How did the war influence our parents and how they brough us up

I was born in 1937 and remember the war years very well. Life was very hard for my mum as it was for most women at that time. My sister and I had to grow up very quickly as mum had so much to cope with living near the dock area in London. We lived in a ground floor maisonette with no proper kitchen, the old cooking range being in the living room and an outdoor toilet. Our bath had a wooden shut down lid that served as her work surface in the tiny scullery. The scullery also had a large sink where we washed, a large copper and a cooker. She was one of the old type who not only cleaned the home but the door steps and the front pavement.
My step father wasn't called up as he did necessary work on aircraft hangers and similar. He was away from home a lot which was great for us as he was a very strict disciplinarian, his father having been a regular sgt major in the army.
How my mother and others managed I can only appreciate as an adult today. With food and clothes rationing, constant bombing around us and having to get us children in the shelter most nights life was very hard. I can't remember getting cuddles but she was a very kind and caring mum who kept us and the house clean, altered clothes to fit us, put cardboard in our shoes when the soles wore thin and gave us a sense of responsibility. All 3 of us girls had to help with household chores and preparing food for cooking. For that we were given a little pocket money which once I had spent on a few sweets and a comic I had to go without until the next week. In spite of all of this I had a very happy childhood who played out all day, had lots of friends and hobbies and enjoyed school.
We have to remember that women of that generation left school at a very early age. My mother at 14. They often couldn't choose a career and went into service. Once old enough to earn, they had to earn for the home to survive. Discipline and instilling good manners was the norm as was bed by 7pm after being allowed to listen to the radio.

I think that we could do with a bit more of the old values today.

Shortly after the war my parents took us abroad to live in Africa. We used to come home on long leaves and stay with my grandparents. They were the very respectable upright types and my Grandad was the local mayor. However, every week there would be a queue of ladies outside and my granny would disappear into the cellar and come out with various packages. Money would then change hands.

It is obvious to me now that she was running some sort of black market outfit. The hypocrisy!

My mother too was in the Land Army during the war, she loved it and said she felt free for the first time; it was also how she met my father. She was more affected though by her experiences in a children's home during the 1920s from the ages of about 4 to 14. It was very strict, not loving, so when she came to have her own family she had no experiences of growing up in a normal family or how a family worked. At 14 she went to live as a mother's help with a family to help in the house and care for their two boys. I got the impression that she had to work really hard there. She was very strict with us and although we were fed, clothed and warm, I don't ever remember any cuddles, or being told we were loved. She was a big fan of physical punishment and I lived in fear of her. As a result I tried to avoid her as much as I could when I was grown up. I vowed I would never bring my children up in the same way. She said many years later that she thought that her children's home experience was the way you brought children up; she knew nothing different.

My father was in the navy, on the dreadfully dangerous N Atlantic convoys for 2 years, among other things. He never spoke about it, but was always a kind and very jolly type.

My mother was on her own in London during the Blitz and right through. She was never as naturally a jolly type as my father but was certainly not cold or distant.

They were both more strict on behaviour than nowadays, but that was normal then. And of course after rationing we were very conscious of not wasting food - something that still grieves me if I see it - in particular just lately, seeing people take so much from the hotel's breakfast buffet and then leaving much of it on their plates!
Actually it doesn't exactly grieve me - it makes me very cross!

My parents married in 1939 and my Dad was an officer in the army. He was at Dunkirk and my mum always said that for years afterwards he would scream in his sleep.

After that he went out to the Middle East for five years , one of the desert rats. He told me that when they were all sitting round outside their tents one evening a German Stuka spotted them and dived down to shoot. The gun jammed and they were reprieved. He always felt that the rest of his life was a bonus after that.

My parents didn't see each other for six years and Iwas born on their seventh wedding anniversary. They had a difficult marriage - not one that I think would have survived in this day and age.

my experience with my parents , was we had more discipline in the house , step out of line etc approach.
Food wise rationing and the type of food we had , things such as TV and white goods luxury's.
This last weekend seeing someone on a station platform in 40`s dress , and trying to eat a spam sandwich with pickle was the norm.
Mick

My dad was 33 when WW2 began but failed the medical to enlist because of having had diphtheria. He joined the Home Guard in London. My mum was down in Hampshire and took in evacuees, young women, not children. They were the most loving parents we girls could have had.

Adding to my post - as I said my Granny was the main influence in my childhood. but also the whole extended family. Various aunts and uncles and cousins.
The house was always full of people coming and going. Servicemen were invited and there was music and dancing.
Like others have said about their Mums, I know mine enjoyed the freedom she had during the war, but she found it very hard to settle down to married life when Dad came back.
The main result for me was that I was left to my own devices a lot and became very independent. Also rather insecure.

I am enjoying reading everyone's family stories.. so interesting. Dad did not serve as he did not come to UK until after the war. He was on a call up list as he had an English dad but he was not called.

I had a Dutch friend wh lived in Amsterdam during the Nazi occupation. He father worked for the resistance and was eventually caught and shot, but before that my friend was carrying messages for the resistance when she was around 13. They were a very well off family but of course that counted for nothing under the Nazis. She was starving, and after the war was sent to England to get proper food. She recovered, went back to Holland but remained anaemic for a long time.

My parents were EastEnders so the Blitz had a massive effect on the whole extended family during (repeatedly bombed out of their homes) and post war in terms of housing and jobs. Dad joined the Navy at the start of the war and absolutely loved it wanting to carry on afterwards but was not given that opportunity. Mum was in the ATS and sent to Leicester which she liked too- she would have liked to stay in but as she had got married during the war that wasn't allowed. I think what really affected my parents was the fact that there was no housing to be had so we moved to Clacton to rent a cottage which an Aunt had wangled for them which they both hated - Mum more so, Dad always made the best of his lot. My brother hated it so much he joined the navy and Mum then went into a dark depression which she took out on me. Not a happy childhood.

All very similar stories how our parents coped with war and made the best of what they had, in many cases that was next to nothing. In 1940 after Dunkirk everyone was terrified of invasion by the Nazis, thankfully it didn't happen to us we were never occupied.
But the rest of Europe was and we've all heard of the forced labour, deportations and persecution that the civilians had to endure. Memories are long and on the continent they have a completely different view of a United Europe compared to most of us.

My mum was in the ATS and enjoyed the freedom away from home. Her wages were her own, she was mixing with young women from different parts of the country and had a 'good war'. She said when the men started returning from the Japanese prisoner of war camps, they were housed at the opposite end of the camp but there screams and sobs during nightmares could be heard everywhere. When she returned home after the war, she announced she'd no longer tip her wage up to her father every week, to receive a small amount of pocket money. She decided she'd pay a certain amount of housekeeping to her mum instead. grandpa was shocked but accepted this. Her plan was swiftly adopted by her younger brothers and sisters.
My dad was in the Home guard then a Royal Marine. Like almost everyone else's father to my knowledge, he rarely spoke of the war. He did say that Hitler had to be stopped. Both of them talked about the Labour government after the war, the introduction of the NHS and how wonderful that was.
Both my parents were physically and emotionally warm and demonstrative. I felt safe, no one hit us and being shouted at was a rare occurrence. Dad could 'have a word' and mum could give you a look. Despite the absence of hitting or high levels of discipline, that was enough.
Happy days, very lucky.

My mum and dad were both in the RAF in the war, which is how they met. Mum’s family were from London, and my aunt told me once they all thought dad was a country bumpkin (he came from Reading). I think it must have been the same aunt who told me mum worked as a cinema usherette before joining up, and how she had to walk home during an air raid. Neither of them spoke about the war, at least until mum died, then dad told my brother and myself a few stories of when he was in France,sleeping under a lorry and waking to the sound of Germans marching past them.
I don’t think mum was a natural mother (something I only appreciated when I had my own children), we had most of our cuddles from dad.

I suspect my MiL had a different war experience. She had 3 children, a husband in the RAF (engineer) in N Africa and Italy. She was living in Sth London. The 3 kids were evacuees in Wiltshire so a tough war for her. She worked throughout the war once children were evacuated. DH was a demob baby and a bit of a surprise. MiL was 41 when he was born 10 years after his closest sibling! There were regrets..just about to buy a small house when war broke out and so stayed in the 4 rooms (shared bathroom) they rented in an Edwardian villa until rehoused in 1966 to a top floor flat opposite Wandsworth nick where she died aged 98. She was also loving but also quite reserved & what at one time was described as 'respectable working class' ..always tidy and well presented, housework done, dinner cooked. She was lovely!

DH's father was in a reserved occupation - building tanks at Vauxhall's Luton plant. My DMiL often described the time, shortly after her marriage when the Vauxhall plant was subject to a targeted and prolonged bombing attack. The plant is in a valley and from their flat on top of a hill she stood and watched the bombing, with one phrase running through her head again and again 'My husband is down there, my husband is down there.....' Thankfully he survived unscathed, otherwise there would have been no DH for me.

Again I do not think the war affected their parenting, that was far more affected by the uncertainty of DFiL's work. Car manufacturing was seasonal work, I can remember the car worker strikes of the 50s and 60s for a guaranteed week and guaranteed wage. DMiL was a teacher so her wage was regular, but money was very tight when DH's father wasn't working and was reliant on a day wage for casual labour, if he could get it. and DH is still scarred by his mother's tendency to economise on school uniform, not buying proper footballs boots (a game DH hated anyway) and not always having exactly the right sports gear.

Mum was 18 at the start of the war and working at the local provincial market NE town's steel rolling mills as a secretary having trained between the ages of 14-16 at the local Pitman's College. She was ace at shorthand! She was also in the fire watch team. She lived at home with her widowed mother, a seamstress. Her oldest sister was teaching, had a baby in 1942 and had to go abroad, leaving her son with her mother and sister (my mum) to raise. Mum's middle sister was in the WAF. Mum was also involved in some national savings campaign and went to a garden party at Buck House after the war as reward for raising a large amount of funds.
Mum was a warm and loving , though self effacing, woman. Very efficient and organised and had an inner strength. After the war she met and married dad, a foreigner, and moved to London ad 6 years later, I was 7 and brother almost 1 yr, she was off to Africa! She found it hard to adapt to colonial life especially as many other ex-pat women were 'middle class' . She loved to play with me and my brother, we read together and spent ages doing crafts! She was house proud and was a real mix of both female leads in The Good Life! She could be mischievous, was a great dancer but tried hard to do things 'properly'! I think the war built up my mum's resilience and her open mindedness. She hated injustice, racism and snobbery!

My Parents were both 13 in 1939, Dad lived in a small Lancashire Town; Mum lived in a small Yorkshire Village about 7 miles away.

I was born in 1955, Mum had to give up her job as a Solicitor's Clerk before I was born, Dad always worked. We were fairly self-sufficient, grew lots of our fruit & veg. Nothing was thrown away, re-cycling everything possible. I still carry this on & am astounded at how much food my DD wastes & the times they eat out compared to my childhood. Our parents definitely weren't as "touchy feelly" as my generation & today's generation. I had a wonderful childhood & still have a great relationship with my DM (she's 89 now)

Cornergran
"Their belief in the family unit was strong and clear, they taught me to respect others, to be kind and to work hard. I absorbed their belief in the importance of having a safe, secure home and enough to eat"
That resonates with me too.

During the depression, my DM stayed at home and helped her mother out while her sister and two brothers went out to work. She met and married my Dad at the beginning of the war and was always reluctant to spend any money on herself no matter how much my Dad urged her to do so. She was a good home maker, managing to make nice cakes with wartime supplies. Dad was in the Home Guard as he was in a reserved occupation, so we were never without our two parents. Even though Dad had a good, well paid job and inherited some money when his father died, Mum was still good at make-do-and mend. She made lovely clothes for me and my sisters from remnants of material sold 'off coupon' by a gentleman who came round with a big suitcase full of lovely cottons. I can't say that this ethos has really made its mark on me, though one of my sisters is much more like our Mum, despite being quite well off herself.
On reflection, we were a very lucky family.

My mum was fabulous. Warm, caring, loving and I think she was so eager to create a perfect family home because she never had one. Sent away to a strict Catholic convent when she was 7, she spent all her time there as her parents had split up and neither of them visited nor was she able to go home to either of them.
She was there for 10 years, left at 17, got a job dealing with bonded warehouses then met her first husband who was in the Australian navy. Long story short, he 'disappeared' and mum later met my dad who was in the RAF and we lived on a USAF base...no shortages there
Mum never worked again until dad died. I suppose I never really appreciated our happy homelife until I was a mum myself.

My Mum was in London and my Dad in a reserved occupation on an Essex farm. Until they married in 1943 my Mum worked in a factory and often talked about standing on a bridge to check her parents house was still there when she returned from a shift. After they married they moved to the farm. my dad was in the Home Guard so often out at night, he rarely mentioned it and didn't want the medal issued at the end of the war. There were near misses, I remember hearing about a roof falling on my Dad when a bomb exploded close by and them both being machine gunned walking to their home.

They were resilient, calm and hard working people who were self sufficient emotionally and so not overly demonstrative. Born after the war I felt both loved and secure, boundaries were clear and there was fun along with the need to work in and out of the home. They were a strong team, unfailingly supportive of each other with quietly shared goals which were all about security for the future.

Food, a roof over our heads and good shoes for me were the top priorities. There were few luxuries, a rare treat was a drink while we were out, meals simply didn't happen except at Christmas when my Mum and I had a shopping trip and a sandwich in a small cafe. They would be horrified at what they would view as the waste of money now when our young ones ask for food and then don't eat it.

They were always careful with money, it was important not to be in debt, my Mum died first and my Dad became very distressed as the little capital he had dwindled. We were never allowed to help him, pride and a belief in self sufficiency wouldn't allow.

Their belief in the family unit was strong and clear, they taught me to respect others, to be kind and to work hard. I absorbed their belief in the importance of having a safe, secure home and enough to eat. They shared my delight when the day came and our mortgage was paid - no one could take our home away.

I wonder now what they didn't say about their war time experiences.

My Mum was severely affected by the war as as she was married for one week and her husband was sent to El Alamein and was killed a few weeks later.
She met my Dad some years after, however, she was the youngest girl of 12 children and her life was spent doing what she was told to do by her sisters who were nearly 20 years older, she suffered badly from depression all of her life.

My Dad never spoke about the war, he was in Burma.

They were both very loving parents, but my mothers family treated her like a skivvy until they died.

I think her attitudes were formed by her family rather than the war.

That was much the same for me Coconut when my Mum died and I cleared the house I found many presents I had bought her still wrapped in tissue paper, nighties, cardigans scarves , jewellery etc. All unused, unworn. Money hidden round the house as she didn't believe in cheques and liked to pay cash for everything. My mother was by no means hard up so I can only assume this was post war thrift.

I forgot to mention that my mother in particular was brought up in a very Victorian way. Definitely no kissing and cuddling. I don’t really remember her kissing me until I had my first child. This didn’t bother me at all. I knew perfectly well she loved me.

My father was more cuddly when I was little, as a reaction against his very strict upbringing. I suspect this didn’t stretch to my brother.

To this day I am not keen on the routine kissing between friends and acquaintances that seems compulsory nowadays.