Illtyd Harrington: Humanity, drama, pity, and a day the world forgot

Published: September 8, 2011
'AS I PLEASE'

AT the weekend we were persistently fed images on the unexpected disaster in New York. There was humanity, drama, pity and the heroism of 9/11. Tragic, some say predictable violence on US territory.

The previous event of such violence in the US had been the Civil War. The American psyche was rattled. More than 3,000 people died in a bizarre act of aggression before our eyes on the television.

Last Saturday, September 3, I noticed no mention that this was the 72nd anniversary of the outbreak of war against Nazi Germany.

A thorough search of the media listings produced just one relevant programme. BBC2’s Dad’s Army.

The war ended on May 8 1945 after 30 million people had died. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse raced across the world. Destruction tore cities apart. Death gorged itself on young blood.

I was eight years old that morning and my brother, sister and I sat listening to my grandmother’s wireless. It was 11am.

Neville Chamberlain the Prime Minister, in a dark Brummie voice as dusty as chalk, said: “This country is at war with Germany.”

Outside our house women were weeping and men standing awkwardly. A year earlier amid enthusiasm. Chamberlain, the arch appeaser was gone, replaced by Winston Churchill.

Now we know that secret protocols existed at the time Chamberlain tried to mollify Hitler. This was the man who had proclaimed in 1938 “Peace in Our Time”.

Outside we wondered was an attack imminent? Perhaps the Germans would soon strike. What could happen next? In fact very little. This was a phoney war. Young men left and came back on leave self-consciously draped in uniform.

So the blackouts came with ration books. It was enforced in our area by Dai Strong, our parochial Samson, but his wife Dilys was no Delilah. He had a habit of bellowing – announcing a visit from the Luftwaffe.

One evening he very grandly painted a pillar of the school wall bright green and told a group of sneering locals: "Put your gas masks on: We’ve been told to expect mustard gas.”

It remained a mystery when it turned out that he’d picked up this information from an article on the Daily Herald by HG Wells.

He strutted our terraced streets always wearing his tin hat.

Gossips claimed that he even wore it in bed, until his wife Dilys threatened to find an alternative use for it under the bed.

It was a golden autumn. Ominously tranquil. Eventually we got used to the irregular hum of German bombers flying over and one night my father took us to a nearby hill to see the inferno that was Swansea
30 miles away. The Luftwaffe had found its way to the docks and they unloaded a large high explosive, passing back over our valley. It blew an enormous hole in Idris Jenkins’s field. His cow Blod died of a heart attack.

Reality when it came struck on the coast of France. It was Dunkirk. The Nazis were at the gate. And we managed to turn it into a victory.

Rationing didn’t have much effect on us living in a town smitten by Depression, we had been on rations for more than a decade.

Then out of the blue on Sunday June 6 1941, my father shouted up the stairs: “Get to Mass, you religious hypocrites. And by the way you may be interested to know that Hitler’s just lost the war. He’s invaded Russia.

Everyone became pro Russian. A terrifying looking Russian General Timoschenko was claimed by us as a descendant of a Welshman Tim Jenkins.

Double summertime gave extra sunshine that made life hard for passionate couples.

There was nowhere to copulate in peace. But morality conceded defeat to Welsh ardour.

Lust and sexually developing boys could not quite understand these public couplings by older boys and girls. We were threatened for our innocent voyeurism.

We watched in morbid curiosity as Cliff the telegram boy got on his bike and rode towards our area delivering dreaded messages in tiny yellow envelopes, with that devastating sentence: “I regret to inform you that your son X is missing presumed dead.” No coffins came back to drape with Union Jacks but there was a deep gash of inconsolable sadness.

Our parents put in 12-hour shifts at the local factories to receive two or three pound notes was as if we’d been admitted to the Mint. We were rich. I became the shopper for the family.

“Get hake or cod but no skate, my mother said before going to the 8pm shift.

It took me many years to understand the taboo on skate. Some claimed that God had constructed it in such a way to provide solace for lonely sailors.

The urge to show loyalty by violence came when Italy came into the war, siding with Hitler. A boisterous crowd decided to smash up Bruno Ferrari’s café and fish and chip shop.

Ironically it was a group of Communist miners passing who told the vandals for to respect their fellow Catholic and long-time neighbour.

So that was where my mind wandered on September 3 1939. The day the Earth jolted on its axis. Worse was to follow after 1945. And, tragically the second half of the 20th-century produced unimaginable slaughter.
As in September 1939 our world collapsed slowly like an old stage set.

Our children now indulge their warlike urges on PlayStations. In Europe and the Far East there are immaculate cemeteries cared for by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.

Neutral places, embalming the ceremonial necessities for the dead. Often adjacent to German ones. Desolate eerie painful placed where even the trees seemed to constantly sigh.