Last
night was one of those when I woke up and couldn’t get back to sleep, so I went
downstairs, made a cup of tea, and carried on reading Few Eggs And No Oranges, the wartime diaries of Vere Hodgson, and thought how odd that
I should be sitting there, sleepless for no particular reason, while reading
her account of nights broken by air raid warnings, the sound of planes
overhead, and the noise of bombs exploding around her. And, since tea was rationed, I guess there wasn't always enough for a comforting cuppa in the middle of the night!
I’ve
only read the entries for the first few months, but I’m loving it so far. As
with all good diaries, the juxtaposition of major national and international events
with the mundane and commonplace makes for fascinating – and compelling –
reading. And Hodgson makes no effort to marshal her thoughts in a coherent
fashion. Details of a raid are followed by accounts of a day at the office, and
then by more about the bombs, while gossip about friends and family is
interspersed with serious news items about Government ministers, shortages, or
updates from battle fronts.
Her
portrayal of politicians is fascinating. Figures that I only know from old
newsreel clips and newspaper cuttings spring to life. Chamberlain is every bit as dull, boring and
uninspiring as I expected, and Churchill is every bit as charismatic. But who
would have thought de Gaulle was such a sensational orator, speaking out
against the ‘dishonourable’ Petain Government and rallying the French Resistance.
I remember him as an old man, poker-faced, with a big nose, much lampooned by
cartoonists in the British press for his unbending stance on us joining Europe,
and I find it difficult to think of him ever being young, let alone being so
passionate and brave about his country.
The
diary starts on Tuesday, 25th June, 1940, and Hodgson leaps straight
in – short, sweet, and very much to the point. “Last night, at about 1am, we
had the first air raid of the war on London,” she tells us. Her room is
opposite the police station, so she gets the ‘full benefit’ of the sirens.
It made me leap out of
bed half way across the room. I shook all over, but managed to get into my
dressing-gown and slippers, put my watch in my pocket, clutch my torch and
gas-mask, and get downstairs first.
Her
landlady is ‘rearing’ mattresses against the door (for protection, I suppose).
Everyone shares sweets, chat and jokes, before returning to bed because all is
quiet – only to be woken again when the All Clear sounds. For some time life
remains quiet, despite the Warnings, but gradually things hot up, and nights –
and days – are disturbed by sirens, planes, falling bombs, and the bright blaze
of burning buildings. I know about the war from history books but I was
thoroughly shaken by the scale of the bombing, not just on London, but
elsewhere in the country as well. And the noise was indescribable. The words
hellish and nightmare don’t even begin to give a flavour of what life was like
during the Blitz. And all the time people were on tenterhooks waiting to hear
if friends and relatives were safe, and anxious about what British Troops were
doing. Many people, including Hodgson, seem to have taken a personal interest
in the fate of ‘Our Boys’, but news was often slow filtering through to the
Home Front.
Yet
through it all she remains cheerful and alert. She’s curious about the war and
its impact on people’s lives, and is very observant, sympathetic, and yet
slightly detached, which makes her an excellent recorder of events. Her voice
comes across loud and clear over the years. Friends, apparently, described her
as brisk, and so she is. She’s intelligent, capable, has a keen sense of right
and wrong and is always willing to help others (I’m sure she would have been a
good person to have around in a crisis). She’s also got a sense of humour, and
is game for anything, attending lectures and courses learning how to deal with
bombs, gas attacks, fires, injuries and all kinds of terrors. On one occasion
she’s left bruised and battered after being dragged down a flight of stairs
whilst acting as the ‘victim’ who must be rescued.
There
are details about rationing, queues and food shortages (eggs and oranges were
always
in short supply, hence the title of the book), and on July 8 Hodgson
notes: “We listened to the news, and heard the bombshell about tea! Two ounces
per head, per week!” However, she adds, it will do for her because she doesn’t
like her tea strong. I was reminded of George Orwell who, unlike Hodgson, did
like his tea strong, and wrote a very funny essay on the subject of ‘A nice Cup
of Tea’ which appeared in the Daily Express in 1946 (tea rationing didn’t come
to an end until 1952, although by then the weekly amount had risen to 3oz). According
to him the 2oz ration (this was loose tea remember , no tea bags then!) made
around 20 cups, which is only two or three a day – not a lot when you think about it. No wonder housewives
eked it by following the Minister of Food's advice to use ‘one spoonful for each
person and none for the pot’, and eked out their meagre supply by reusing the
dregs.
One
of the things which surprised me was the extent to which Hodgson travels
around: she meanders around London to look at bomb damage, and makes regular
trips to Birmingham to see her mother and sister, as well as visiting other
friends and relatives. Travel is disrupted, but trains, buses and tubes still
run, even though there are often lengthy delays. Thinking about it, I am not
sure why I was so surprised, because my mother has told me how the parents of
evacuees billeted with her family would catch the train out from Waterloo and
spend Sundays with them. And later on in the conflict Mum used to travel into
town with the girls to visit their homes.
There
is so much packed into these diary entries that it’s taking me a while to read,
and I keep getting side-tracked and going off to look things up, to hunt out
other books from the period (has anyone got any recommendations?) and to ring
my mother for more of her wartime memories. I’m only at the end of 1940, and
these first six months have taken me on so many detours – Anderson Shelters,
rationing in general, tea rationing (which led to a further exploration on the
history of tea), General de Gaulle and the French Resistance, the Ministry of
Food, wartime recipes, the Fall of France, the Occupation of Jersey... I would love a street map of wartime London,
to locate the places mentioned. As you can see, the list of Things I Need to
Know is likely to get even longer, and at this rate it may be quite some time
before I finish reading!
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