WWII: Christmas would never be the same again

Jump to: navigation, search

Former West Ender Harold Richardson recalls how Christmas changed forever for him with the onset of the Second World War.

MY childhood was full of noise. Everyday noise, that is. If it wasn’t the shouting and bawling in confined spaces (they never seemed to talk in normal tones), and the Saturday night rows after the pubs had turned out, it would be the whooping of children and the barking of dogs.

Then you had the bearded man up and down the street and at the corners shouting out messages from God and what the people passing by would laugh at while significantly tapping their heads.

All day long there’d be the crunching of iron-rimmed cartwheels, the calls of street traders, factory hooters, barrel organs, whistling errand boys and, as regular as clockwork, street singers with caps hopefully outstretched.

And just as regularly, a circle of Salvation Army street singers with boisterous hymns and collection boxes just as hopefully held out.

Pass a church school and, as likely as not, there would be the sound of singing. Not just hymns but songs with words that had meaning and would be remembered long after schooldays were left behind.

Come the warmer weather, housewives preparing vegetables in the sun or while whitening doorsteps, would sing the latest from the films or perhaps something Henry Hall had made popular on the wireless.

What they’d got to sing about is hard to imagine now, but singing there was and plenty of it. And more so at Christmas when Christian belief really did have a place in the festivities and the churches could hold their own with any competition when it came to filling seats.

Come Christmas Eve and a good many of the customers from the emptying pubs, still giving voice to beery song, would make for St Anne’s Church and midnight Mass for Christmas Day.

We couldn’t have known how so few years were left before those meaningful Christmases that I remember were to change forever.

Although there was nothing austere about the first Christmas of the war in 1939, there were some restrictions such as the blackout regulations, killing off the traditional sight of lit-up trees in the windows of the posher houses.

Nor could the shops and larger stores maintain elaborate window displays because of the lighting ban and the anti-blast tape obscuring windows.

Petrol rationing had come into force soon after the start of the war but food rationing was not to begin until January of 1940 and everybody was determined to enjoy what could be the last Christmas of plenty.

Although for most in the West End, and other run down areas, “plenty” had never been in evidence, every effort was made, as I remember it, to make the most of what for many could be the last Christmas of all.

Money was found from somewhere for more expensive presents and, for the first time in the lives of many, poultry was on the Christmas dinner table, including goose.

Among the popular songs of the time were Wish Me Luck As You Wave Me Goodbye (Cheerio, here I go on my way); Somewhere In France With You (She’s so proud, oh so proud of the things you will do); There’ll Always Be An England; (If England means as much to you as England means to me) We’ll Meet Again; and, not at all ironic at the time, God Bless You, Mr Chamberlain (We’re proud of you for giving us the strength to carry on).

Our Prime Minister, whose heroic efforts had postponed the war for a full year, had given us time to prepare to meet head-on the worst that Hitler could bring against this country.

Six months later, when the real fighting began, Mr Chamberlain was vilified in Parliament and told “in the name of God – Go!” Five months after that he was dead.

The next year, 1940, was to be the first real wartime Christmas. Many younger faces were missing from the pubs, the streets and the workplace.

Western Europe had fallen to the German forces and thousands of British servicemen had been killed, wounded or captured.

In the air, the Battle of Britain had been won, which put paid to Hitler’s plans for invasion, but the air raids had brought devastation and had killed and injured thousands more, burying them in the ruins of their houses.

On the face of it, there was little to be merry about that Christmas. By this time weekly rations were down to four ounces of bacon, six ounces of butter or margarine, eight ounces of sugar, two ounces of cooking fat and meat to the value of 1/10d (9p).

The shops by then had limited choices for sale, some pre-war toys were still available but Christmas presents for adults were down to more practical things, one of which was soap.

Soon to be rationed and in short supply anyway, it was one of the most appreciated gifts for that Christmas.

My diary saw the 1940 Christmas this way: “...despite having nothing to be jolly about this year... it’s a good thing the pubs seemed to be well stocked and ready for it otherwise, with the state of many of them around here, there could have been a rash of ‘while of unsound mind’ verdicts brought in.

“... same can’t be said for the shops. No plum puddings or anything like that around but we have been promised a tiny increase in the meat ration, and pre-war nuts have been found in some dark corner.

“These are to be issued with the sweets ration. I have noticed a few Christmas trees on sale and Winnie [owner of the corner shop] has garlands and such like saved from other times and well up in price.

“All in all, though, I think people will make the most of the two-day break from work for those lucky enough to have it...”

In spite of all this, you would hear singing, and still in that haphazard way it had always been. Underlying this cheerfulness though, there was much sorrow and fear as shown in the songs that were popular.

It’s a Lovely Day Tomorrow (Come and feast your tear-dimmed eyes on tomorrow’s clear blue skies); I’ll Pray For You (while you’re away); Till The Lights Of London Shine Again; When You Wish Upon a Star (Your dreams come true); My Prayer (is to linger with you); I’ll Get By (as long as I have you).

By Christmas 1941 there had arisen a sense of optimism. Britain was no longer alone in the fight against what we saw then as the evils of Nazi Germany.

In June, Germany had attacked Russia and that had diverted the Luftwaffe towards the east and given this country a respite from continual air attacks.

Early in December, the news that the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor had brought the USA into the war came to the whole of this country as a special Christmas present.

It was one of those occasions that you know for certain that you’ll remember for the rest of your days, where you were and what you were doing at the time.

I was on duty in the RAF and serving in Scotland. My diary reports: “...just after midnight our radio operator picked up the news that Japanese planes had bombed the American naval base in the Pacific.

“Many warships lost and casualties high... sad though the news is, the unexpressed sense of relief we went through will be widespread throughout the country by morning...

“...from intermittent reports through the night, it would seem that most of the American fleet in the Hawaiian base has been destroyed, and Britain has been quick to declare war on Japan... Despite these severe losses, and perhaps more to come, we know in our hearts that, with America in, we cannot now lose this war...”

A blight on that Christmas came a few days later with the news of our newest battleship, The Prince of Wales, and Repulse, a battle cruiser, being sunk by Japanese planes off the coast of Malaya and that enemy ground forces had landed in that country.

My diary saw it this way: “...it is a bleak, grey day for such bad news and people seem strangely affected and depressed...

“Mrs MacLean [my landlady] when told there were few survivors from either ship brought her apron to her face, ‘Tae puir wee loonies,’ she sobbed.”

The 1941 Christmas was memorable for another reason. Due to something belonging to history, and I was never able to find out what, Christmas was not thought of as being much to celebrate in Scotland, any merrymaking being postponed until New Year’s Eve, or Hogmanay as it is known north of the border.

So, being on duty through the Christmas period did not make any difference. Most of the populace would have been working anyway.

Although my diary makes no mention of it, I guess I must have been slightly homesick for the childhood Christmases that would then still have been vivid in my memory.

I can’t remember people singing as they used to but the songs of the time that come back to me have more than a touch of sentiment. That Lovely Weekend (Those two days of heaven you helped me to spend); Russian Rose (You will surely bloom again my lovely Russian Rose); I Don’t Want To Set The World On Fire (I just want to start a flame in your heart); Yours (Yours to the end of life’s story. This pledge to you, dear, I bring); When They Sound The Last All Clear (how happy my darling we’ll be. When they turn on the lights and these dark lonely nights are only a memory).

Not only would it have been unbelievable to us then but profoundly disheartening to have been told another four long and bitter years had to be faced before “Johnnie would go to sleep in his own little room again” as promised in the song The White Cliffs of Dover – or before those lights came on again.

Worse wartime Christmases by far were yet to come. But that, as they say, is part of another story.

Pages linking here