Social Mobility (Revisited)

One of the pleasures of researching you family history is finding out where you come from.


I, for example, have discovered an ancestor, Joseph Maiden, who was a hunt servant in Cheshire and Staffordshire during the 19th century. His reputation was such that there is a chapter devoted to him in a history of the Cheshire Hunt and he appears in a  prominent position on a painting which hangs in the Hall at Tatton Park. There's certain irony in the fact that I have always been vociferously anti-blood sports, but yet owe my existence to fox hunting. Conversely, I am immensely proud of this ancestor, of low birth but revered by the aristocrats for whom he worked.

Moving on a couple of generations, my paternal great-grandfather, born in a small village near Bridport, Dorset, also spent his life in service to the aristocracy, becoming stud groom for the Earl of Guildford at his stately home in Kent. My grandfather also started his working life on the estate as a stable boy, but became a mechanic/chauffeur when his lordship invested in horseless carriages. World War I saw him enlist as a driver, and afterwards he joined Kent Police. With the advent of the Road Traffic Act in 1930, he was put in charge (as a sergeant) of the force's Transport section. He was a well-regarded officer whose reputation remained in the force long after retirement.


On my mother's side, my grandfather, abandoned by his father when his mother died, joined the Royal Navy and rose to the rank of Chief Petty Officer.


My parents were bright kids. My dad won a scholarship to the local grammar school (pre-1944 Education Act) and my mother trained as a typist at a Commercial School (a forerunner of the Technical schools which came along in the 1950s). Dad had a career as an insurance underwriter, specialising in insuring transport fleets, and my mum realised an ambition to run her own dancing school. They grew up in wartime, with rationing, but for the whole of their adult lives they were able to enjoy free healthcare, a full, uninterrupted employment record, a retirement in their early 60s with a generous (non-contributory) final salary pension scheme. They sold their house in the south east and retired to Devon (a long-held ambition) and had over 20 years of leisure, supported by a good GP who kept them in good health well into their 80s.


I was part of the generation of girls, born in the 1960s, who were encouraged to believe that they could achieve everything that their male counterparts could. I, too, went to a grammar school (it was Kent, which never fully embraced the concept of comprehensive education). With a white-collar father and a dancing teacher mother, we had become middle class; not cash-rich but with the values and aspirations of the post-war middle classes. 


I was the first generation to go to university. I forged a career in local government, providing administrative support in Education (in line with my philosophy that in order for teachers and schools to operate effectively, they need excellent admin support from a local authority which can serve the whole community). 


Overall, then, our family has been one which has benefited from social mobility over the last 150 years. Each generation has done a little better than the last, and while none of us have changed the world individually, all of us have made a small difference. Joe Maiden proved that it was possible to beat the toffs at their own game; my grandfather went from serving the aristocracy to serving the public; my mother defied convention by running her own business at a time when married women did not usually go out to work (and giving up a 'safe' job in an office to do it). 


So why, now, have we come to a point when this social mobility is moving rapidly into reverse? My local government career ended when I was outsourced and subsequently paid off. My partner, also a lifelong public servant, took a substantial pay cut in an organisation decimated by the sudden departure of hundreds of his colleagues before himself taking voluntary severance. My son, also a bright kid, is unlikely to be able to afford to go to university, thus reversing a one-generational trend of educational improvement. My daughter will have to overcome not only the challenges of having a disability, but the institutional discrimination of a welfare system which presumes malingering and fraud and insists on "work" at all costs while failing to offer support to the vulnerable in the workplace who will inevitably struggle in this new age of entrepreneurs (am beginning to hate that term!)


"Middle class" now seems to encapsulate people who would have been considered "very wealthy" when I was growing up, and who, to be frank, are little different from the super-wealthy who ran the country as their plaything under the coalition and the Nasty Party Redux that followed. Politicians were obsessed with "kids from poor backgrounds" while ignoring the millions of ordinary families who are above the breadline and not claiming benefits, but for whom social mobility is now proving just as difficult as for those from the poorest households. The difference is that there are no pupil premiums, bursaries or targeted schemes for them. One of the positive things about EMA was that it allowed families with an income of just under £30k pa to benefit in a small way (£10pw). There is very little support for anyone who is not actually on a "benefits-only" income. So, obviously, it was scrapped by Michael Gove in an early act of political spite. Tax credits are being reduced so even the small amounts that moderate earners receive is being scaled back, and now restricted to only the first two children, unless the mother can prove she was raped (how is that for dystopian?)


My partner and I spent nearly 20 years quietly contributing to the wellbeing of others. We were the sensible kids who worked hard at school, got our qualifications and sensible jobs. We sensibly paid into pension schemes. We did not earn huge bonuses; our salaries were modest (but good by local government standards). We were never in danger of losing our Child Benefit due to our income level. We did not live extravagantly or have huge amounts of personal debt. We had just reached a point where we did not have to check our bank balances before making any outgoing payment, and had even dared to hope we might be able to afford a second holiday each year. We have done everything that society has told us to do to be good citizens. And then all that was stripped out from under us. 


Not only is the gap between the very rich and the very poor widening, but there is now a vast chasm opening up between the lower- and upper- middle classes and it is a cultural, rather than an economic divide, stoked by populism born of xenophobia. Despite the bleating of a few London journalists, most of us are never going to earn £80,000 a year (or anything close to it) no matter how aspirational we are or how hard we work

For those of you considering voting for the "strong and stable" government of Theresa May's Conservatives, know this. Despite her conciliatory tone on the steps of No 10 when she fell into the job of Prime Minister (most of us have to go through rigorous recruitment and selection to even get a job, much less run the country) she doesn't have ordinary people's best interests at heart. Another Tory government will be the end of the NHS, our children will again be subject to the educational segregation of grammar schools and we will be governed by those who think we should be grateful to do low paid work while they enjoy a good salary, expenses and substantial earnings outside of politics.

The Labour Party is not perfect, and anyone who's seen some of the right of the party pontificating on social media (and regular readers of this blog) will know how utterly venal some of its members can be towards so-called comrades, but the policies the party is putting forward now represent a sea change from the timid neoliberalism of the New Labour years. We've gone from "not wanting to be the party of people on benefits" to being"the party of giving a toss about things" in just a few short years

So you don't like Jeremy Corbyn? He's "unelectable" (apart from two leadership elections and most of the by-elections fought under his leadership). He's "not a leader" (as if hiding away from the public in your £1,000 leather trousers and only taking questions from chosen journalists is "leadership"). OK, so which of his policies don't you like? Only taxing the 5% at the top of the income scale? Building really affordable homes? Keeping the NHS free from US-style markets and insurance-based services? No. Most objections seem to be that he's a bit weird/scruffy. The most serious charge levelled against him ("friend of terrorists") might be defendable if it weren't for the people his opponents call friends. Let's face it, compared with the dystopian future we all face under the Conservatives, I think we can put up with a man with a bike and a beard, don't you?

Oh, and fox hunting? My ancestors notwithstanding, it's a barbaric sport which should have died out in the 19th century.

Why I'm Marching (Virtually) Today

I was 16 and taking my O Levels in a Home Counties grammar school when the Conservatives last came to power in their own right. I left school two years later in the middle of a major recession. I was lucky - with 2 A levels I was able to get a succession of temporary jobs and, eventually, a permanent post with a local authority. It didn't pay well, but the work was interesting and, at eighteen, I got the public service bug.


I was the product of a One-Nation Tory household, and worked for a Tory council. The funny thing is that over the course of the six years I spent there, I came to realise that the Conservatives did not have the answers to the problems of the age. Two things happened:


During the miners's strike, a miners' wife applied to me for a uniform grant for her 12 year old son. These grants were only payable when the child moved from primary to secondary school, so I approached my supervisor to see if an exception could be made due to their financial hardship. "No", came the reply (from an otherwise decent human being, for whom I had great respect), "It's his father's choice to be on strike." The Kent coalfield (an area where I had family; my dad's cousin was a Bevin Boy) is now long gone, of course, and who knows what happened to that woman, her husband and her son - I doubt any of them benefitted from the 'economic miracle' of the Yuppie era.


In 1985, I happened to be off sick during the week of the Labour Party conference and happened to be watching the TV coverage of 'that speech' from my sofa. Wrapped in a blanket, and downing Lemsip, I suddenly realised that what he was saying made more sense to me than the conservative values I'd been brought up with. 




A couple of years later, I realised that I probably should have gone to university after all, and took the decision to leave my local authority job and return to full-time education. I moved to Manchester and found, to my delight, that I felt 'at home' in a way I no longer did in the south east.  As a mature student, I was eligible to receive a full grant. I had a part-time job while I was a student, which helped a bit, but I was able to live well, if frugally, on a student grant and left more or less debt free in 1991, emerging back into the workforce in the middle of another Tory-fuelled recession!


At this point, young (ish), and with a good degree from a decent university, I could have headed for the private sector, but I chose to return to local authority work. I spent the next 17 years working to improve the education and life chances of Manchester children. I went in at a fairly low level (this was before the days of graduate recruitment schemes) and it took a while to work my way up the career ladder, but I was proud of the organisation I worked for and that I was giving something back to the city I love. Slowly, my partner and I built quiet, unassuming careers in local government, had children (one of whom is on the autistic spectrum and therefore has a lifetime of misunderstanding and discrimination to overcome in addition to the difficulties her generation will suffer). Life was pretty good from 1997 onwards. We weren't wealthy, but we were finally comfortable (and not having to check every outgoing expense to make sure we weren't overdrawn), our children benefitted from good local authority-run nursery provision and excellent state schools


Nearly two years ago, my career was whipped out from under me like the tablecloth under a full-laid dining table in that rather cheesy Variety trick. The government project I'd been working on was put out to tender, a national contract so large that Manchester City Council was unable to bid for it and it went (inevitably) to one of those faceless BPO's who run so many of our back-office 'public' functions these days. So I, and about 50 colleagues with 200+ years of accumulated experience, were outsourced (and subsequently laid off). And this, it pains to to say, from the New Labour government who were just as blinded by the "private always more efficient" mantra that the Tories trot out. Having now worked in both sectors, the most charitable description I can come up with is that the private sector isn't more effective, it's just differently ineffective.


Nearly a quarter of a century after I first arrived in Manchester, I'm still here, still loving it and desperate about what's being done to it by the current, mandate-less coalition government. I was in local government when George Osborne was doing his (short) stint in Selfridges; I was working for local people when no-one had heard of Nick Clegg (actually, that doesn't give it much age, does it?). For how this government is affecting our family, see my post Incandescent elsewhere on this blog


Only an idiot would claim that no cuts were necessary - thanks to the mess we inherited from an under-regulated banking sector - but I am furious at being labelled a 'deficit denier'. I know that there's a deficit, I acknowledge it needs to be brought down. What I do not accept is that it needs to be brought down at the speed proposed by the coalition, at the expense of growth and by targeting those least able to defend themselves from the impact of the cuts. There is also no way that the un-mandated 'reform' of the NHS or Michael Gove's education policies will bring the deficit down - quite the reverse. They should be seen for what they are - the means by which this morally-bankrupt administration can feather the nests of its shadowy, neocon supporters in the health, education and BPO companies all currently snuffling around the trough.


So, I am not marching today - despite the fact that it's their future we're marching for, I don't want to subject the kids to the tender mercies of the Met, and it would not be fair to subject an autistic child to the level of (good) noise and crowds. I did, though, run my partner into the city centre at 6.30am so he could pick up the Unison coach, and will be doing what I can from a computer.


There is an Alternative, and we should insist on it before George Osborne's ineptitude wrecks the country completely.

Levenshulme and the LibDems (Warning: May Contain Party Politics)

Once upon a time, on the edge of a conservation area in the West Point area of Levenshulme, there were three Victorian houses which had been sub-divided into 12 apartments. Some of the residents had lived there for many years, and were good neighbours. True, there was an old ambulance in the front garden and it looked a bit run-down but no-one really objected, and most people in the area had either lived there themselves or knew someone who had at some time. It was a community. 


Then, about seven years ago, the three houses were bought by a property developer, and all the residents departed very shortly afterwards. The developer called on us, as neighbours, to explain the wonderful plans he had for the site. Now, we've watched Grand Designs and we don't necessarily disapprove of new developments, so we were interested to see what he proposed.


What he proposed to replace the 3 storey Victorian frontage, was a 5 storey, flat roofed development which towered above the existing 2 storey houses adjacent to it, with windows overlooking neighbouring properties, and containing 23 (yes, you read that right) "luxury apartments" with a basement car park (the fumes from which were evacuated by means of vents over my neighbours' boundary about 2 metres away). All this on a corner plot with existing parking problems and at an accident black spot.


Dismayed by these proposals, the community rallied to object to the planning proposal. We put out flyers (this was in the days before social networking sites) and were amazed that the public meeting we convened filled my neighbours's house, with people standing out in the garden to try and hear what was being said. Two of our elected Liberal Democrat councillors attended this meeting. My abiding memory of their contribution was that they bickered with each other, virtually ignoring the contributions of others present.


When the day of the planning meeting came, a lot of us took time off work to attend, and were heartened to find that the council had received over 50 letters of protest about the proposal. The developer, hoping to wrong-foot us, submitted an amended proposal, with a couple of apartments fewer, on 4 storeys, but with a roof garden! Thankfully, the council saw sense and refused the application as being antagonistic to the local plan for the area and a gross over-development of the site. A group of us went and have a coffee in Starbucks and celebrated at least a temporary victory before heading back to Leve.


Within hours of getting back home, leaflets had come through local doors in Levenshulme, with a photograph of the aforementioned LibDem councillors beaming in front of the derelict site, claiming that they had secured a victory over the developer! Those of us who had campaigned to raise awareness locally and printed and delivered publicity, tried to think what the councillors' contribution had actually been and concluded...... very little. 


As I say, it was only a temporary victory. Thwarted, the developer threw his toys out of the pram and let the site deteriorate to the point where demolition rather than restoration is now the only option for the site (and thus, another part of Victorian Levenshulme disappears). Eventually, he was subject to an Enforced Sale and the site offered to a housing association for development. However, with the advent of the Coalition, funding for social housing ground to a halt and the site is now back up for sale as a development, so the whole cycle will start again.


The interesting thing about this about this story, though, is the attitude of the LibDem councillors who, unaccountably, continue to represent Levenshulme. In the 20+ years I've lived here under their stewardship, I've seen the area fall victim to continual neglect, getting very little benefit from the A6 regeneration  monies which have been available elsewhere in the area. The Lib Dems are keen to blame the majority Labour council for this (and yes, they do have 'previous' on this - the baths and Arcadia have been under threat for years), but it does beg the question - "If you are so powerless against the 'tyranny' of the Labour majority, why on earth should we continue to elect you to represent us?"


I see from my Twitter feed from the council meeting this morning that they are continuing with their usual modus operandi of claiming credit for anything good and being conspicuous by their absence when things look bad for them. In a world of change, I suppose we should at least be grateful that this never changes.

Dear Insurance Industry.....

I phoned my insurer the other day to amend my cover as we are buying a very safe, boring, MPV to accommodate our growing family. I was quoted an additional £200 to take me up to my renewal date in September, which seemed a bit steep for 6 months, but there you go. It's a slightly bigger car and so forth...

When I called back today to confirm this, I was informed that the additional premium was, in fact, £300. When I queried this, the call handler checked my records and found that the lower quote originally given reflected my status as 'married' whereas in fact, I am a co-habitee, and therefore classed as 'single'

A co-habitee, I might add, of 23 years with 2 children by the same partner, a joint mortgage taken out in 1993 and a bread-maker - how much more "responsible" does it get?

I explained that had there been an option of 'cohabiting' when I first applied for the insurance, I would have selected it, and would only have opted for 'married' as the status which most closely matched my lifestyle (and therefore insurance risk). On checking back at the website, 2 options are given: "Married or Civil Partner" (ie, a couple) or "Single" (er- single). I had made the not unreasonable presumption that what they were asking was "Are you part of a couple or on your own?", which would have made some sense in order to determine whether I was likely to go gallivanting off at high speed without a care in the world, or try and keep my family safe on the road.

Price comparison websites do give the option of 'cohabiting' and government agencies use the definition of 'living with someone as if you are married' for a whole range of benefits, taxation, etc. (for this reason, I am unable to claim JSA because of my partner's income), so why on earth should I be classed as single? I haven't been single since the 80's!

A very quick web search suggests that insurers often lower premiums for married couples as this, apparently, equates to "responsibility" regardless of the length of marriage or quality of driving. In a week that saw a challenge to the discounts applied to female drivers on the grounds of discrimination, surely it's time to look at all generic discounts which are not directly related to claims experience and risk? In an age when the pop-up ads on Facebook can be directly targeted at the individual, it should be possible for car insurance to be based on the individual's circumstances and driving history.

A friend of mine, of a similar age and with a similar vehicle and driving history, is separated from her husband but cannot afford to go through formal divorce proceedings. As a result, she can still claim to be married and receive the discount, even though she is living as a single person. True, she is no less "responsible" because of that, but then neither am I.

I have held a full UK licence for 25 years, have never had to make a claim, never had any penalty or speeding points added to my licence. My driving ability is in no way connected to my marital status, and so to penalise me for not holding a wedding certificate seems entirely nonsensical. Having said that, I'm quite used to being considered a second class citizen in the eyes of politicians and moralisers for my stand against the dubious institution of marriage; I am hoping that the pending court case regarding heterosexual civil partnerships is successful, as this far better reflects the commitment that I wish to make to my partner. Some inheritance rights would be nice, too.

I don't really complain about the cost of fuel (the price, after all, of polluting the planet) or road tax, What I do object to is the obscene amounts of money insurance companies grab from us for compulsory insurance, based on actuarial tables which deal in generalities. My Manchester post code immediately hikes up the premium, despite the fact that ours is a relatively law-abiding area without too much vehicle crime. By the standards of some of my friends, my premium is fairly low - many younger drivers, even those with excellent driving histories, are paying thousands a year just to stay on the road. And, of course, this leads to increasing numbers of uninsured drivers, thus causing a vicious cycle of rising premiums for the rest of us. The question, "Why do they charge so much?" appears to have one answer - "Because they can."

The one advantage of the 'Big Brother' level of personal information which is held about us today should surely be that goods and services can be fine-tuned to our circumstances? It would be nice to get recognition that a 48 year old co-habitee with 2 kids and a good driving record is just as good a claims risk as a 48 year old married woman with 2 kids. Since when was my driving ability determined by the man ( in my case, a non-driving man) in my life?

World War II: An Evacuee's Memories

Like my last post, this is another piece of social history.


My very good friend Anne who died recently, also wrote to my children with her memories of being an evacuee. It provides a fascinating glimpse of what it was like from the perspective of the children involved. I am posting it with the kind permission of her family.
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I was six years old when the war started in September 1939 and lived with my mother and father in Dagenham, Essex. I was an only child.

I went to a small infant school in an old building. This was later used as a mortuary and was never used as a school again.

Being an only child my parents decided that I should join the evacuation scheme of my school to hopefully make sure that I should be safe.

I remember waking up very early (on what I now know was the Friday before war was declared on the Sunday). It was still very dark as I walked to school with my mother and father where we sat at our desks awaiting what would happen. It must have been very hard for the parents who had no idea where we were going, or how long before they saw us again. Neither did they know what the war was going to be like for them. 

We were taken on buses to Dagenham Dock, where there were various paddle steamers waiting for us. I went on the “Royal Daffodil” with my school friends.

I do not remember the actual journey apart from the pretty blue and mauve cups of milk we were given. We travelled along the Thames and then north to Lowestoft where we spent the night in a school or village hall. There was straw on the floor to sleep on and I was on a middle step with someone above me and someone below me on their steps. I remember thinking that I hoped no-one would roll off their step!

Next day we were billeted with different families. I went with a girl called May to live with an elderly lady called Mrs Rowe who lived in Beccles, Suffolk with her grown up son. I remember little of this period. It was a strange time called the “phoney war” when nothing much happened and it must have seemed a bit pointless having the children away from home for seemingly no reason. So, after about 7 months I returned home. By that time my mother was working in the basement of the local civic centre preparing for a sort of communication centre which would plot the bombs and incidents in the borough once the war started in earnest. so I went to live with an aunt and uncle (also in Dagenham) and went to school with my two cousins. I spent weekends with my parents when they were not working.

After a few months there was a second wave of evacuation when there were signs of the war becoming more serious and I was sent away again.

This time we went by train from Paddington station. The train should have gone to Newquay in Wales, but instead went to Newquay in Cornwall, where a whole trainload of evacuees from Dagenham, Edmonton and Wood Green arrived unexpectedly.

I remember standing on the station after a very long journey waiting for someone to “pick” me. I waited and waited, not knowing that one of the ladies organising things had already said she would have me. I just felt no-one wanted me.

The lady was called Mrs Vennan and she had a grown up son who was in the Army and was later killed in the war. She was a widow and lived with her two bachelor brothers. She lived in a very nice, quite large house in central Newquay. At one time there was also an RAF pilot and his wife living there from the RAF base at St Eval which was only a few miles away. He was a very good pianist and that is where I first heard classical music, particularly Chopin’s Polonaise which I still remember from then.

The evacuated children all went to a makeshift school set up in  a church hall and run by our own teachers, who had come with us from home.

Some children for various reasons drifted back home again. Some of us stayed there for the entire war and indeed some stayed there for good, having settled happily with their adopted families, some finding that their parents did not want them back again. 

I was very content with Mrs Vennan and her brothers who were all very kind to me. They patiently helped me to learn my tables and spellings and to gradually prepare for the tests we would take in a couple of years called ‘scholarships’ that would decide whether we would go on to the grammar school.

Unfortunately when I was eight I became a carrier for diphtheria and had to go into a small isolation hospital with another boy and girl so that we would not spread the disease to others. Mrs Vennan became ill and was unable to have me back when I left the hospital.

My schoolteacher found me another billet - again an older lady, also living with her husband and grown up son who were fishermen and had a fishing boat, “Sweet Promise” down in the nearby harbour. Her name was Mrs Clements and she used to pack my washing up each week and send it to my mother to do! This was a problem, as clothes were rationed during the war and you only had so many coupons each year with which to buy them. Had one of the parcels gone missing in the post, it would have been difficult to replace them.

So my  mother requested that I be moved again. I remember walking with my same teacher up the steps of another house and wondering if they would want me. A rosy-cheeked lady answered the door smiling and that is where I stayed for the next four years, with “Auntie Gwen” and her father, “Grampa”, until I returned home.

It was always hard being away from home and I missed my parents badly, but was as happy with Auntie Gwen as I could have been anywhere other than at home with my parents.

By this time, my aunt (who I lived with between evacuations) had died and my cousins had joined me in Newquay. We did not live together but it was good to have them there and I did not feel quite so alone. My uncle and my parents came down as often as they could, often bringing other relatives so that we kept links with home.

I continued to attend the Evacuated Schools in the church hall and with help from the staff and Auntie Gwen and Grampa I did pass my scholarship. I sat it at a rickety card table in an old building next to a small cleaning factory. The headmaster came and stood over me to see what I was writing, which was a bit frightening.

Many of the evacuees had returned home by now so the remainder were absorbed into local schools. I now went to the Newquay School for Girls where I met a Cornish girl called Pat, who is still my very good friend over 60 years later.

Again, due to the clothing coupon situation I was allowed to wear my own school uniform at the Newquay School. It had taken the whole family’s coupon supply for a year to buy it. I do not remember feeling awkward about wearing different uniform, or that I was teased or bullied. There was one problem,, though - with my own uniform I was supposed to wear  a panama straw hat in summer and a velour felt one for winter. Now, the Cornish coast is renowned for its strong winds, making these hats totally impractical, so I used the beret worn by the girls at the Newquay School instead - that did not blow away!

As the war situation at home improved I began to go home sometimes for school holidays which helped me get used to a place I hardly knew after all these years away, and to renew some of my old friendships with people who had stayed behind.

By the end of the second term of the second year at Grammar school my school reports were causing concern to my parents. Pat and I were having a good time and not working as hard as we should. So it was decided that I should return home with the war situation improving and the end clearly in sight.

I hated leaving my friend Pat, but was very pleased to be going home at last. It meant going to yet another new school in an area I hardly knew, with no familiar faces. It was a very big school by comparison with Newquay and had boys and girls there. However, I soon settled and had a very happy time there until I left at 18 years old to go to teacher training college.

Evacuation for so long was not without its difficulties, but there were also many benefits. Cornwall was a beautiful place to grow up in and we had a lot of freedom to roam and amuse ourselves. It gave me a great appreciation fo beautiful scenery and natural surroundings that I doubt I would have had if I had stayed in Dagenham. 

We kept in contact with Auntie Gwen, who sometimes came to visit us. She and my mother had become good friends and strangely died within a very short time of each other many years later.

When I became a mother myself I was very glad that I did not have to make the same decision to send my sons away, as my parents had had to do for me. They were able to grow up at home in relatively peaceful times, which I hope you will, too.

A Wartime Childhood

With the coverage of the 70th anniversary of the Battle of Britain and the beginning of the Blitz, I was reminded of a piece my dad wrote for the girls when they were doing WWII as part of KS2 History. Aged 9 when war broke out, his was very much the "Hope and Glory" type of war, but being a policeman's son, he gained certain insights into what was happening on the Home Front. His older brother was, unbeknown to us until fairly recently, taking down coded German transmissions at Bletchley Park, where the boffins were to de-code them using the Enigma machine. 

They are both now in their 80s, and these personal stories will not be around for many more years. I'm posting them for any of you who may be interested. In our self-obsessed modern world, it's humbling to think that for a generation of children there was a very real threat of death and destruction in their formative years.

Frank Hayward was born in 1930 in  Tonbridge, Kent. His dad was a policeman, and the family lived in a house at the County Police Headquaters in Maidstone. He has lots of memories of being a small boy in wartime - here are some of them.

"Well, what can I tell you about that time in history? The first thing is that I was not an evacuee and I stayed at home at Maidstone throughout the whole time. 

On the morning of Sunday 3rd September 1939 Neville Chamberlain made a wireless (radio) broadcast stating that a state of war now existed. Within a matter of minutes the Air Raid sirens started to sound. At that time I was a rather cherubic choirboy and the strains of the siren came to us through the chords of the organ while I was at choir practice. We were hurried back to the vestry where the vicar dismissed us with the words"we are in a moment of very great danger - I want you to hurry to your homes" I did not need a second telling. I ripped off my surplice and cassock and leapt through the vestry door, tripped over a tombstone and fell headlong on the ground, taking off a large piece of skin from my knee. Because of this I claim to be the first  civilian casualty of World War 2. 

Meanwhile, back home at Police Headquarters  the war machine had swung into action. All the Policemen were dressed in oilskin anti-gas equipment with their gas masks at the ready, were wearing their "tin hats" and were carrying rifles. I am told that my Mother had grabbed her gas mask, got it on sideways so that it stuck out from her right ear and proceeded to run round in circles. Let’s be fair - she could remember Zeppelin bombing raids on Ashford from the World War 1, so she was probably very scared.

And that was how it all started. Immediately the evacuation plans went into action and these were based on the idea that the areas at risk were the industrial centres mainly in the Midlands or North of the country. Most evacuation was to rural areas in this country although there were some who spent the whole six years of war in Canada or America.

We were not to know in those early days what pattern the conflict was to take. It seemed quite logical at that time that we in Kent were in a fairly safe area. More than 30 miles from London with no major manufacturing industries it seemed like a suitable place to send evacuees from major industrial cities. They were all paraded with labels attached to them showing their names, shoved onto trains and despatched to their new homes. Looking back now it must have been a dreadfully traumatic experience particularly as they were shoved into the first vacant place and were with complete strangers. 

Some homes were loving and kind but others less so and treated the children as sources of unpaid labour. In Maidstone, we were living in a very unreal world. My school had been taken over as a kitting-out depot by the Army and we had to attend another school for one half day a week. Lessons more or less ceased in those early days and quite frequently we were taken on educational walks to various local spots. The one I always remember was to an Oast House which was still functioning in its  role as a hop-drying kiln. (There are still Oast Houses in Kent but now they have nearly all been converted into expensive homes). 

Eventually things started to settle down and schooling started to return to normal.  We had a few evacuees with us from a Midlands town. One day we were reading sections of a book out loud and it came to the turn of one of the evacuees. You can imagine the howls and roars of laughter when a "dusty book" was described as a "doosty bewk". It wasn’t very kind, and I expect the poor boy is still smarting to this day but it does show some of the problems that arose from the way of life that had been forced on us. After all, in those days there was no television for us to hear people from other parts of the country and the wireless  only produced the very best ‘BBC accents’ so one end of the country had not previously heard how the other end spoke. 

We were now into what became known as the "phoney war" when nothing much seemed to be happening. People started to think that evacuation had just been a panicky move that was not really needed and large numbers started to drift home again. This was not to last and it all changed in the Spring of 1940 when phoney war turned into real war. One thing that affected us was the construction of  an air raid shelter in the school playground. Deep trenches were dug and pre-cast concrete sections were put in place, including roof sections, then it was all filled in again once more giving us a playground with ramps leading down to the underground shelter. There was electric lighting and tubular electric heating elements. In fact these shelters were not much used, just a few occasions as most of the  action took place in the school holiday, which for us at All Saints was extended due to several unexploded bombs in the area. But that all came later. [The shelter was not demolished until the 1970s, when Frank's daughter was at the same school, although she was never allowed to go down to look at them].

From now on the war became deadly serious. The Germans  had prepared for a mechanised high speed war, and the generals who were to be in charge of the invasion of Britain  realised that such an invasion could only take place when they were sure they had air supremacy. This led to the next stage which history now calls "THE BATTLE OF BRITAIN"

The situation  which led to the evacuation policy was now  changed and Kent, which had been thought to be safe was now just across the water from an enemy who was preparing to attack. Those evacuees that had stayed in the area rather than returning home were now to be part of our history and were eye witnesses to great air battles in the skies of South East England. Air Raids were a regular feature of everyday life and it was quite common to have as many as eight alarms in a day. The wailing sirens were such a part of life that after a while we tended to ignore them until the sound of aircraft made the danger very real. Then we ducked and ran for cover. We became quite accustomed to seeing aircraft falling out of the sky, both German and British, and on one occasion I can recall seeing seven parachutes in the air at the same time. This was not a display but men who had jumped to save their lives. 

I vividly recall the time when a shot down Air Force pilot was walking along the path in front of the Police Headquarters with a great bundle of white silk in his arms (his parachute) and he was laughing, as well he might, for he had got out of his Hurricane at the last possible moment when it was too late for the parachute to fully open and he was saved when the silk canopy become entrapped by the branches of the tree into which he fell. His shoes were ripped by shell splinters and his helmet was peppered with small holes of a similar nature. He was lucky to be alive and he knew it. His main worry was that it was his commanding officer’s "kite" (plane) that he had just lost but he thought he might be forgiven as he had just shot down three enemy aircraft. 

Living at the Police Headquarters gave me some special privileges, including the fact that there were cells available which were used to house shot down German airmen  awaiting collection by the military authorities. The overnight jailer was PC Harrington and his son Bill was my best friend. Bill collected autographs from many of the German pilots. I remember the first one which read :- "It has long been my desire to visit England but I hoped not in this way". Another that I particularly remember was because when he came down the steps to the awaiting car he was in his socks with no shoes. That man was Baron Von Werra, who was to achieve great fame following his escape in Canada and making his way back to Germany - these exploits were contained in the book "The One That Got Away".  One pilot demanded to be taken to the nearest German Field Headquarters as he thought the invasion had started! Others just sat there silently and sombrely not believing that it was possible that they had been captured. 

For the first time the civilian population was involved in full scale warfare. There were injuries, deaths, lost and damaged homes and this continued after the Battle of Britain with the night Blitz which hammered London. One evening my Mother had looked out of the back door and came back looking quite ill and said "The whole world is on fire." That was London burning and we could see it from 35 miles away! I fear that many evacuees who had returned home were wishing they had not done so. The Blitz was directed against London but it still affected us as we were on the flight path so were kept awake each night by the prolonged procession of bombers making their way to and from London with heavy anti-aircraft gunfire following them along the route. 

We young lads had prized collections of "shrapnel" which were shell splinters, and the really prized possession was a shell nose cap which I never had. We did not escape damage during this time as it was quite common for the raiding aircraft to fail to find their target so on the way home they would jettison their bomb load on any town that appeared in their sights. One such occasion led to a bomb landing in the sports field behind Police Headquarters, and it hit the upright of the Goal post leaving just the cross bar, the opposite upright and a large crater below. This bomb created a loud bang and a bright flash which woke my friend Bill Harrington. His family occupied a special flat over one of the offices with a corridor running from one end to the other. Bill leapt from his bed and made his way along this corridor in pitch blackness with his arms stretched out in front of him. Someone had left the bathroom door open. One arm went on either side of the door and Bill made contact with the edge of the door on his face. He ended up with a beautiful example of a black eye, a real "shiner". We didn’t laugh - much!

With the coming of Spring we wondered whether we should see a return to the pattern of the year before with daylight raids but to our surprise it did not happen. Instead the sky was full of Spitfires gathering into large formations and heading off for offensive fighter sweeps over northern France. Soon  all became clear when the German invasion of Russia started and this changed the whole balance of the war. Raids still continued for the next few years but only a shadow of what they had been. Life became fairly peaceful so far as enemy action was concerned at home but battles raged throughout Africa and Italy and the tempo increased once America became involved. With the invasion of Europe,D-Day, we thought that at last we were coming up to the end. It was not that easy, though, and as history tells us, it took a further eleven months. 

It was exactly seven days after D-Day that the first flying bomb - doodlebug -  arrived. It was no surprise to the authorities, who had known about them for some time, and  were so prepared for this new weapon that we already had a code word, (“Diver-Diver-Diver") to announce the first sighting and a heavily fortified alley of anti- aircraft guns was lined up in what later became known as "Doodlebug Alley" There is a funny story about that night, 11th June 1944. We were awakened by  strange aircraft flying in noisily with lights on. The Duty Constable  called and said the Chief Constable had requested that all families should go down to the basement under headquarters which had always been our Air Raid Shelter. No explanation was given at the time. 

Some days later the story filtered through to us. At Ashford, nearer to coast, a batch of American soldiers had arrived straight from the US, never having seen any form of action. The moon came out from behind a cloud and lit up dozens of shell bursts which had been fired at the Doodlebugs. An inexperienced US soldier mistakenly identified them as parachutes and raised the alarm for a counter- invasion. 

A little known fact is that on this disturbing night we in Maidstone had another factor to consider. Shells from the long-range guns at Calais landed on the town. One was within a few hundred yards of the bridge over the River Medway (pretty good shooting at that range - about 80 miles). Apparently, Hitler was convinced that the Normandy landings were a bluff and the main assault would still come across the Pas de Calais and that the bridge at Maidstone would be a key item. 

This was the beginning of a very nasty period and with hardly any delay a new evacuation was put into operation but this time it was taking people out of Kent instead of into it. I had an Aunt who lived near Dover who wrote to us saying "it is terrible down here, can I come and stay with you?" She came and stayed just one night before going home again. As she said, in her area there were lots of doodlebugs but they went over. At Maidstone they were being shot down all round us. 

We saw the lot. Those that were shot down, those that were tipped by our aircraft (not as many as people now think) and those that just stopped and came down. The first jet aircraft I ever saw was a Gloster Meteor, a very early one that had been flown in as it had the speed required to tackle these Doodlebugs. It whooshed in apparently from nowhere attacking head on, the Doodlebug exploded in a large orange ball of fire and the Meteor went straight through it in a powerful climb. Most impressive. The only other aircraft that could cope with the speed was the Hawker Tempest but the good old faithful Spitfire did valiant work by cruising high and then diving into the attack. This campaign lasted for several weeks but as the allied forces moved up the French coast so the Germans lost their launch sites.

Some kept coming, though, and in some cases  were released from bombers flying up the Thames Estuary. Hard on the heels of this attack from V1s (the official name for doodlebugs) came the V2s. These were large powerful rockets which had to be launched from hard fixed sites. They had terrifying destructive power and arrived at such a speed that they had hit and exploded before you could hear them coming. A lot of damage was done and many people were killed by both of the "V" weapons and fully justified the evacuations that took place. However, the progress of the armies eventually robbed the Germans of any viable launching sites and it was becoming quite obvious what the final outcome of the war would be. There were a few moments of danger  but to us it was becoming quite clear how it would end. Evacuees returned to their homes, the Blackout was replaced by a Dim-out and when it all ended on the 8th May 1945 the conflict in Europe was over. There was another war going on in the Far East against the Japanese but that was so far away and although it is not fair to all those valiant soldiers involved we tended to forget it. After all, there was no home front and we didn’t need to evacuate anybody.

So that is the end of my tale. It is important to know about events happened to create the need for evacuation and what was happening during that period that was either missed or enjoyed by those that were evacuated. I am sure there are lots of ageing men and women who now can look back and recall with pride stories they can tell to their grandchildren of those far-off heroic days when life hung by a thread and to realise the debt we owe to those who paid the price of our present freedom.

Frank always loved aeroplanes and after the war he did National Service in the Royal Air Force and was able to fly planes  himself. He still has very strong memories of wartime and what it was like growing up then - it was frightening but also very exciting at times

Eulogy

I am off down south to my home town tomorrow, for the funeral of a very dear friend.


She was the mother of a boyfriend of mine. We hit it off immediately and when my relationship ended, as these things do, she and I decided that we should remain friends. Over the course of 25 years, we have corresponded regularly (although not regularly enough on my part, I fear) and she has watched and helped as I went off to university, met my partner, had children and generally built a life for myself.


She was a small girl when war broke out and was evacuated to the West Country, an event which had a profound effect on the person she was to become. That early dislocation from home and family made her very attuned to people, one of the most genuinely empathetic people I have ever met. She was an inveterate "people-watcher" and a very astute judge of character. She wasn't nosy and didn't interfere in people's lives - she simply loved people and wanted them to be happy and fulfilled.


It was in no small measure due to her that I went to university at all. At 18 I had decided I didn't want to go. A former teacher herself, she recognised untapped potential and knew that I would benefit from the experience. When, post-break up, I announced that I was considering applying it was she who supported and advised me (making sure first that it wasn't simply a 'rebound' venture) and even influenced my choice of university - "Remember", she said, "Manchester has a life outside the university." She was, as ever, spot on and I am still here, very much in love with my adopted city.


She met my partner early in our relationship, at a time when he was still fairly ill at ease with my family and friends. She 'got' him immediately, and was always as concerned for his welfare as mine. She was delighted, as the years went by, to note how much more relaxed he was in her company.


When our elder daughter was born, and given a very discouraging medical prognosis, she was always there if I needed someone to talk to. Through the first few years, with multiple hospital appointments and the increasingly worrying behavioural problems, she was always the voice of calm and reason; never judging, always accepting. My daughter said the other day, "I'm sorry now that I spent so much time sitting out in the car on our last visit". Her tendency to do this, one of those regular little embarrassments one learns to live with where ASD is concerned, required no explanation. "She'll come in when she feels comfortable" was the verdict. 


Packing for my journey tomorrow is a bitter-sweet experience. My washbag and jewellery case were both presents from her - "you'll need these on your travels" - and it has been her that I've stayed with on previous visits for other people's funerals. No matter how late I arrived, she would always collect me from the station, make sure I had something to eat when I arrived, and spoiled me with a leisurely breakfast the following day. It gave us a rare chance to catch up face to face and (she recognised) gave me a break from the demands of parenthood for a few hours.


It was an unusual friendship - not one forged in childhood, but I feel we knew each other that well. I will miss her friendly voice at the end of the phone, I will miss her wise counsel and her humour. She once recounted a function she had attended overseas with her husband, a senior manager in the long-since privatised public transport industry. They were treated as VIPs. "I sat there," she said, thinking, "is this the little girl from Dagenham?!"


I am proud to have been able to call her my friend and mentor. I am the person I am today because of her. I hope she realises the massive impact she made on my life. The little girl from Dagenham was a wonderful human being and the world is a poorer place for her passing.