My War Years

I think it will never end. It just goes on and on - from the week I start grade one in September 1939 until going into grade six in September 1945.  This is most of my life! Just as I am growing into an awareness of the world, six years of a world at war is stamped upon my memory. 

On that first day of September my innocent young mind is diverted from wondering what school will be like, to puzzling over what is happening in the wide world beyond. Listening in on the meal-time conversations of Mom and Dad and Gottlieb, the hired man, I hear them talking about German armies attacking the country of Poland. They seem worried, but I don’t understand. Why they are so concerned about something happening so far away?

The sinking of SS Athenia

Two days later there is solemn news emanating from the shiny wooden console radio in the living room corner; Dad’s home country of Britain has declared war on Germany. On that same day there is news that a German U-boat has torpedoed and sunk the passenger liner SS Athenia. I can see that this news upsets Dad, and especially Mom. The Athenia brought them back from England just one year earlier. They are concerned about the crew members they came to regard as friends. I feel their relief when they hear from the static-punctuated radio news report that most of the passengers and crew are saved. (We later learn that of the 1418 on board, 98 passengers and 19 crew were lost.)

Salisbury School

Starting Out

With Dick on my first day of school.

The first week of September 1939 is a time of change. My sheltered mother-hugging home-based existence is at an end. At not quite six years old I am faced with two new realities: my first day at school and Canada at war. School is a big unknown, and I know the war could be scary because Mom’s fiancé was killed in the First World War. (My experience of the years of World War II is described elsewhere.) 

Upon leaving the comfort and security of our cozy farmhouse for the mile and a quarter walk to school, a pang of anxiety erodes my parent-inspired enthusiasm. My brother Dick, with one year of schooling under his belt, trudges along beside me down the rutted dirt road to Salisbury Corner. It is the heart of the community with its little white United Church and Richardson’s General Store. There we meet other kids and together set out on the final mile east on the Wye Road to Salisbury School. We are the only traffic on this sandy gravel surface as we pass the two Ball farms, the only buildings along the way. Dick says I will like school and the knot in my stomach eases a bit. Besides, I have met Mr. McConnell, the teacher, who is known to Mom and Dad, and he seems friendly enough.