TEACHING ABOUT THE SECOND WORLD WAR IN BIRMINGHAM'S MUSEUM & ART GALLERY: PART TWO...

 World War II Sessions At Birmingham’s Museum & Art Gallery…

Introduction…

Clearly, without Elfyn to work with, my WW2 Christmas sessions necessarily changed from the format we had worked somewhat loosely to.  Also my venue changed, for finally the Schools Liaison Department was provided with its own section of the Museum, accessed from the Great Charles Street entrance. The Learning Zone used Gallery 30, the old Local History area, as a large lunch space for visiting schools, which of course had a ramp down into it from the entrance at street level. So, there was already wheelchair access into it and my teaching room was on that same level too, as well as the SLD office area.

ALTERNATIVE CHRISTMAS TREE OF 1943...

I transformed part of my large teaching space, which apparently had been used in WW2 as a strategic meeting room for the defence of the city, into a 1940s living room with a false fireplace, a false window (blacked out and also with curtains), a large rug, a couple of easy chairs and of course many artefacts relevant to the time. 

A LOOK AT THE ROOM...

I would not only teach about a World War II Christmas, for sessions were requested all year round, but even when teaching about ancient Egypt, ancient Rome, or ancient Greeks, I used the same backdrop, which was always interesting to peruse for visitors.

THERE WERE NO ACTUAL WINDOWS AT ALL ON THE FAR WALL...

However, incredibly, in December 2010, my last ever teaching session was a WW2 Christmas performance but more memorably, the visiting school was the Primary School I had attended as a child: Hillstone, from Shard End… 

A fitting climax to my working life…

How the session evolved… 

Although the main theme was about a soldier returning home for Christmas on leave, clearly I had to invent reasons why I was alone in the house when the children arrived. So, I told the children that my brother Billy, who was in the Navy, would be arriving home soon too. The pupils themselves were supposed to be en route to be evacuated to the countryside but their bus had broken down. I soon relayed some bad news to them.

 A neighbour called Floss (based on a real neighbour of mine in Shard End, Floss Phillips) had eagerly told me that my dad, an ARP Warden, was in hospital and that my mum, an ambulance driver, had actually arrived at the scene to get him labelled and driven off to hospital. She hadn’t known that the casualty would be her husband, however.

BEFORE GETTING READY FOR ANOTHER SESSION...

NOTE THE PHONE, THE CUP & SAUCER, THE PICTURE OF ME IN A TIN BATH AS A BABY & THE TEAPOT COVERED BY A 'COSY' MADE BY MY AUNTIE IVY...

Before joining the West Yorkshire Regiment, I told the children that I had been a photographer for Birmingham’s Evening Mail and I showed them a few real pictures of how the city had suffered from enemy bombing. 

NOTE THE IRON & MY REAL PARENTS' WEDDING IMAGE...

NOTE THE WIRELESS (RADIO), THE RECORD PLAYER & THE GAS MASK BOX...

My dad’s ARP Warden’s bag was in the room and we investigated what he kept inside and some of the answers given by pupils to my questions became legendary, as I took items out of the canvas bag and asked them what they might have been used for. Bandages, an arm splint, a button stick, dad’s bicycle clips, two silk handkerchieves and a real piece of shrapnel, which I told the kids dad kept as a lucky charm.

A WARDEN WOULD WRITE ON THESE LABELS ANY INFORMATION THAT COULD BE GAINED FROM A CASUALTY, SUCH AS A NAME, ADDRESS AND POSSIBLE INJURIES...

However, as the rather wild and surprising answers mounted up, I was able to use them to entertain other groups of children. My imaginary dad’s ARP helmet and coat were shown to the children, plus his ARP Warden’s gas mask, as well as one of my mum’s masks, which was actually built into a handbag, plus a child’s Mickey Mouse mask and a baby’s mask. Hanging on the wall was a horse’s gas mask, which I explained belonged to a horse my sister was learning to ride upon…

THE MARVELLOUS HORSE'S MASK...

We would discuss dad’s job as a Warden, how the gas masks worked and a couple of children would help me to demonstrate how a burning incendiary bomb could be scooped up and disposed of, as well as how a stirrup pump was used.

THE WARDEN'S HELMET...

ABOVE & BELOW: DEMONSTRATING THE STIRRUP PUMP...

Obviously I told the class about myself and that I was going out with a girl called Marj and how we hoped to get married that year, 1943. So, the session blended well, as we discussed the war, how the artefacts on display worked but keeping all of the information within the scenario of soldier Tommy Atkins’ family…

INCENDIARY BOMB IN A SHOVEL...

CAREFULLY MOVING AN INCENDIARY BOMB...

How the session was handled… 

Obviously each session turned out totally differently, despite the fact that the storyline and artefacts used were the same each time. Certainly, the responses from the children made the two-hour experience pleasurable for both the visitors and without doubt, myself. At times I wanted to weep laughing, often experiencing some difficulty controlling my hilarity and below are some examples of  how the session generally panned out…

IN A NON-CHRISTMAS SESSION, I AM DEMONSTRATING THE USE OF A BOMB 'CLAW', WHICH WAS WORKED BY A SPRING ON THE HANDLE AND GRABBED THE SMOKING INCENDIARY BOMB.
NATURALLY, I SCARED THE SHIT OUT OF A KID OR TWO BY SNAPPING IT CLOSE TO THEM. AS A TEACHER, YOU KINDA KNEW WHO TO PICK ON...

The ARP Warden’s bag…  

"SHALL WE LOOK INSIDE?'

The bicycle clips…

Surprisingly the metal bicycle clips caused much puzzlement and when I asked what the children thought my father used them for, the replies were often bizarre. One child thought that they would clip onto his nose to prevent gas or smoke being breathed in, whilst another pupil reckoned they were used like a medical instrument to carefully remove shrapnel from an injured body.

NOT EARRINGS, THEN...

...NOR TO ATTACH TO THE NOSE... 

Another visitor was certain that they were handcuffs and so I called the child out to see whether it was a real possibility. I would be a captured German airman, so the boy placed one clip over my wrist linked to the other round his own wrist… I then walked away, leaving him totally bemused, both clips hanging helplessly from his arm…  

Other children thought they were hairbands, necklaces or dangling earrings, which I would respond to indignantly by saying that my dad had never worn a hairband, a necklace or earrings… It was all very amusing though…

...NOT EVEN TO USE AS A MEDICAL INSTRUMENT...

However, the best answer I ever had was from a lad who reckoned they were magnets with which to pull German ‘planes out of the sky… Astonished, I acted out the scenario… I then imitated a German pilot’s reaction and accent: “Mein Gott, zere is someone down zere trying to pull us out of ze sky viz bicycle clips…” We laughed a lot that day…

It was rare that any child guessed what the bicycle clips actually were but one day, after I had been forced to demonstrate their use by placing them round my trouser bottoms, a delighted girl suddenly exclaimed: “Oh, yes, I’ve got some of them at home!”

I retorted with some frustration: “Why didn’t you tell me earlier?”

She then said: “Cuz mine are red…”

DESPITE MY PUTTEES, I SHOW WHERE THE BICYCLE CLIPS WERE ACTUALLY USED... 

Obviously hers were modern plastic ones but that was another magical moment to savour… 

The blackout…

I used to show the pupils an ARP Warden’s lamp from the canvas bag which was made so that light only shone downwards onto the ground, rather similar to the larger ones on vehicles, used to prevent enemy aircraft from spotting targets below. It fitted onto my real dad’s bike too, which of course was also on my set…

THE WARDEN'S BLACKOUT LAMP...

One day whilst remarking that it was so dark during winter evenings due to the blackout, I recounted being home on leave the previous year, when my brother was due to meet his girlfriend on the street corner. She usually wore a red coat and when Billy rushed towards a dumpy figure waiting there, he had ended up with his arms round a pillar-box and attempting to kiss the letter slot. Generally the visiting adults and kids would laugh uncontrollably at that but I then added that Billy said that it had been an easy mistake to make. He had been embarrassed at his error but then admitted that his girlfriend really did have rather a big mouth anyway…

The arm splint…  

The splint was often thought to be a weapon, although when we tried to decide how my father would protect himself with a simple piece of wood, one lad reckoned that he could simply use it like a baseball bat to whack bullets or incendiary bombs away… 

THE SPLINT...

Some pupils thought it was for measuring, others thought it might be for levering bodies away from the ground, which actually, wasn’t a bad idea… 

ALTERNATIVE BASEBALL IN WW2 FOR THE BIRMINGHAM BLITZERS... (WHACKING INCENDIARIES...)

It certainly amused everyone when a child thought it was a boomerang to aim at attacking aircraft, which was remarkable and of course when it flew back to the Warden, it was effectively recycled… 

The silk handkerchiefs…

They had been made from parachute fragments and so I used a true story to explain how my father had come by the silk. Clearly, I had to invent part of the story but strangely, the truth of it came from a local MP, Gisela Stuart, who visited the Learning Zone one afternoon and met me dressed as Tommy Atkins, which was hilarious because Elfyn raced into my room to explain she was originally from Germany and, er, not to mention the war… What? I was hardly going to say that I was in role as an Egyptian papyrus maker now was I?

PARACHUTE SILK...

She was great though and told me that as far as she knew only three German aircraft had been shot down over the Birmingham area… I was also told by someone else that on one occasion, a German parachutist was floating to the ground after his aircraft had been hit but he came aware that some folks were rushing towards where he might land and he, of course, feared for his life. He dropped into a field, disentangled himself from the parachute and ran off to hide…

However, the chasing crowd totally ignored the German guy but began to grab at, cut and tear at the parachute silk instead…

The German was apparently captured at some point but that silk was precious to folks in times of utility clothing, so I combined the stories and added that my father had managed to get some of that silk too and that my mum had made him two handkerchiefs from it…

So a case of ‘Snot on the Third Reich, snot on the Third Reich tonight’ then…

The button stick…

This was often thought to be some kind of wrench, even a strangely shaped knife but the pupils were always shocked to see how it could be slid along a line of metal buttons, so that they could cleaned without getting polish on the material of the uniform itself…

THE BUTTON STICK...

Gas-masks…

I was fortunate to have in my collection a Warden’s mask, a couple of adults’ masks, a child’s Mickey Mouse mask, a baby’s mask and one designed for a horse…

THE WARDEN'S MASK...

I liked the Warden’s mask because of its thick, black leather construction which covered the whole face but I especially appreciated the small flap which jittered up and down when the wearer breathed out and made the sound of someone breaking wind after a questionable Friday night curry. I wouldn’t wear the mask of course but you can imagine how my imitation of that sound went down with the kids in the room…

MAKING THE WINDBREAK SOUND...

Clearly the flap would be seen moving if a person was injured in daylight but also heard if the body was hidden, or if it was dark, thereby ascertaining if a person was alive or not. 

A similar flap was found on the child’s mask too, so I would suggest to the children how much fun it would be in class when the children had ‘gas mask practice’, likely the only time they could effectively break wind in school without being caned…

I had one adult mask in its own box, clearly not as effective as the Warden’s because there was no flap but I had another adult mask in a handbag, which I told the children was one she had found damaged in the street and was in the act of repairing. 

I shall refer to that mask again later in this article…

The horse’s gas mask, likely a WW1 artefact was astonishing…

It fitted over the whole of the horse’s head and was another amusing artefact to discuss… Dogs could wear masks too of course but not cats because getting a cat to wear one would have been impossible. We would then discuss the fact that many pets were put down during the lead up to bombing raids, as a ‘kindness’ to the animals…

WHY DO HORSES HAVE SUCH LONG HEADS?

I used to ask the adults in the room why horses had such long heads… They would offer no replies, so I would simply explain that because they were fed from nosebags, if they had shorter faces they wouldn’t be able to reach the food inside. Unbelievably, they usually accepted my explanation, which was ludicrous. But funny…

And so we moved onto the baby’s gas mask which wasn’t an artefact to smile at of course but when I chose to demonstrate how it was used, the laughter was immense…

ABOVE & BELOW: DEMONSTRATING THE BABY'S GAS MASK...

"OK, YOU'VE PREVENTED GAS FROM KILLING TEDDY BUT IT'S NOW GOT TWO BROKEN LEGS & A FRACTURED SKULL..."

The whole baby was inserted into the bag, which had a large viewing window and was strapped beneath the baby’s crotch. The parent would be expected to constantly pump air into the bag via a concertina-shaped rubber tube hanging from the side.

I would ask a child, usually a girl to come out to help me demonstrate how the bag worked. The job would certainly have been left to a woman, the mother, to deal with the respirator but of course the parent would have to fit on her own mask first, suggesting a panicky rush to help the baby. We demonstrated with a baby-sized teddy bear and I would hold the top of the bag by its metal frame to make it easier for my helper.

A VERY AWKWARD EXERCISE...

Obviously, the insertion was awkward, if nigh on impossible and very often the teddy would drop onto the floor, forcing a desperate comment from me like: “What are you doing? You’ve broken its legs now, as well as wrenching its arm out of its socket…” 

If the bear fell out on its head, which happened regularly, I would exclaim: “Well at least your baby won’t die from enemy gas, cuz it’s dead already with a broken skull…” It was hilarious every single time but eventually the bear would become strapped safely inside, looking a little worse for wear, in truth though…

I would then tell the class that each woman had to carry the mask attached to her pram or pushchair every single time she went out, maybe to the shops to claim her rations, or perhaps when visiting family members who lived nearby, which in those days of course was quite normal. If gas should be used by the enemy, the mother would quickly have to don her own mask first and then attempt to insert, not a limp teddy bear but a wriggling, screaming, crying infant into the bag… 

And the penny dropped. And it wasn’t funny any longer…

 Mum’s smoking, housework and dogfights…

I used to joke with the kids that I reckoned the first battle between British and German aircraft must have taken place over Barking in Essex, which was why the scraps became known as dogfights…

I used my own dad’s wartime football shirt and shin pads in my sessions, as well as an old leather football, explaining how heavy the missile could get when wet. The shirt of course, as described elsewhere on my blog, was one from a set of Arsenal shirts given to my dad’s regimental team for wartime use. I told the children that I needed my mum to wash the shirt because that was her job. And the shin pads needed sewing too, which I said was also my mum’s job… Of course, female adults in the room were rightly offended but after the session had finished, I would always say that in those days, all of that kind of work was left for the woman to do. This led to a discussion about a woman’s role in the times and also why I wanted my mum in the story to be an ambulance driver… 

ABOVE & BELOW: THE ARSENAL SHIRT...

I also had small gifts wrapped in brown paper lying beneath the makeshift Christmas tree (socks for Billy and dad…) and I would wrap up a tin of cigarettes for my mum and use string to hold the paper on, although I would then rant at the fact that mum smoked at all. There was an old ashtray on the arm of a chair and I used to tell the children that mum’s facial skin had become a little wrinkly due to her lifelong smoking and that she looked rather older than she actually was. I would then say tongue in cheek that I couldn’t understand why she spent so much money on cigarettes which was an expensive way to die slowly and I felt that it would have been quicker for her to stand in the kitchen, set fire to it and die quickly, thereby saving herself a lot of money…

A GIFT OF PERFUME FOR MARJ...

That caused more discussion when the session ended…

Billy…

There was an opened letter on the mantlepiece…

As the session neared its conclusion, I would tell the pupils that I couldn’t wait for the family to be together during Christmas, especially as Billy and I had both been able to get leave at the same time this year, 1943.

A CHANCE TO SING LIKE BING...

I would sing a few lines from Bing Crosby’s ‘I’m Dreaming Of A White Christmas’, the popular song of that time which we would sing in front of the fire but then I spotted the envelope addressed to my parents on the shelf. I would pick it up and investigate, then become distressed, for it was an official letter to say that Billy had died in action…

READING THE FATEFUL LETTER...

The character Billy was based on a real person, Gilbert Holder, who was actually on the destroyer HMS Hood for a period of time but was lucky not to be on board when it was sunk in battle. In fact, Gilbert was then unfortunately killed by ‘friendly fire’ from a French warship in poor visibility as he was working on a motor torpedo boat in the Solent, near Southampton…

THIS IMAGE WAS ACTUALLY TAKEN BY GILBERT HOLDER WHEN HE WAS ON HMS HOOD. IT SHOWS THE SHIP'S GUNS BLAZING...

So, my session ended sadly. A reflection of how life might have been back then…

Final words…  

I loved doing these sessions.

I would include the stories already mentioned on this blog about my real father and his rat experiences from wartime in Northern Ireland, also about meeting my mum, Marj who wouldn’t tell him her surname and made him guess what it was… “It’s in the garden…” she said.

It was Hedges…

SHARING A JOKE...

My son Jamie watched a session during a ‘teacher day’ at his own school and saw the involvement of a Sutton Coldfield primary school, yet his first comment afterwards was a shocked: “ Every kid was white, you know…”

My daughter Lucy took a day off work to visit too and although I had asked her to take a few photos during the session, she was unable to due to being helpless with laughter at what happened and at one kid in particular, whose conversations with me were so off the chart… He was serious in his attitude and I responded seriously, despite the conversations likely sounding as if we had both been smoking weed…

Lucy simply laughed for two hours…

The Jewish school…

A Jewish primary school from Birmingham booked my Christmas session one year and then, days before they were due, called me to say that Christmas really wasn’t appropriate for the children and so could I change the session to one celebrating Hanukkah… 

I was taken aback and could only respond by saying that the teachers’ notes posted to the school explained how the sessions were run and they were very much about WW2 but only relevant to Christmas in that a soldier had returned home on leave at that time of year.

The class teacher told me that the children wouldn’t celebrate Christmas and the trimmings might not be conducive to a useful visit. I replied by saying that surely the children would see houses nearby lit up and on a journey into the city centre, many seasonal decorations would be spotted from their bus…

I promised that the session would focus only on the war, with barely a mention of Christmas and it was agreed that the visit would go ahead. The children loved the session and I wondered just why there had been such a kerfuffle about the booking and in fact, why it had been made in the first place…

When the head of department played the part of an ARP Warden…

I asked a member of the SLD team, not a teacher, to sit in on this quite remarkable cameo appearance by Richard Statham and take some photographs. She laughed throughout the whole interlude, despite usually being rather a serious person but she managed to get some memorable shots. I had suggested that Richard joined in just once, for I knew that he had done some role-play sessions, which I believe took place at Swindon Railway Museum before he moved to Birmingham.

RICHARD IN COSTUME...

He was to enter the room carrying a warden’s gas mask, wearing the long blue Warden’s coat I had been given and of course the ARP helmet and he was supposed to come in explaining that he could see a small gap between my family’s blackout curtains. He would then check all of the gas masks. Clearly I was Tommy Atkins the WW2 soldier and the back-story was that he knew my father because they had a pint of beer together on a regular basis at the local pub.

However, the whole episode fell into farce as soon as he walked through the door, for he called me “Mr Ray…” I replied with disdain: ‘Who’s Mr Ray? I’m Tommy, Vic Atkins’ lad… You know Vic! You drink with him sometimes at the pub…” 

He retorted: “Oh, yes, of course! Sorry Mr Ray…” Gods, he was obsessed with calling me ‘Mr Ray’ and he was simply unable to remember to call me Tommy… This was going to be a dreadful interlude, I could tell…

EXPLAINING MYSELF TO RICHARD...

His helmet lay at a jaunty angle upon his head, his expression was that of a startled lamb (possibly for the slaughter) and he had fastened the coat buttons to the wrong holes, offering him a lop-sided appearance. He bent forward then as he fumbled his mask and his helmet slipped forwards from his head, so all in all, his entrance was certainly comically spectacular…

Me? Wondering why I had suggested that Richard took part and what havoc he might soon involuntarily cause…

The children were aghast, their accompanying teachers looked dumbstruck and it really did appear that this intrusion was unplanned. Anyway, Richard was going to inspect the gas masks next and promptly fumbled the one inside the handbag to the ground and I began to think that a visit from Frank Spencer or Mr Bean would have been less troublesome. “Mr Ray, the gas masks seem all right and so I won’t report your parents for having a slight gap in the blackout over your front window…” 

I could only respond with deflation: “It’s Tommy Atkins actually. I don’t know why you think I’m called Mr Ray… But thank you…” I felt like weeping.

FINDING IT TOUGH TO COMMUNICATE WITH THE INTRUDER...

He left the room and I glanced at my colleague with an expression of incredulity, which she captured delightfully with a precious photograph…

THAT PRICELESS LOOK OF:
'WHAT THE F... HAPPENED JUST NOW?'

Then the session continued as normal, although the assembled throng in my teaching area still reeled from Richard’s unforgettable intrusion… 

A student had asked the department if she could experience a role-play session and so I was asked to employ her for a couple of days. She played the part of my sister Ghreta but she slotted well into the storylines and of course she was there when Richard’s farcical acting debut nearly crashed the whole performance…  

JUST DOING A TEACHING JOB...