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As written by my aunt Val Burroughs ( nee Toller ) March 2005.
Food and Clothing My uncle Bill had allotments where he kept pigs and poultry ( chickens and turkeys ). We therefore had veg and eggs. Chickens was a treat. Sometimes Uncle Bill would kill a hen that had stopped laying and it was cooked in a saucepan as a "broiler". We brought rationed fish from the MacFisheries and rationed meat from Roses the butcher in Petty Cury [Cambridge]. At Richmond Road School, I was one of the children who was selected to recive cod liver oil of malt, administered daily by the spoonful to each child as we queued. A crateful of small bottles of milk stood warming in the hearth in Miss Chandlers classroom. At the end of the war we relished the idea of fruits we hadn't had before, like bananas. At our Victory party in Richmond Road we were given ice-cream for the first time, although a neighbour who worked in a hotel did used to bring home small bars of yellow 'ice cream'. A neighbour, Mrs Kidman, used to spend some of her sweet coupons on me and would give me turkish delight. At the end of the war, the first influx of sweets included 'wrapped soft-centered fruit sweets from Poland-an inch and a half long with pictures of fruits on the paper wrappers. At Easter my mother would make me an Easter egg. She would melt chocolate and pour it into two bakelite egg cups. I remember sitting by the radio, watching these set, placed in front of the radio. They would be stuck together when set. We would go to the clinic at the Methodist Church on Castle Street where we recived concentrated orange juice that you would mix with water. Clothing rationing, combined with low income meant that families were glad of second hand and refashioned garments and bedding. We were thrilled when the Red Cross gave my sister and me a cardigan each because our father was a solider, ( my mother recived a bedspread ). Our wardrobes were never full like they are now. Our blankets had to do for several years and would be passed from one generation to the next. Some of them were thin with no fluff left and often bore the utility mark. Overcoats would be piled on top of bedding to add extra warmth. Coal was rationed. We would awake to frosty fern patterns on the inside of the bedroom windows. When I was confined to the front bedroom for weeks with Scarlet Fever, I remember Miss Chandler bringing some of my class-mates to wave to me from the other side of the road. Mrs Fletcher, the milkmans wife, gave me some jelly- an unobtainable treat! All scraps of food like vegtable peelings were collected in the pigswill bins that were found at intervals along the kerb-side, ours was next to the telegraph pole outside 112 Oxford Road. As Uncle Bill kept his own pigs and chickens, scraps also went to them. I remember the smell of potato peelings boiling on the gas cooker and then they would be mashed into chicken food that looked and smelled like bran. My auntie would carry it to the allotments each afternoon in buckets. A well provided water and I warned to stay away from it. Horses and carts delivered milk, vegtables etc. The milk came in bottles with cardboard tops. If you pressed out the centre you had a ring on which to wind wool to make a pom-pom to decorate clothes or to play with. I remember watching the greengrocers horse eating from its nose-bag outside our house and then tossing its head to reach the remains at the bottom of the bag. Val Burroughs ( nee Toller )
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Written by Joan Punter (nee Toller) – my aunt – transcribed by Michelle Bullivant Dec 2010
PART ONE: When I was born on 16th April 1940 my father, Eddie, was away in the War. He came home on leave from time to time but I didn’t really have time to get to know him and I apparently got really cross if he and mum danced to the radio together, or kissed and cuddled. We had Russ and Ivy [Russ Broom & his wife – Joan’s uncle, my great uncle] living with us at 100, Oxford Road, so Val [Joan’s sister, my aunt] and I had a lot of attention, games played with them, books read to us and plenty of fun in spite of hours spent under the metal air-raid table, in the cupboard under the stairs (taking turns to sit on the gas meter of all places), and under the piano across the road at No.95. No.95 [Oxford Road] was of great importance in our childhood. Gran, [Ada Broom, formerly Cruden, nee Hatchman, my great grandmother] was there, cooking wonderful old fashioned meals, cakes and pies as did all of her generation. She had also been a kitchen maid, then cook, in service in London as a young woman. It was there she had met her first husband, Cruden. They had George, Arthur and Elsie, then when her husband died of pneumonia in his 30’s, she had to come back to Cambridge where she had support from her mother and sisters, especially Laura and Phoebe. Things were tough and she was very poor. Finally her milkman [Arthur Broom], giving her extra milk and butter for the children, courted her and they married. They had William Hardwick (Bill Broom) in Hardwick Street, then Russell in Russell Street, followed by my mother [my granny] Constance Beatrice. Ada was never one to live a quite life, and she always worked when she could fit it in with her children. I think what caused the most upheaval in the marriage was where she worked at the Globe [pub], Hills Road and started socialising, leaving Arthur minding the children (remember they were not his, and the other three were still very young). There is a true story, told to us by Ada’s sister, Ethel, that one evening when she called at the house, Ada was late coming back from the pub. When she eventually turned up my grandfather said “See, she told me one hour, and it has been three”. With that Ada hit him over the head with a bottle of beer! My grandmother was all heart. She would give her last shilling to a tramp in the street and she loved her children and grandchildren with a deep and protective love; but she had a temper that sometimes frightened people to death. She had had a very hard life and had no time for anyone who was lazy or useless. The stormy marriage ended when our mother [my granny] was 3, so she never had a father figure after that, apart from older brothers of course. The one blessing, I think, that all of my mother’s family had was closeness and support for one another. Ada was always outspoken, even critical, to everyone, though, our mother had to make sure the house was clean when Gran popped over as she might say “What’s that stink in here? You will get the fever!” if something smelly had been left in the kitchen. She had suffered Typhoid Fever and Rheumatic Fever when a young woman so she was very health conscious. Mum remembers, when they lived up Russell Street, if any of them had an accident, Gran would say “Quick, up the “orspidal”, as fast as your legs will carry you!” As Addenbrookes was in Trumpington Street then, it wasn’t far to run. Gran had worked for Turner the magistrate (who officiated at her divorce from ‘Broomy’ as they affectionately labelled him) so on the break up of her marriage Mr. Turner kindly housed them at no.95 Oxford Road “for as long as she lived”! (On her death the house was bought (very reduced in price) by Bill.) So at last, when I was five and starting Richmond Road Infants School, the war ended and my father came home a hero, with his medals and stick with the silver knob on top. We used to play with gas masks on our faces, pretending we were Mickey Mouse, now that they had no use for gas attacks. I don’t want to just record facts and dates in this essay but I would prefer to write a piece with the portrayal of the memories and atmosphere about this time. I sometimes drive down Oxford Road, Windsor and Richmond Roads. I immediately feel the security of the happy years of my childhood. Our house at 110 [Oxford Road] , called ‘Fredaville’, was a usual bay-windowed one, with the ‘front room’ kept tidy and the best furniture in it. We sat there in the sunshine and never messed it up. Our play area was the ‘back room’. It had no bright sunlight streaming in the windows; old chairs, brown worn lino on the floor, and a big old radio by the window in a cupboard. This was our only means of keeping in touch with news, music and comedy and I remember the feeling of dread shown by the grown-ups listening for news on how the war was going. We could be taken over, (with the rest of the world) by the evil dictator, Hitler, our fathers killed , our houses bombed and all of us blown to pieces. However the spirit of our people was always victorious; our father, with his men, would destroy the Nazis forever and we would be safe. Mum was terrified, though, of the planes going over nightly, and the doodlebugs droning over, then exploding. She would drag us shaking, in the stairs cupboard, pitch-black everywhere of course in the black-out, or over to 95 [Oxford Road], making us a fortress under furniture while Gran made cups of tea. You would think Val and I would grow up afraid to leave the house, but it seems to have done us no harm in the long run, for we are both outgoing and confident mothers; so perhaps all our fears were finally put to rest with the jubilation of victory celebrations and seeing our menfolk return, marching proudly and in step along the streets of Cambridge, Union Jacks flying like mad from every house. We seemed to always have a little flag to wave in those happy days. Daddy put away his big kit-bag for good, with his khaki uniform and sergeants badges; Uncle George [Cruden] would no longer be seen in the air force blue uniform, nor Uncle Bill in his firemans one. Everyone was now in ‘civvy street’ and Bill was a grocer again, George was in Mackintosh’s shop in town and our daddy went off every morning on his bike to the Cambridge University Press as a clerk. We now had a baby brother, David, to add to the excitement too, so mummy was always happy and busy, the frequent visits across to Gran’s were now peaceful and jolly, laughter, singing and drinking by the adults at weekends, when Charlie from the Dolamore’s Role on his three-wheeled cycle, puffing and blowing up Castle Hill to bring bottles of booze and lemonade clinking in the enormous metal basket on the front, poor man! We became good friends with Edgar Fletcher, the milkman and his daughter. She always seemed to have interesting pets. He had glass tanks in the garden containing butterflies, I think, also snakes. His daughter told us to come over and see her new baby golden bears. They were actually hamsters, but we had never seen any before, nobody had. Part 2 to follow........ |
Cambridgeshire History Pages:
Contents If you'd like to go straight to a specific article or blog post within the Cambridgeshire History Pages you can click on any of the post titles in the list below and it will take you directly there. Alternatively, you can use the search box above to search by keyword or you can use the index further below. Summerfield: House, Street & Area History, Newnham, Cambridge.
Newnham Walls (Newnham, Cambridge) Church Rate Walk/Newnham Walk/Summerfield. Exciting Old Photograph Album History of Lammas Land, Newnham, Cambridge (Newnham Park) Brief History of Jesus Green, Cambridge Motorbike Girls, Oxford Road, Cambridge c.1928 Violet Broom & Marie Cruden Cambridge University Press Memories by Elizabeth Toller-Brown Teversham Recreation Ground Elton Community Archives Group St Neots Community Archives Group Soham Community Archives Group Cottenham Community Archives Group Stapleford Recreation Ground The Beechwoods Cambridge Guilden Morden Cambridge. Teaching & Artefacts Ely Cambridgeshire Community Archives Group Stilton Cambridgeshire Community Archives & History Cottenham Village Society Haddenham & Aldreth Blossoms & Bygones 1940s Event 2011 Wimpole Folly 1963 St Giles Cemetery, Huntingdon Road, Cambridge - grave of Ada Hatchman (nee Broom) 1955 Oxford Road, Cambridge Violet & Arthur Cruden Passport 1931 Cambridge George Cruden, Military Cambridge c.1940s Oxford Road Cambridge Family c.1935 1st Camb. Headquarters. Cambridge 1925 Rowing on the River Cam 1925 George Cruden, Russell Street, Cambridge The Wayman Family, Oxford Road, Cambridge George Cruden, Oxford Road, Cambridge Marie Cruden, sitting in back garden of house in Oxford Road, Cambridge Eaden Lilley of Cambridge adverts for household items c.1920's Cambridgeshire Transport Section ? WWI Cambridgeshire Transport Section WWI Cambridgeshire Transport Section WWI Arthur Cruden Oxford Road, Cambridge WWII? Room in Oxford Road, Cambridge. 1915-1925 Granny working at Chivers Fruit Farm & Pye Radio Cambridge National School, Russell Street, Cambridge c.1918 Russell Street, Cambridge and Pimple Face! The Globe Pub Cambridge and shoe money c.1915 Great Uncle Russ and the Balloon 1919 Lilly Langtree & Cambridge War Time Child in Cambridge. WWII Cadbury's Picnic Bar, Adkins Corner Heffers Cambridge Picnic by the River Cam, Newnham c.1984 Castle Hill, Cambridge 1984 The Half Moon Inn, Trumpington Street, Cambridge A Garden of Memories by George Cruden Cambridge War Time Letters - Oxford Road Cambridge War Time Letters Home Front Christmas WWII Cambridge Home Front War Letters 1945 WWII Home Front WWII Cambridge Family War Letters More Cambridge Home Front Letters - Vicarage Terrace WWII The War in Cambridge WWII Marie & George Cruden, The Backs of Cambridge Colleges 1941 Outings During the War - WWII Cambridge Memories of Richmond Road School in Cambridge Cambridge - WWII - Toys, Games & Occupations WWII - Food & Clothing - Cambridge Living with the Horrors of War - Cambridge WWII A Child's WWII Home Front Poem - Cambridge Toller Family Tree Notes - all over Cambs Home Front Letters. More WWII Bombing in Cambridge 1941 Home Front Letters WWII Bombing in Cambridge 1941 Tales from Cambridge Part 2 by Joan Punter (nee Toller) Tales from Cambridge Streets during and just after WWII Wall in a Tree, The Botanical Gardens, Cambridge, 2010 National School, Russell Street, Cambridge 2010 Clunch (Chalk) blocks in wall behind Hill's Road 2010 Russell Street & Cambridge Cattle Market voice recording oral history Punting on the River Cam, by Paradise Woods, Newnham. 2001 c.1988 - View from the Top of Great St Mary's Tower, Cambridge 1983 - Arthur Cruden, Cambridge City Bowls Club, Christ's Piece, Cambridge 1983 - Cambridge City Bowls Club, Morley Cup. c.1985 Marie Cruden, Campkin Road c.1975 - George & Marie Cruden Golden Wedding Anniversary, Campkin Road, Cambridge c. 1965 Visitor's Passport for Violet & Arthur Cruden, Oxford Road, Cambridge c.1975 George & Marie Cruden outside St John's Church Cambridge c. 1975 George Cruden, rear view of 146 Campkin Road, Arbury, Cambridge 25th Jan 1941 - George Cruden WWII Views from the building site for the Cambridge Grand Arcade, during the archaeological dig 2005 Archaeology Field Trip in the Fens, Stretham Pumping Engine, 2000. The Birds Nest at Chippenham Park Cambridge 1999 The Old Walled Garden Chippenham Park 1999 Violet Cruden - nee Westley, Histon, Cambridge 1928 Pet Show at the Church of the Good Shepherd, Arbury, Cambridge c.1979 George Cruden, Russell Street, Cambridge c.1918 Arthur Cruden, Bill Goodes & friends, Cambridge. 1910 - 1930 George H Cruden age 17 KRRC Cadets, Cambridge 1917 Elsie Cruden, lived at Russell Street Cambridge About & how to use:This is a blog page for the archives in my own collection. It includes many of my personal & family archives, tales and scrapbook items to all kinds of general archive items from Cambridgeshire UK. The Categories below are really the keyword index of what is on the Cambridgeshire History Pages. Each is a clickable link which will take you to an article or blog which contains that word or subject.
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