Keith Lawrence
Prelude - The Blitz
Although not strictly part of my life experience, the Blitz had a major impact on the world around me at the beginning of
my life. Much of this I have described in the following chapters. What now follows is stuff I recall from my Mum and Dad recounting their experiences. I think this is a significant prelude to “My Life” and important to relate.
War was declared on September 3rd 1939. It was my mother’s 21st birthday – so what a day to remember. But nothing much happened over England for nearly 12 months. The action was largely on mainland Europe, in Scandinavia, and at sea in the Atlantic. But in August 1940 the German
Air Force started attacking London and the SE with great My mother used to speak of the sky being black with
German aircraft as they came over in huge formations. As
part of the defensive arrangements all buildings were obliged to be fitted with black out curtains so that no light could be
visible from outside. This was taken very seriously, and Mum got caught showing a small chink of light one night. For this she was fined 10 shillings. A lot of money in those days. Mum also spoke of watching the day-time dog fights from the ground and cheering when they saw a German aircraft coming down.
Homes had been issued with construction materials for building shared bomb shelters, and my Mum and Dad had
one in the back garden, to share with neighbours. These would never have survived a direct hit but gave a good protection against shrapnel and blast. So, night after night armed with a hot flask of tea, she would get into the shelter with her new-born baby, and husband if he was around, together with the neighbours, and wait and hope that they, and their homes, would survive that night’s bombing.
Over the whole period of The Battle of Britain the Germans
lost rather more than two thousand aircraft, with many more
damaged. British losses were thought to be about a half of the German numbers, but this still put an enormous strain on
the re-supply of airmen and their aircraft. The Battle of Britain was won with very narrow margins.
“Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.”
Churchill speaking to the House of Commons on 20th August 1940 - the day my brother John was born.
My Early Days
I was born on Feb 19th, 1942, slap in the middle of World War 2. Germany had taken control of the whole of mainland Europe, and Great Britain stood largely alone against the evils of Nazism. Support came from the Dominions, but they were tough days. Families were split up so children could be evacuated to safer places, food and clothing were rationed, and many of the men were away fighting. It was a tough world to be born in to. Of course, none of these things affected me very directly in those first months of my life. But there was a huge indirect impact.
Myself…at 3 months
My place of birth was Dartford in Kent. This just happened to be on the flight path to London from Northern France and from Germany, so Dartford was no stranger to the bombing.
John 29 months, me at 11 months
My father, Arthur John Lawrence, born 29thJanuary 1914, worked at the Royal Albert Docks in London as a boilermaker, which during the war, was a reserved occupation. This meant that he would not be called up for active service as he was needed for critical work in the war effort supporting the military struggle. But in March 43 he was drafted into the RN, and in June 43
ERA Arthur Lawrence
So, I was just 16 months old when he went away. I never saw him again until after he returned from Africa in November 45, when I was nearly four years old.
My mother, Betty Kathleen Lawrence (nee Miller), born 3rd September 1918, spent my early years dodging Hitler’s bombs as best she could, what with the food rationing and other constraints of the war. In June 43, when my father was posted to Africa she had my brother John, then 34 months old, and myself, 16 months old, to take care of. With her husband away in Africa, and no knowledge of when, or if he would return she was also pregnant with my sister Carol (born 28 December 1943). It was a tough time to be having babies!
Evacuation
As I think is normal for very young children, I remember nothing at all about the first two years of my life, and very little for subsequent years. So, what I will write here will be
mainly recollections of what I have been told, many years ago, by my parents, or from research.
My first recollection, almost a memory, but probably implanted by my mother, is of sharing a suitcase with my brother John (to sit upon) somewhere among the steamy and smoky platforms of a big railway station (probably Kings Cross). We were evacuating!
Mum with John and me
August 1943
Off to Beverley in Yorkshire to escape the V-1s. The platforms were crowded with people and servicemen on the move. The trains were of course in those days pulled by steam engines, and the noise was, well – very noisy. My little sister was born by then, and the month was somewhere around July 1944. So, assuming I am right about July, John would have been 47 months old, me 29 months, and baby Carol would have been just 7 months old.
It seems likely that she would not have been travelling alone with her children. My father’s sister Lilian, with her son Clifford, appears in two of the photos I have from that time, both taken in Bridlington, near to Beverley. Clifford was about the same age as John. Both Lilian and Ada lived in Erith, Kent, not far from Dartford. But they were in Beverley
or Bridlington at the same time as Mum. So possibly they
made the journey together, which would have made sense as they would have been of great help to each other. We’ll
probably never know. We do know, however, that my father had close relatives in both Beverley and Bridlington.
The V-1s were very early versions of what we would today call a drone. They were small pilotless aircraft, equipped with a single large bomb, that would explode on impact with the ground. They targeted London with these, but many fell short. Their warhead, 850kg of high explosive, was devastating. It was capable of creating a crater 30m wide.
Dartford was once again vulnerable.
V1 Flying Bomb – the Doodlebug
My mother had to get herself and her children to a safer place. Fortunately, we had relatives in Beverley, Yorkshire, willing to accommodate us. The travel to Beverley must have been an horrendous journey. Grabbing whatever they could carry, with their four young children, they had to make their way up to London by train from Dartford, and then get across London to Kings Cross to get their train direct to Beverley. Today that London to Beverley trip takes just under 3 hours. It must have taken a lot longer in those days, with frequent stops along the way. But the further we got away from London the safer we were, as the range of the V1 was limited. What a sense of relief Mum must
have felt arriving at last in Beverley. Life in Beverley would have been almost idyllic. The house had a good-sized garden, and the sandy beach at Bridlington was not so far away. We must have had very kind hosts, who gave up so much of their home for us evacuees.
In September 1944 the Germans deployed the V-2. This was a ballistic missile which came straight down from the sky without warning, exploding on impact with the ground.
The V-2 Rocket Bomb
They continued with these until March 1945 when all the launch sites capable of hitting the UK were eventually overrun by the invading Allied Armies. Dartford was then a safe place to return to.
Time to go home!
Return to Dartford
By March 45 the German capacity to launch V-1 and V-2 rockets against England had been obliterated, and as the land fighting was now in mainland Europe, or in the Far East, it was now safe to return home from Beverley.
I don’t know precisely when my mother returned to Dartford with her 3 children, and I remember nothing of the journey.
But she must have been very worried about the security and safety of her home in Francis Road, Dartford, and keen
to get back and make sure everything was OK. And with the war against Germany drawing to its conclusion she would have wanted her home to be spick and span for when her husband returned.
We can be assured that Mum and us kids were home in
Dartford before 8th May 1945 as I remember well the street party held in our road, as in other residential roads all over
Britain, to celebrate the victory over Germany. This was known as VE day, as the war against Japan still continued until August 1945.
By May 45 I was just over 3 years old, and although food rationing still continued, and did so for some time to come, the mums found the essential jelly and other goodies to give the kids a great time. I clearly remember the bunting stretched across the road, and the Union Jacks were everywhere.
My father finally got safely back to England in November 45 and was released from Naval Service in March 1946. My first recollection of seeing my father would have been in November 1945, once he got his first shore leave to go to his home. My memory is that John and I were in bed when we
heard sounds of a visitor downstairs. “Come on”, said John, “that must be our Dad”, (being 18 months older he understood these things better than I) and together we crept down the stairs as far as we dared, and peeped through the banisters to see this man in naval uniform embracing our mum. It was of course our Dad, and we were quickly spotted, and picked up and kissed and cuddled by Dad. I don’t remember anything after that.
Rapidly put back to bed I suppose.
Rationing In the Second World War
In January 1940, the British government introduced food rationing. The scheme was designed to ensure fair shares for all at a time of national shortage. The Ministry of Food was responsible for overseeing rationing. Every man, woman and child was given a ration book with coupons. These were required before rationed goods could be purchased. Basic foodstuffs such as sugar, meat, fats, bacon and cheese were directly rationed by an allowance of coupons. Housewives had to register with particular retailers. Unlike today, when most shopping is done in supermarkets, shopping during the war involved visiting individual shops – the butcher, greengrocer, or baker separately. A number of other items, such as tinned goods, dried fruit, cereals and biscuits, were rationed using a points system.
The number of points allocated changed according to availability and consumer demand. Priority allowances of milk and eggs were given to those most in need, including children and expectant mothers. As shortages increased, long queues became commonplace. It was common for someone to reach the front of a long queue, only to find out that the item they had been waiting for had just run out. Not
all foods were rationed. Fruit and vegetables were never rationed but were often in short supply, especially tomatoes,
onions and fruit shipped from overseas.
The Government encouraged people to grow vegetables in their own gardens and allotments. Many public parks were
also used for this purpose. The scheme became better known as ‘Dig for Victory’. Certain key commodities were also rationed – petrol in 1939, clothes in June 1941 and soap
in February 1942. The end of the war saw additional
cuts. Bread, which was never rationed during wartime, was
put ‘on the ration’ in July 1946. It was not until the early 1950s that most commodities came ‘off the ration’. Meat was the last item to be de-rationed and food rationing ended completely in 1954.
One way to get rationed items without coupons, usually at greatly inflated prices, was on the “black market”. Shopkeepers sometimes kept special supplies ‘behind the counter’, and ‘spivs’ - petty criminals - traded in goods often obtained by dubious means. By March 1941, 2,300 people had been prosecuted and severely penalised for fraud and dishonesty.