In October 1939, when the country was still coming to terms with the reality that we were at war with Germany, there was an important broadcast by Rob Hudson, the Minister for Agriculture. He explained that our farmers could produce just 30% of the nation's food, but if gardens could be dug over and utilised 25% of the vegetables required could be provided.
Very soon there were posters everywhere publicising the idea. And it was successful - surprisingly successful. Lawns were dug up and potatoes, carrots, turnips and cabbages were planted. Public parks, railway embankments, golf clubs and tennis courts all contributed to the project. And on Windsor Great Park wheat was grown. Some folk, recalling the days when keeping hens was popular, revived the custom and even rabbits and pigs made an appearance.
Dig for Victory was a great success and by 1945 approximately 75% of our food was being produced in the U.K.
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Lake Geneva
Some years ago Jean and I had a holiday at Evian on Lake Geneva. We were staying in a big Centre which attracted a lot of young people of different nationalities. One day I was approached by a German woman who explained in broken English that she and her friends had been listening to me playing the piano. Apparently they were musicians and they wondered if I would like to play with them. Of course I readily agreed and we fixed a time for our get-together.
The three of them would be in their 50s, she played violin and the two men cello and clarinet. Language was quite a problem, but we got on well together, and the music which was the grand hotel type sounded fine. I discovered that her late husband had been a professional violinist, and every year they had holidayed at Evian, along with the other musicians.
Frau Hamza (I can’t recall her Christian name) was a “touchy feely” person and a bit eccentric. She kept saying “thank you, sir” and “excuse me, sir” to me and of course I told her that she was to call me John. So, for the rest of the holiday I was “Sir John”!!!
One morning she and I were practising together, making up a programme which the quartet would perform before the other residents. When we had finished, she said to me “Kom to my house,” (she meant her room) “I vant to give you cuddle.” Wow!!! That WAS a shock! I don’t think I said anything for a moment, and then the penny dropped. She had used the French word “cadeau”, she had a gift for me! It was a CD by her late husband’s group The Georg Hamza Ensemble.
So I didn’t get a cuddle, but at least I was “Sir John” for a few days!
The three of them would be in their 50s, she played violin and the two men cello and clarinet. Language was quite a problem, but we got on well together, and the music which was the grand hotel type sounded fine. I discovered that her late husband had been a professional violinist, and every year they had holidayed at Evian, along with the other musicians.
Frau Hamza (I can’t recall her Christian name) was a “touchy feely” person and a bit eccentric. She kept saying “thank you, sir” and “excuse me, sir” to me and of course I told her that she was to call me John. So, for the rest of the holiday I was “Sir John”!!!
One morning she and I were practising together, making up a programme which the quartet would perform before the other residents. When we had finished, she said to me “Kom to my house,” (she meant her room) “I vant to give you cuddle.” Wow!!! That WAS a shock! I don’t think I said anything for a moment, and then the penny dropped. She had used the French word “cadeau”, she had a gift for me! It was a CD by her late husband’s group The Georg Hamza Ensemble.
So I didn’t get a cuddle, but at least I was “Sir John” for a few days!
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I've been thinking back to the street where I lived as a child.
Bisected halfway down by Oxford Street, the upper part of Kerr Street where we lived consisted of well-kept tenements, six private houses, a primary school, and a church.
My pal Andrew lived in one of the larger tenement flats across the road. He was one of a big family, and each time I called to ask if he was coming out to play, his mother would go off to fetch him. That was when his siblings one by one would peep out from the kitchen door to inspect me, each head appearing at a different level.
The lower part of the street, which stretched down to the main road, had a picture house, a bus garage, and a small hall which was used by the British Legion. Quite a few of the houses there were of the room and kitchen type with outside toilets, and the families who occupied them seemed to have a great number of children. I was inside one of those houses only once, and that was when I was teenager. I had to deliver a message to a semi-professional musician who lived there with his wife and 3 or 4 children. Where they all slept I don’t know, but Bob’s double bass took up valuable space in the bedroom!!!
Just a few doors along a woman ran a “sweetie” shop in the living room of her house. And I'm remembering the one-legged shoe repairer whose little shop and workplace was there. We children had a morbid interest in the fact that he had just one leg and got about on crutches. He was a member of the local Salvation Army band, he taught his two sons the trumpet and when they grew up both were well-known locally as dance band musicians. The younger one for a while worked in London with some of the country’s top dance bands.
I must write a bit more about our picture house. Of the two cinemas in the town, the one in our street was the least attractive. The films shown there were mostly unknown and the brightness of the screen had the habit of dimming every twenty minutes or so.
In those days it took years for new films to come to a local picture house. However that didn’t stop many folk being enthusiastic cinema-goers, and, with each picture house changing their programme every two days, it was possible to see a different show six nights a week!!!
Most children in those days went to the Saturday matinee, but that was not for us. There were two reasons - first, my mother’s upbringing as a Baptist gave her serious doubts about picture houses and theatres, but more important than that was the terrible tragedy which occurred in Paisley on the afternoon of December 31st 1929.
Nine hundred children between the ages of eighteen months and twelve years had gathered in the Glen Cinema, when a fire broke out in the projection box. It was quickly brought under control but as smoke filled the hall panic ensued. Some of the exits couldn’t be opened and tragically 69 children were crushed to death in the stampede.
Bisected halfway down by Oxford Street, the upper part of Kerr Street where we lived consisted of well-kept tenements, six private houses, a primary school, and a church.
Royal Terrace where we lived till 1936
My pal Andrew lived in one of the larger tenement flats across the road. He was one of a big family, and each time I called to ask if he was coming out to play, his mother would go off to fetch him. That was when his siblings one by one would peep out from the kitchen door to inspect me, each head appearing at a different level.
The lower part of the street, which stretched down to the main road, had a picture house, a bus garage, and a small hall which was used by the British Legion. Quite a few of the houses there were of the room and kitchen type with outside toilets, and the families who occupied them seemed to have a great number of children. I was inside one of those houses only once, and that was when I was teenager. I had to deliver a message to a semi-professional musician who lived there with his wife and 3 or 4 children. Where they all slept I don’t know, but Bob’s double bass took up valuable space in the bedroom!!!
Just a few doors along a woman ran a “sweetie” shop in the living room of her house. And I'm remembering the one-legged shoe repairer whose little shop and workplace was there. We children had a morbid interest in the fact that he had just one leg and got about on crutches. He was a member of the local Salvation Army band, he taught his two sons the trumpet and when they grew up both were well-known locally as dance band musicians. The younger one for a while worked in London with some of the country’s top dance bands.
This is the primary school I attended.
Opened in 1875, it finally closed last year.
In those days it took years for new films to come to a local picture house. However that didn’t stop many folk being enthusiastic cinema-goers, and, with each picture house changing their programme every two days, it was possible to see a different show six nights a week!!!
Most children in those days went to the Saturday matinee, but that was not for us. There were two reasons - first, my mother’s upbringing as a Baptist gave her serious doubts about picture houses and theatres, but more important than that was the terrible tragedy which occurred in Paisley on the afternoon of December 31st 1929.
Nine hundred children between the ages of eighteen months and twelve years had gathered in the Glen Cinema, when a fire broke out in the projection box. It was quickly brought under control but as smoke filled the hall panic ensued. Some of the exits couldn’t be opened and tragically 69 children were crushed to death in the stampede.
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I'm remembering that at primary school we learned the multiplication tables by repeating them endlessly until they became fixed in our minds. Spelling too was taught that way and the whole class in unison would chant “eye enn - in, eye enn - in, ay tee - at, ay tee - at,” and so on. There used to be a lot of suppressed giggles when we came to “up.”
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It has been suggested that the idea came from the character called Chad, who had been created by a British cartoonist in 1938. However its popularity seemed to begin in America and, like so many other novelties, was exported to the UK and beyond.
The drawings in chalk, paint, ink - in fact anything that would make a mark on walls, lamp posts, street signs and posters, would turn up in the most unusual places and continued right into the 1950s.
There were other names by which he was known - Clem, Smoe, the Jeep, Private Snooks, and in Australia the caption was “Foo was here.”
I suppose part of the fun of “Kilroy was here” lay in the fact that it was so easy to draw - even a small child could make a good attempt at it. Why not have a go yourself? Perhaps you could try it out on your neighbour’s filthy car using your finger. But make sure you don't get caught!
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THE NEXT POST WILL BE ON SATURDAY 8th APRIL
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