My first experience of the Second World War

People on this thread would like the programme "Children of the Blitz " on BBC 2 iplayer

I have a different perspective. My mum was German and born in 1931 so was raised under Nazism. She was a member of the Bund Deutches Maedel and used to tell us stories of what fun she had. Also of sheltering in the cellar during the bombings of Frankfurt. Apparently they were all very happy when the Americans took over in 1945 - they were very friendly and gave them chocolate. She also said they had nice neat bums in their uniforms! When we came to live in England in the early 60s, my parents decided not to raise us as bi-lingual because of the negative attitudes.

Sorry, sorry, sorry. I was only curious. Now I understand that it might have been, probably was, hurtful.
Let me first apologise to Sago for the suggestion. Mea culpa.
Then say sorry to all who feel that I was rude or acted improperly.

IWasFirstClarinet

Is Sago some sort of troll? If so, Goodbye Sago!

I did not accuse Sago of being a troll. I asked if this might be the case. At that stage I did not understand what the problem was

You very much did!
I am surprised nobody reported your accusation and had it deleted.

It’s interesting how many grans here are old enough to actually remember wartime. We have such a large generational age spread on GN.
I am thinking of Bijou, a tech aware very interesting person, who was approaching her 100 th birthday.

There is a reason that my wife Sieska did not respond. She did not post the original message but I did. I used Sieska's account to do so as mine was playing up for some reason and I was unable to get in. thought I had made this clear with the sentence "[Posted by Kevin, Sieska's partner]" but clearly I failed. Perhaps I should have put that at the very top, rather than at the bottom of my original message so it stood out more.
I did not accuse Sago of being a troll. I asked if this might be the case. At that stage I did not understand what the problem was. My bad.
Clearly confusion all round, caused by me not making it totally clear that I was the author, not Sieska.
I posted originally because I felt it might make a good thread and the stories need to be told. War is bad, innocents suffer, and far too often die.
I have enjoyed reading the various accounts and thank all the authors thereof. I hope there will be more to come.

IWasFirstClarinet

If that is all you meant then no, it is easy, very easy. So here goes. Thank you everyone. I truly have enjoyed reading the stories and glad to hear that you all survived. I guess I have much to learn about Gransnet Etiquette.

It is as plain as the nose on your face who Sago was referring to.
If you had read the whole thread you surely would have noticed that Sieska hasn’t responded once, despite asking for more stories.
Btw. Very bad social media etiquette to accuse a long time member of being a Troll without evidence to support that accusation.

We too had an Anderson shelter in the garden. In Hull where we lived to dig a hole was to make a well. As soon as it was finished, about an inch or two of water was slopping around inside. And there was of course no light. I was OK as I was only two and so was carried in. Mum and Dad just paddled. Eventually someone put duckboards down but it was of course very damp in there. Mum blamed her arthritis in later life on that shelter. Then an uncle came and installed electricity and we had a dim bulb, but we could at least see but Mum said not really enough to read by. She read anyway as there was literally nothing to do other than listen to the bombs and the noise of the 'plane engines. One German dive-bomber used to make an awful screaming sound. Then that awful whistling noise that falling bombs make still makes me go goosepimply if I hear it in a film.

Being in an air raid shelter and hearing a bomber approaching. I said to my mother “are they naughty mum?”and she replied “VERY naughty”. Must have been three years old or about. Also hiding under a table at my grandmother’s home as we could hear approaching planes and my gran trying to make light of it as if it was a game.

My German mum was 15 when the war began so I had stories from her childhood there. They were frightening times if you did not support Hitler so they had to be very careful who they spoke to and what they said because people, including children, would report on family friends and neighbours. No one knew who to trust.
If it was reported someone had criticised Hitler it meant beatings, prison with hard labour and sometimes death, to them and their family, all lived in terror.
In 1950 I was 2 and we went back to Germany to see mums family. Their house had been bombed during the war and one side of it was still open to the elements . I was asleep on a bed but mum came in to pick me up and minutes later the whole ceiling fell in on top of where I had been. A lucky escape.

It's been such an interesting subject and people unbelievably brave . They must have been so hungry and so cold in those Anderson shelters . I just can't imagine the horrors . I would love to read more heroic stories and hope the thread stays open for more

If that is all you meant then no, it is easy, very easy. So here goes. Thank you everyone. I truly have enjoyed reading the stories and glad to hear that you all survived. I guess I have much to learn about Gransnet Etiquette.

I have enjoyed every one of your stories, always been fascinated by this period of history and the British people who lived during this time. What a time you had and how brave you were!

IWasFirstClarinet

Well, I do not know. Maybe Sago was referring to me (I posted it using Sieska's handle because my computer was playing up) and feels that I should acknowledge each message sent by others? Seems unlikely! But if so, the task is far beyond me.
Sago, please explain.

Oh for heavens sake….. as if you would be expected to respond to each post.

How about “ thank you all for your contributions, I have really enjoyed reading your stories”.

Not hard is it?

Well, I do not know. Maybe Sago was referring to me (I posted it using Sieska's handle because my computer was playing up) and feels that I should acknowledge each message sent by others? Seems unlikely! But if so, the task is far beyond me.
Sago, please explain.

I agree with Sago

IWasFirstClarinet

Is Sago some sort of troll? If so, Goodbye Sago!

No not a troll!

Just think it’s a bit off to ask for stories and not to acknowledge them.

Who was Sago referring to

Is Sago some sort of troll? If so, Goodbye Sago!

Sago

Another poster who never bothered to acknowledge the lovely responses.

Bit harsh. Anything could have happened.

WW2 and the food shortage. I remember my father telling me that before the war there were biscuits that had chocolate on or, his favourite, custard creams with icing in the middle. I was about five years old and, frankly, found this hard to believe. All I had seen were plain tea biscuits!
After the war ended bread suddenly went on ration. "Bread Units" had to be used to buy a loaf. These rapidly began to be shortened to "BU"s. The song on the radio "It had to be you" began to sound like "It had to BU" and I have an idea that some comedian cracked that as a joke.
I remember my first banana. I was maybe eight years old. I had only seen pictures of bananas and every one had been partially peeled, with the peel dangly down in three segments. I peeled mine and wound up with four segments of peel. I thought I had done it wrong and had ruined my banana! It tasted nice all the same.
Fruit was extremely expensive for a time in the mid 40s. One comedian told the joke that he went into a fruit shop and bought a pineapple for £4 (a lot of money back then) and paid with a fiver. The shop keeper offered him the £1 change and the customer said "Better keep it! On the way in I trod on a grape and that should almost cover it."

Sieska - thankyou for starting this thread.
I was born a couple of years after the war ended, but I don’t remember ever hearing any stories from my parents or grandparents, about the war. I have heard about rations and a ‘ration card’. Perhaps that’s because we were not in the ‘war zone’ - the far East actually. My ex-father-in-law who lived in Malaysia, had some stories about the Japanese soldiers.
So this thread has been very interesting.
Thankyou again x

My paternal grandparents had two near misses during air raids on Tyneside in 1941. A bomb narrowly missed their house, hitting the road outside insteasd,, but my paternal grandfather had a very lucky escape a month later.
He was unfit for military service due to being partially deaf in his left ear, so wasn't called up and continued working in the docks. One night he was walking home when an air raid started and he had to hide in a ditch. A bomb exploded on the other side of the road and the jacket that was covering him was ripped in half by shrapnel, but otherwise he was OK.

An Austrian friend of mine grew up on a farm very high up in the alps. There was only as rough track that lead up to the farm which no one used except her family. They were virtually self sufficient. One day a deserter from the German army appeared and asked for work. He stayed with the family for three years until the war ended working on the alm. No one came anywhere near them and they did not come down until the war ended.

Hello Sieska I'm another Hull girl, I wasn't born till 1951, but thank you so much for sharing your memories, much appreciated.

Key parental event:

My mum went to the North of France at age 17 in you guessed it, 1939. She had barely settled - a couple of months - when the Germans swept across the north of France.

She was interned of course but somehow the influential father of the family persuaded them she was just an innocent, and for the rest of the whole war had to move under German supervision every 6 months and report weekly.

Fortunately they let her be posted at lot with the extended family, but there were strangers too. Lots of tales of little food, close escapes, and so on.

Imagine, alone for all those years at 17.

she didnt talk a lot about it but kept up links with the French family.

and of course ended up as a French teacher in that post war 2 year teacher training scheme.