Wartime Britain & Things Look Bleak

This is the second of a series of four articles about life in Britain in the 1940's. My uncle the late Mr Gordon Bessant is talking to Mr Joe Hieatt-Smith. The recordings were made in 1996.

The average daily life for myself during that particular time was usually to get ready for work, I was usually out by quarter past six in the morning, although I might have been out of bed all night through the air raids, but at quarter past you got yourself ready to go to your job and you usually talked about the places that got flattened out during the night.

Usually as soon as about 8 o'clock in the winter they were over and gone again in about 2 or 3 hours. But in the summer when there was more moonlight and less cloud coverage they would come over from about 8 o'clock at night and they used to persist until 2 or 3 o'clock in the morning. So they bombed Southampton and districts, and Portsmouth, they didn't do an awful lot of damage to Bournemouth, as it wasn't industrial so much in and around these towns.

Coventry got practically flattened, you know this was where the car engines were made and the bodies of tanks and all kinds of other equipment were made there. Not just Coventry but all over the Midlands.

If we had had a quiet night we'd get ready for work at a quarter past six in the morning and you started work just after 7. You had to cycle to work on your bike. At some places there was no electricity and no water because if the Jerries had been bombing Southampton and they'd hit the water pipes in the roads then there'd be no water. We were very fortunate in that we had a well right here outside this cottage, so we always had a source to pump water from. (That well is still there to this day. It is very deep and dangerous, but the water that comes up from it is the sweetest water you could ever wish to drink.)

But for electricity, you'd substitute candles or paraffin lights for emergency lighting, but all those things were part and parcel of your life everyday. You didn't look on it as any hardship to be without light or without water or without gas. The important thing was getting the people who were injured to medical care if there were available beds for them. Often you had to wait quite a long time for treatment because the roads got bombed, houses collapsed, they caught fire. The fire people, they were exceptionally brave. They were all over the south, and everybody, yourself included, you would have been detailed into a fire fighting team which was called the firewatch scheme.

The cinema that we were going to had a direct hit that afternoon. It was filled with people. I think it was about 50 or 60 killed, 100 injured. We didn't go into that cinema only because I didn't want to see that film. It flattened that cinema almost to rubble. So we missed that impact. Coming up the hill, Fourpost Hill, we missed the fire engine impact but when we got to Standard Telephone Cables it was also on fire. Standard Telephone Cables factory had been taken over by people who made parts for submarines (our own British submarines).

Quite a lot of the instrumentation was built in there and it had had a direct hit and was on fire. That happened about six nights a week. On an average, every night we were either out fire watching, or putting out incendiary bombs. What the Germans did was, they had small bombs. They were only about 18 inches long and about 2 and a half inches round, with a long piece of steel tube and it had a very small fin on the back. They were incendiary. They operated on impact detonation.

The nozzle or the nose had to impact on the surface. They'd drop a master bomb, or a container full of them, which would burst open and they would scatter all over a large area and they carried phosphor, when you put water on, they burnt faster, you've probably heard about it in science. To put them out you have to use sand. If you put water on they only get worse.

Everywhere you went nearly everybody had 2 or 3 buckets of sand and long handled shovels, with long extension handles, not big shovels. The bombs didn't explode in the true sense and explode to fragmentation, they just burnt and caused fires. They would land on the roofs and land by the chimney and burn away where you couldn't get at them. So intense was the flame that it would catch the roofs on fire.

Lots of places got burnt out like that. Also the factories - they'd scatter them all along where they knew there were factories. You'd have an awful job really to put them out once they'd got a hold. Water was no good, as I said, they'd burn faster. So they'd use these as a means of lighting the area up for their main bombers to come in and bomb. Now we pulled the same tricks on them as they'd pull on us. Only they were more advanced than us in Britain.

It won't happen, they said, - it'll never happen here - but even the politicians thought they had a gentleman's agreement with Hitler and his mob. Chamberlain, he was Prime Minister, he had a gentlemanly agreement that they weren't going to attack. They would withdraw their forces from Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia and Poland and leave the Danzig corridor alone so that Poland would also be safe from the German army and war machine. But it didn't work that way. It didn't happen.

You know it's like having an agreement with somebody and shaking them by the hand, then you turn your back and they stick a knife in your shoulders. It's the same thing exactly. We were too very British in those days, far more than we are today. If you give your word to somebody it meant something, but today, well I think we've lost that. I call it loyalty to the crown and country. There are so many things going wrong in the country, so many things happening. When we were younger, like your age, it was impossible to think it could possibly happen.

The food situation got pretty tight. Thank goodness we had the British Empire. The Australians, the Canadians, the South Africans, and the Americans helped an awful lot with supplying food. They weren't in the war until the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbour, and that was where in my lifetime I worked till I was 19, in the docks in Southampton, getting on towards the end of the war.

We'd had lots and lots of setbacks but all the time I was working in the factory I was learning a trade. But you learnt your trade a lot quicker than you do today. As soon as you were capable of doing something skilful on your own you'd use that knowledge and skill to produce. We weren't allowed to scrap the material if we made a mistake, you'd have to rectify it damn smart otherwise you got chewed off. Learning your trade was one thing, but developing materials for war was another. To develop something was far more important than learning lots of intricacies.

If you are interested in the events of the 1940's look out for article three in this short series, "Death and Destruction and the Run Up to D Day".

Copyright David Carter 2005. Reproduced with permission.

When he is not writing David Carter runs a holiday cottage website http://www.pebblebeachmedia.co.uk where you can browse through over 7,000 holiday cottages, villas and apartments worldwide. His new book SPLAM, Successful Property Letting And Management is now available, 240 plus pages and you can find more information on that at http://www.pebblebeachmedia.co.uk. You can contact David direct on any matter at http://www.pebblebeachmedia.co.uk

executive chauffeured services Bradford .. Madison to Airport car
In The News:

Getting virus alerts on your iPhone? Tech expert Kurt “CyberGuy" Knutsson helps you learn how to handle fake scam alerts and boost security.
Tech expert Kurt “CyberGuy" Knutsson says opening emails is safe, but risks arise from interacting with links, attachments or HTML content.
Tech expert Kurt “CyberGuy" Knutsson reveals four signs of compromised Social Security numbers and offers five steps to protect yourself.
Tech expert Kurt “CyberGuy" Knutsson discusses how MAB Robotics' Honey Badger 4.0, a versatile robot, now walks underwater with amphibious skills.
An updated Android trojan called FakeCall hijacks bank calls. Tech expert Kurt “CyberGuy" Knutsson says Android phone manufacturers and Google need to step up their game on security.
The Massimo Modular E9 is a sleek, smart and comfy tiny home in 409 square feet. Tech expert Kurt “CyberGuy" Knutsson takes a closer look at what the future of housing might look like.
Every stock trader should consider a virtual private network to safeguard their trading, according to tech guru Kurt "CyberGuy" Knutsson.
Apple recently announced its new lineup of Macs and rolled out Apple Intelligence, its latest artificial intelligence-powered feature for its products.
A Swiss-engineered robot can climb ladders, showing why it's at the cutting edge of autonomous robotic solutions for harsh industrial settings.
Kurt "CyberGuy" Knutsson presents the cities targeted most by robocalls, why this is happening and what you can do about it to protect your privacy.
Stay up to date on the latest AI technology advancements and learn about the challenges and opportunities AI presents
Kurt "CyberGuy" Knutsson shares tips and suggestions for how to get the best use out of the updated Calendar app available with the latest iOS update.
Your Social Security number, your unique identifier used for many purposes, has likely been leaked on the Dark Web; here are some steps you can take to protect yourself.
Researchers have developed a new technology that creates strong, sticky fibers capable of lifting objects and capturing things from a distance.
Smart rings track the same things that smartwatches do, including steps, sleep and a general overview of your overall health, and they tend have more battery life than smartwatches.
Researchers have developed a robotic finger that can perform routine medical exams like those conducted by doctors, helping to address the growing shortage of trained professionals.
Stay up to date on the latest AI technology advancements and learn about the challenges and opportunities AI presents now and for the future.
Insurance administrative services company Landmark Admin reported that a data breach from a May cyberattack affected over 800,000 people.
Sotheby's will auction the first artwork created by Ai-Da, the world's first robot artist created in 2019 by British gallerist Aidan Meller.
More than 250 million users of the Verizon Messages app will have to switch to another app. Verizon is shutting down Messages in the next month.
Tech expert Kurt “CyberGuy" Knutsson provides a list of 10 celebrities who are the most targeted by deepfake scams, including Tom Hanks.
Tech expert Kurt “CyberGuy" Knutsson discusses how Vast's Haven-1, launching in 2025, transforms space living with human-centric design.
UnitedHealth confirms over 100 million Change Healthcare users had their data stolen. Kurt “CyberGuy" Knutsson reveals what happened and what caused the breach.
Tech expert Kurt “CyberGuy" Knutsson explains how iOS 18 brings new text formatting and animated effects to the Messages app.
Whether you're a social media veteran or novice, Facebook friend request scams are common. Kurt the CyberGuy provides tips to keep your account safe.

How Futuristic Is Anarchy As A Way To Organize The State (II)

Any chances for a country to be ruled by alternative... Read More

California Mutual Assistance Program

In years past California Mutual Assistance Program and emergency response... Read More

From Democracy to Omniocracy

Clint Eastwood recently plunged into the murky political pond with... Read More

To Grow Out Of Unemployment

There is a connection between economic growth and unemployment. There... Read More

Russian State Administration Gives New Facelift to Oil and Energy Resources

With the world's largest oil and natural gas reserves, second... Read More

A Modern Lite in the Third World

Americans pride themselves on being the best, that's a fact.... Read More

The Absurdity of the Public School Monopoly

The notion that local governments should have almost total monopoly... Read More

The European Bank for the Retardation of Development

In typical bureaucratese, the pensive EBRD analyst ventures with the... Read More

What could Macedonia Learn from a Tiger? Asian Tigers and Uninterrupted Economic Growth

The first reaction of economies in transition is a sharp... Read More

Emerging Markets, Property Law

I read an interesting article in foreign Affairs magazine last... Read More

Asking For Proof in the Economic Pudding

There are no stupid questions, only stupid people. Ask an... Read More

How Bill Cosby got it Wrong

Bill Cosby got it wrong. His many speeches regarding the... Read More

Quick Thought on The Flow of Fuel and Costs

Without the flow of fuel our very mobile society comes... Read More

PTO - Patent and Trademark Office needs complete overhaul

Recently in Maine, I talked with a gentleman and we... Read More

FTC Hurts Franchising Consumers

Last Summer the Federal Trade Commission came out with a... Read More

Questioning Both Sides of the GM Crop Debate

One question not addressed in GM Crops and Monsanto Terminator... Read More

The Dawn On The Nile Valley Has Secrets To Tell!

Amnesty International comments on the proposal that has been laid... Read More

Housing Bubble, Interest Rates, Timber Costs; What Has Changed?

What has really changed in the housing market with regards... Read More

Count Rumford

Why did FDR say Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and Count... Read More

NASA and the Crisis Aboard MIR

Some people say that we cannot put a colony on... Read More

Military Intelligence, FBI, CIA Intelligence Problems

Well many have complained that the FBI and CIA dropped... Read More

California Power and Commodity Markets

Excess capacity occurs in many industries, such as power, electricity,... Read More

Government is a Franchise System; just not a very good one

Few understand the Franchising Format and even fewer have correlated... Read More

Liquidity or Liquidation

Large parts of the world today suffer from a severe... Read More

Transporting Troops in the Future

Currently when we transport troops we use large cargo planes... Read More

O'Hare Chicago prom limo ..