My Family During the War

My mum and dad were both children in 1939 when war was declared against Germany. I had never really understood what life was like for them during this period of history so I decided it was about time I found out. My mum is no longer with us, but her sister, my Auntie Trixie, has provided me with a wealth of information. My dad could also be relied upon to share his memories. In both cases, once the box was prized open, the stories poured out. Much laughter ensued as incidents and anecdotes were recalled for the first time in many years and I scribbled frantically to write it all down.

My dad on the left with a pal

Both my parents were seven years old at the outbreak of war. My dad lived with his family in East Finchley, north London. He wasn't evacuated but stayed at home for the duration. He has vivid memories of watching the Battle of Britain take place in the skies above him and for an eight-year old boy, with no real conception of life and death, this must have been one of the most exciting events to witness of his life so far. He can also recall the red glow in the sky as London burned during the height of the Blitz.

Small boys feel no fear. When the air raid siren sounded my father recollects sauntering down the road with a pal in no immediate hurry to get to the safety of the shelter. It was only when the air raid warden blew his whistle and shouted at them in no uncertain terms that they would make a dash for cover, most likely with a clip around the ear for punishment. Craters in the street and bombed out houses were a common sight, though luckily my father's road and its immediate surrounds were not hit. Dad remembers walking down a street one day and coming across a crater where a doodlebug had hit the day before. These sorts of happenings provided endless fascination and excitement. The exhilaration of London at war was not to last however. Tragedy struck the family when my dad's older brother, Joseph Roy, was killed whilst serving on HMS Hermes in the Indian Ocean. My father was only 10 but suddenly the reality of war was driven home.

My mum, Uncle Ernie and Auntie Trixie
(with uncontrollable red hair!)

There were no such tragedies for my mother and her family, though there was a very near miss! When war broke out my mother was living in Chelsea, in the heart of London, with her parents and two of her siblings. Her youngest brother was in Ireland with my grandfather's parents. When the family had come to England from Ireland in the late thirties it was decided to leave my Uncle Noel, then a toddler, behind, until the family were settled. Unfortunately the outbreak of war meant he was not able to join them until 1944 when he was nine years old. My aunt recalls going to collect him from Ireland and being aware that German U-Boats still patrolled the waters of the Irish Sea. But, being children, submarines were exciting rather than something to be scared of. I imagine my grandparents had rather different feelings on the subject during that crossing.

My mother's oldest brother, my Uncle Ernie, was also separated from his parents for a time. At the start of the war he had been sent to stay with his Grandma Lawton, my great-grandmother, in Sutton-in-Ashfield in Nottinghamshire, to convalesce following an illness. My great-grandmother was adamant that my mother and my aunt should join them to get them away from the dangers of the London blitz. My Nan however wanted her girls close and refused to let them go. It was only when my great-grandmother threatened to come down and collect them herself that my Nan relented and took her two daughters on the train to Nottinghamshire.

Life goes on in wartime London, 1940 © IWM (D 1303)
(http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205196794)

And it's a good thing that they left that day as on that night in 1940 a bomb hit the block of flats where my family were living. It destroyed about a quarter of the building, unfortunately the quarter where my family had their home. My grandfather, who was now the only one at home and who had been asleep in bed at the time, dropped three floors. He survived because somehow his bed turned over in the fall and shielded him from the falling rubble. My poor Nan returned from Sutton-in-Ashfield, having left her daughters with her mother, to find her home destroyed and her husband in hospital. Luckily Grandad made a full recovery from his ordeal. But he was not the only one injured by the bomb. The old lady who lived across the hall was woken by the noise although her flat was not damaged. However, hearing the commotion she opened her front door to see what was going on and promptly fell three stories down. The hallway was no longer there! My aunt believes she survived. The bomb had fallen through my mother's and aunt's bedroom where they had been sleeping the night before. Did Grandma Lawton have a premonition that something was going to happen which is why she was so persistent that the girls be evacuated? We'll never know. But it's lucky she did as I would not be here today if it wasn't for her insistence.

Grandma Lawton

Grandma Lawton decided that she couldn't look after all three siblings herself so my aunt was sent to live with another relative a few minutes walk away whilst my uncle and mother stayed with their grandmother. Grandma Lawton was, by all accounts, quite a strict lady. The children would be told off for staring at themselves in the mirror. And my aunt recollects how, because her grandmother struggled to get a comb through my aunt's unruly mop of curly red hair, she was sent down to the hairdressers to have it all cut off. Of course, it grew back as curly as before.

After a year in Sutton-in-Ashfield all three children returned to London. All seemed quiet but the attacks weren't over as it was not long before the infamous doodlebugs were to inflict their particular brand of terror and destruction on the populace. But for the children it was still a time of excitement. Back home in Chelsea, they returned to a new block of flats looked after by a warden who insisted all the children were home by 9pm. The children and their little gang of friends would have great fun running away from him when he was trying to get them inside. He would go and knock on Nan’s door who would deny all knowledge of her children still being outside and claim they were safely in. My naughty Nan! Bombed-out houses were sources of great adventure. The children would clamber over the wreckage, balancing over shattered floorboards through which they could see the floor and rubble beneath.

It was a time of danger and fun, excitement and tragedy. These were lives being lived and appreciated to their fullest extent. My auntie will be 82 this year and my dad will be 81. It's hard to imagine the child within, but just get them talking and the child soon returns.

Great Aunts and Uncles

My dad had lots of aunts and uncles on his mother's side. I don't think I realised quite how how many until I started investigating my family tree. As a child I remember visiting only one of them on several occasions. And that was my dad's Auntie Dot. We'd bundle into the car, drive up to her house and have tea in what my memory recalls as a tiny front room. I never looked forward to going; I wanted to stay behind and play with my toys. But I remember ultimately I always enjoyed those visits as Auntie Dot, or should I say my Great Auntie Dot, was a lovely person. I lament those lost opportunities to have talked to her about her life and the life of her siblings; of growing up in East Finchley, north London; living through the First World War; marriage; children; enduring the bombings of the Second World War; the birth of grandchildren. And, of course, she is now long gone, along with all her brothers and sisters. So this is my small tribute to them, to the relatives that I would give my eye teeth to talk to now. Unfortunately I know very little about any of them, but I think in many cases, the photos tell their story...

My grandmother, Esther May, was the eldest of the siblings, born in 1892 to James Cullip and Ann Esther Hardwick who came from Tempsford in Bedfordshire. By the time of Esther May's birth, the couple had relocated to East Finchley where all their children were born. I'm not going to go into any detail now about my grandmother as I will most definitely be posting a full blog on her in the future.

She was followed two years later by James Ivanhoe. I've already written at length about James. He tragically died at the close of World World One, just one week after he got married, after contracting the Spanish Flu virus. No photos have survived of him, however I do have a very poignant card that he sent to my grandmother Esther May. He must have sent it to her when he was serving in France as the card has been hand-made using a French post-card as the backing with a delicately embroidered image pasted on the front. The wording on the back simply states, 'with fondest love from Jim'.

The postcard that James sent to his sister, Esther May,
during World War One.

Mabel Elizabeth, known to everyone as Lizzie, was the third born, entering this world in 1897. She married a chap called Len Stevens and had three children by him. Most of the siblings lived to a good age, but Lizzie, along with her brother James, was the exception to the rule and sadly died in 1940 at the young age of 43.

This lovely photo shows a very happy family gathering. Lizzie is the lady on the far right. Her husband Len is resting his hand on her shoulder. I believe she is pregnant in that photo with her son Robert. My grandmother, the lady in white, also looks rather pregnant, which would mean this photo would have been taken in 1932. She is carrying my dad!

From left to right, my great uncle Tom Cullip and his wife Dora, my grandmother
Esther May, my grandfather Nathaniel Joe, my great aunt Lizzie, her husband Len.
The two boys are Tom and Dora's son, James, and my uncle Roy.

The fourth child to join the family was the second and last son, Thomas. During the First World War Thomas enlisted in the navy where he served on board HMS Juno. Luckily he survived the war unscathed and two years after his demobilisation he married Dorothy Bowen, otherwise known as Dora. They had one son, James. They are pictured in the photo above on the left hand side. He died in 1964.

And then lots of girls were born! The fifth child was Ethel Alice, born in 1901. She was known as Alice and married quite late in life at the age of 50. Her husband, Cecil Humby, was seven years her senior and a widower. He already had a daughter by his first marriage. They were to be married for 16 years as Cecil passed away in 1967 leaving Alice a widow for the next 18 years, until she too died in 1985. This photo shows Alice and Cecil on their wedding day. He looks very dapper in his suit with beautifully pressed trousers!

Alice Cullip and Cecil Humby's wedding day

Child number six was my Great Auntie Dot, who was baptised as Dorothy Mary. She married Ernest Bishop at the age of 24, had two children and lived to the ripe old age of 94. As I said earlier, she's the only aunt I have any semblance of a memory of. My childhood recollections are of a very warm and gentle woman. And of teas in front of her gas fire...

The next child to join the clan was born in 1906, Florence Winifred, known as Win. Win married Arthur Miller and had two children. She died in 1991 aged 85.

Win, wearing white

The penultimate child was Elsie Irene. She married Reginald Terry in 1934 but I've been unable to find any children for them. I have a wonderful photo, definitely one of my favourites, which shows Elsie with a 'trying not to laugh at the camera' expression on her face. She's failing dismally. She's seated on the ground, with her sister Win, in front of four elderly ladies, one of whom has the most fantastic outfit on. The ladies dressed in black look fairly stern, whereas Elsie can't seem to stop laughing. I would love to have known what the occasion was. I think I would have liked Elsie if I had got to know her. She died in 1999, aged 90.

Four stern old ladies, with sisters Win (left) and Elsie (right).

The last child and the baby of the pack, born in 1912, was Edith, known as Edie. She married William Boulton when she was 22 and had three children. She was a fairly well built and bespectacled young lady but  in every photo that I have of her she wears a wide beaming smile. As befits the youngest of the family she was the last surviving sibling and the only one to see in the new millennium. She died in 2004.

Edie holding a handsome young chap, my dad.

So I only really have the bare bones of facts for most of my great aunts and uncles. But I have a lot of photos and I feel that these images really reveal the inner souls and personalities of the people portrayed. They show siblings who got on well and clearly have a great affection for each other. There appear to have been numerous occasions when the family got together to celebrate births and marriages, or for day trips to the seaside, or just to gather for the sake of it.

Which brings me on to the last photo. This wonderful image is the only one I own which shows all the surviving siblings in one picture. I would guess that it was taken in the first years of the 1960s. My grandmother, who died in 1969, looks fairly elderly and frail and as her brother Tom, who is standing next to her, died in 1964, I feel this photo was probably taken around 1962. But that's just a guess. I love this photo for the fact that the ladies all look so smart with their pale coloured hats, white gloves and handbags. As most of them are wearing pigeon holes, they must have been attending a family wedding, but whose I don't know. It was probably one of the last photos taken of all the siblings together. It's a shame that both Lizzie and James were not alive to feature in it, but seven out of nine isn't bad!

From left to right, Edie, Elsie, Win, Dot, Alice, Tom, May.