Tell Me About The War Nan!

When I was a child and spent so many treasured minutes, hours, days, weeks, months and years with my Grandmother I would often say to her "Tell me about the war Nan!"
And she loved to sit and tell me all the intricate details of that terrible time in London during World War 2.

From a very early age my Nan was my hero as all the things that she had had to endure during those years was something unbelievable and even at a very young age I knew that and respected her so much. She was such a very strong woman, a warrior really.

In fact I was raised by an army of strong women: my Mother, my Aunts and my Grandmother and I was surrounded by their tales of bravery and survival at a time when all they had were each other.

My Grandmother married very young and had 5 children; 4 girls and a boy, and my Mother was the youngest, a "war baby" at only 3 months old.
My Grandfather was sent away to fight on the frontline and after 5 months my Grandmother received a telegram saying that he had been killed in action, so my Grandmother and her children were left to fend for themselves alone in the London blitz.
"I'll never forget the day I had to sign for that telegram" she said "As I read it my legs gave way and I collapsed there on the doorstep... nothing would ever be the same again"
Life must have been devastating enough upon hearing that she had lost her dear beloved Husband without the fact that London was a city being bombed by the Germans each and every night, endless devastation.

"We just all knew that we had to get on with it: no need complaining..." she would often tell me as I would look at her in awe at how strong she was "I would help whoever I could and we all rallied around to help each other and make sure we all had food to share with our friends and neighbours who all had young children to feed" she would tell me "And I would go to the pawn shop and pawn whatever I could so that I could get a little bit of money to help us or anyone in need too" - a real lesson for people nowadays who don't even know who their neighbours are eh?!

She would go to the local London Underground station each night, which had become the air-raid shelters of London. As soon as the air-raid sirens would begin to sound she would run there, through the streets, with her children in tow.
She would be there with my Mum and my Aunts and Uncle, all huddled up with the rest of the neighbourhood's women and children as the sounds of the bombs were going off overhead, the terrible sounds of war and destruction above ground.
She would tell me about the games they would all play there, the songs they would all sing, the dancing, endless cups of tea from the prepared flasks and sandwiches shared with the people sitting around them, all to keep each other's spirits up... that British spirit that is unbeatable in times of hardship and war, nobody survives like the British.

One morning when they all went back home after a night in the underground tube station they turned the corner into their street and were greeted by their house: totally devastated by a bomb, everything destroyed, everything lost, a mountain of rubble and bricks...
I remember my Nan's tears as she told me: "The only thing I could think of were all the photos, all the memories that were in that house and I crawled through the rubble on my hands and knees picking up the remnants of my life, trying to save all the little things as my knees poured with blood"
I would be crying with her as she told me all of this with a heavy heart, endless rivers of tears running down her cheeks as if it had happened only yesterday... "The only memory I had of my dear Hubby were my photos in that house"
She did salvage some photos and she would show me them with pride, a time long-gone, an end of an era in that house, her loving home.

Neighbours took her in and gave her and her children a room to stay until she found a new home.
They had nothing; no money, no home, no belongings or clothes "But we had each other and that was all that mattered" she told me "Nothing has more value than your own children"
And the war went on....

My Aunts and Uncle, being the eldest, were all evacuated to the countryside and my Mum stayed with my Nan in London as she was still a very small baby.
She did eventually get a new house and started getting it all fixed up and ready, with the help of friends and neighbours, in time for when my Aunts and Uncle would come home again.

I have nothing but total admiration and love for my Grandmother who raised 5 small children alone during a very hard time of war, a time when food was rationed and hard to find, a time when so many people were dying, not only from the bombs but also from diseases and starvation that were so common at that time.
She survived and so did my Mum and her 4 siblings, all growing up without their Father, something that haunted my Mum until the day she died.
It's remarkable how they all survived really and I wouldn't be here today without my Grandmother's love, strength and determination to keep herself and her children alive.

My Grandmother was famous among friends and neighbours as the kind woman who would help anyone, who would herself go without food to give it to a friend's child, who would give warm clothes to a family who needed them, who would share her flask of tea with the family sitting next to them in the London Underground air-raid shelter... who would still find time to laugh in the face of a London at War, still give my Mum and her siblings a happy and very loving childhood.

Yes my Grandmother was my hero! and a hero to many other people too and she would love it when I would look into her wise old eyes with my own innocent 8 year old eyes and say to her: "Tell me about the war Nan!"