Memories of childhood during the Second World War.
Of school and family life and military service. A British expatriate looks back at his own yesterdays.
If you scroll down the page past the posts you will find some old photos from my past.
5
The trials of country life in the Cotswolds
Mairzy doats and dozy doats and liddle lamzy divey
A kiddley divey to, wouldn't you?
Yes! Mairzy doats and dozy doats and little lamzy divey
A kiddley divey too, wouldn't you,
The little boy was learning to become a gentleman. He had proper riding lessons to learn how to have a good seat and keep a straight back. He also went to school but had trouble with his letters and always got the S back to front.
Because there was a war there was no beef or pork so he had to live off the land. It was lucky he lived in the land of milk and honey. He didn't like milk but he loved honey. The very thick browny yellowish honey with the white on top. The honey combs were lovely and he was not afraid of the bees in their hives. The fruit of the land was delicious. Apples and pears and cherries and plums from the orchard, and strawberries, and blackberries when he was travelling along the roads. Even the vegetables were delicious. Asparagus dipped in hot butter ( cholesterol had not been invented then ) and the peas which he and his sister used to pod. It was his job to look for the eggs. The hens would lay them in all sorts of funny places and he would put them in a bowl of water to see if they sank or floated. The eggs were wrapped in newspaper to keep them. Much of the fruit was cooked and bottled by his mother. Salt came in large blocks like a loaf of bread.
Maybe there was not much meat at the butcher's but there was pheasant and the hills were full of rabbits. Kim the dog loved chasing rabbits. One day his mother, talking to a friend, remembered that there were half a dozen unskinned rabbits on the kitchen table. Not wishing her little darling to be shocked by the sight of death she hurried into the kitchen. She found Choo quietly stroking the rabbits and saying "lovely din din, lovely din din". He was a very pragmatic young boy.
He was a good soldier though and like his countrymen he knew his duty and suffered along side them taking his daily dose of cod's liver oil.
He ate other things too. Once on a holiday in Tintagel, his mother, checking on Choo sleeping in the evening, found him frothing at the mouth. She shook him by the ankles and a half-penny dropped out. The doctor said it had been in his stomach for six months. He had not heard of Adam either and ate the poisonous red berries he had been told not to eat. His mother gave him pints of salted water to make him vomit. She should have put him in the car instead. When she put him in the car to take him somewhere important (there was not much petrol, it too was rationed) he was always sick on her best clothes.
4
Choo’s big brother
Ba ba black sheep have you any wool,
Yes Sir, No Sir, three bags full.
One for my master and one for my dame,
and one for the little boy who lives down the lane.
The little boy lived down the lane in one of the farm cottages.
The cottages didn't have electricity as the cables were not thought to be aesthetic. The little boy doesn't live there anymore; he fell in the pond and drowned. The pond doesn't exist anymore; it was filled in.
Choo was not that little boy. He doesn't have any wool though, he has rationing instead.
But Choo is lucky. He has a big brother so he gets all his brother's old clothes. He is very proud to have a blazer and a cap. He likes uniforms.
He worships his big brother. When he was a baby his brother tied his Victoria Perambulator to his bicycle and pretended it was a horse and chariot and rode it round the streets. The neighbours didn't approve. His brother wasn't going to have a sissy for his younger brother either; so off came his baby curls.
Now he teaches Choo to climb on the roof of the farm. It is really a manor house with a big arch dividing it in two where a horse and carriage can drive through. There is an old coach in a field and Choo and his friends play in it. They go up on the roof at night because it is not allowed.
Podge, their sister went up in the day because she is not allowed out at night. She is not allowed to play with her brothers when they are having adventures either. One day she saw a ladder a workman had left and climbed up it. She sat on the top of the arch waving to people. She was not afraid. Young children are not afraid to go up. They just don't know how to come down. Choo's older brother had to climb up and rescue her because there were no men. There was a war instead.
Choo's brother is a boarder at prep school. He went there when he was six. It is very sad for Choo when he goes back to his school after the holidays. He crawls down to the bottom of his bed and cries. Kim his dog climbs on his bed and cries with him. Little boys are allowed to cry if nobody sees them and Kim won't tell because he is a very loyal dog.
3
Yankee doodle went to town
Yankee doodle went to town
A-riding on a pony;
He stuck a feather in his hat,
and called it macaroni
Lily and the little boy stood by the road to watch the columns of tanks roll by.
The GI's threw chewing gum and chocolate for them. The little boy had never had chocolate before. He ran to pick it up. When Lily said that it was for her the little boy replied that that was a silly idea; she was only a girl and of course it was for him. Such is the pragmatic confidence of a child.
There were Canadian soldiers on the farm. But they were Empire and not Yanks and Choo would go and talk to them seriously about guns and things. Their guns were as tall as he was.
Choo had a Shetland pony. He and his friends would take it to ride around the hills and woods and fields. The world might be at war but a little boy could still walk his native land without fear.
One day some more Americans came to the farm and used some out buildings as offices. They were making a film and they wanted some children with a pony in their film. So Choo and his friends signed up. Each day in the evening they would line up to be paid. A lovely big piece of silver. Half-crowns felt like real money.
Capitalism felt good. They did nothing as they were on standby. This lasted about two weeks, but Choo couldn't count time, and they got bored and went back to going over the hills. When they came back one day they found the scene had been shot without them. The producer had had to rustle up some village children and Choo lost his chance at stardom.
And such was the exploitation of England's children by the yanks during the war.
2
Les feuilles mortes
The falling leaves drift by the window
the falling leaves of red and gold
The little boy was curled up in the curtain at the left hand side of the bay window. His name was Choo, the spelling is unknown but he couldn't pronounce his own name and had adopted that. Memory is said to begin about four, so that would be his age and this would be one of his earliest.
A little girl was curled up in the curtain at the right hand side of the bay window. She was his sister and was two years younger. She had a beautiful name but he did not think she merited it yet so he called her Podge.
They were both watching the leaves fall from very tall trees on the far side of a large overgrown lawn. As a leaf floated from side to side on the wind their eyes would follow it lost in the wonder of their dreams.
All was at peace with their world. The room was now dark and unlit. The afternoon was drawing in and soon their Nanny, Lily, would arrive with something sweet to eat. Lily was about sixteen and from the village. She accompanied them everywhere, even on holiday. That meant their mother could keep elegant and happy for them untroubled by the daily chores of childcare. It must have been after four o'clock on an autumn afternoon in the Cotswolds.
An autumn of 1943 when war was tearing the world asunder.
1
Some thoughts behind the story
This tale is vaguely true; or as true as my memory is after so many years. It is also subject to that selection that permits one to only write about what one wishes to be remembered. That which has been put in the dustbin should stay there.
I had a very happy childhood. Schooling was tough, but nobody ever said it ought to be happy. Happy childhood is a phrase that applied to me. Happy schooldays is an oxymoron. We were all in it together and took it the way we were meant to. After all our elders had all been through the First or Second World Wars. There was nothing wishy-washy about them.
The army was also tough but I had deliberately chosen an elite regiment so there was nothing to complain about.
I was a rebel. Not one who wanted to overthrow the system. I believed in the system. I just refused to be dominated or to lick boots or to kow-tow or whatever expression one wishes. I was and have always remained independent. The powers that be neither liked nor accepted that. There was the source of all my problems.
This story ends when I am about twenty-five. It begins of course with my first memories.
Bannockburn £5m will put visitors in the heat of the battle - Times Online
Bannockburn £5m will put visitors in the heat of the battle
A new installation at Bannockburn will use cutting-edge digital technology to recreate the drama of the battle in which Robert the Bruce and his fewer than 9,000 men used little more than spears and strategy to crush an English army twice their size.
For six years from 1955 Britain ran a secretive programme to school young men in Chinese before shipping them off to the Far East to spy. Only now has their story become public.
Girl Guides centenary marked in Royal Mail stamp issue |
 The commemorative sheet went on sale on Tuesday
The range of activities undertaken by Girl Guides- the UK's largest youth organisation for girls and young women - features on a new set of stamps. The Royal Mail has issued them to commemorate 100 years of Girl Guides. |
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