by Margaret Lloyd
The arrival of the American soldiers in the town was quite a cultural shock. These brash, noisy young men, in their smart uniforms of fine wool, stood on the pavements outside their billets and cat-called and whistled after any female between the age of sixteen and sixty. To me – a young girl approaching puberty with trepidation (the word teenager hadn’t been invented then) – they were both embarrassing and intriguing. My intense shyness caused uncontrollable blushing as I stalked past, eyes front, head held high. The more outgoing of my friends seemed to take delight in making frequent detours so as to pass through the barrage of invitations.
Later, during visits to an aunt who kept a hotel in Briton Ferry, I was often commandeered to play the piano for many young GIs. The homesick, frightened young men sang about Broadway, Dixie, Texas and every state in the union. I’m afraid I wasn’t impressed – I was still a prudish fourteen-year-old who defended her virtue by insisting that all American men drank too much, swore a lot and cried a great deal.
War to me was the horror seen on the Pathé News in the cinema, or the news on the wireless tat had to be listened to in silence several times a day. It was women wearing scarves around their heads, smoking, working in factories, smelling of oil. Things I hadn’t experienced before. Saturday afternoons meant strolling up and down the High Street. The factory girls always appeared to have extra-large heads as their scarves covered curler-wound hair. I couldn’t fathom how they expected the ‘boys’ to forget this afternoon image when they met again at the dance that evening – hair exposed in either corrugated waves or ‘victory rolls’.
War was bedroom walls plastered with posters calling for ‘Aid to Russia’, glamorous Generals, newspaper cuttings on plane recognition and uniforms. Uniforms…everywhere uniforms. Men in uniform, women in uniform. Soldiers, sailors, airmen, wardens, firemen, home-guards. To belong, one had to be in uniform. I joined the St John’s Ambulance Brigade. I don’t remember learning much first-aid, but I do remember receiving a parcel from America sent by schoolchildren. Mine came from a ‘Barbara Babitt’. It contained a bar of scented toilet soap, which was too precious to ever use, and, amongst other forgotten things, a pair of hair-clips with bows of red ribbon and white stars. They were kept for that special occasion which never came. I would take them out of the drawer in my bedroom and look at them, and wonder about the little girl who had sent them to me.
‘The day war finished’ I was to be found at the same farm where my story began. As the news of peace came of the wireless, the church bells echoed across the fields. We all gathered at the church hall, precious food was brought, and a grand tea put on. Young wounded servicemen from a local convalescent home arrived in their bright blue suits, red ties and white shirts, accompanied by pretty Red Cross nurses. During the evening I was asked if I would play some dance music. My father had never approved of my playing such rubbish, so I had kept secret my daily stint of piano playing during school dinner-times. I think I was forgiven my frivolity that evening as the dancers swirled to the fox-trot, dipped to the tango and whooped to the hokey-cokey and the conga.
I way not have made much contribution to the war effort, but I think I made a contribution to the beginning of peace.
If anyone has any local memories or stories about the Second World War they would like to share, please get in touch.