The Day War Broke Out

T Henry Shanks

It was September and another hot Sunday morning.

As the Commanding Officer of a British Tank Division I was leading and invasion through enemy territory. But my Dinky Toy tank was making slow progress along the soft cushion of catmint in the herbaceous border beside the open scullery door.

Then I head the announcement we had all been waiting for. The voice seemed thin and reedy. Maybe it was the overheating of the valves again inside my fathers homemade wireless set.

The words war and Germany were clear enough. And something about undertaking. I knew that was something to do with arranging burials. I remembered my grandfathers funeral. Things were serious.

Around the corner of the back door I could see my mother and father sitting in their usual places at the kitchen table opposite each other but unusually they were holding hands across the pale blue oilcloth cover.

I jumped up and ran down the garden path to the shed where my brothers were busy building a balsa wood model of a Spitfire. I could not help screaming with excitement Were at war with Germany! Its on the wireless. They both breenged out of the hut and we all ran back to the house. Leaping and shouting, Its war! Its war!

We dodged round our fathers prize strawberry bed which had already been earmarked for an air raid shelter and skirted the rhubarb patch, soon to be a hen run as part of the War Effort. But that was all the future.

My imaginings were brought to a halt when I saw my mother standing at the back door waiting for us. Her arms were folded across her apron as usual. I thought that I was to get a row for screaming in the garden. But she wiped her cheeks which were wet and said very quietly You heard then. Well, I hope it wont be as long as the last one. She held each of us by the shoulders for a minute and looked into our faces. She wasnt one for crying much but I could see that she was upset. Our father came up behind her and put his arms around her. We had not seen him do that before. He said to us gruffly On you go now. Out and play while you can. We hurried off down the lane, our bare feed hardly touching the hot cobbles.

The important thing was that we could now play a new Gang Game the British Army against the Germans. Better than our usual games of cowboys and Indians or Cops and Robbers which were getting a bit stale. Not only that This was real.

I began to thinking out the plot

We needed some bigger boys on our (British) side. Most of us could manage some sort of uniform. Our Boy Scout belt would help and we all had balaclavas. The neckerchiefs were no use. They were only used for cowboys The girls could stay as nurses for the wounded. They had already had major parts in our game of Nurses and Doctors. Our mothers did not approve of that game anyway and it had always to be acted out in the draughty Big Pend away from parental eyes. Some of us had already been issued with gas masks but we knew that they werent supposed to be for playing with. They would stay in their cardboard boxes unless taken out for official practices at School. We could always camouflage our faces. I had a paint box. The girls could carry on playing Nurses as they usually did when we dared to play Doctors and Nurses, as disapproved of by our mothers.

Suddenly my boyish imaginings came to an abrupt halt as some loud jarring notes surged from the newly constructed siren on top of the Police Station. It became a loud wail which blasted over the grey bulk of the hosiery factory and around the tall chimney of the skinworks. Until the noise enveloped the whole town.

It was my first experience of an Air Raid Warning. Suddenly I was no longer just an eight year old boy. I came to attention as I had been taught at my Tuesday night Cub meetings.

Eventually the noise moaned into a long silence. Then I head the clanging of the ancient Church bells in the town steeple. It was a familiar sound and I relaxed. I actually stood at ease. It was to be six years before I was to hear that familiar sound again.