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You are here: Home / Community / Christmas 70 Years Ago

Christmas 70 Years Ago

December 14, 2014 By Mike Sedgwick 10 Comments

It was Christmas Eve 1944; my sister and I had been packed off to bed with the warning common to all children that if we were not good Father Christmas would not visit. I remember how dark it was in the house with the blackout curtains.

Our house, in Sheffield, had a special role to play in World War II. We had a telephone.

We had a telephone

Across the road was a hut where the Home Guard met. One day a couple of men arrived and ran a wire from our house to the hut.

The wire was attached to a bell push in the kitchen. In the event of the Germans arriving, someone would telephone us. We were to press the bell-push and a member of the Home Guard would come over from the hut to take orders from the telephone.

How could any enemy succeed against such technological sophistication?

Back to Christmas Eve. We were excited but had been primed not to expect much because of the war shortages. Eventually we fell asleep.

Father woke us in the middle of the night with the news that Father Christmas was not coming on his sleigh this year but was on a doodlebug instead. Listen, he said, and we could hear them. V1 rocket planes were known as doodlebugs. V1 raids were getting less frequent and this was one of the last. Father said we must go down to the shelter.

V1 or Doodlebug, The rocket bomb. From Wikipedia, Ben pcc.
V1 or Doodlebug, The rocket bomb. From Wikipedia, Ben pcc.

Father had prepared the house well for the war. There was a coal cellar and from the cellar a tunnel had been driven under the garden and lined with steel. At the end was a ladder leading up to a cover which opened into the garden. If the house collapsed, we could get out that way.

Father Christmas on a doodlebug

Father Christmas on a doodlebug, how exciting, I must see this. Why did they not let me go out? It was a great opportunity. Father had been out and seen them. He had actually been to comfort a neighbour who was screaming with panic.

We assembled in the shelter, all except Grandfather. He was still in the bedroom and shouting to Grandmother. “Hetty, Hetty, where’s me collar stud? I can’t find me collar stud.”

“Never mind that, just get down here.” Shouted Father.

“I’ve got to have me collar and tie. If Hitler’s going to get me, I’ve got to be properly dressed.”

We children slept. I thought of the room full of stored food; tins of fruit, sardines, dried peas which rattled in their container, dried egg and milk, bottles of water. If the house was bombed, we might survive but all that lovely food would be gone. Eventually the ‘all clear’ sounded.

The next morning I remember my little sister’s nappy being changed and seeing a small steaming pile on the bit of towel that served as a nappy. “If that’s all Hitler sends us, we shall be all right.” Said Father.

What did we get for Christmas 70 years ago?

Back upstairs the Christmas tree lights were on and there were parcels. He had been.

I had a parcel with 5 Dinky toys in it: a flatbed truck, 2 cars, a petrol bowser and a Mercedes Benz racing car. They were in a box labelled “Soldier’s 24 hour ration.” I thought I had the toys for 24 hours and then they had to be passed to someone else. I knew they were passed to me as they were chipped and one of the cars had a bent axle.

I cannot remember what my sister got – a stupid doll I suppose. As usual we all went to my Aunt’s house for lunch.

After lunch we had to sit quiet for the King’s Speech at 3.00 pm and the men smoked cigars. All fell back into routine but the thought of Father Christmas astride a doodlebug made it a unique Christmas.

doodlebug Christmas

The Christmas 1944 V1 raid

The Christmas 1944 V1 raid was one of the last attacks by V1s on England. These bombs were aimed at Manchester and they all passed over Sheffield. Luckily there had been a miscalculation and they all fell on the moors between the two cities. One reached Oldham and caused casualties.

Seen in silhouette, a Supermarine Spitfire manoeuvres alongside a flying bomb in an attempt to deflect it from its target. © IWM <a href="http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205022387">V1 FLYING BOMB (CH 16281)</a>.
Seen in silhouette, a Supermarine Spitfire manoeuvres alongside a flying bomb in an attempt to deflect it from its target. © IWM V1 FLYING BOMB (CH 16281).

It had been the custom of the newspapers to say that the bombs landed beyond the town if they fell on the centre. Their range was therefore shortened when the Nazis got to know about it. The next lot of V1s tended to fall short of the target.

Shortly after the 1944 Christmas all the V1 sites were over run and the attacks stopped. Then there was the V2…

Years later I met a man whose job was to fly an aircraft at the same speed (about 400 mph), height and course as V1s followed. This was to allow the anti-aircraft gunners to practise training their guns on V1s. He said he approached the coast with trepidation knowing that all gunner knew he was coming and it would only take one to make a mistake.

He estimated that as many as 30% of V1s were shot down by “ack-ack” guns.

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Tags: Christmas, community, culture, education, family, history, memory, storytelling

About Mike Sedgwick

Retired, almost. Lived in Chandler's Ford for 20 years. Like sitting in the garden with a beer on sunny days. Also reading, writing and flying a glider. Interested in promoting science.

I work hard as a Grandfather and have a part time job in Kandy, Sri Lanka for the winter months. Married to a beautiful woman and between us we have two beautiful daughters and 3 handsome sons.

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Comments

  1. P Johnson says

    December 15, 2014 at 1:14 am

    I was also a child in Sheffield . I Remember the Barrage Balloons and the bombed city centre, its looked…

    Reply
  2. Hazel Bateman says

    December 15, 2014 at 11:32 am

    Wow Mike – so interesting! Thank you for posting this. My husband reflected the other day that he got an encyclopedia for his 9th Christmas. I got what I had asked for – the Complete Works of William Shakespeare and the Golden Treasury of Poetry (still have both). We looked at the pile of presents from us for our grandchildren – 5 presents for the 11 and 9 year olds, 4 for the 3 year old. How times change!

    Reply
  3. Nick John says

    December 15, 2014 at 1:21 pm

    Thank you Mike – that was so interesting. Like Hazel’s husband the earliest present I can remember getting was the Pears Junior Encyclopedia (Illustrated) at the age of 6 or 7, plus a couple of tangerines, some nuts and chocolate in my stocking. The pile of things under our tree right now make me a little sad that we have become so materialistic or that we have allowed younger generations to become so…….

    Anyway, thank you for sharing and Merry Christmas to you and yours.

    Reply
  4. Janet Williams says

    December 15, 2014 at 4:42 pm

    I’m completely blown away by this story (‘blown’ is not meant to be a pun!).

    Mike, you’re a fine writer. The details and your recall are fascinating. Thank you for sharing your world with us.

    You linked history and family (“where’s me collar stud?”) so well. How time has changed: gift-giving, tradition of togetherness at Christmas, and expectations about Christmas seem to have changed a lot. What hasn’t changed? Hope, and love.

    I love the vivid imagination in this piece. Father Christmas astride a doodlebug – today’s children won’t know what a doodlebug is and even I had to do a bit of research.

    Thank you once again for your contribution.

    Reply
  5. Janet Williams says

    December 24, 2014 at 10:10 am

    Did your sister really get a stupid doll?

    Reply

Trackbacks

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  5. The War Years In Chandler’s Ford 1939 - 1945 By Doug Clews says:
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