You had a better war than my mother then Laurie. She was seven during the battle. She has told me several stories, including being strafed by German planes and has described being caught in a raid on Hasting, trying to get home to Ore village. When they got there they found their home had been blitzed and they had lost all their possessions. They were evacuated several times because Hastings was an invasion target, going to Somerset, Cambridge, and finally Wiltshire. As a consequence they lost contact with several branches of their family, which was irrevocably splintered. She was scared of beaches for many years, imagining they were always covered in barbed wire and mines. Not such a good war really.
They used to shine torches out of the window at night to “signal to his submarines “. They were obviously “Batchy“ as they say in Hastings and were just tolerated by their neighbours, being visited for tea as was the custom in those days. Eventually though they disappeared, so were probably removed by the authorities.
Hi Steve, have a look at comment 26 in this link https://birminghamhistory.co.uk/forum/index.php?threads/bomb-pecks.36/page-2 regards JimI was involved in a history project in the late '90s, trying to gather and preserve the memories of local people from WW2.
Laurie's memory of bomb sights, houses simply missing from terraces, etc., reminded me of a word I heard several times, the origin of which I have never been able to discover.
In Birmingham such sites were called 'pecks'. Several gentlemen (and a few ladies) remembered playing on 'bomb pecks' during and after the war. It seems to have been a word used commonly in Birmingham and what is now the West Midlands.
If anyone has any ideas about where this word came from I would love to hear, however odd the theory may be
Our kneck of the woods Tim a "bonny" for an outside garen fire etc.Interesting Laurie, to me a bommy was the bonfire night centrepiece.
Another story passed down as family folklore involves my mother’s’ uncle. He had lost his left arm in the first war, and in the second war used to carry out fire watches overnight, as many others did. Anyway, he was once questioned about his duties as a fire watcher by a pompous individual who was like Captain Square from Dad’s army. The blimp blustered on for a few minutes and then said “well my good man, what steps would you take if you post was on fire”. The uncle, who by then was really cheesed off with the whole thing and who never suffered fools gladly, said “bloody great long ones”......the Square then harrumphed loudly, stuttering “what, what! you would desert your post?” to which the uncle said “well, you don’t think I’d stay there when place was on fire do you”.... and walked out. Still makes me chuckle
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