When the war came home to Cemetery Road

VIVID Second World War memories of September 21, 1940, when a German parachute mine landed in Cemetery Road, Ipswich, come this week from Joan Pettit of Taunton Road, Felixstowe.

The mine landed in Wright’s stone-mason’s yard at the corner of Suffolk Road and only partly exploded, badly damaging 26 houses, and blast-damaging another 150. A decision was taken to explode the bomb rather than risk defusing it.

At 8pm on September 23, a huge explosion, far greater than expected, created acrater 25 feet deep, with 75 houses destroyed and hundreds damaged. Firstly, Joan recalls growing up in the town during the 1930s with some local shop names and some old prices.

Joan wrote: “I came to live in Cemetery Road, Ipswich, in February 1936. The town then had trolley buses – and County Hall was still called The Old Jail. Shops including the Home & Colonial, International Tea Co. and Walker’s grocers were next to each other at the top of Upper Brook Street.

“Also in the town were Liptons, Maypole, David Greig and Sainsbury’s with shops in Tavern Street and Westgate Street, plus classy private grocers, Limmer and Pipe. Butter and marg were patted-up to be weighed from large blocks with wooden spatulas. Biscuits were displayed in big square tins and weighed out as needed. Broken mixed ones were sold cheaply. Bread was in ½lb and 1lb loaves for tuppence halfpenny and fourpence halfpenny. Milk was threepence a pint in summer and three and a half-penny in winter. Sugar and dried fruits were weighed up from sacks into a poke made from carefully-folded thick blue paper. Stewing beef cost four and a half-penny per pound.

OLD LIGHT OF DAWN: Damage from the parachute mine to J Wright’s stonemason's shop in Cemetery Road, Ipswich

“Sausages (beef) were four and a half-penny a pound and pork sixpence. A fish and chip shop on the corner of Suffolk Road and Tuddenham Avenue sold fish at two, three and fourpence apiece and chips by the penn’orth.

“Draught beer, at the off-licence on the opposite corner, was fourpence a pint (bring your own jug!) Woodbines were five for twopence. Churchman’s No1 from the machine on the station were one penny each! Milky Way one penny, Mars, twopence.

“Average wages were probably only two pound twelve shillings a week. Nothing in M&S was over five shillings. I remember buying my first outfit for work, five shillings for a lined woollen skirt, two shilling and elevenpence for a jumper, three shillings and elevenpence for sandals and various “undies” all for £1 and the Guinea Shop opposite supplied a top coat for one pound and a shilling.

“ We had an outside loo with no light, and no bathroom. Bathing involved lighting the copper, transferring the hot water to the zinc “bungalow” bath – brought in from outside – and later emptying some into the sink with a round bowl with a wooden handle. We had a gas stove and gas lighting, which incidentally served us well during the war. The electricity often failed but I can’t remember the gas ever going off.

“I spent four school years at the Northgate Grammar School and hated it – it wasn’t a patch on my former school in London! In 1938 the boys were brought over to dig trenches at the bottom of the girls’ playing field for air-raid protection. Then Neville Chamberlain came back from Munich waving his “Peace Treaty” and the trenches were filled in again. In 1939-40 we shared the school with Ilford High School. They evacuated to Ipswich and lodged with local folk.

We had fun that winter tobogganing in Christchurch Park. While at school we had a crash first-aid course – even taking in the laying-out of the dead and assisting at a birth! I left school in July 1940 and the next term Northgate evacuated to Leicester.

“It wasn’t easy finding a job then. I couldn’t wait until my exam results came out as my sixteen-shilling orphan’s allowance had stopped and mum’s widow’s pension was only eleven shillings and sixpence, both per week.

“I started in the wages office at Ransome’s, Sims and Jeffries, receiving fifteen shillings for one month, then seventeen shillings and sixpence, for two months and up to £1 at three months. National insurance was one shilling and twopence.

“Eventually all the younger males were called up from the office and the females were classed as ‘reserved occupation’ as were men in the works.

“This was because RS&J were making tank parts, etc. Threshing machines were still made of wood by carpenters. For the war effort we had to work an extra hour a day, 8.30am to 6pm instead of 9am to 5.30pm. However we were paid extra and gradually the wage was quite good. The month of January we could volunteer for stocktaking from 6-9pm. We had a free tea in the directors’ dining room. Their cook was able to make quite a decent cake – an added treat in those rationing days! The shortage of sweets hit the young harder! I remember dear old Ma Zagni of Peter’s (Rope Walk) keeping the occasional chocolate bar under the counter for we young girls. I queued in Woolworth’s once for a quarter-pound of boiled sweets and they were horrible!

“When the air-raid siren went we had to troop down to the shelters. The elderly gentlemen loved the opportunity to play crib and the ladies knitted, read or chatted and often had a singsong. A favourite was, Who were you with last night?

“We had Worker’s Playtime in the canteen at lunchtime. Percy Edwards worked in the Plough Works and used to contribute sounds with bottles and saws. He hadn’t perfected his birdcalls in those days. One highlight was a visit by Gracie Fields.

“I shall always remember the night the landmine came down in 1941. The siren had gone – about 3am, I think – so we came downstairs. Instead of going straight to the Anderson shelter in our tiny back garden, we made a cup of tea. We were still indoors when we heard a clanking noise overhead. There was a “whumff” as it landed over the road from us, next to Wright’s stonemason’s. The jangling attached incendiaries flared up; but the mine didn’t explode. Within an hour the police were around with megaphones telling everyone to evacuate.

“A Mr Smith had a pork butchery shop in Blanche Street and his parents lived near us and were supposed to share our shelter. He came down from Tuddenham Road and took us all to his house. Then at breakfast-time, mother and I moved on to her sister’s in Belvedere Road (the bomb disposal team carried out a controlled explosion of our house).

“We stayed here for a few days and then we were allotted a little two-up two-down council house in Hilton Road in Priory Heath Estate.

“Normal rent was thirteen shillings a week but as we were bombed out we only paid half. We moved back nine months later when repairs had been done. This was one of the worst- damaged houses that were repaired – some were demolished. Yet the bill was only about £80 paid from the war damage compensation fund.

“Our front iron railings had been taken long before then and they were never replaced. My bedroom ceiling came partly down again but luckily on the foot end of the bed! Wartime food was a challenge. We made scrambled egg and sponges from the dried egg, with a little Marmite to flavour the egg. One friend used to put liquid paraffin in her sponges!

“South Africa used to send us treats. My favorite was tinned apricot conserve – jam with whole apricots! One friend’s mother acquired a tin of pineapple juice.

“We all had to report for emergency training. I learned to use a stirrup pump and practised crawling through a smoked-filled shed.

By 1945, as I was married to a soldier and pregnant, I was excused these duties. My first child was born when the doodlebugs were coming over and I was living in Felixstowe by then.”

• For those too young to remember, pounds, shillings and pence: There were 12 pennies to a shilling and 20 shillings to a pound. Five pence now is the same value of one shilling.

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