Christmas on two Fronts - part two

 The second in our blog posts of the Christmas experience during WWII

The 'Kitchen Front'

Christmas puddings in wartime

(this is the first of an occasional series of blogposts on wartime cookery and recipes)

Image from Food Facts for the Kitchen Front: A Book of Wartime Recipes and Hints (1940)

Christmas 1940 – exactly eighty years ago - was the first Christmas under rationing since 1918.  Introduced in January 1940, food rationing was largely supported throughout the war, but it posed a number of challenges for household cooking, perhaps especially at Christmastime, when the rationing of basic goods such as cooking fats, sugar and eggs, and the shortage of luxury goods such as dried fruit, made traditional Christmas recipes impossible to follow.  In fact, the 8 oz sugar ration per person per week would probably seem quite generous to us now; while the replacement of eggs in the shops by dried egg powder (one packet, equivalent to 12 eggs, per person per month) was likely barely noticed in rural areas like Aberystwyth where eggs were much more easy to come by.  The bare 4-6 oz of cooking fat per person per week (to include lard, margarine AND butter) was much more difficult to live with.

The government – specifically, the Ministry of Food, led by Lord Woolton – went out of its way during the war to help people cope with food rationing by producing a range of advice materials, including ‘Food Facts’ printed in newspapers or made into short films for the cinema; touring cookery demonstrations; wartime cookbooks; and an early-morning BBC radio programme The Kitchen Front.  The recipe for Christmas pudding above comes from Food Facts for the Kitchen Front: A Book of Wartime Recipes and Hints, published in 1940, and so is probably one of the first wartime recipes published specifically for Christmas.

The recipe itself is a classic example of wartime ‘making-do’ with what’s available.  The flour (in short supply since submarine warfare disrupted wheat imports) is bulked up with breadcrumbs (ie leftovers) and grated potatoes (home-grown).  The proportion of dried fruit (again, imported) is supplemented by grated carrot (homegrown, and adding sweetness – no sugar in this pudding!).  Bicarbonate of soda, not eggs, provide the raising agent, and mixed spice adds a Christmassy flavour.  There are no fancy additions like lemon or orange peel (both almost unobtainable in wartime).  There’s also no brandy, which seems a shame, though I guess the Ministry of Food could not be seen to be promoting alcohol, even in Christmas recipes.

For anyone wishing to try this recipe, a cupful is just that – a regular teacup size (not a mug).  Interestingly, the recipe assumes the cook will know how to boil a pudding - for those (like me) who never learned, place a disc of baking paper on top of the pudding in the basin, then another big sheet of baking paper over the top, with a pleat in the centre to allow for expansion.  Then either wrap in a muslin cloth (or teacloth), tying up the top with string (this is more traditional), or cover the basin with a further layer of aluminium foil (also pleated) and secure with string.  Place in either a steamer or a pan with simmering water that reaches 2/3 up the side of the basin (keep the water topped up as it cooks!)

I’m going to try to cook it over Christmas and report back, and we would love to hear from anyone else willing to give it a go.  The recipe can be brightened up with additional spices, nuts, etc - or of course brandy - without losing its basic authenticity (even in wartime people had storecupboards!), and can of course be made with vegetarian suet if you prefer.  Nadolig Llawen!

Sian Nicholas 

Christmas on two Fronts - part one

The first of two blogs about Christmas as experienced on the War Front and here on the Home Front. 

The Front Line

Christmas in Serangoon/Changi POW camps, Singapore 1942

From the Diary of my Great Grandfather Lt. (QM) R G Read of 118th Field Regiment RA, who spent three and a half years as a prisoner of the Japanese. He made it home to Aber in December 1945, and is commemorated at Llanbadarn Fawr War Memorial.

20th "Hear that we are to move shortly, back to Changi. Don't relish this as things are better here. Attended Service. Carols sung. Many a thought for home. Another very dry Xmas."

21st "Nothing definite about move. No other news of mail. Rumours of the above run rife. The Shoe Shine Chokos give first concert. A jolly good show. Livened us all up."

22nd " A party of sick got to Changi today. Mostly people who cannot work. So it looks like a 16 mile march for those of us that go on the 27th. We fear not."

23rd "A couple of Letters delivered to camp, other mail said to be in the process of sorting. Get a few oddments together for Xmas."

24th " . . .  'Tasuma' tomorrow. Permission to buy a certain quantity of Clinical Brandy (fire water). Church service 11.15pm Padre Duckworth (cox for Cambridge) '4 Seasons.'

25th "Troops fed very well, Xmas pud made from Sago flour + Rice Flour. Concert Parties in evening. Church Service + Communion. Carols sung all over camp. All boys bright and cheery in spite of being POW."

26th " Another Holiday, Packing for trek back to Changi. Not quite so happy."

26th December 1942 "Troops leave Serangoon POW camp 10:30 arrive 18:00hrs all pretty sore. Lucky to be on lorry with food + kits. New quarters in Quadrant Road. Quite a treat to be under decent cover again in the day. Many people still suffering from lack of vitamins. Diet centre opened.'

Simon Burgess

Author's Website : www.richardgeorgeread.com

Aberystwyth celebrity with family connections to WWII

Master of Ceremonies, Athro Gymraeg o fri, and Wardens Pantomime star Ioan Guile has provided us with this information about his Uncle Eddie Esaias (as it was spelt in the family), who came from Kenfig Hill near Bridgend.

Mr Esaias was stationed in Aberystwyth for a time whilst being trained on the ‘big guns’, as the following extract from the Glamorgan Gazette notes:

Eddie was left with a ‘lifelong tremor’ in his head as a result of the appalling noise of the guns.  According to a comment on a Reddit forum, reproduced below, ear protection was not a ‘health and safety issue’ at the time:

“Some hearing protection may have been used in the navy by gun crews, but in the armies, as far as I know, even artillerymen generally worked without any protection. I'm not sure that a study has ever been done on the percentages, but most every combat veteran of the war I have known was at least partially deaf, and some very deaf indeed. My own grandfather, who was an anti-aircraft gunner on a cruiser in the Pacific, reported ringing in his ears off-and-on for the remainder of his life; tinnitus, I should think. At the time, people probably didn't think much of it. Most hunters didn't wear hearing protection, and likely for the same reason as soldiers and sailors: before the shooting starts, you need to be able to hear at your very best, and there's rarely time to put earplugs in once it's gotten hot.” (‘Rittermeister’)

For a singer, this must have been an extra layer of hell to endure. In addition to the head tremor, Ioan remembers that his uncle may have suffered a degree of deafness as he had to concentrate very hard on conversations, and his face often looked as though he had to listen carefully to what was being said.  His voice was also affected, as if he had some kind of restriction around his ears, which made his voice sound constricted, hoarse or as if he was pulling back the sound, or swallowing it.  Ioan describes it as if he was ‘speaking inside his head’, as though constricted inside a tank or pill box, having to shout over the noise of guns or bombs perhaps?  His uncle never spoke of it, but this was how he had been left for the 25 years that Ioan knew him.  It highlights that, although the active war years and this project have finite terms, the effects on those who served were lifelong. 

As a side note, the undertaker business referred to in the second extract above is still extant and in the family, owned by Ioan’s cousins.  Eddie’s father was also a choirmaster.

I am currently trying to track down notice of the concert Mr Esaias took part in, as part of a general blog on entertainment in Aberystwyth in the war years.  It's possible that Mr Esaias was stationed at one of the gunnery points to defend the radar masts on Constitution Hill, mentioned in Will Troughton’s blog, although it may be difficult if not impossible to verify who staffed these huts.

Lynne Blanchfield

 

SOURCES

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1xarg5/did_soldiers_of_any_country_during_wwiwwii_use/

Glamorgan Gazette

funded by 

Radar at Aberystwyth

No doubt many of you are familiar with the Cold War-era rocket tracking station to the north of Constitution Hill and visible from the coastal path. Much smaller, dilapidated and far less impressive are a number of buildings, little more than small brick huts that once stretched from the top of Constitution Hill to the top of the Golf Course and down to Brynymor Road. These date from World War II and are, on examination, intriguing. No two are alike. All are on private land but can be viewed from nearby footpaths. The photographs here give an indication of what is to be seen at each site.  Two once stood on the top of Constitution Hill. These have since been demolished and only faint traces of their foundations can be seen near the Jubilee Beacon.  Following the track that leads to the Rocket Tracking Station two more huts are passed on the right. One with a flat, tarred roof and crumbling rendering is believed to be of cold-war era date. In the 1970s it had the appearance of having been far more recently maintained than its neighbours.  Dyfed Archaeological Trusts website indicates that this is an observation post that dates from 1957. The other, orientated SW-NE, is of red brick rendered with drab concrete and epitomises the construction method used for these huts. This is open on one end.  Brackets are in situ suggesting a pair of heavy doors once hung there. The interior has an oblong pit stretching halfway across the floor, parallel to the entrance. On the ceiling directly above this are remnants of grooved wooden battens, suggesting apparatus that ran from floor to ceiling. There is also a concrete slab corresponding to the size of the pit nearby. This hut has a sloping concrete roof - most of the other buildings in the sequence have roofs of corrugated asbestos sheets. Between these two huts is a square concrete plinth, purpose unknown.

(Above) steel supports for one of the radar masts. The brick footings are hidden by the vegetation. The brick wall is part of the 1957 Observation Hut, possibly a precursor to the present day Radar Tracking Station. 

Portion of a photograph showing the two radar masts on Constitution Hill. Note the two small buildings (long since demolished) on the skyline in the centre of the photo.

Visible to the north of these aforementioned huts can be seen another hut. This is in the middle of a field behind the Rocket Tracking Station. It is an austere, windowless hut, again red brick with a drab concrete rendering and a popular nesting site for swallows.   This hut is divided into two separate rooms accessible by two separate doors. The larger room, protected by a blast wall has a fuse box suggesting that it had electricity. No less than seven sets of trunking lead out of the box suggesting a great deal of activity took place here. The exterior wall facing SW has an array of narrow slits suggesting that a grid of sorts was mounted there. The smaller room has a raised concrete platform in the centre, possibly for mounting a generator. 

Standing in a field near the present day Rocket Tracking Station is this hut. On the right is the area assumed to have housed a generator. On the left, entered via a blast protected entrance, is a windowless room possibly used to analyse incoming information from the two receiving masts.

Looking to the south west from here can be seen the silhouette of another hut with a commanding view of the surrounding landscape. Next to a trig point at a height of 145 metres the spot has a 360 degree view, ideal for an Observation Post. Stepping inside through the blast protected entrance one is in an unroofed octagonal observation chamber. In the middle is an iron pillar, probably used to mount a telescope or rangefinder. In my youth this was a popular destination for walks. On each of the sides of the octagon was a narrow piece of wood, painted green onto which the directions of the compass – NW, N, NE, E etc had been stencilled. On the left of the observation chamber steps lead down to basic living accommodation. This must have been so basic that another small room was added furnished with a small stove. Adding to the interest of this location is a piece of ground behind the hut, light green in the photo. This has been levelled by cutting into the bedrock. Here can, mud and vegetation permitting, sometimes be seen curved pieces of rail which it is surmised once served as the mounting for an anti-aircraft gun or searchlight.

(Above) Aerial view of the Observation Hut near the Golf Course (SN593834). Note the open observation chamber, adjacent original crew area with sloping concrete roof and hastily added extension with corrugated roof. Photo by Ioan Lord.

(Above)The same hut seen from a greater height giving an idea of the 360 degree view. A light green circular area on the other side of the fence between the hut and the cattle feeder marks an area of level ground connected with the hut.  Photo by Ioan Lord.

Following the footpath that skirts the golf course we come to the junction with the footpath to Cwm Woods we find two more derelict huts. To the right is a graffiti covered Victorian powder magazine connected with the nearby quarries. On the left is a hut that provided accommodation for perhaps four or six persons. A damaged Belfast sink, a privy and the foundations for another stove are indicative of its purpose. One window at the rear retains the mesh that presumably covered each window to protect the occupants in the event of a bomb blast nearby. But back to the Victorian powder magazine -  attached to the back is a small extension in familiar red brick rendered with drab concrete and boasting a substantial roof held together with steel straps. This may have been an ammunition store, as may be the brick lined shallow pit in the same field.

A ten minute walk through the golf course brings one to the top of Brynymor Road. A path opposite Brynymor mansion leads through some trees to a junction with the Penglais Nature trail. Just below this was Brynhyfryd farm. Near here are the last and least impressive of the installations in the series. Now overgrown, a low wall, familiar red brick with drab concrete rendering can be seen. Its purpose is unclear, but on the right in the adjoining field is a concreted area, also overgrown. Another, larger concreted area is over to the left and accessed by a gravel path (a track in my youth). This area is hidden from the seaward side by a low knoll but gives an excellent view over the bay. Could this area also have been used to house guns to defend the radar masts against attack by enemy aircraft?

The accommodation block at the top of the golf course. On the left is the Victorian powder store, once known as y Bwthyn and prior to the war home to T E Nicholas, an educated tramp. Note the small extension on the left gable end. Photo Ioan Lord.

Guess work would suggest that all these structures comprised a Radar Receiving Station. Were all these huts built to maintain, service and defend the radar masts? Were they manned by regular soldiers, RAF, Royal Observer Corps or the local Home Guard?  If it was a receiving station, where was the transmitting station? Were some, or all, of these structures working in tandem with weapons development facilities at Aberporth?

Compared with many other WWII radar sites the history of that at Aberystwyth, like the ancillary buildings, is much neglected.  Of one thing we can be reasonably sure – if there were guns here it is highly unlikely they were ever fired in anger.

William Troughton

West Wales Veteran's Archive - Idris Jones' Story

In the winter of 1943, a violent snowstorm shook the hills above Tregaron. Flashes of lightning illuminated the sky and loud thunderclaps could be heard throughout the night. By morning, however, it became clear that it was not just thunder and lightning that the people of Tregaron had heard. Amidst the storm, an aircraft had dropped bombs in the nearby hills.

Idris Jones grew up on his parents’ sheep farm, near the hill where the bombs fell. He vividly remembers officials from the Air Ministry coming to the house that morning and being guided to two enormous craters by his father. Each of these craters, created by the dramatic impact of bombs hitting the ground, was the size of a detached house.

Idris remembers that the officials were very secretive about their findings. He believes that the bombs were dropped by an aircraft trying to lose weight quickly to avoid crashing into the hills but, to this day, he doesn’t know if they were dropped by an allied or enemy aircraft. What he does know, however, is that if the bombs had been dropped just four seconds earlier, the farm would have been blown up – and his family along with it.

This was not, however, the only aircraft which experienced difficulty in the area during World War Two. Idris also recalls watching from his school as an RAF training aircraft flew low over the building with its wheels down and circled the area, looking for somewhere to land. He and the other children watched as the plane disappeared behind the school and ran to the spot where it went down. The aircraft had crash-landed with its undercarriage in the air and slid along the ground, ploughing the field as it went but, fortunately, the pilot escaped unscathed.

He also remembers that the area around Tregaron was used as a training base for the British Army in the run-up to D-Day. He specifically remembers General Wavell staying in the Talbot Hotel while he was in command of the troops and that the square was, at times, packed with tanks. Moving these could, however, be a dangerous affair and Idris remembers that members of the crews were sometimes injured or killed by tanks as they lay sleeping beside the road.

Tregaron town centre during World War Two, courtesy of Will Troughton, NLW

Undeterred by these early experiences, he went on to join the military himself in 1950, enlisting in the Royal Air Force at the age of seventeen and qualifying as an armoured mechanic. He was posted to 245 Squadron, based at West Raynham and Horsham St Faith where he worked on the guns on the squadron’s jet fighters and assisted in rescue efforts following the North Sea Flood of 1953.

Idris left the RAF in 1955 but remained on the reserve list for another ten years. He returned to Ceredigion where he worked for Dowty Rotol as an engineer – making parts for planes like the ones he had worked on in the RAF – until their Llanbadarn factory closed in the early 1980s. He then worked as the school caretaker in Tregaron until his retirement. 

But his is just one of the stories held by the West Wales Veterans’ Archive.

The WWVA was established to collect accounts of military service from veterans, aged 65+ and living in Ceredigion, Carmarthenshire and Pembrokeshire. It is designed to be a valuable, authoritative and sustainable learning resource for schools and independent researchers, among others. In addition, the project seeks to train veterans in collecting oral histories and conducting social history research. The archive is managed by Age Cymru Dyfed and supported by a grant from the Armed Forces Covenant Fund Trust.

If you are a veteran of the Armed Forces and would like to contribute your story of military service or volunteer to interview other veterans about their experiences, please contact Hugh Morgan (email: hugh.morgan@agecymrudyfed.org.uk; phone: 01970 615151).

#VJday75

15th August marks the 75th Anniversary of Victory over Japan Day and the end of World War II.

My Great Grandfather Richard George Read served in the Royal Horse Artillery and Royal Artillery for thirty-two years between 1914 to 1946, during World War I and II. During World War II, his Regiment, the 118th Field Regiment, was shipped to Singapore and disembarked just days before the surrender to invading Japanese forces on 15th February 1942, beginning nearly three and a half years as a prisoner of war in the infamous Changi POW camp.

Here is photo from his archive. This propaganda photo shows a 'work party' of nine Allied prisoners of war and their three Japanese Guards, most likely in the Bukit Timah area of Singapore and probably taken late in 1942 (though 'Mar '44' is written on the back). These work parties were used by the Japanese as a form of slave labour during the war. This particular photo was most likely used to illustrate to the outside world how well they treated prisoners, a far cry from the reality of their true treatment.

My Great Grandfather suffered from many tropical diseases. The Japanese provided no medical treatment to the prisoners, leaving them to look after themselves. They also gave minimal food rations to prisoners; my Great Grandfather was 12st 10lbs at the start of his incarceration, but due to illness and malnutrition this reduced to 7st 10lbs by the summer of 1945, that’s a 40% reduction.

After the War ended, he and many others who were seriously ill were taken to hospitals to recover and put on weight. My Great Grandfather spent time recuperating in India, before returning home to his family in Aberystwyth in December 1945. Sadly he never really recovered and died in September 1946. He is commemorated on the Llanbadarn Fawr War Memorial near Aberystwyth.

Simon Burgess

Author's website : http://www.richardgeorgeread.com

 

CALL FOR VOLUNTEERS!

As the Covid-19 lockdown gradually eases, our project is slowly getting under way! We are looking for volunteers to help us tell the story of life in Aberystwyth during the Second World War and also to record the memories of those who lived during that time.  The snippits below show only a glimpse of the topics to be researched and posted on this blog over the next year, and there are many more stories to be told, eg, the arrival and experience of evacuees, law and order, shops, rationing and the 'Black Market', conscientious objectors, women, children and families, students life, and much much more. 

So if you'd like to participate in our project, please get in touch with me at kas@aber.ac.uk.

Armed forces 

Some soldiers and airmen were trained in Aberystwyth, eg, the no 6 Initial Training Wing of the RAF and the 22nd Training Regiment of the Royal Artillery. They slept in many of the hotels, like the Belle Vue and the Queen's Hotel, and in boarding houses. The Old College and Assembly rooms were utilized for offices and training. Some injured soldiers, sailors and pilots were cared for in Aberystwyth and arond. 3,000 troops from the British Expeditionary force were billeted here after Dunkirk.

Shortages

There was a general shortage of food, petrol, and other materials but Ceredigion may have been better off than many other towns since so much food was produced here and fish could be caught in the sea.

Fundraising

There were various events to raise more money for the war effort. These included concerts and other entertainments and collection of scrap materials.

Entertainment

The Coliseum Cinema (where Ceredigion Museum is now housed) was closed on the first day of the war because it was a Sunday, and all cinemas in Britain were closed the following day. The Pier cinema was opened on the third day of war and was said to be the only one open in the whole country. The Coliseum reopened on the fourth day of war and remained open every day but Sundays. It showed some war films and news reels but mostly funny, romantic or exciting films, to help people forget about the war.

The Women's Voluntary Service

The W.V.S. was formed in June 1938. Although their task was to recruit and train women for various ARP duties, the W.V.S. took on all sorts of jobs which did not fall into the remit of other services. Early examples included the evacuation of children, making medical supplies, pyjamas, nursing gowns and bandages.

Civil defence 

This included: two pill boxes of concrete at the mouth of the harbour (one survives; a bomb shelter built in North Parade; two radar masts on Constitution Hill (for detecting low flying aircraft); a direction finding tower built in Cwm Woods; a rifle range and clay pigeon range on Pen y Angor (to practice shooting); the Old College Council chamber was half filled with museum display cases, and the remainder used to teach RAF personnel and there was a signals room and Air Raid post elsewhere in the building; the Parish Hall was an Air Raid Post.

Home Guard

On 14th of May 1940, Anthony Eden broadcast an appeal for volunteers for a Defence Force to protect the country from an invasion, which at the time seemed a forgone conclusion.  In Aberystwyth, at the obligatory proficiency tests, the examining staff were astonished at the numbers of men who turned up. Volunteers arrived at the Police Station in Great Darkgate Street and filed up in line to draw rifles from a cell where they were kept. These were S.T.C. (Student Training Corps) rifles (as there were no students in residence), a few Ross rifles loaned by the police, and a few shotguns. The only available uniform was denim but some volunteers had just an overcoat and a cap.

‘The secret Cave’

Shortly after the outbreak of war, many of Britain's national treasures were removed to storage in Aberystwyth in order to keep them safe from German attack.  These allegedly included original copies of Shakespeare’s works, paintings by Michelangelo, Raphael and Leonardo da Vinci, the Crown Jewels and the Magna Carta. This 'treasure trove' was located in a specially-built underground chamber near the National Library of Wales.

More information can be found on Ceredigion County Council's Museum Collection page: 

https://pilgrim.ceredigion.gov.uk/index.cfm?articleid=5622