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Post by maywalk on Feb 5, 2019 11:54:28 GMT
Some time since I called in and I hope you are all keeping well. I have been kept busy with answering folk worldwide about my experiences as an evacuee from WW2. It seems as though everyone wants the tales now before those who were in it kicks the bucket. Well I am still waiting for this dreadful snowfall that was predicted well before Christmas by well paid weather forecasters. If my Grandma was still here she would be able to tell you what the weather was going to be like if her bunions were playing her up.
I think the worst winter I have lived through was 1947 here in the UK. 1962/3 WAS the coldest BUT in 1947 we were still on rations and even potatoes were rationed which is something that never happened during the war. The electric was cut off every day, we had to queue for a bag of coke to help keep us warm and to boil a kettle to make a cup of tea to warm us up. My fiancee was who was in the RAF was sent home on indefinite leave because they could not get the planes off the ground due to the 20 foot of snow that had fallen.
Will go and get my lunch now and if I get any replies I will call back in. God Bless All.
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Post by rondetto on Feb 5, 2019 11:59:18 GMT
HI, I was born in February 1947 and my parents told me there was heavy snow, icicles everywhere. There was no electricity so was born at night in the dark. I was working some 20 miles from home through the winter of 1963 and had to walk to work as there was no buses running, I never missed a days work though. Starting out at 6am and getting home at 8pm.
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Post by maywalk on Feb 5, 2019 12:54:34 GMT
Hello Rondetto. Are you keeping well? It was better in 1963 although a couple of nights were colder than 1947 because many had central heating by then and phones, plus the NHS. We had nothing in the 1947 winter and was still trying to get over the war years because there was not enough housing. I very often wonder how the young ones would cope today in those condtions. Yet oddly enough I would NOT have wanted my life any other way. I have seen the world change over the years, for the better in some things but to see the amount of drug addicts and hangers on there are today it grieves me to think SO many lives were lost in two world wars in one century fighting to make it a better future for their families and with what we have finished up with. Mind you any future wars wont be fought like the last two with all the technology there is now. I tried to add two pictures of the 1947 winter off my computer but it they have not come through.
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Post by maywalk on Feb 5, 2019 12:57:53 GMT
I spoke TOO soon.
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Post by rondetto on Feb 5, 2019 13:48:28 GMT
Well done for posting the piccies. Yes things were much different many moons ago. A good line from Silent witness last night. "Why do so many young people put that s**t in their bodies these days." As a child I can never remember people sleeping in doorways and druggies walking around like zombies.
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Post by maywalk on Feb 5, 2019 14:15:57 GMT
No nor me Rondetto. When I look back over the years things seemed to have altered since the first atom bomb was dropped. I think the fallout from that and other atomic weapons has not only altered the weather but it has affected many foods as well AND affected many born after that time. I may be wrong but that is how it seems from the way I look at it. Ah well! I am TOO old now to really worry about it but I dread to think what will happen in the future. Did you manage to read the print on the papers? It was hearbreaking to see SO many animals floating about in the water that had frozen to death that year.
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Post by rondetto on Feb 5, 2019 14:55:29 GMT
Yes, very interesting reading, I did have a dvd somewhere of 1947. As you say what it's going to be like for our grandchildren in the years to come heaven knows. In my time the 50's and 60's were the best years.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 5, 2019 15:03:48 GMT
Hello May, nice to see you I too was an evacuee in one sense, born in 1940 and my older brother was evacuated out of London to Northamptonshire, the people he stayed with eventually persuaded my parents to leave me as the baby with them when they visited. Eventually they too moved to Northants and we lived in a tiny hamlet of half a dozen houses, two and a half miles from the nearest village. They fought their way through the deep snow in 1947 to get urgent supplies from the village shop, becoming heroes to the rest of the hamlet I don't remember being cold, bed was under blankets and eiderdowns - snug and warm despite ice inside the windows Because the hamlet was mainly occupied by farmers we were not short of butter, cheese, bacon, etc and Dad acquired a shotgun and was allowed to shoot rabbits on the farmers fields. We lived on rabbit pies, and rabbit stew Because I was the only child in the hamlet it was a lonely existence but I had my dog, Bimbo a collie, and enjoyed the countrylife style
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Post by maywalk on Feb 5, 2019 15:45:34 GMT
Hello Jimmy. Nice to meet you too. I was 17 in 1947 and we were moving back to London in the March after living in the Midlands for six years and what a tata it was trying to get to roads that were NOT quite so flooded so that the driver could get the pantechnicon through. I wrote a book fourteen years ago that covered the first 20 years of my life that takes in us being evacuated after being bombed out twice apart from being machine gunned twice. All proceeds after printing costs taken out goes to www.rainbows.co.uk
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Post by Deleted on Feb 5, 2019 15:56:51 GMT
Very worthwhile cause May I worked in social care until I retired and settled with working with the elderly in their final years. I found it very difficult and could not cope with terminally ill children
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Post by maywalk on Feb 5, 2019 16:17:23 GMT
Thanks Jimmy. I was invited there last Thursday to talk to the older ones about WW2 because they wanted to know about it. It was uplifting and it helped to get them all laughing together over some of the comical moments during that time. They are SO well looked after.
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Post by althea on Feb 5, 2019 18:32:16 GMT
My father was at sea in 1947 and so my mother and I were staying with my aunt and uncle and my cousin. We all slept together with our coats and hats on in one double bed. We slept between two mattresses and then had blankets piled on top.All to try to keep warm. In January 1963,I was in hospital and the family could not visit because the roads were impassable.
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Post by maywalk on Feb 5, 2019 20:57:13 GMT
How old were you in 1947 Althea.I see that you can remember how cold it was with all the layers put on you to keep warm. Yes it was pretty bad underfoot in 1962/3 but I managed to get to work each day on foot although I had to set out much earlier. Talking about weather I was in touch with someone in Canada yesterday and I asked her what their weather was like and she said it -24C with the wind bringing it to -34C.
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Post by althea on Feb 6, 2019 16:21:52 GMT
They are hardy people those Canadians! May,you should never ask a lady her age. I'm so old my blood type has been discontinued.
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Post by uksparky on Feb 6, 2019 16:26:48 GMT
They are hardy people those Canadians! May,you should never ask a lady her age. I'm so old my blood type has been discontinued. Canada? Ohhh no that's cold.... My late mother used to insist her age was "21 plus VAT" for many years
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