Made In Hull By Maurice Fairfield Part Six - The War Part 2 (2/6)

(1/6), (2/6), (3/6), (4/6), (5/6), (6/6). Part One - Arundel Street Days Part Two - Our Terrace Part Three - The Calm before, (The Storm) Part Four - Schooldays Part Five - The War 1

They were often deployed in advance of the warning sirens and their flight was an early warning in itself as they dotted the sky in their dozens. A surprisingly pretty sight on the kind of cloudless day favoured by the bombers when they came later in the war. For now they waited as we did for something to happen. Sweet Dews farm was home also to the Air Raid Wardens Post, a sandbagged building like a shelter but with lighting, a telephone, and a small stove to warm the place.

My father got a job as Warden (three pounds a week and a better gas-mask) also a whistle, and a hand bell to warn of a gas attack if one happened. It was also his job to patrol the streets and warn householders who were showing lights (which might have given away Hull's position to the enemy). It sounded like a good idea but they always seemed to find us anyway.

Street lights were out for the duration including my favourite lamp post, and car headlight beams were reduced to a small slot of light by a cowl placed over the lens. There were a lot of accidents even though the number of cars on the road was a fraction of what it is nowadays. There was a big demand for flashlights which many people carried and batteries were hard to find.

Until the novelty wore off there was a craze for luminous buttons to wear in your lapel so that people could see each other coming, but they didn't last long before their glow faded and they had to be exposed to light for a period to make them work again.

Time passed, and the sweets disappeared from the shops as did things like the expensive toys in Hammonds which our parents mostly couldn't afford anyway. We got enough to eat by any normal standard - complaints about rationing mostly came from the big end of town. Down Arundel families probably bought about as much food as they did in the past. Bananas and oranges vanished until peace returned and petrol was rationed, ostensibly for travel to work in essential industries. Nobody had a car except my father and he scrapped his along with hosts of others which lost their value overnight when the petrol dried up.

We roamed in gangs and amused ourselves enjoying our new freedom. Going for bike rides and roaming the Humber foreshore. When the first air-raids began - mostly single planes or small groups and the A.A. gun on the farm, opened up along with the others the shell splinters spanged on the pavements and rebounded spinning. They went through slate roofs and would probably have killed or seriously injured people but I never heard of anybody being hit.

Continued on www.thisisull.com...... Next Page (3/6).

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