The group’s summary From her South African home she reminiscences about her Father's work in the War Office. How he met her Mother — working as a volunteer waitress in the Serviceman's Club, "St Stephen's" Club in London — and their whirlwind romance and wedding. She also writes about her own birth, her unusual layette made from surplus fabric imprinted with secret War Office plans and her later evacuation with her Mother to Bath, Avon, returning to London in time for the last onslaught of Hitler's bombs…
My Father had been born Thomas Atkins, in the Roman city of Bath, Avon on the borders of Somerset. He came to London at the beginning of the war to enrol in the Army and almost immediately he was sent off to France on active service. There, he was amicably nicknamed "Tommy Atkins" — the archetypal British Soldier! However, not long after this posting he caught a cold, which unfortunately turned to pneumonia and he was promptly returned to London.
On his recovery he was conscripted to work in the "War Office", where he remained for the duration of the war. Which as he told me in later years, proved to be a blessing in disguise!
Meanwhile, my Mother Sylvia — then living in London, and keen to "do her bit" for the war effort — volunteered to work as a waitress at the Serviceman's Club, "St Stephen's", on the London Embankment.
It was a morning in early May in 1941, when my Father found his way into the club, in search of a meal. As he settled himself at a table, a pretty young waitress approached him to take his order. Her name was Sylvia! There was mutual attraction between them. And from that first meeting, my parents embarked on a happy path of courtship.
Like many young couples of those days, they lost no time to call their Banns, before my Father's expected posting to India brought about separation. As it happened, that posting never came through. Nevertheless, their wedding took place as planned in my Mother's local church — "Holy Trinity", Tooting Bec, South West London — on a misty day in November, 1941, just six months after they had met. And despite their whirlwind romance and wedding, they went on to enjoy fifty-four years of a very happy marriage.
On a bright April day in 1943, I duly appeared — my parent's only child. They christened me Gillian (Gillie). Later I would tease my Father that had he not have caught that cold in France, doubtless, I would never have seen the light of day!
My Mother brought me back to live with her parents in their Edwardian house near Tooting Bec Common.
It seemed that back then, baby clothes were extremely hard to come by. So when my Father heard about a surplus supply of fabric at the "War Office", he immediately applied for permission to bring some of this home. Coated with a shiny blue substance, the fabric had secret "War Office" plans imprinted with black ink upon the surface. But when washed, the substance and the plans magically disappeared and a length of beautiful, soft white cotton lawn, emerged!!
Luckily for me, both my Mother and Grandmother were excellent needlewomen and from this unusual fabric, they created an exquisite set of baby clothes — hand embroidered and trimmed with scraps of pre-war lace!
Later, when the flying bombs began to rain down upon London, my Mother decided to take me to Bath to stay with my Father's sister and her two small children. Sadly my Aunt was in ill health and so my Mother was left to hold the fort, coping single-handedly with her 6 year old nephew Timothy, her little niece Jane and me — only separated by five months in age.
Together we became involved in some terrible scrapes — grounding my Uncle's razor blades into his "Brycleem", floating our Mother's shoes in a bath full of water and probably the worse scrape of all, emptying a packet of some culinary, wartime concoction onto the living room floor! Still at the crawling stage, and no doubt assisted by Timothy, Jane and I — shuffling along on our bottoms — managed to manoeuvre our way through the mess, reducing both the carpet and my Mother to a sorry state!
Some eighteen months later, with the Uncle's returning from active service, and needing beds, my Mother and I returned to London, just in time for the final onslaught from Hitler's bombs!
Nearby our home in the busy High Street, was a large complex of flats, called "Du Cane Court" — and well known locally for its Art Deco façade. Despite obvious signs of heavy bombing in the area, it had surprisingly escaped any such visits from the "Luffwaffe"! Interestingly, there was much talk from the local residents that their homes had been spared, due to the fact that the complex had been earmarked for a residence for German Military Officers — had the invasion succeeded. Thankfully for us, it had not!
[Note: Du Cane Court stands on Balham High Road.]
However, as our house was directly under a flight path to Battersea Power Station, we had bombs dropping all around us, but miraculously we avoided a direct hit. And during these raids we took shelter in the cupboard under the stairs! Nevertheless, the front of our house was eventually declared unsafe, which meant that after the war, the entire frontage was boarded up.
One day my Mother and Grandmother were chatting to our next door neighbour and forgetting to put the catch up on the door, I slammed it shut, accidentally locking the three of us outside! Fortunately, my Mother somehow managed to break her way through the boards to let us back inside!
In common with many of the neighbours, our iron railing's, which had been taken away in an urgent salvage drive for ammunition, were never replaced. Until many years later my parents had a wooden fence and gate erected. But whether or not the tons of collected metal were ever used for this purpose remained a contentious issue for sometime to come.
In the 1960'S I left England to make a new life in South Africa, where I have since lived. Some twenty years later, my parents joined me here in their retirement.
For all the years that have past, it is to the London of my childhood that I have now returned in spirit to relive my early memories. Among those which I have retained most clearly, were the long years of rationing and restrictions — then known as "Atlee's Austerity". Significantly, accompanying my Mother to the local "Food Office" to collect bottles of orange juice and cod liver oil.
Seven years ago, I had a bone density scan. The results were superb and my Mother patted herself on the back that she had so successfully persuaded me to consume such large quantities of cod liver oil over half-a-century ago!
Other memories that coloured my childhood were the ration books, "make-do-and-mend", and the endless queues! Then came the great day on July 3rd, 1954 when all rationing finally ceased! And how my Mother patiently tried to explain to me, that although we no longer needed to exchange coupons for our groceries and sweets, we STILL had to pay for them! She relished and remembered this episode to the end of her days.
We were reminded of this many years later when on May 10th, 1994 South African Apartheid finally fell away. When it was thought, that many of the population shared my misguided belief that from then on, all good things would be freely bestowed upon them!
On that momentous day, when Nelson Mandela became South Africa's first black President, my Mother and I — watched from our television screen — the jubilant crowds thronging the streets of Pretoria in celebration. And we were carried back across the years to that July day in 1954, when an equally jubilant crowd thronged into London's Trafalgar Square to ceremoniously tear up their ration books, to mark the end of fourteen long years of rationing and restrictions.
Following his inauguration ceremony, Mandela put the final seal on this remarkable day saying — " Wat is vereby is vereby" — "What is past is past" — Which in essence, had been echoed by the British Nation forty years previously.