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George Spenceley recalls his childhood memories of Middlesbrough and how his large family coped with life in World War II and with the happy and sad events of family life.
In 1939 there were very few cars on the roads and what few there were had been in store either because of petrol rationing or possibly their owners had gone to war.
It was wartime and as Dad was past calling up age he became an A.R.P. warden. Every day at tea time or when it started to get dark all house windows had to be blacked out, no lights were allowed to show.
Dad made wooden frames the size of our windows and covered them with thick black paper, then fitted them into the frames to stop any light escaping, in case it was seen by German bombers.
The occupants of any house showing the slightest chink of light were soon told by the wardens to 'Put that light out!' It was very scary, only the whispered voices of men on patrol could be heard and occasionally you'd see the glow of a lighted cigarette belonging to one of the wardens.
The nights were very dark partly due to the blackout but also because there were no streetlights. This didn't stop us from playing in the streets. We'd tie a length of rope to one of the lampposts and swing round it until the other lads would want to add extra lengths of rope to the post for us all to swing together.
Our parents soon put a stop to that when one of them noticed that the lamp we were playing on had loosened at its base.
The Junior School was about half a mile from our house in Middlesbrough and whilst there we had air-raid drill. Very often the local siren would sound and frighten the living daylight out of us.
The teacher would calmly muster us all together and take us across the playground to the underground shelter. Once there we sat on wooden seats and the teacher, having calmed us, would read out the register to check that we were all there for occasionally some of the kids would run home to be with their Mams.
We'd sing songs and hymns to pass the time away and after a short time we'd be given a large rich tea biscuit and a drink of ice-cold milk from a large white enamel jug.
We stayed there until the all-clear sounded then we were allowed back into our class rooms. I, and most of those like me, found that the most frightening time was when we'd just left school and were on our way home and the siren would start wailing.
Up and down, up and down it went and being young we'd expect the German aeroplanes to sweep down out of the clouds and shoot at us. Some of the children were so frightened they'd be screaming for their Mams.
Sometimes a kindly person would run out of their house and take us in until the raid was over but on other occasions we'd just run home as fast as we could. Quite often by the time we reached our garden gate the all-clear would be sounding.
The following morning we'd all be very brave again and walk around the school playing fields looking for pieces of shrapnel that had fallen during the previous nights raid and our main conversation would be about what we'd done while the raid was at its height.
George Spenceley, 2002
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