacuated with 2 of her brothers, initially to the West Country. They stayed there for a few months, then returned home, before being evacuated again, this time to East Anglia. Her mother visited there and liked it so much that she actually managed to rent a small cottage there for a time.

She returned to London about age 14 and worked in a shop. She had various tails of near misses - she didn't catch her usual bus back from work one day and it was flattened by a bomb; she saw a doodlebug stop right overhead and the door to the air raid shelter was stuck. Mostly she talked about the fun she had as a teenage girl. At one point she was dating a soldier, sailor and airman simultaneously, until two came home on leave at the same time.

Her flat was next to Bethnal Green tube station at the time of the Bethnal Green station disaster. She wasn't home at the time but her father was called out to help remove all the bodies. She said he never fully recovered from what he saw.

My grandmother was evacuated to Dorset and went to the local school, and then worked on the land as a Land Girl. She loved it so much she never went back to London. She married the farmers son when he got back from Germany and spent the rest of her life there. I went to live with my grandparents from the age of 14 and they were the most loving , happy and hardworking couple. My granddad told me every day was a gift from God after he got back. He landed on a Normandy beach and fought all the way to Northern Germany. He had nightmares every night of his life, even in his 80’s. My gran was always there for him. It fell to an awful lot of women to help and support their menfolk through years of PTSD. They kept it together and raised a family. Different breed of people. People complain today about the privations of lockdown. They don’t know what it means.

My mother was a young teen in 1939, she was evacuated to Wiltshire but threatened to walk back to London if her mother didn't come and get her. My gran went and got her.
My gran, a widow who had lived through WW1, and my mother spent the war in London, her son was in the forces. They didn't speak much about it but when they did it was funny stories and a lot of laughter, they were lovely people and not remotely bitter about any "enemy" my gran had lived in Germany in the 1920s.
My other grandmother also lived through both world wars in London. She sheltered in the tube station and one night her house was destroyed by a bomb. My dad came home on leave unaware and found a crater where his home had been and had to ask around to find where his mum had moved to.

The Nella Last diaries were dramatised by Victoria Wood as Housewife, 49, which is brilliant and well worth a watch; it’s often on ITV3.

There’s also Millions Like Us by Virginia Nicholson, which is all about women’s experiences in WW2. Apparently the ATS was horribly rough and a big shock for nice middle class girls like my grandmother. She had a story about some American GI’s trying to impress her and her friend with a dramatic story of war action and they were lapping it up until they realised it was the plot of the film that had been showing at the local cinema the previous month 🤣

It’s odd to think how the war still affects us even now. I live in a post-war flat which is built on the site of bomb damage; I was able to identify the exact bomb on the London blitz map. If not for the conflict and that bomb, I’d be living somewhere completely different

Both my parents and grandparents were in London during WW2. My grandma told stories of helping to deliver neighbours babies inside Anderson shelters during bombing raids (she wasnt a nurse or midwife but had 2 children herself), tying tourniques on neighbours limbs after bombing raids (nan learnt a lot of first aid out of necessity), sleeping in the tube stations (no toilet facilities in there, so built their own shelter in their back garden), evacuating their children to broxbourne but collecting them after a month as the young couple they were staying with didnt look after them or feed them (probably resented the children being billeted with them). Grandad was a firewatcher and saw his parents road get bombed (luckily they were unscathed). Queuing hours for food outside butchers or greengrocers only to find out there was nothing left when you got to the front of the queue.
So they learned to keep chickens and grew some of their own food, learnt to knit, sew and craft, learnt musical instruments to entertain themselves and were a tight knit family with supportive neighbours. They taught me my siblings and my cousins a lot of practical skills and gave us all a love of growing things, baking etc which has been useful in the lock downs with our own DCs

Watch Lucy Worsley Blitz Spirit - eye opening

My nan gave me her government issue WW2 cookbook - i hadnt realised that's when crumble topping was invented as it used less ingredients than pastry!

My nan was evacuated to the South West - she was 10 or 11 at the time, where the family that so graciously took her in basically let their older teenage son abuse her as his own sexual play thing. She felt unwelcome and a problem to them the whole time besides that.

She wished so much she'd been allowed to stay and take her chances with the bombs in London.

She's spoken to many other evacuees who were abused in some way by their host families.

My mother's family were bombed out and then travelled around various bomb sites in a caravan whilst my grandfather cleared the rubble. No school for her until she was eight.

My father was at Sandhurst Road school. The pilot knew it was a school. There were kids in the playground.

My mum was born in 1934 so was a child but she says before being evacuated she remembers her dad diving under the kitchen table at the sound of bombs and yelling at everyone to get under. She also remembers returning home after being evacuated for several years. and not recognising her mother at all. She came from a big family but all the siblings were split up and she was sent to live with an older couple. She at least was able to see one or two of her sisters at school.

On the other side of things my grandmother-in-law fled to Dresden near the end of WWII and has a absolute phobia of rats to this day because of her memories of the bodies and rats after the bombings.

My grandparents were both children just outside London during the war (Harold Wood/Romford).

My grandad, born in 1932, & his 3 siblings were evacuated but went to 3 different families - the little twins were kept together. He doesn't talk about his experience much but I gather it was not pleasant. He talks of his father, who was a barber, being chased down a street by machine guns & only just managing to avoid being shot by ducking behind trees.

My nan was born in 1930 & was not evacuated. She pretty much didn't go to school once war started as she was a sickly child & in hospital a lot & there wasn't much of a school to go to by that point. Her father didn't go to war as he worked on the railways, so she was lucky in that way. To this day, she is terrified of loud bangs as it reminds her of bombs being dropped.

New level of tiredness
We have also recently uncovered sexual abuse during a relatives time as an evacuee and she finally feels safe enough to talk about it 80 years later. It's affected her whole life

@skeggycaggy

Wow HuntingoftheSnark that's a claim to fame!

His other claim to fame was playing the piano for Hitler, but he never spoke of it. He was 19 and a very reluctant member of the German army when he was captured in Eindhoven in 1944. He remained grateful to be able to stay in the UK, and especially to Norwich - he died three years ago and his ashes are there. These stories are all fascinating. My mother will be 91 this year and says that the last year has been much worse than wartime years, because of the isolation - she is obviously widowed and lives alone.

Yes my nan who is soon to be 101. She remembers seeing St Paul’s on fire, being bombed out, but generally just carrying on going to work until that got bombed too.

It's not London, but for a fascinating description of what life was like in Liverpool, you could try Helen Forrester's books - there's a whole series of them, autobiographical, starting with Tuppence to Cross the Mersey, when her family went bankrupt in (mid?) 30s, and relocated from an affluent market town to Liverpool. It continues through her growing up and being a young woman during the war, managing the family home with many children, volunteering with the red cross, working in a variety of jobs, many air raids, dances and social life, etc.

There are also a couple of other books not in the same series, fiction, around the same time.

We spent the night before my third birthday in the Anderson shelter, and
I remember walking up the garden path in the morning in my dressing gown and slippers feeling excited because there would be presents. I suppose the 3rd birthday would be the first one that you are really aware of.
I started school in Jan 1943. One morning in March 1944 I went to school as usual and when I got there we were sent straight home, because incendiary bombs had been dropped on the building and the top floor had been burnt out. Temporary accommodation for the Juniors was found in a nearby church hall. We had to kneel on the wooden floor and use the seats of chairs to work on. It was painful.
Years later, when I was in the Senior school, many of our text-books still bore signs of having been water-logged by the firemens' hoses. A

My late MIL lived in Beckenham, she and her sister were teenagers during the war. She recalled a machine gun attack as they were crossing a bridge. They had a shelter in the garden and were bombed out by a Doodlebug bomb. Many of her memories seemed to be happy at the way people had pulled together and family gatherings, but I am sure they seemed happier in hindsight.

Two of our neighbours in their late 90's one who sadly passed recently both were in the East end were bombed out both young brides with children and one being Jewish which would've added a extra level of terror, both did a lot of voluntary work during the war both tended to focus on the more positive aspects of the situation and not dwell on the negative which is a generational thing my grandparents were the same despite my grandfather in particular seeing some pretty horrific stuff

Mum was born in London in 1937 and lived there during the war. Went to a school five minutes walk away, to this day struggles with air raid siren noises (we were in the Imperial War Museum once when they sounded and it really affected her). Mum has explained about the ration books having dedicated suppliers you went to (so one particular butcher for example).

Granddad went to work on the bus and tube each day, grandma a housewife as would be expected. Mum able to travel to relatives elsewhere in the UK in the summer but not evacuated, memories of train travel with troops on the train.

My mum was born in 1925 and lived in SE London. Her father was away at sea (merchant navy) and her 4 older brothers were all in the forces. In September 39, my mum and her younger sister were evacuated to Swanley (not far from where they lived and a major train junction at the time). They lived with a very poor family, with an outside privy and newspaper used as tablecloth. There was also a postman lodger living in the house. My auntie told me that he used to look at her and my mum 'in a funny way'. After a few weeks, my GF came home on leave, went to see his daughters, took one look at the set-up and brought them straight home again. They were not evacuated again.

They lived in a house with cellars, so used to take shelter there during air raids.

My other GPs had a Morrison shelter in their dining room. When this GM died in 1958, my mother found blue bags of wartime sugar still in her pantry, untouched. GM was saving them for 'when they were really needed'. My DM said the sugar had gone brown and lumpy and she had to throw them out.

My MiL was working at a day nursery and remembered vividly watching the Battle of Britain taking place over the skies of Kent.

One of my neighbours is in her mid nineties and was at school during the war. She relayed a tale of how her and her friend were pushing their bikes home from school when an enemy plane flew really low over head. They ran and hid in an alleyway, it was so close she could clearly see the markings. She is a lovely woman and I used to pop round for afternoon tea which she served in bona china cups with tiny cakes with little silver cake forks. She is incredibly gracious.

It always makes me wonder how people that had terrible things like this happen just got on with life, happy to be alive. Yet today people scream that they have ptsd for the most trivial of things.

I don’t think that’s really fair tbh. Many, many people of that generation were terribly affected in many ways and could have done with a lot more support for their mental health. My great aunt, who was the happiest and most jolly woman you could meet, was diagnosed with anxiety in her 80s after trying to take her own life. It was a direct result of her being evacuated in the war and she struggled to even discuss her experiences that late in her life because it was just expected that people wouldn’t talk about things.

My gran lived in Richmond London, they had a factory at the back of their house and near a train line. My mum remembers praying under the stairs when the bombing started... several houses were bombed along her street and the factory! They were the evacuated and my mum said they were absolutely horrible people. So my gran took the children back home and hoped for the best.... 😱😱