Lime Street at Two by Helen Forrester

Author:Helen Forrester [Forrester, Helen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Labor and laboring classes, Merseyside (Metropolitan County) Liverpool Working class communities Social life 1939-1945 Personal observations
Publisher: Leicester : Ulverscroft
Published: 1986-03-05T05:00:00+00:00

20

IT was customary during the war, particularly amongst middle-class people, to volunteer one's services to organisations connected with the war effort. Because of the long hours of work and the difficulties of travel to Bootle, I had never done this. Sylvia Poole had, however, undertaken to do the secretarial work for a unit of the Air Training Corps, and she now asked me to share these duties with her, partly because she was not a shorthand typist.

Before I went to live in Moreton, I had been filled with delight at my new-found freedom in the first six weeks of my time with the Petroleum Board, so I had agreed. For the first time, I could afford extra tram fares, and I had a little leisure during the early hours of the evening to do something useful towards winning the war.

I had no idea what the Air Training Corps was, but during a lunch hour Sylvia gave me a fast course on the subject.

The Corps had been formed to upgrade the education of boys who hoped to join the Royal Air Force when they were called up at the age of seventeen. All the uniformed officers were themselves volunteers. Many of them had served in the Air Force during World War I; others were middle-aged school teachers, not yet called up.

Amongst young boys, to be in the Royal Air Force carried considerable prestige, so all of them strove to improve the mathematics and English which they had neglected during their school days. They learned the theory of flight and the mechanical makeup of the planes of the day. A considerable time was spent learning to recognise, under all conditions, the silhouettes of both the Allies' planes and those of the enemy; if the boys became aircrew, their lives could depend upon this acquired knowledge. They learned from flash cards, some of them cigarette cards, to recognise in an instant the make of a plane from any angle. To test their skill, they constantly played games with eachother or made up contests between teams. When finally they were called up, most of them could guarantee a perfect score.

Another skill many of them acquired, with much practice, was how to read and signal in Morse code.

So that they would be able to navigate a plane from the positions of the stars, they studied the basics of astronomy. On clear nights a lot of time was spent in the school yard, gazing at the heavens, which were much clearer in the blackout than they had been in peacetime. They made small telescopes out of cardboard cyUnders, and drew star maps. Small groups tried to lose themselves in the city, so that they could find their way home again by the stars. They had a lot of fun. It is saddening to recall that most of them were dead before the war ended.

A dentist voluntarily examined the boys' teeth and encouraged them to use a toothbrush and to have fillings attended to. Many of the

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.