Memories of the closing period of World War II

a British Schoolboy's Perspective

My name is Andrew Clark and I was born in Coventry in February 1934, the second of three children, two boys and a girl, my sister being the youngest. Our parents were medically qualified, going up to Edinburgh University in 1919. Father, who grew up in Whitehaven, Cumberland came to the Coventry and North Warwickshire Hospital on his first appointment as a Houseman during the General Strike of 1926. He later became a single-handed GP in an industrial district of Coventry called Foleshill. Mother, one of four daughters of a Darlington GP, specialised in Eyes and gained her Diploma in 1929, the same year in which my parents married.

In September 1939, I was due to follow my brother, Josh to Coventry Preparatory School. We were on holiday in Cumberland; we three children remained there in the care of a young Coventry nursemaid, supervised by a long-standing friend of Father's family, until Easter 1940.

In the interim period, Father, who had been commissioned and demobbed as an infantry officer in 1919, joined up in the RAMC. On the advice of his solicitor friend, our house was let to Coventry Corporation rather than running the risk of it being requisitioned. All our furniture and effects were placed in store. Mother presumably offered moral support to father.

My sister was subsequently placed in the care of an aunt who lived outside Berkhamsted and grew up alongside a cousin. My brother and I became dayboys at Coventry Prep School evacuated to Wales, referred to as Bryn Aber and located some fifteen miles from Oswestry. We had rooms with Mother in a near-by farm.

In 1937, together with a female colleague, Dr Campbell, Mother conducted one refraction clinic a week at the Birmingham Eye Hospital before both were asked to resign, since they were mothers. In the summer of 1940, the authorities must have made an approach to Dr Campbell as a result they accepted the full time responsibility for eye care in the Coventry and North Warwick hospital's wide regional remit.

So much for background, it is time to fast forward to April 1944 and provide the personal experience. The school returned from exile in Wales and linked up the element that had remained in Coventry throughout the war under the deputy Head. Some of us remained boarders; it took time to integrate and to realise that some of our admired sportsmen actually had their equal in the enlarged school. We went to Church on Sundays and were then allowed to cycle home after the service. In my case, I did part of the journey with a friend and his father and the remainder on my own, a distance of some seven miles to the cottage where mother had rooms. Mother was an essential car user with an open top, four-seater Morris 8, so she would take my friend and me back to school with our bikes.

VE Day passed us by on account of what we would term 'market forces'; in June the critical Common Entrance exams were held, success in which assured a place at one's chosen Public School. Lessons were driven to achieve this and May was no time for a day off. My brother had already made this transition to Bromsgrove, Worcestershire on its return from Wales in 1944, too. English, Latin, French and Maths would have been core subjects.

VJ Day took place during the August holidays and I distinctly remember catching a trout in the River Mite, which ran along side Ravenglass and Eskdale narrow gauge railway in Cumberland. Father, a keen fisherman, was on leave otherwise I could not have enjoyed my first fishing success. I recall we stopped on a farm called 'Sorrow Stones' so named because prisoners spent their last night there before being executed, a fact that no doubt appealed to the small boy in me. We would not have had any play clothes, school uniform being multi-functional, comprising mostly brown corduroy shorts with button flys, a lumber jacket also buttoned and a navy blue belted gabardine. In summer we would have worn khaki shorts, fully enclosed sandals and ankle socks.

We still lived outside Coventry, my brother and I sleeping during the summer eight-week break in a newly acquired Black's Icelandic Ridge tent. As I recall our meals were provided by our landlady cooking with an Aga, Mother doing none. There was a large vegetable garden. Thus neither at school or home did we ever feel hungry. We did not feel deprived of sweets because as boarders we received two each day; we could be punished through stoppage of sweets for say two days. We walked every morning during term-time in the large Coventry Memorial Park before breakfast for about 30 minutes.

An eye specialist certifies blindness and, if patients are registered blind, there are linked benefits. Patients can be seen in their own homes, a domiciliary visit. Mother would carry over some rural visits to the weekend in the summer holidays, taking us with her. Despite the outward appearance of an outing, the police never once stopped us to enquire into the circumstances for the journey. As mentioned, Mother was an essential car user. She qualified for a priority new car, when production started again after the war. She purchased a Standard 8; it was black and had the registration number, as I recall, FDU 519. This was probably around 1946.

Of course, at the time, I did not appreciate our circumstances, possibly privileged. There were some downside, though, our family home was not returned to us until Christmas 1949, its use as a Day Nursery was considered essential to the prevailing slogan of the day: Export or Die. A Coventry doctor loaned us a house in the interim, although it was rather cheerless and cold in winter.

Since I attended a boarding school, I cannot recall exactly when Father returned to civilian practice, possibly, early 1946. He had to struggle to gain his surgery premises but it was achieved and operated alongside the Day Nursery Unit. His patients, in the main, would have been panel patients rather than private ones. Prior to the 1948 National Health Service, he would dispense the medicines he prescribed; each would be wrapped in white paper and sealed with sealing wax. On account of the war, he did not feature prominently in our memories, whilst at the same time we were pleased to have a Father again. He played hockey, representing Scotland in 1922 and on settling in Coventry, represented the Midlands at hockey. He was a good club golfer, too and picked up the game again. We would go with him, eventually playing both sports ourselves.

Mrs Halford, who had gone into service, aged 14, in Warwick around 1900 was responsible for keeping the surgery clean. She commanded and received respect. She instructed me how to clean shoes properly and how to tie a bow tie, skills for which I have been most grateful during National Service and attendance at Regimental black tie functions.

Andrew N Clark