Interview with Norman Rutherford. Two

Interview with Norman Rutherford. Two

Norman Rutherford discusses his schooling during the war and how few male teachers remained. He recollects the scarcity of food and the blackout. As a child he was briefly sent from his home in Cleethorpes to stay with his music teacher at Humberstone and remembers a mobile anti-aircraft gun going up and down the road. At home the family slept in a Morrison shelter and Norman speaks of his mother reassuring him that the aircraft noise they heard overhead included Spitfires and Lancasters, telling him 'You're alright, it's one of ours.' After the war Norman served for two years in the RAF, stationed in a civilian billet in Birkenhead with responsibility for collecting and delivering secret post concealed within a hessian bag. He also speaks of the sensory associations he retains from wartime - the smells of the rubber gas mask and of oxyacetylene from the cutting down of iron railings and the sound of the air raid siren.

2025-03-15

00:35:53 Audio Recording

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ARutherfordN250315

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AH: This is an interview for the International Bomber Command Centre. The interviewer is Anna Hoyles and the interviewee is Norman Rutherford. The interview is taking place on the 15th of March 2025 in Kirmington. What was it like going to school during the war?
NR: Well, one of the things about the actual school that I went to was the fact that really shortage of male teachers because I went to an all-boys school and of course the male teachers had been conscripted for the war and that sort of thing which left just female teachers but —
[recording paused]
NR: I started learning piano when I was about nine and it turned out that when I had to change schools at eleven and go to the Secondary School it was what was called a secondary modern in those days and when I went there I found that we didn’t have any music lessons or anything like that because especially the music teacher had been called up. Conscripted to I think it was the Army and of course there were no teachers. The other teachers even didn’t play the piano which was very fortunate for me really because I had been learning the piano since I was eight and I could just manage to play hymns and things like that so I was able to go into the different classes. I thought this was a good idea only being eleven or twelve because it did mean of course that I missed other lessons which I regret of course nowadays. But I used to go into the classes, different classes and just play for the singing lessons which meant of course I missed some of my most important lessons. And the last year of my schooling when I was fourteen, I left school when I was fourteen as you did in those days and the [pause] pupil that used to play during the last year, the last year of my time there he always used to play for assembly and of course by that time I’d got to be fourteen and was quite able. Or thirteen anyway. Thirteen to fourteen. I was quite able to play for the assemblies. It was a little bit really I suppose a little bit like Dad’s Army in a way. The programme. The well-known programme, “Dad’s Army.” The television programme whereby in actual fact the headmaster of the school he was, he was a captain in the Home Guard and I know one of the, I think it was the science teacher he was, he wasn’t captain I think he was a sub-lieutenant. So it’s rather, it was quite interesting. He was about the only teacher. I did mention that there were no, no male teachers but there were. I realise that there were just one or two. And of course some of the mottoes as well in those days one of them in particular was, “Careless talk costs lives.” Because of course you never used to know who was about and if you happened to be talking about something that was going on it might cost lives and so forth. And one of the other mottoes I remember was, “Make do and mend.” And I think that’s even coming back. I’ve even heard that coming back these days where a lot of people just have to make do with the clothes that they’d got and mend them and that sort of thing. Which I probably not doing that but people nowadays do keep their clothes for a little bit longer I think nowadays.
AH: And were you aware, did you think about the, “Careless talk costs lives.” Were you aware of that as a child?
NR: Not really. I think it’s, it’s later on that I’ve realised that. Of course, it didn’t really, well I don’t think it affected me too much because I wasn’t travelling in the way that people travel these days so I wasn’t mixing as much.
AH: And do you remember with the making do, do you remember needing to make do? Do you remember missing anything?
NR: Well, no. Partly due to I don’t think I was old enough and being a man I wasn’t really interested in, in clothing. I was more interested in woodwork and making planes. I remember making planes, model planes out of balsa wood. Especially a Mosquito. I can remember making that. The other thing I suppose in those days owing to rationing was the black market because it was, food was very scarce in those days and it was a question of some butchers might have certain, a little bit more meat left over for various reasons and that would be what we’d call in those days probably put under the counter and then probably charge a little bit extra to other people. We have also when I’m thinking about food we had, we used to have egg, I can’t remember, I don’t know what they call it, I think it’s probably, I can’t remember the name of it but it was like an egg preservative and I still have in my back yard the tin or container that we used to put the eggs in. We kept the eggs a lot longer in those days.
AH: So, what, what was it?
NR: I’ve no idea. Well, I say I’ve no idea. The reason being that in those days I wasn’t particularly interested but I do remember. I may be able to find that out because I think it was talking to my daughter about it a few months ago and she happened to, I think she mentioned the name. So I’ll try and remember and see if I can let you know what it was called. I’m not sure whether I mentioned the black out. All the buildings, houses of course you had to not have any light showing because of course enemy aircraft going overhead would light the place and there was still light. Yeah and so everything had to be blacked out and literally blacked out. We had shutters at the windows but they actually they served two purposes. One was if there was any shrapnel from bombs dropping or I’m not sure whether I mentioned it earlier where our particular road was machine gunned on the other side of the road and the, our shutters actually were made of wood and they were, they were fitted inside but a lot of the houses had shutters. They were on the outside. Not sure which was best but when I was talking about lights and so forth we had air raid wardens who would be patrolling the streets and if anyone happened to have a light on and hadn’t closed the curtains or something like that well then they would soon be shouting out, ‘Put that light out.’ That was a very common happening during the war. So —
AH: You mentioned a plane across the road firing bullets.
NR: Yes. Well, I think I did mention about the air raid shelters —
AH: Yeah.
NR: That we were in and I can remember on one occasion when we were in the Morrison shelter in the front bedroom and bombs had been dropping but also one of the most frightening things I think of all my life was the machine gunning where one of the German fighters was travelling overhead and firing at the houses and I could hear the rattle of the bullets across the shutters as I mentioned. Evidently it wasn’t caught in the searchlights because there were a lot of searchlights. I remember when I was caught for want of a better word evacuated but I was staying for about eight weeks at a place. Well, it was my old music teacher during the war supposedly where wasn’t any problems but there was an ack-ack, a mobile ack-ack gun going up and down the road every night so at least I didn’t have that where I was in my own house.
AH: So where were you evacuated to?
NR: Well, I call it evacuated. It was a place called Humberston which is just outside of Cleethorpes but I wasn’t, fortunately I wasn’t evacuated like a lot of the children. There were all sorts of things happened to the children during the war so I was very fortunate.
AH: Did you, did you mind being evacuated?
NR: No, because it was with somebody I knew. A lot of the children didn’t when for want of a better word evacuated. They had no contact even with their parents I believe. I just don’t know what happened because I wasn’t one of those. I was very fortunate. It was just might have been just a little bit of a rest from my mother. I don’t know. Or rest for my mother I should say [laughs] I don’t know.
AH: Did you see her at all during that time?
NR: Not during that no. But it was in contact although of course there wasn’t mobile phones and telephones in those days. In fact, my music teacher could, I was, when I say evacuated I stayed with her for this eight weeks and I mean she in actual fact used to cycle from, from Humberston to Cleethorpes every week to give me and three other people music lessons cycling in all sorts of weathers, in all sorts of air raids. I think the, I think the price of her lessons in those days was one shilling and thruppence which is five, seven and a half pence probably. Something like that now.
AH: You mentioned roadblocks.
NR: Yeah. Well, yes. The roadblocks were in one of the main thoroughfares into Cleethorpes. There was a concrete almost like a concrete wall built across with just a very very slight opening. I don’t know whether it was even wide enough for a car. I suppose it was really. But of course there weren’t many cars. And then of course there was the blocks on the Promenade. Right at the very end there were concrete blocks and I mean even the pier they decided to cut the pier in half so that the, if the Germans came up the river then they wouldn’t be able to get on the pier and get —
[recording interrupted]
NR: But nothing like that happened.
AH: Going back to the plane, the guns going down the street was anyone, do you know if anyone was hurt by it?
NR: No. No. There was no one hurt. It was just the fact. It was just a terrifying experience as far as I was concerned but no as far as I know no one was hurt. But while I was in the shelter it was very encouraging for my mother because of course as I say I was eight and we would sleep in the shelter and you would hear the engine noise but my, my mother would assure me that she knew the, certainly knew the sounds of the engine. She knew the sounds of the Lancaster bombers and she would say, ‘You’re alright. It’s one of ours.’ Because she could tell by the sound of the [pause] engines, Spitfires, and of course the Spitfire. I think I’ve dealt with that.
AH: Did you see the grown-ups get scared or did —
NR: Sorry?
AH: Did you see the adults scared or did they always try and show they weren’t afraid?
NR: Oh no. There was no sign of being scared and I can remember I was talking to a friend of mine only a matter of a few months ago and he was saying how during the war he was in a different part of the, in a different part just outside Cleethorpes but he was saying that very often his mother would be in the house and a neighbour would come in, ‘I’ve just had a telegram to say that Frank has been killed.’ And that was that. No sign of any emotion at all, you know. Often when during, after the war and I was conscripted, I served my time in the RAF, my two years in the RAF and very often I used to go by train from Cleethorpes to Padgate where I was stationed. Now, that’s going back of course. I mean quite a while after. After the war. But I used to see perhaps even soldiers or people in uniform probably with their girlfriends on the, on the station and it made me think of what it must have been like for the wives of the servicemen when they were called up and not knowing even when they’d been called up not knowing where they were and then just getting probably a telegram. I don’t have any experience of course of that but I can well imagine how dreadful it must have been. My own father of course was a fisherman. A skipper out of Grimsby docks and he wasn’t involved in the war in as much as he was deaf so of course he didn’t go into the forces. But rather strangely enough I now live in Kirmington and it was Kirmington which is now Humberside airport where he helped to lay the actual runway for the Lancaster. I don’t know what his job was. It would be some sort of navvying or some sort of job like that.
AH: Did you say he also did shoe repairing?
NR: Sorry?
AH: Did you say he also did shoe repairs? Your father.
NR: Well, when he, during yeah it was the wartime and he, he came ashore and he decided after the war he would go back fishing but he realised that he’d lost a lot of what is it, a lot of the way of the handling and he didn’t feel well enough. So he had, before he’d started fishing he’d started shoe repairing, apprentice shoe repairing and so of course he opened a shop in Grimsby of which of course I also took part in when I was old enough to do shoe repairing and so worked for him for a couple of years. That was, that was actually before I did my two years’ work at, you know in the RAF.
AH: So you left school and worked for your father and then you went into the RAF for two years.
NR: That’s right. Yeah.
AH: And what did you do in the RAF?
NR: Well, after the main training I was very fortunate. I seemed to have been very fortunate all my life because it turned out that after I’d done my initial what they called square bashing training at Padgate I was then stationed at a place near Hereford. Credenhill I think it was. And during that time my father was taken ill so I had compassionate leave for about a fortnight. He got a little better and I went back. When I went back to my unit my unit had gone to Southern Rhodesia as it was in those days. So I then came back up here and I spent time at another camp learning office work and was then posted to Liverpool and I spent the next eighteen months in the Liver Buildings at Liverpool and stationed in a civilian billet. So I was, that was in Birkenhead so daily I was, I had to go across the river and when I, during the morning my responsibility was the post. So I had to collect the post from the Post Office, the Central Post Office in Liverpool and then take it back at night. We also had in the sack a secret post and the secret post was in this ordinary post bag which was a hessian bag and inside the hessian bag was the secret post in another hessian bag with a lock on. Now, of course in those days knives weren’t prevalent so I think there was a bit of safety there but when I think about it these days just one swipe of the knife and the secret post would soon be released. But that was, I did that for eighteen months and of course my unit had a daily march on Liverpool docks which of course I missed because I was doing the post. Busy doing the post.
AH: And what, what did you do after you left the RAF?
NR: When I left the RAF I’ve done all sorts of things. My father then couldn’t keep myself so I went to different, I was working at different firms shoe repairing and then I went to the Co-op and during the Co-op I learned all the machinery and was doing all the machinery because I was one of the able bodied because a lot of shoe repairers and in that case nearly everybody there was handicapped and so you all needed to be able to operate the pedals on the machines. And so I spent time there and then decided to instead of shoe repairing I went to the Saxone Shoe Company selling shoes and from there went to college and teaching and so forth.
AH: And was that all in Cleethorpes?
NR: No. In Grimsby. Sorry. It was in Grimsby. Yeah. Yeah. It was the Co-op in Grimsby.
AH: And then what did you teach at college?
NR: I was at Bishop Grosseteste which I think is university now isn’t it? And that’s where I did the, that’s where I did the BEd degree but it was mainly half was music and the other half was education so it was my interest in music, a life long interest which I could recommend to anybody. Hard work but very enjoyable.
AH: And you got married.
NR: Yes. That was, that would be in what was it? 1961. We had two children and the surprising now really that one of my daughters is getting to the stage of thinking of retirement. I don’t know whether that should be on there [laughs]
AH: Would you like me to pause it?
[recording paused]
AH: Going back to the war is there anything else that you’d like to add about your memories?
NR: Well, one of the things there was a lot of unfinished housebuilding of course and I can remember perhaps after school I had some friends and we used to go to the, to the houses that were unfinished. We’d be climbing up and down all the over the buildings and that sort of thing as I think some people do nowadays which shouldn’t be doing. But anyway we were. They weren’t restrictions in those days but we certainly enjoyed just climbing as lads. We, I suppose instead of climbing trees we were climbing about on houses and and that sort of thing. But yeah the only other thing perhaps I didn’t mention was about Hull. The city of Hull. That of course Hull got a lot more bombing than Grimsby. Grimsby got a little bit of bombing because of the fishing but Hull got a lot more and we could actually see. I mean it’s Hull being across the other side of the river. We could even see the sky lit up at night where the bombs had dropped and these incendiary bombs and of course the buildings would be alight. Now, I don’t know whether I mentioned that when I lived in Goring Place, Goring spelt G O R without the e it wasn’t anything to do with the German general. During that time on the, on some spare land near the school they had a special unit where the firemen would practice if an incendiary bomb had been dropped. Then it was I mean as a, as a young child, lad I would often go and watch how the firemen would be crawling underneath the flames and putting the, aiming to put the fires out of the when the incendiary bombs were dropped.
AH: And the houses that you used to play in that were unfinished —
NR: How?
AH: The houses that you played in. The unfinished buildings.
NR: Yeah.
AH: Did they get finished after the war?
NR: Oh yes. They got finished and in fact I, my painter I think he lives in one of them actually now. Which is quite interesting. But yes in actual fact he was supposed to be coming on Saturday. He’s supposed to be coming, no sorry, last night. But anyway that’s beside the point. You can cut that bit out.
AH: Is there anything else that you’d like to add before we finish?
NR: No. I’m not sure I mentioned about one of my other things that happened during the war with regards to gas masks. We had to carry gas masks as a child and I can remember being eight years old and being fitted with a gas mask and I can, it’s not often but I can remember how, I can remember squealing and crying having this rubber put over my face. That was a terrible at my age then. I mean obviously you probably wouldn’t bother me now obviously but it was terrible and the smell. It was the smell as well of the rubber next to my, well next to my nose. And also talking of smells and things like that they did decide to remove, we had some iron railings near the house and during the war these railings, not only ours of course but the railings in parks, the local parks where they had iron railings they were all taken down and melted down for the war effort and I can remember the smell of the oxyacetylene cutters that were used to cut down these. It’s just a sort of smell that is associated with the war. In the same way things that affected me for many many years after the war was the noise of the sirens. Especially the first the warning sign where you get this wailing sound and it was every time but very often if I’d be watching a film and it was about the war and they’d put this siren my stomach would, I would feel that sensation and I can understand how people must have felt who went through worse than I’d gone through. So that was, you know that was a sort of sadness really. A fear. The usual sort of fear I suppose of uncertainly and so forth you know. I mean the all-clear. When the all-clear went that was that was alright. That was a straight. That was just a straight siren. That didn’t go up and down but it was the I think it was the noise of this because you knew very well that the next thing you had to make sure that you got down into the shelter. At first when and during the beginning of the war we had an Anderson shelter which I think I probably mentioned was, it was dug into the ground and it’s the clay. The smell of the clay and the horrible smell of the, of the actual shelter itself because that was an iron, galvanised iron, corrugated iron building but it was built into the, built into the ground and then the ground would be — in fact just opposite where I live now, at the back of my house they had built a new, built a new building. A few new houses there and on the waste ground only a matter of about oh five or six years ago when they were clearing the land they actually came across some of the old air raid shelters across there. That was the Anderson shelters of course. Yeah.
AH: Thank you very much.
NR: You’re very welcome.