The memoirs of Cissie Ewen

While Newcastle, Byker and surrounding area about were getting the air raids, so was Chirton, which was hit several times with the loss of life of people I knew. Silkey’s Lane houses were all issued with bags of sand to be used to put out the incendiary bombs. The people were kept busy almost every night, with at times bombs being dropped constantly in the street. The store bakery at the end of the street was hit several times and set on fire; it was destroyed and not rebuilt.

It was hard in the winter evenings after sunset when it got dark early, trying to find our way home after having been down to Chirton for the afternoon. To prevent lights being a guide to enemy aircraft, there were no street lights on, and no-one was allowed to have any lights visible from the outside. So if we missed the bus and didn’t get home before blackout at dusk, there were no lights to see where we going. We often found when a car came along with its lights on very low, that we had been walking in the middle of the road when we though we were on the footpath.

There were constant queues for everything, even for things that were not rationed but were in short supply, or something seldom seen. Some people would automatically join a queue before they even knew what the queue was for, and not find out until they reached the counter; then find it was something useless to them. People used glycerine in place of butter or margarine to make cakes, but I believe it played havoc with their bowels. There was British Restaurants set up at different places where one could buy cheap meals to make the rations spin out. There was one at the Haymarket in Newcastle, where Jack and I went sometimes. We could get a dinner for sixpence and a pudding for threepence. A cup of tea cost a penny. Many people used it. The children at school could also have a dinner and pudding for sixpence.

The Government also employed women to show others how to ‘Make Do and Mend’ their clothes to save their clothing coupons; how to make new clothes out of old; how to turn coats, suits etc. inside out and give them all a new lease of life. I made several things for Jack out of my things; a dressing gown out of a coat lasted him for years, as well as an overcoat, trousers etc.

Jack and I did a lot of walking, to the Town Moor and the Park next to it. There was a lake and young people would sail their small yachts. In the summer, most Saturdays, Jack and I would get the train at West Jesmond, and get off at Monkseaton or Whitley Bay and walk along the coastline to Tynemouth. Then we’d go to watch the roller skaters (once or twice we had a try), or we’d go to the Tynemouth park and go on the lake in a rowing boat. Then we would walk to North Shields and have an hour or so with Mam and Maggie, then catch the bus to Newcastle and back home to Jesmond.